There's no doubt about it. Exceptional customer service is the lifeblood of any business.

Sure you can offer plenty of promotions, discounts, freebies or go on a sale and slash prices to bring in new customers, but unless you provide great service, customers won't come back and purchase items from you.

Getting people to buy, pay attention and spread the good word about your business is indeed the goal in sales and marketing. But more than the sales figures, we all know that it's the relationships we create with people that truly matter.

And this is where exceptional customer service come in. You can throw in a flashy website, impressive marketing materials and use the latest technology, but if your customer service is lousy, you can say goodbye to sales.

Now when we think about customer service we instinctively think about a brick and mortar business. These tips also apply to every online business, because you obviously have customers and clients too. Most of these people you don't meet face to face, but still, they are your customers, so treat them well. For every business, online or offline, exceptional customer service is crucial.

So, take time to reassess this aspect of your business. How do you treat and deal with customers? (I'm happy to help you with this assessment, just contact me).

In the end, you have to make sure that you send them away a satisfied customer, enough to pass along their positive feedback about your business to others. this is the classic word-of-mouth advertising that you can always rely on.

And it's always priceless.

THE FIVE PRACTICES FOR EFFECTIVENESS

I was recently reading some articles by the famous Peter Drucker regarding effectiveness, I thought you might like to read them too!

By Dr. Peter Drucker

All that effective people have in common is the ability to get the right things done - here's how

The effective executives I have seen differ widely in their temperaments and abilities, in what they do and how they do it, in their personalities, their knowledge, their interests – in fact, in almost everything that distinguishes human beings. But all effective executives I’ve known perform only necessary tasks and eliminate unnecessary ones.

Five practices have to be acquired to be effective:

1. 
   

Effective executives know where their time goes. They work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under their control.

Effective executives focus on outward contributions.

Effective executives build on strengths - theirs and others. They do not build on weaknesses.

Effective executives concentrate on superior performance where superior performance will produce outstanding results. They force themselves to stay within priorities.

Effective executives make effective decisions. They know that this is a system – the right steps in the right sequence. They know that to make all decisions fast is to make some wrong decisions.

Whenever I have found a person who – no matter how great in intelligence, industry, imagination, or knowledge – fails to observe these practices, I have also found an executive deficient in effectiveness.

Leader or Manager?

One of the on-going challenges for managers is how to get the best out of their staff. Most aim to have people “do more” or “go faster”, some even aim to design more efficient systems.

However I think a better strategy is to encourage people to do better rather than more.

It will require more skill, coaching and patience however creating a team of people who are better far outweighs doing more, and the leader will automatically “get more” as a side benefit.
Learning to make the transition from Manager to Leader may be challenging but is ultimately very rewarding.

Training

Regularly arranging customer service training programs for your staff does much more than entertain them! We usually include simulations of various scenarios designed to keep people skills sharp – we all fall into poor habits without regular reminders – much like a knife needs regular sharpening so do we!

Recruiting staff

When recruiting new staff look for good attitudes and people-loving people. This may sound too simple, but employees who like people are often more outgoing and friendly and tend to be more empathetic concerning their problems. Intelligence and problem solving skills are also a plus.

Are your clients raving fans?

Try catching your customers off guard. Pleasantly surprise them with an unexpected bonus product along with a hand written thank you note. You will be amazed with the results.

Give employees authority

Why not give your employees the authority to make decisions without referring to a supervisor? Customers love it and when employees make good decisions you can congratulate them and, in turn, encourage further customer-oriented decision-making.

How do you measure the success of your Customer Service Staff?

Many Customer Service staff are measured by quantitative indicators, things such as the number of calls handled, the wait time, the number of customers served, and the average time per service transaction, the number of hang ups etc.

While this is useful data I would like to suggest a different philosophical approach, one of being fully customer focused and pro-active in the area of customer satisfaction.

I suggest you measure staff on their abilities to deliver complete satisfaction to customers.

Rather than being reactive and process driven in determining customer needs, teach your people to be more acute listeners and observers. While you are doing this, give them authority to fix problems when it seems reasonable to do so.

