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Increasing sales means connecting with customers across every interaction point. Are you up-selling in a way that builds value for the customer with wants? Here is another way you can ...
Have you ever called technical support and spent an hour on the phone? How did that make you feel about the company serving you? Customer service experience matters in building customer relationships.
Continue reading "Are You Building Relationships In Service" »
Why is understanding customer expectation necessary for delivering profitable services? Because it reduces waste, increases productivity, and helps customers get what they want quickly. Nevertheless, how do you collect and maintain information about what customers expect?
Continue reading "Customer Interaction Points Help You Understand Customer Expectations" »
Top 10 Tactics for Keeping B2B Clients. Given how much effort companies spend on getting new clients, it's amazing how little they focus on keeping them. [Larry Chases's Web Digest For Marketers]
Why invest time and money getting people to do business with you if you aren't going to keep them around? Make customer retention a part of your acquisition efforts. Larry Chase offers 10 tactics for keeping business-to-business clients that you should follow too.
Continue reading "Customer Retention Strategies You Should Know" »
Customer Loyalty? Think High-Touch and Not High-Tech. marketing departments seem to be more energized by using high-tech means to build relationships with customers, than by using high-touch means to building enduring relationships with customers. [BrandAutopsy]
Does your company throw technology at customers hoping to improve loyalty? You can keep customers loyal while getting them to repurchase by becoming a more human organization. It starts with polite positive interactions, trusting your employees, and recognizing how customers measure professional technical solutions providers.
Continue reading "Customer Loyalty Requires A High-Touch Approach" »
Responding to Alison's Post. How do your companies talk about customer service? How do they teach it, and how do your corporate leaders embody the company's service principles (or do they)? [Fast Company Now]
Doesn't it seem like more talk about customer service than do anything about improving it? Customer service is an action, not a concept. Here are a few things you can do to take actions that improve loyalty and keep buying customers.
Continue reading "Customer Service, The Actions You Take For Greater Loyalty" »
Dell to Stop Using Tech Support in India. AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- After an onslaught of complaints, direct sales computer king Dell Inc. has stopped routing corporate customers to a technical support call center in Bangalore, India. [New York Times: Business]
I'm so happy to hear Dell Inc (DELL) has stopped using overseas technical support at the request of their customers. This after I spent over 2 1/2 hours on a technical support call, passed through 5 representatives, only to be told I needed additional information to obtain support. It's good to see Dell is monitoring customer concerns, because I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone.
Continue reading "What You Can Learn From Listening To Customers" »
A helpless desk. IT support personal builds strong support relationship only to get in trouble with established system of performance. [Advice Line by Bob Lewis]
A reader writes to Bob Lewis about a information technology (IT) support person who is regularly praised for great performance and attitude, but is pressured by his manager to stay within the ticket tracking system. Most IT departments have a centralized tracking system, but frequently technicians handle end-users problems directly without tracking them-- even develop relationships with those supported doing work above and beyond the call of duties.
Continue reading "Reinforce Praise Worthy Performance Not Tracking Systems" »
What ever happened to customer service?. Find out what happens when you put one of your most valuable and profitable customers on hold, who just happens to be an author. [Moreover - CRM news]
Do you irritate your customers while trying to serve them better? This article is a follow on to my Making Your Service Harder To Use Irritates Customers -- too often efforts to improve actually make matters worse because each individual defines good customer service differently. Consider these points to satisfy your most profitable customers:
Continue reading "Each Customer Defines Customer Service Differently" »
AOL Time Warner to Drop 'AOL'. Media conglomerate AOL Time Warner Inc. plans to drop "AOL" from its corporate name, which was adopted after the merger of America On-line and Time Warner in 2001 [SMEI, Newsletter]
How does changing a companies name contribute to increasing profits or retaining customers? It doesn't! Only two things can improve profits and customer retention:
Continue reading "A Rotten Apple Is Just That, No Matter What You Call It" »
In a previous message, Cox blocking POP services by third-parties, I shared with you details about a customer irritating practice of port filtering being practiced by my Internet provider. Cox High Speed Internet has since removed port filtering of POP3 to third-party sites.
Continue reading "Update On Port Filtering By Cox High Speed Internet" »
Quite often the actions your company takes to solve one problem cause other problems for your customers. Before you change the way you deliver or provide a service, consider the total impact before you take action. Some example scenarios:
Continue reading "Making Your Service Harder To Use Irritates Customers" »
Nothing irritates a customer more than limiting their ability to use your product or service without first consulting them, or at least posting a notice on your website.
Continue reading "Cox Blocking POP Services By Third-Parties" »
Only skin-deep? Attractiveness pays off, researchers find [IHT: Business]
People want to please attractive people, fortunately the level of ones physical attractiveness is relative within social groups. Attractiveness is also measured by your actions. If you appeal to your employees, you're more likely to be followed.
Continue reading "Look Sharp To Improve Business Relationships" »
Most organizations don't consider customer satisfaction as part of the business process. Often employees are overly focused on daily fires, rather than the desires of your customers.
Here are a few strategies to involve employees in customer satisfaction:
Continue reading "How Employees Can Embrace Customer Satisfaction" »
The New Focus Is on Customer Services. These days everyone seems to be defined as a customer. A bank-account holder, a commuter, an online shopper, an end user of corporate IT systems -- one thing that unites all these people is their status as a customer. And the one thing that all customers want, and expect, is "service." [CRMDaily]
"Acronyms are the secret language of the obscure, designed to degrade those not in the know. Describing a thing in a way understood by all is inclusive and as valuable as gold." -- Justin Hitt, 2003.
