POST CATEGORY : Customer Service

The Benefits of Customer Service Training

Customer service expert Shep Hyken wrote in one of his articles ‘Customer service is not a department. It is a philosophy’ and many professionals would wholeheartedly agree with this.

Customer service training

When you utilise good quality customer service throughout the entirety of an organisation– from the recent hires to the CEO – you can improve the way that every element of the operation impacts the customer. This includes not only the employees on the front line, but also those working behind the scenes.

Customer service training makes the difference

As an example of the difference customer service training can make to unlikely roles in an organisation, imagine an employee behind the scenes in a logistics company.…

Continue reading →

Why Your Business Should Excel at Customer Convenience

We live in a world of instant gratification and ultimate convenience. Delivery services are faster than ever before, with some being able to deliver groceries and other items within the hour. Transportation services are available with the click of a virtual button. And with apps like Tinder, even dating has become mostly about instant attraction.

Customer convenience

We can order so much from our smartphones, and that means there’s less to wait on. It also means that your business needs to excel at customer convenience in order to compete with the other companies that are out there.

The Age of the Smartphone

More and more people own smartphones.…

Continue reading →

7 Customer Service Best Practices Tips for Retaining Great Customers

Let’s face it: Getting customers is easy most times compared to actually keeping them. There’s so much competition to contend with these days, it’s near impossible to keep running with the best prices in your industry, your city; your little cozy niche that nobody knows about… Yet!

Then one day Joe Bigtime, who’s been watching your every move and figuring out how to do it even better than you, strolls into town and upsets everything you’ve been working toward. While you’ve been focusing on customer acquisition, your retention efforts have been left on the back-burner.

Suddenly, your customer’s lack of loyalty toward your business, and your obvious lack of loyalty toward getting their business again and again becomes of significant importance to your bottom line.…

Continue reading →

The Lost Art Of Customer Service Within The Tech Industry

Reinvigorating Customer Service in the Tech Industry

Tech industry

The tech industry is often highly impersonal — especially among companies that sell digital goods. A company can sell a digital service entirely over the Internet. The buyer pays online, and the service activates itself automatically. During the buyer’s entire time as a customer, he may never interact with an actual person.

Throughout the tech industry, customer service has become something of a lost art. Too often, companies rely on support forums, automated chat programs and online FAQ pages to answer customers’ questions. Customers who are unable find the answers they need through forums and automated solutions can end up feeling lost in the shuffle.…

Continue reading →

6 Ways Small Businesses can Reach More Customers

After a few years of doing business you are definitely looking to grow and take your business to the next level. Here are 6 real life examples of strategies used by small businesses to drive growth:

Open a New Branch

Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer waited for nearly five years before opening the second location. He waited till the business acquired a faithful following and was known for products that people loved. From the first Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, the business has now expanded to more than 100 locations worldwide.

“We’re big believers in not overpromising and under delivering.…

Continue reading →

When You Focus on Building Customer Relationships, the Rest is Just Business

As the owner of a self-storage business, I serve people who are undergoing life changes every day. Relocations, divorce, college, and military deployment are just a few reasons someone might benefit from self-storage. Whatever the case, they’re likely tired, stressed, and generally unsettled. The last thing they want to do is slog through a long, confusing sales experience.

Helpful sales person

These days, the lines are blurred between “our business” and “your problems” in all industries. But what many business owners don’t realize is how easily they can soothe someone’s worries with good customer service — even if they have nothing to do with your business transaction.…

Continue reading →

Hiring a Virtual Receptionist – Is It a Wise Move?

The economy was severely affected by the crash of 2008; thousands of businesses all over the globe went into liquidation, and millions of people ended up without jobs within the space of a few months. Many of those who found themselves without a job instead decided to launch their own businesses. However, succeeding at running a small business is much easier said than done.

Small business owners face a lot of difficult challenges in the first couple of years of their creation. Maintaining a work-life balance often becomes difficult, since there are just so many issues that an entrepreneur has to face.…

Continue reading →

Provide Phone Access for your Customers at Any Time: Here’s Why and How

Customers want to know they can reach a business at any time. They may have questions before they make a purchase; they may have a complaint or concern after a purchase has been made; or, they want to be able to pick up the phone and reach a live operator at a time that is convenient for them.

Customer service representative

One thing for sure, your customers don’t want to be on hold or deal with a recording. If you want your business to have a solid reputation, you need to provide phone access for them at any time.

Outsource Phone Services

You don’t have to hire several people to work at your business to answer the phones.…

Continue reading →

5 Ways to Make Customer Service a Part of your Brand

It isn’t what you sell that makes customers pick you over the competition, it’s what you’re known for. Your brand. What your brand represents sets you apart from the crowd.

Coca-Cola brand in a can

Many companies have a strong brand attached to them. Zappos, the billion-dollar shoe store, is known for its customer service. Their customer centric culture drives their growth in unprecedented ways.

Here are five ways to incorporate customer service into your brand.

Start from Day One

Great customer service shouldn’t be an afterthought and isn’t something you should be putting off for later. It is as important for your business as your core competencies, for without customers there is no business.…

Continue reading →

How to Improve Your Customer Service Through Efficient Process

There are two types of business in the world, there are those that rely solely on the talent of their employees, and then there are those that measure, track and report back on the work done by their talent. By far and away, the second type of business is going to have more success with your customers.

Efficient customer service

Customers don’t care if part of your business is failing; they simply want to know that they’re going to get what they’ve paid for. Businesses that rely on talent alone are unstable and unpredictable, and when there’s a problem with an aspect of the business, there aren’t the processes in place to find it, isolate it, and fix it to get the product to the customer on time.…

Continue reading →