This is the second in our series of six articles that looks at different aspects of excellent customer service and how it leads to increased overall profitability. The full series will be available for download as a white paper once it is completed.

In our last article we covered four foundational elements that every employee needs to provide superior customer service. But once we have the foundations of a strong customer-focused employee in place, we need to continue to build on the on-boarding training they receive.

Rules are an essential part of any business. Rules are necessary to ensure we make intentional decisions. Rules are written to make sure people are treated equally and consistently.
While there’s nothing wrong with this in principle, there are always going to be situations where a certain degree of flexibility is essential because people are unique. The way they react to situations is also unique and if you’re trying to offer great customer service, you have to be flexible enough to respond to their needs.

So, apart from rules that tell an employee what they can or can’t do, it’s also essential that employees have guidelines as well. These guidelines will provide the boundaries that allow your employees to make decisions for the benefit of the customer — and the organization — without having to seek a supervisor’s approval every time.

Guidelines enable employees to exercise personal judgment which may mean all the difference between retaining and losing a customer. Customer satisfaction often leads to loyalty which greatly improves the company’s overall profitability.

It’s impossible to make rules to govern every possible scenario that may occur. When dealing with customers, situations will arise where an employee may have to use some initiative to solve a problem but they can’t do that if there’s no latitude with regards to the rules they have to follow.

Empower Your Front Line
It’s essential that customer service staff are empowered with a certain level of authority. It’s pointless if they have to check with a supervisor before making every little decision.

While a company may have a strict policy of no refunds or exchanges without a receipt, there may be times when it’s impractical for the customer to provide one. If a strict policy applies and there’s no flexibility to allow the employee to use their discretion and bend the rules in such a circumstance, they may lose that client and everyone they choose to tell. However, if a refund, exchange or gift card is granted, the customer would be happy and word of mouth would be positive.

Common Sense should Prevail
Employers should respect and trust their staff to make decisions based on their merit. Often it’s these types of quick decisions that will mean the difference between keeping or losing a customer. There are plenty of examples where guidelines would be more appropriate.

If meals are late in a restaurant, offering a bread basket or some free drinks may quell the customer’s frustration. A heartfelt apology would also be appropriate. There are times when things don’t run smoothly. Perhaps even a discount on their total bill may be necessary and the front-of-house staff need to have the autonomy to do what is necessary.

Restaurants regularly replace spilled drinks; their rules might indicate no free drinks but they replace a spilled drink because that’s good customer service. The drink doesn’t cost much but is worth much more than the cost in positive customer response.

In any customer-focused organization, we must look at the situation from the customer’s perspective to discover an appropriate solution. Often, asking the customer what they feel would be an appropriate solution will provide some direction. Experience tells us that when asked, a customer often expects far less that we would be prepared to give to remedy a situation — so it make sense to ask.

Cut the scripted responses
Have you faced the situation, whether on the phone or in a retail store, of asking questions and receiving responses from staff members that are robotic or scripted? If you ask a question they don’t know how to answer, do they seem stuck or confused? Do they just repeat what you have already been told or give you information you never asked for?

If the problem doesn’t have a “cookie cutter” response, they can become lost. This is because their training hasn’t prepared or empowered them to think for themselves.

Staff should be trained to handle customer service enquiries and provided with specific language that you would like to see used. But not all scenarios can possibly be covered during this training. Although many of their problems are similar, customers and their expectations are unique — so you can’t treat everyone the same way. It’s up to the employer and staff to realize there’s an unknown human element to dealing with people.

It’s imperative that staff understand the rules but they should be allowed to use their initiative where possible — within the agreed guidelines. Most problems can be solved if someone demonstrates they care enough to understand the issue and look for a solution; even if it requires a slight adjustment of the rules, but still within company guidelines.

Without rules, chaos would govern the workplace. There’s no doubt about that. However, management must trust their staff enough to establish guidelines with a degree of autonomy/flexibility when it comes to making decisions in the workplace.

When customer service staff takes the initiative, ask a few sensible questions and pay attention to the answers, more problems get solved and more customers leave happier.

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Now we understand why customer service staff should have guidelines, not just rules, our next article is going to talk about 4 Steps to Give Exceptional Customer Service.

