To create a culture takes time and effort. And you can’t demand this quality service from people; they have to want to deliver it from their hearts, and that’s not an easy concept to transfer to people.

How can you create a culture that breeds customer loyalty and continuous satisfaction? Here are some steps you can take:

1) Be clear on what the core values of the business are in respects to service excellence

2) Ensure everyone in the business knows them and understands them

3) Ensure top management agree with and live those values

4) Plan for improvement programmes that can be run in-house, rather than waiting for external customer service courses to come around

5) Identify what areas need to improve in their quality of service to hit the desired standards

6) Ensure all values are driven internally and offer internal customers the same standards as you would for external customers

7) Decide how the behaviours of front-line staff can be agreed and monitored

8 ) Get the right people to be the service ambassadors for your business. You don’t want all your efforts going to waste because people don’t believe in this stuff

9) Plan how you are going to monitor and reward performance at the sharp end

10) Carry out recognition programmes that reward the behaviours you are seeking from your teams

By highlighting how the business will succeed by promoting a customer-focused culture, you are more likely to get support and recognition from the people in authority, whose support is vital for the success of any programme, and from the people who really matter – the teams carrying out the front-of-house jobs that determine how successful the culture will bed in.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

Follow us here on Twitter

But unless you use another, cheaper, closer-to-home method, you might be missing a trick.

Who has the closest interaction with your clients and can often see where the glaringly obvious but often overlooked areas of improvement are?

Naturally, it’s your customer-facing staff, and they have the best opportunities every day to share data and customer responses in real time and from right at the coal face. It shows also that you value their opinions, respect their viewpoints and show that you’re serious about providing the environment for quality customer service.

How do we go about it?

Any system you introduce must be organised so that customer-facing staff understand what information will be useful and how that information can be gained from customers

The system should be simple to use and be quick in its operation (check sheets, report forms, etc)

There should be a simple way of reporting the information, so staff know it is important and will be looked at

Action has to be taken on the feedback

This can provide a good analysis of training and development needs within the department, like coaching in questioning and listening skills, building rapport or empathy

What’s your role in all this?

You need to lay the foundation so everyone knows the reason why the process is being carried out. It shouldn’t be seen as a spying exercise on staff, or to add extra inconvenience to them; they should see the benefits of any such process and how it all aims for excellence in customer service.

You need to walk the talk. If staff see you spouting excellence in what you say, but see you cutting corners and complaining about customers in reality, they aren’t going to take any programme like this seriously.

Staff can be then be involved in group discussions or individual meetings. Managers can begin by asking some or all of the following questions:

* How do we know if our clients are satisfied with our service?
* How would we know if they didn’t?
* What do we need to know to find out about our clients’ perceptions?

Then you can determine the style of questions that can be asked at any time when you contact clients.

Ensure that all staff get to see the results of any work they contribute to, This will mean you are serious about improving quality and they are more willing contribute.

Make sure that the data collected is used to make decisions regarding service improvement. You could design a meeting to share results on report, interpretation, actions and improvements. Make sure you put some consistency into it, and it’s not seen as an ad-hoc process, looked at when you might have the time. If you give it high priority, so will your staff.

Then, put the action plans to work. Ensure your goals are specific and measurable, and have an impact on the areas your staff said needed improving.

Share the successes and otherwise. Let people know how you are measuring excellence and make it a topic of discussion regularly.

Check on whether anything you have initiated needs changing, and actually make those changes. Nothing will kill a new initiative quicker than if you don’t create changes when the very people who are driving that change do not get responses from management.

If you create an atmosphere of excellence, your people will follow and will actually want to be excellent in all their contacts with customers. And that could be the very thing that drives your business forward in the future.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

But how do you offer great customer service, from a management standpoint?