Hmmmm, I hear you thinking…how will I measure that? What about using Common Sense? Surely that would be too simple!

What is your culture towards complaints?

When customers try to make a complaint they often run into hurdles and barriers just trying to find someone to voice their complaint. Often they get angrier and angrier.

The result is a small problem that develops into a larger one, simply because the customer cannot find an easy way to channel their concerns, anger, fears, worries, questions, or complaints to your organisation in a timely and convenient manner. Frequently it seems no one REALLY wants to listen!

The initial reaction to a customer complaint is often defensive (trying to push the blame back onto the customer) or process driven. Few things seem to infuriate customers more than this attitude. And not being able to find the right contact details for lodging a complaint, or being forced to speak with a call centre "service rep" makes it even worse.

Another example of this is when your e-mail auto responder system sends out the highly depersonalizing "thank you for your enquiry, we will get back to you promptly" message when an e-mail of complaint is sent via the organization's web site.

Please note: an e-mail (or letter) of complaint is not an enquiry, it is an attempt to get a humanized and customized resolution to a situation.

Make it Easy For Customers to Complain!

One of the components of a good Customer Focus Strategy is to make it easy for customers to complain.

"What?" I can hear many of you saying. "Make it easier for customers to complain, so that we are actually likely and happy to get more complaints?"

YES!

That's exactly what your mindset should be --- not just to get more complaints, but to be very open, customer complaints are great opportunities to learn, and opportunities for your entire organisation to improve.

After all, if you don't hear about the problems your customers are having with your products, services, or staff, then how would you know to improve them?

Inspire your staff

How often do you review and inspire the people in your business? There are studies out showing the more time you spend in a focused review the more performance is likely to improve.

So do you take 15, 30 or perhaps 60 minutes once a year?

A recent study of someone who leads her team very successfully uncovered some interesting facts. She has 25 people reporting to her…yet finds 100 full days a year, yes, that is four full days per person per year…to review and guide them.

After all, what is more important than developing the people and culture in your business?

You can’t manage people!

The problem is that many Managers seem to think their role is to closely monitor or “manage” performance… however you can’t manage people! You can manage processes, a fleet of cars however you need to lead people, not manage them. How sad and ineffective it is that many Managers think that their role is to be the police officer. I suggest you look for people doing things right…. and then congratulate them!

Why not set a goal to look for the good in people and to congratulate a specific number of people every day?

People! Always an interesting topic, for me anyway!

The conversation at a business breakfast took many different turns before eventually leading to how this person finds people interactions difficult and dealing with staff and customers even harder.

At his invitation I went to visit his office a few days later and, like many of us, I watched the behaviour and interactions between he and his staff. Interestingly as he commented on the performance problems of each of his staff it became obvious that he was the one causing all the drama in his own office.

Are you really aware of how you affect your Staff and Customers?

Imagine This!

You discover your Doctor stopped attending the Professional Development Conferences years ago, and no longer even sees the Medical Reps! When questioned she says I’m over it! Never ending things to learn, constant change you know! Who needs it?
Would you be happy to continue using the same Doctor?

So what is your Professional Development track record like?
Think about what you have done this year? Make a list of the workshops, the webinars, the books, the clear thinking people you have spent time with.
Is it an impressive list? Are you proud of it or embarrassed?

Productivity

A little boy asks his Mum why his Dad is always doing extra work at home; Mum replies that Dad just can’t keep up with the workload. After thinking for a moment, the little boy responds…
Why don’t they just put him in a slower group!

My mind turned to how busy the world is and how the speed and demands of life seems to be continuing to increase dramatically. While there are so many questions worth asking one question must surely be is this pace making us happy?

While some work places seem to expect 50 to 60 hours or even more others believe that if you can’t get it done in 40 hours you are doing something wrong! Some countries even have a 30-hour work week!

The big point here is to decide how many hours and what activities you want to spend your working life on.

Ideally it’s doing something that doesn’t seem like work at all!

On stupidity

If stupidity was painful - there'd be a lot of hurting people out there.