In May 2007, Ranjay Gulati (Michael Ludwig Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Strategy and Organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management), wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review entitled “Silo Busting: How to Execute on the Promise of Customer Focus”.

Galati’s main point is as true today as it was then — that while many companies claim to be focused on their customers, they are unable to deliver on these promises within their current company culture. His basis for this argument is that companies continue to focus on their own needs versus the customer needs.

Gulati identified four values that companies must adopt in order to successfully be customer-focused. These are coordination, cooperation, capability and connection.

Coordination: Most companies are organized around a specific function, product or geographical location. However, customers don’t think that way, and often the solutions they need do not fit within those boundaries. Gulati suggests that companies need to create processes or mechanisms that break these divisions – or silos – so that the customer gets the benefit of the entire company.

Cooperation: Here the focus is two-fold. Separate business units need to cooperate to support each other’s activities to achieve measurable customer satisfaction, and employees who are closest to customers need the authority to make decisions that benefit the customer. This kind of cooperation ensures the customer always comes first.

Capability: According to Gulati, companies need more “generalists”. These are described as employees who “have experience in several products or services and a deep knowledge of customer needs” as well as having the skill and flexibility to cross organizational boundaries. These people see the big picture and resultant are able to produce tailored solutions that meet customer needs.

Connection: Gulati’s research supports aligning with suppliers and partners. The rationale is that it support better solutions for the customer as well as provide cost-cutting opportunities.

Gulati’s four “CAS” make sense, as they provide companies with a process map that focuses on the customer. Interesting to note, everything still focuses on the big “C” — the customer.

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2008 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

When discussing the “How to’s” of building an engaged culture, we hear lots of talk about “reinforcing the positive” and “catching people doing things right”, but what happens when people are doing things wrong and we need to provide corrective direction.   Specific steps need to take place to get the person moving in the proper direction while still keeping them positive and motivated.

Most importantly, you must focus on the situation or issue versus the person, while sharing a more appropriate course of action. We all need to avoid falling into the trap of confusing criticism with constructive feedback.

Constructive feedback is information-specific, issue-focused, and based on observations, while criticism is a personal judgment about a performance effort or outcome, usually given is general and vague manner, focused on the person, and based on opinions or feelings

These steps you will help you have more success.

1. Describe: Start by describing what the person did accurately and concisely. Be objective and neutral — remember, how we say something is just as important as what we say. Provide specifics of what happened and do not exaggerate or minimize the situation. Focus on the positive contribution.
2. Explain: Explain the impact of the behaviour on the customer, team or organization. These need to be observations of what you have seen or heard — not your interpretations or opinions. Observations are factual and non-judgmental. It is helpful to start focused on ‘I’. ‘I notice’, ‘I have seen’ or even I have been told’. This will help keep the discussion issue focused. Avoid using ‘but’, ‘although’ or ‘however’ to link this to the first section. These words create contradictions and send a mixed message that effectively negates any positive message you started with.
3. Suggest: Suggest specific changes that you would like to see made and explain what you want the person to do differently. The more specific, the more likely they person will be able to implement the suggestion next time.
4. Commit: Seek a commitment to change. Be clear on the consequences of continuing in this vein. Seek an agreement about the new, modified behaviour. In extreme cases, be clear of the consequences of not making these changes — but again be objective and neutral to minimize this sounding like a threat.

Example: One of your team is being described as harsh or bossy when providing direction to other team members.

Describe: Bill, I really appreciate that you have taken ownership of this project and are providing clear, well thought-out input on what next steps are needed. I wanted to let you know how valuable this is to the team and the overall success of the project.

Explain: I notice that sometimes when you provide direction to other team members, you are very quick and specific when giving input — which sometimes creates the impression that you don’t value their input and think that only your way is the correct way.

Suggest: I’d like to suggest that you take some time to understand why they did it the way they chose and what next steps they are considering. Then building on their ideas, share some additional thoughts on how they can accomplish their goal.

Commit: That way, they will feel that you are adding to their thoughts and helping them be more successful. Does that make sense? Would you give that a try next time and let me know how it works?

Feedback should be given, as close as possible to when the performance incident occurs so that the events are fresh in everyone’s minds. When feedback is given well after the fact, the value of the constructive feedback is lessened.