• Start by hiring a great group of people. We’ve spoken quite a bit about interview skills – so use them. Make sure you aren’t only hiring people who can get the job done, but who can get the job done while remaining friendly and interested in their work.
• Make sure you outline a clear set of customer service standards for your team members to follow. They should dictate how they speak to customers, how they act in the presence of customers, and how they respond (in both attitude and time frame) to the needs of their customers. Once you’ve set the standards, hold your team members to them.
• Ensure your team member are getting the training they need. Believe it or not, most people aren’t born working in customer service industries and, as such, the skills needed to deal with people do not come naturally. Ongoing training will support your cause.
• Develop an incentive program through which those who go above and beyond the call of duty can be  rewarded for their efforts. Sure, you should be paying well, but you should show your team members a bit of respect by acknowledging their hard work from time to time as well.
• Take criticism seriously. People who are unhappy with your business aren’t likely to tell you about their experiences – they’ll tell everyone else they know instead. If someone has something to say – listen. Others probably have the same sentiment.

The happier your team members, the more their attitudes will rub off on their customer interactions – guaranteed.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Manager Training

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

Once you develop a strong team you’re going to have to take a step back to look at the way your team members interact with your customers. From there, you’ll need to develop a strong customer service plan. A good customer service plan involves day to day interactions, retention, and future development but before you can dive into the details you need to work on something a bit more generalised – your main customer service promises.

My research has led me to four main promises every good customer service team should be able to keep. They are as follows:

• A good customer service team has the ability to attract good customers – the kind they want- and win them over;
• A good customer service team has the skills necessary to convince those customers to remain loyal and stay with them;
• A good customer service team has a strong brand that emphasizes the value of good customer relationships; and
• A good customer service team always has a positive attitude when it comes to client relationships.

How does your team rate when it comes to fulfilling these promises? Are you able to keep these promises or are there things you can or should change in order to build better relationships?

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

Marketing, in reality, is really much more than your ability to advertise your products, though. Marketing is your ability to brand yourself and make yourself known amongst members of your target audience, including your current client base. Marketing includes the way your organisation treats the public as a whole. It’s a culmination of your values, your philosophies, your team members, and their mindsets.

So when you next start to train a group of new employees, how will you explain your company’s marketing campaigns? The truth is that most of your employees don’t have all of the real skills necessary to develop a strong marketing campaign from A to Z but if you utilize the skills they do have and supplement them with outside resources you’ll do a bang-up job putting your company in the public spotlight.

These are a few things you should consider as you market your organisation:

• Develop a customer service agreement outlining your organision’s mission or goal with respects to customer service. How will you let your customers know what your standards are and how will you get your customer service team to live up to those standards?
• Set a procedure for complaints. Your customers should be allowed to complain if your customer service team doesn’t meet their goals or expectations. You should set a complete system, including who will take the initial complaint and how it will be handled up until it is resolved.
• Don’t ignore those complaints, either. The better you handle them, the less likely it is you’ll lose a customer later on down the line. Even handing a complaint well is a mark of good customer service.
• Constantly communicate with your customers. Let them know what’s going on within your organisation and how you are working to solve problems with your systems to make their experiences with you even better.

Keeping your customers happy IS a marketing method and its one you should take very, very seriously. After all, your current clients play a huge role in your marketing as well – and if they are spreading information about bad experiences you won’t receive as good a response from your traditional marketing campaigns either.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

5. Learn to be Flexible

Or, in reality, learning how to stray from company policy. Let’s say, for example, that the widget you sold Mrs. X broke 2 days after her warranty expired. She’s been a long time customer but your company policy is to never replace widgets after the warranty expires. Would you rather replace Mrs. X’s widget one time or lose her business for the rest of your existence?

4. Be Responsible

If your company made a mistake, own up to it and make a correction. Customers are able to better identify with organisations that can accept responsibility for their shortcomings rather than make excuses for them.

3. Don’t Place Blame

Responsibility and blame really go hand in hand. If you sell computer products – printers, for example- and a customer is having problems installing the drivers what will you do? Will you blame the computer operating system or will you do the research necessary to help your client make the printer work?