It is not clear to me why we rename things that already are known. I guess it makes old concepts new against. This articles introduces ITSM and ITIL, two acronyms I don't want to hear a single customer of mine use. But for your reference:
Continue reading "The New Focus Is On Customer Services (Abstract)" »
THE VALUE OF SOMETHING TANGIBLE. A surprising experience with BrainBox, presents a great example of getting personal with a customer even when you make a mistake. [Debbie Weil's Blog]
BrainBox turned a late delivery into something memorable to Debbie Weil, publisher of WordBiz Report. When you don't deliver what your customer expects there are a couple of things you can do to make it less painful for them:
Continue reading "Reduce The Pain Of Unfulfilled Customer Expectations" »
Tom Peters. "Underpromise; overdeliver." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
This is the one thing you can do to improve business relationships that won't cost you a single penny. Yes, that's right, when you under promise and overdeliver you earn the right to continue the connection that brought two parties together.
Continue reading "Discover The Easiest Way To Improve A Business Relationship" »
The McMobile Hopes To Make Fast Food Faster. McDonald's is hoping to speed up fast food by equipping staff at its 1,250 UK restaurants with handheld devices for staff to take customers orders as they wait. [CRMDaily]
What can you learn from this fast food giant? How can you take orders from customers waiting to purchase your services? Perhaps you are saying, "Our customers don't queue up to wait for purchases."
It has been a wonderful holiday, my computer made me take some time off by crashing Friday morning. Fortunately I only lost the root disk, a couple megs of notes, my book marks, and had to reinstall most of my software. But what about customer requests over from the 4th till 7th of July.
The Boss Question by Dr. Donald E. Wetmore. "What we think we are providing may be opposite to what customers perceive they are receiving. A good question then to ask our customers would be, 'How do you know when we are doing a good job for you?'." [as reprinted by DOVICO Software]
I've been on Dr. Wetmore's Time Management Discussion List for some time now and have greatly benefited from his advice. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get more out of the time they have. In this article, I want to point out two things:
Continue reading "Ask For Which You Are Paid And Provide It Well" »
Obsessive Customer Service: Four Tips for Client Retention By Katherine Beckett-Goodwin [ExpertPR from MediaMap]
Katherine Beckett-Goodwin (Strategic Communications Group Inc) puts together a great article on improving customer retention for professionals in the public relations industry. Her strong emphasis on business relationships glows. I encourage you to read her article, I've summarized her 4 points below (with commentary) to help those outside the PR industry.
Continue reading "4 Strategies To Improve Customer Retention" »
CRM SPECIAL REPORT: ROI: Real Or Illusory? [NewFactor Free News Feed]
Come on, I think businesses worry more about CRM ROI than actually puts effort toward making it happen. As shared in past issues of Inside Strategic Relations -- it isn't just Customer Relationships Management companies should be concerned -- look at the whole business relationships model. I prescribe the '8 Relationship Realms' for your company you might have different model.
Continue reading "Shut Up With The CRM ROI Already, Get Back To Making It Happen!" »
Jobs Says He's Bringing Price , Speed Battle To The PC Enemy. The upcoming G5 Power Macs will offer more power for less money than comparable PCs. Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs unveiled what he called "the fastest desktop computer in the world" and promised to make the Mac OS X operating system ... [news.google.com / Business]
What is your competition doing right now that could put you out of business? I've looked over the specifications for the new Mac G5 and am familiar with the OS X operating system. (Essentially a Mac OS over FreeBSD a Unix variant) Bottom line, for the price the new Mac is much more of a computer than anything else on the market.
Continue reading "When The Competition Blows You Out Of The Water" »
Anais Nin. "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are." [Quotes of the Day]
How often to our customers have problems that seem only to be a problem for them? I mean, no matter how they explain it we think to ourselves, "What am I supposed to do about it?" Or even worse, "This customer is an idiot!"
George S. Patton. "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
Gen. Patton's saying may make sense for employees, but if you are going to take this advice with customers be sure to offer your assistance. With being a service provider there is a certain level of expectation that you can solve problems for customers, not just give them a fancy report that tells them what they need to do.
Continue reading "Handle Leading Employees Different From Leading Customers" »
Buying Something Can Be Really Difficult. We are only "two percent" of the way into what the Internet has in store for us and each day I get another confirmation of this. [...] However, the major challenge remains fulfilling the promise of e-business -- and in ways that can simplify our lives. [John R Patrick: e-Business]
John Patrick brings up some good points about on-line and offline integration, plus key points on customer service. If you want to establish a relationship with your buyers, you have to make everything they want to do easy.
Continue reading "On-line Or Off, Simplify Standard Customer Related Processes" »
Nothing irritates me more than poor customer service. You might be making the same mistakes in your business. I'm not going to mention any names, but here are three things you should do to avoid upsetting your customers:
Continue reading "Nobody Ever Likes Poor Customer Service" »
Software takes stab at corporate jargon. Deloitte Consulting admits it helped foster confusing, indecipherable language, but it's now released Bullfighter software to help business people avoid gobbledygook. [CNET News.com - E-Business]
Remember, Jargon is used to exclude people from certain communities or to simply make the user look smarter than they really are. But what does the use of jargon do to improve communications with people who might want to buy (or use) your offering.