The exception may be when giving negative feedback. Sometimes when a negative incident happens you may need time to get your thoughts in order before you give negative feedback (coming on too strong or in an angry manner will negate any good you hope to achieve). Giving the feedback tomorrow rather than immediately will come across as far more constructive — and tomorrow is still timely.

Lastly — and hopefully these go without saying — your feedback should be person-to-person versus in writing. The very nature of feedback is a mentoring/coaching activity, which should be done verbally and informally. You should also provide positive feedback in the same manner at least as often as you provide corrective feedback.

By focusing on the positive and keeping the discussion fact based when providing correction, you are able to modify and build new behaviours, without challenging their current behaviours. What do you think? Is it worth a try?

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2008 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

There are a few common imperatives shared by all successful customer-focused companies. Scholars may debate the exact number or wording, but it is universally agreed that to create a well-integrated organization, these basic characteristics must be in place. If any of these essential ingredients are missing, no organization will achieve its full potential.

1. A Customer-focused Vision: Nothing is more important than a clear vision. In a customer-focused organization, the vision that is not just making money, but has the customer as a central element. Every person should understand what that vision is — and how their role within the organization contributes directly to the implementation of that vision. A well-defined and widely shared and understood vision will allow the organization to work in alignment towards serving your customers well.

2. Inculcate the Voice of the Customer: Understand your customer intimately. Make sure your decision-making process includes their voice at the table. Evaluate all your processes and procedures to ensure they are designed with the customer in mind — not the organization. You will revolutionize your own behaviour and create linkages to your customers your competition will never duplicate.

3. Be a Student of the Best: Be a life-long learner. Study the methods of other successful companies, and share your learning in return. Japanese companies learned how to be great after World War II. Some North American companies have made great comebacks after studying those from around the world — while other have chosen not to learn and suffered greatly as a result (American Auto Industry comes to mind.)

4. Empower Your Customer Champions: Most employees want to serve customers well. When the organization demonstrates that providing exceptional service in an organizational priority, and that the employee are critical to success, then employees will rise to the challenge and amaze you with their commitment to exceed customer expectations.

5. Break through the Barriers to Success: Too many organizations have processes and procedures in place that inadvertently create artificial barriers to successfully serving customers. Procedures and processes are designed with the organization in mind versus the customer and resultant, the customer is unclear or frustrated. Are your sale processes clear to the customer, are your invoices easy to read and understand, do your policies make sense from the customers’ perspective?

6. Measure What Matters: Most organizations have measures in place. Successful organizations have the right measures. Measures that are aligned to their overall vision and that inform them on how they are doing with their ultimate judge of success. Measures of satisfaction, loyalty and intent to repurchase are just as important as profit and how long to answer a call. Successful organization measure and track their performance against their past performance, the customer desires and benchmark against others who are the best at what they do.

7. Lead by Example: Today, top corporate leaders personally put the customer first. They demonstrate their organizations’ vision in the way they lead each day. They believe and invest in people, constantly seek new and better methods, build customer-focused teams and celebrate performance that serves the customer.

I’m not going to pretend that being customer-focused is easy — because it’s not. It requires an absolute dedication to the cause, starting from the top, right on down throughout the organization. But the imperatives are relatively simple.

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2008 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

Employees report that one of the key factors they are engaged in their organization is predicated on how well the organization treats their customers. So treating your customers well will also have a corresponding positive impact on your employees.

Here are 7 critical success factors to providing exceptional customer service.

1. Timeliness: Customers want their questions answered quickly and their problem resolved in a timely manner. Be specific about when something will happen and then make sure it happens.

2. Attitude: Attitude is everything. When customers are treated with respect, courtesy and professionalism they are most receptive to having a satisfactory outcome.

3. Empathy: Having empathy to their situation will usually calm down the most irate customer. Always treat others how we ourselves would like to be treated.

4. Ownership: Take responsibility for the situation. Even if you cannot fix things yourself, make sure the customer doesn’t get bounced around trying to find the right person to help them.

5. Active Listening: Listen first, act second. Only when a customer feels that you have heard what their situation is will they have confidence that you will provide the correct solution. Plus, sometimes we inadvertently leap to an incorrect conclusion on the best solution before we have all the information. This leads to frustrated customers and repeat calls.

6. Expertise: Be knowledgeable about your product or service. If you don’t know the answer — say so, and then quickly get the information from someone who does. Don’t simply pass the customer on to someone else without an introduction.