2. Avoid Paranoia

There’s an old story about a guy returning a tire to Nordstroms, a popular high-end department chain in the US. The elderly gentleman insisted he had purchased the tire at Nordstroms but there was one problem – Nordstroms doesn’t sell tires. At all. Anywhere. They’re customer service policy, however, is that the customer is always right and they did accept the return of the tire. Weird instances like this shouldn’t send you into a panic. Just because you take back one tire doesn’t mean everyone in the county is going to try to do the same. They’ll likely laugh it off (and you migth consider rephrasing your customer service policies).

1. Make Your Customers Happy

The easiest way to make your customers happy is to “underpromise and over deliver.” If you’re constantly giving customers the best service possible even though they expected less they’ll always be happy.

Try to incorporate a few of these ideas into your customer service training plans. The more skills your customer service representatives develop the happier your clients will be.

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

I find that one of the most important things we have to consider when training our customer service representatives is teaching them the difference between hype and excitement. Knowing the difference will make it easy for your customer service reps to present new products to clients without making false statements.

Hype…

• …is deceptive.
• …attempts to predict outcomes.
• …makes unrealistic promises.
• …doesn’t last long.
• …is impossible.
• …is sales-driven.
• …is not trustworthy.

Excitement…

• …is honest.
• …doesn’t eliminate flaws.
• …is wild and unpredictable.
• …has no set time frames.
• …is realistic.
• …is value-driven.
• …is believable and trustworthy.

Are you starting to see the differences? We can hype up a new product or service but much of what we say will have been fashioned to sound good whether it is true or not. If your customer service team is really excited about a product they’ll be able to talk about it and sell it without making false statements or misleading your current and new customers.

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Courses

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

I’m going to ask you three important questions and you really need to answer them as honestly as possible:

1. If your company fell off the face of the planet overnight would its disappearance impact anyone (individual or organisation) and, if so, what difference would your disappearnce make?
2. If your company disappeared, would your customers miss you? Which ones would miss you most and why would they miss you?
3. If your company disappeared, how long would it take for another one to take your place? And would they do a better job?

The answers to these questions should tell you quite a bit about your organisation. If the products and services you provide aren’t memorable are you really making the impact you want on the marketplace? Shouldn’t you be offering stellar customer service rivaled by none coupled with services that no one else can even come close to offering?

If not, you need to step back, think about your customer service skills (and products) and consider what needs to be changed. You are, after all, in business to survive and succeed. Make sure your customers know you want them to succeed as well. Only then will you really matter.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

If you haven’t already realised it, you’ll learn that there are really three main types of customer that every organisation should strive to have. They are:

• Your current customers. These are the most important because they’ve already made a commitment to you. They’re less likely to leave your organisation if they receive great customer service and, in reality, it costs less to keep them happy than it does to solicit new business.
• Brand new customers. These are the people who are currently purchasing products and services from your competitors. What can you do to show them that your products and services are of a higher quality and would benefit them more than the products they’re currently purchasing?
• Lost customers. Lost customers left your organisation for a reason, but you may be able to win them back. You should, of course, consider this on a case by case basis. You obviously don’t want to try to regain a customer who had a terrible payment history. You should, however, try to regain customers who left because of price, because they thought you didn’t have what they needed, or who may suddenly find the service at the new organisation isn’t as great as they thought it would be.

Make sure your team members understand the three types of customers and how important each is to the growth and success of your organisation. Focus on these three main types of customer and you’re bound to see significant growth in your workgroup!

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Courses

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

There are some additional benefits to developing client loyalty, though, and each has a significant impact on your organisation as a whole. Consider the following:

• Your revenue will grow because loyal customers are more likely to purchase additional products from you as the need arises. They’re also more likely to refer prospects that will result in sales.
• The costs associated with operating your business will decrease. This will happen because you won’t have to spend as much time and money on the acquisition of new customers and because providing good customer service to loyal customers is a very efficient process.
• Your employee retention levels will increase because your employees will be happier with their jobs and satisfied with the work they are doing (which, in turn, creates additional customer loyalty and reduced costs).

It’s easy to see why focusing on strong customer service is important to customer loyalty and the overall success of your business. Do you do anything special to encourage your employees to give better customer service – or to encourage your customers to remain loyal?

Thanks again,

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Manager Training

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”