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Best Practices in Customer
Service Part Five. Improving Customer Service: Strategies and Techniques
Exceptional customer service can make your company more competitive. As the author notes, "People are so accustomed to mediocre service that when they experience exceptional service ... they come backIand they tell other people. It's still easy to be exceptional in serving customers." Do you know the 10 practices that make the best service providers exceptional? At least some of them may surprise you. Learn about them hereIbefore you learn about them from your competitors. Mark Sanborn is known internationally as "the high-content speaker who motivates." He works with business organizations that want to reach the next level and individuals who want to perform at their best. Mark presents 90-100 programs annually on leadership, teambuilding, customer service, and mastering change. He is the author of the books Teambuilt: Making Teamwork Work (Master Media, 1994) and Sanborn On Success (Griffin Publishing, 1995) and numerous videos and audio training programs. He contributed the article "Live Like Your Life Depends on It" to a collection of essays, Only the Best on Success (Win Publications). In 1995 Presentations magazine featured Mark as one of five "Masters of the Microphone." He has earned the Certified Speaking Professional designation and received the Council of Peers Award of Excellence from the National Speakers Association. E-mail: MarkSpeaks@aol.com Web site: http://www.marksanborn.com How can you get thousands of people to promote your products and services at no charge? Tap the promotional power of your customers. Getting more out of your satisfied customers is not just a matter of chance ... if you know how to do it right. This article explains a simple, three-step approach used successfully by many companies that are serious about word-of-mouth promotion. Dr. Michael E. Cafferky is the author of Let Your Customers Do the Talking: 301+ Word-of-Mouth Marketing Tactics Guaranteed to Boost Profits (Upstart Publishing, 1996). He has also developed other educational materials promot-ing word-of-mouth marketing, and regularly conducts seminars on this subject. E-mail: miccaf@wwgh.com Web site: http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/6246 Many companies recognize the importance of improving their customer service, but encounter problems pursuing that objective. This article presents an exercise based on three processesIawareness, analysis, and action. Participants discuss their current service practices and the service practices they'd like to implement, in terms of the impact on the organization, then begin to plan actions toward their goals. If you've got one hour and a desire to serve your customers better, everything else you need is right here. Dr. Sharon A. Wulf, President of Enterprise Systems, Framingham, Massachusetts, works with organizations to create custom business and organizational development programs. She works with a wide range of client organizations, from Motorola and AT&T to the U.S. Postal Service. For the past 18 years, she has worked with management teams in North America, Europe, and Asia. Since establishing Enterprise Systems in 1992, she has developed over two hundred management development products. Her three recent products published by HRD PressICustomer Service Action Plans (1997), Leadership in Action (1996), and Building Performance Values: A New Tool for Goal Setting and Planning Action in Groups (1996)Iassist groups in making optimal business choices. E-mail: sawulf@enters.com The world is full of slogans, seminars, and books that focus on customer service. We understand that excellent customer service increases customer loyalty, which in turn boosts profitability and drives growth. Then why is customer service so often still so poor? It's a question of moving from attitude into action. This article stresses ways to change organizational culture to value customer loyalty, to do whatever it takes to earn this loyalty one transaction at a time. Lisa Ford is a speaker and seminar leader with 18 years of experience presenting to businesses, associations, and government. She speaks throughout the United States and internationally on topics of customer service, leadership, team issues, and change. Lisa is the author of the videotape series "How to Give Exceptional Customer Service"Ithe #1 selling business tapes in the U.S. for the last three years. Her other videos and audiotapes include "Developing a Customer Retention Program," "Building a Customer-Driven Organization: The Manager's Role," and "Personal Power." E-mail: lford@mindspring.com There's a great market out there for your products and servicesIand it's growing larger and more powerful all the time. It's the world of people over age 50Ithe mature market. This article will help you better understand the critical characteristics of the mature market, so you and your employees will know more about what 50-plus consumers want and need and be better able to provide it. Patricia V. Alea, a teacher and an author, is a member of the distinguished panel of Age Wave speakers and is frequently invited by major corporations and associations to consult and speak about the growth and influence of the mature market in relation to strategic planning. Through the integration of direct marketing, publications, special events, customized services, and human resource management, she has helped clients significantly increase revenues and embrace innovation as a core value. E-mail: pvalea@aol.com Rebecca Chekouras is Vice President of Research Services for Age Wave Communications Corporation in Emeryville, California, the leading provider of customized marketing solutions for companies targeting the mature market. Rebecca has researched and written extensively on the socioeconomic implications of an aging society. She has been an invited guest speaker at forums discussing the Boomer generation and has been quoted in leading publications, including The Wall Street Journal, American Demographics, and The Los Angeles Times. E-mail: rchekour@agewave.com Web site: http:/www.agewave.com If you want to improve your customer service, you need to know how the customer thinks and feels. It's as simple as that. But when it comes to surveying your customers, it's not simple at all. Surveys are often undermined by communication problems and by mistakes made in the survey process. This article explores the communication barriers and suggests a step-by-step approach to the survey process that will improve your results and help you get what you need so you can take the necessary action to better serve your customers. Robert Shaver is a faculty associate with the Management Institute, a continuing education unit of the University of Wisconsin School of Business. Bob's research and teaching focus on survey research and design, motivation, managing change, problem-solving and decision-making, creativity, and futures. He has developed and conducted employee-attitude surveys for several companies, including SSI Technologies, The Swiss Colony, Viking Insurance Company, and Wausau Paper Mills. Bob teaches regularly in the Management Institute Basic Management Certificate Series programs and has also taught undergraduate courses in decision-making and organizational behavior for the University of Wisconsin School of Business. E-mail: rrs@mi.bus.wisc.edu Return to Best Practices in Customer Service page |