7. Dependability: When you say you are going to do something, do it. Never leave it up to the customer to follow up. Even if you don’t have a solution, don’t leave the customer hanging with timelines like “as soon as possible”. Make a commitment to respond, even if it is to say “we are still working on it”. Let the customer know what is being done.

Bonus:

8. Follow up: People remember when someone follows up to make sure everything is OK. Many organizations miss this opportunity to turn customers into fans!

The secret to great customer service is not having a perfect product or service — it is resolving each situation to the complete satisfaction of the customer. No one expects perfection — they just want it fixed right and in a timely manner.

If you employ these key success factors, you will build trust and confidence with your customers. And in return, they will give you another opportunity to earn their business.

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2008 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

I must admit, I am uncomfortable when someone compliments me about my work. Of course I want people to be happy about my behaviour (performance) and I want positive feedback versus the alternative, but for me, I am uncomfortable responding to praise, or compliments. I’d like to hear something specific about my work rather than some generic comment about me.

For example I prefer: “That was a great idea you proposed for ……” versus “Your idea was brilliant. You’re very creative.” (Okay, I like that too, but I prefer the former).

You’re probably thinking I am over analyzing and I should take all the positives I can get and shut up. Probably good advice, but I can’t change my emotional response to flattery, praise, or compliments — they make me a bit uncomfortable. I prefer a positive comment about the specific behaviour and its effect. Nobody has to add anything personal or gushy to make me feel good. The behaviour speaks for itself.

For instance: “That comparison you used in the first paragraph really helps the reader understand your point.”

Instead of: “You’re a great writer—so eloquent.” Describing the behaviour and the effect is a particularly good approach if you are just starting to provide positive recognition for behaviours.

It also works with someone you may not have a good relationship with. Anything you say to that individual is going to be hesitantly received — they are sensitized to every phrase, gesture, tone, and inflection. If you have a real good relationship with someone, then you have larger margin for error. Some other examples of positive feedback include:

• When you apologized for the inconvenience to the customer who had to wait in line and thanked them for their patience, which really demonstrated our principle of empathy.
• That recommendation you made about _______ really demonstrated your knowledge about that aspect of the business. It will really save us time.
• Your PowerPoint created a buzz after the meeting. The senior team said your presentation made it easy for them to understand the issue and take action.
• I noticed that your email was sent late last night. I appreciate your commitment and know I can count on the project to be delivered on schedule.

Stay away from describing the person and focus on describing the valued-added behaviour and its effect After you have laid the groundwork based on what they did and what effect it had, then you can add personal appreciation. You can then start you comments with “I appreciated you taking the time to….” You have now added a personal touch based on creating a positive relationship of recognition.

Employees want to be acknowledged, to know that the company is aware of their contribution or even more important — their efforts to overcome the limitations of their equipment, unforeseen problems, outdated systems and processes are noticed and appreciated.

People don’t leave companies — they leave Managers. Two of the biggest reasons are; Managers who doesn’t know how to recognize people effectively, and having to work around poor performing co-workers, bad systems and other problems and not being appreciated and acknowledged.

When your feedback describes what they did and what they had to overcome, you defuse any pent up frustration and create a positive, supportive, high performance culture where everyone is working to improve, and where adding value gets noticed.

Try this technique and I guarantee employee engagement will go up and surveys will have positive responses about management and supervision. In addition, turn-over and absenteeism will go down and performance and productivity will go up.

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2009 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

Okay, we all know about the recession. I have decided not to focus on the problems but the opportunities (old P&G training kicking in!). So what are the opportunities that we can leverage? For starters, focus on motivating and inspiring your teams. Here are a few things that you can do tomorrow, for little or no money, which will have a positive impact on your business results.

Set a positive tone: It’s easy to blame the economy. Customers are buying less, expecting more. But using the economy as the catch-all excuse for poor performance sends a dangerous message. It implies that the situation is completely out of the company’s hands. This raises anxiety levels and enables complacency. While the competition is bemoaning the economy remember, high achievers never complain, they just get on with it. They look for ways to get a bigger piece of the pie by adding value.

Communicate: An e-mail from the CEO doesn’t accomplish much. Give people frequent opportunities to openly discuss and ask questions about the business situation the company is facing. Speak to employees in small groups and be as candid as possible. Give them what they deserve: honest explanations and plans to move forward. Schedule brown-bag lunches or other informal venues to talk to employees about their findings and where they might be hitting roadblocks. This is also a good time to address any rumours.

Leverage the expertise of your team: Motivate and engage your team by including them in the problem-solving process. Form groups of employees to identify what’s slowing down business. Often the best place to start is to look for processes and bureaucracies that annoy the team. No one knows the issues better than those who are dealing with them daily. It’s a great time for people to realize that they can play an important role in discovering opportunities for the company. (TIP: Cross-pollinate with people who have different areas of expertise. Often fresh eyes offer an innovative new solution.)

Feed your top performers: It’s easy to believe that employees are grateful to have jobs at all. But layoffs and budget cuts cause good people to look for better opportunities. Give them a reason to stay by advancing their careers. If promotions or raises aren’t possible, give top performers the opportunity to grow, even if it’s a lateral move that challenges them in a new way or to take on a special assignment. (TIP: Also, keep an eye out for great talent that other companies have shed for cost cutting measures. This is a great time to recruit future stars.)

Focus on the future: Don’t sugar-coat it! Surviving through the downturn might not be easy, but by emphasizing the opportunities and developing a plan together you will emerge even stronger than before.

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2008 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

Despite the doom and gloom of today’s economic downturn, smart leaders look to history for learning. History tells us that now is not the time to cut important foundational programs, but to leverage current conditions for competitive advantage so they emerge from this economic downturn better positioned for success. One area that seems to be under pressure is workforce size and employee engagement.

Many firms will cut back in this area; some will see this as an opportunity to strengthen their teams through strategic hiring, downsizing and internal communications. In these times of uncertainty, it is especially important to go above and beyond to strengthen employee engagement. Leaders may set the direction, but employees make things happen, including building and maintaining competitive advantage. Happy, engaged employees aligned with your corporate values, goals and strategy produce amazing results.

A culture of pride of ownership permeates the entire organization and results in better products, better customer service and better business results. The first step (and arguably the most important) is communicate, communicate, communicate. Don’t sit in your office and send out e-mails; walk around and reach out to folks personally, and coach your managers to follow your lead.

Really talk to employees about what is going on – and listen to what they say; it’s amazing what you can learn from them. If you don’t already regularly survey your employees, it’s a good idea to have a confidential employee survey program to get the feedback you can’t get in person. These can be set up easily using free online survey tools. However, to be effective, you must act on the results and communicate early and often that you plan to do so. And remember that this is not a once-and-done process. Your customers and distributors also need reassurance in these difficult times. Making an effort to connect with them now will pay dividends over the long term.

Brand loyalty leads to competitive advantage, and customer loyalty boils down to excellent customer service, which enables trust and confidence. Now is the time to reach out and communicate. Leverage technology tools to enhance regular ongoing communication. Electronic newsletters, wikis and blogs are powerful ways to regularly update your employees, customers and distributors and get their feedback. Streaming video and podcast updates about how you are weathering the storm also are excellent tools. Look for quick wins that will serve customers and stimulate sales in the current economy. Are there new products with lower pricing you could offer? Would a review of their current services to ensure they are maximizing any discounts or product combinations make sense? These initiatives demonstrate you appreciate their situation and the lower margin pain you feel now will be rewarded when customers come back for your products and services when things turn around. Plus they are a great opportunity to talk to your customers and potentially identify issues before they consider moving their business elsewhere.

Also, make sure your employees are ready to respond with a higher level of empathy and support for the customer. Now is not the time to offer bad customer service, as emotions are running high and customers will vote with their feet.

Times may be difficult, but regular, meaningful ongoing communication will ensure everyone is focused on the goals of the organization and working in the same direction.

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2008 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

Every business claims they focus on customer service and offer the best to their clients. However, how many really do? If you want to be able to stand out from the crowd and offer truly great customer service instead of just empty promises, here are ten great tips that will help.

1. There are two ways to fix every problem. The immediate solution is to take care of the customer, leave him or her happy, and go on with your day. However, there’s a reason this problem happened. You need to consider how to prevent it from happening again. Your business will be more efficient and you’ll have happier customers overall.

2. Treat your customers like human beings. That means treating them with dignity and not being annoyed at them for interrupting your day. This also means expecting them to act like responsible adults. Too many businesses believe that good customer service means bowing to the whims of every customer with a complaint. That solves the immediate problem of an angry customer, but sometimes it’s not for the best. Know when there’s a real problem that needs fixing and fix it well, but don’t let people walk all over you.

3. Go beyond the minimum to make your customers love you. If there’s a real problem, and you can do just a little more to make a customer’s day, he or she is going to remember it. You’ll get a lot more repeat business and word of mouth advertising if you over deliver.

4. Don’t make excuses. If it’s your fault, say so. Don’t try to blame it on the customer, the circumstances, another vendor, or the position of the moon in the sky. It’s amazing what a difference it can make if you just say “An error has been made, but I will make it right”. Your customer will see you a lot differently if you don’t make excuses.

5. Don’t take it personally! This one’s easy to forget because the customer is directing their frustration at you. However, the customer is angry about the situation, not angry at you, specifically. Taking things personally just introduces anger into the situation and makes it harder to fix the problem.

6. Listen to your customers. Don’t assume you know what they want. They may have some good things to say, even if they’re not experts.

7. Think about what you’re promising. It’s easy to get carried away and offer more than you can easily deliver. If your business is racing from one project to the next, you can’t offer true quality of service. Don’t let this happen. Always pay close attention to what you’re promising, and don’t let a customer talk you into the impossible.

8. Allow the customer to feel like a priority. Don’t answer the phone while filling out a spreadsheet – you’ll sound distracted. Spend the few minutes it takes to really pay attention. Your customers will know the difference and the results will be worth it.

9. Get to problems right away. No one wants to deal with something unpleasant, but if you let a complaint sit, it’s not going to get any better on its own.

10. Follow up! Call after a problem’s been dealt with, or after a customer has received a particularly big order, to find out how things went. Don’t try to sell anything during this call or email. Just find out what you need to know and wish your customer a good day.

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2009 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

Providing good customer service just isn’t enough anymore, not with companies the world over clamouring for the dwindling dollars consumers spend. And heaven forbid your customer service should be classified average! That could, literally, be the death of a company if it’s not turned around quickly.

Encourage your team to take customer service from bland and boring to knock-your-socks-off spectacular, however, and you can stand back and watch the amazing results achieved!

1. Engage your customers. Step into their shoes. Understand where they’re coming from. Listen. Empathize. Often customers only want to be heard. They may not even expect a problem to be solved, but they want to know that an employee cares about their problem. When your employees do that, you’ve taken a long stride in turning customers into raving fans who’ll return to your company often and encourage others to do the same.

2. Create a positive, lasting customer experience. Walk through your company to see how customers perceive their experience in dealing with you from start to finish. Did their phone call get answered promptly and courteously? Were they greeted with a smile and a friendly hello when they walked in the door? If an employee didn’t have an answer to a question or a need, were they quick to search for an answer?

Consider every aspect of the relationship a customer experiences when doing business with you, then work to build a positive experience that meets them at the door and walks them through their entire visit and beyond. Chose 1 or 2 specific elements and do them better than anyone else. They will become your point of differentiation.

3. Get out of the proverbial box. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is one definition of insanity. Customers love to be surprised and the best way to do that is do things a little differently. Do something unusual and extra-ordinary. Your customers will keep coming back just to see what you’ll do next.

4. Indulge your customers. Live the adage that “the customer is always right” in your company. Let them know that you’ll go out of your way to ensure there are “wowed”!. Offer a little more than the “other guy”. Your customers will notice. Wouldn’t you?

5. Get excited! Customers thrill at customer service delivered with excitement and enthusiasm. They’ll rave about how much fun it is to do business with your company. And who will they be raving to? Friends, family and anyone else who’ll listen. Employees who are excited about serving customers create customers who feel appreciated. In turn, they’ll reward your company with continued business and extravagant praise for everything you do.

Customer service goes far beyond a one-time visit or experience. Customer service that turns average, ho-hum customers into raving fans can only be accomplished by a team full of customer-oriented, customer-focused employees driven to impress and inspire customers with their level of concern. Build such a team in your company, and you’ll amaze yourselves at the level of customer loyalty you create!

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

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