Thursday, April 30, 2015

Does Your Staff Know Interpersonal Customer Service Skills?

The customer service industry requires employees with a number of interpersonal, skills. Developing these skills and emphasizing them in a job application and interview will help you rise above the job market competition. 

Clear communication is essential in customer service – you need to know what the customer wants, and be able to articulate what you can do for the customer. Enunciating, speaking loudly enough, and employing an upbeat tone, will help you communicate clearly and positively with your customers. These skills are essential in phone communication as well. If you write or email with customers, be sure to use proper grammar and spelling, and choose words and phrases that convey a similarly upbeat attitude.

Listening skills are just as important as communication skills. Listen carefully to the customer to know exactly what she needs and how you can help her. Demonstrate that you are actively listening through body language and responses (nod when you understand something, make eye contact, etc.). Don’t be afraid to ask clarifying questions to make sure you understand the other person. An important aspect of customer service is simply making the customer feel heard.

A positive attitude goes a long way in customer service. Make sure you know all of the benefits of the products or services your company provides, and convey them to your customers. If a customer has a problem with a product or service, focus on what you can do to help him or her. While you don’t want to seem overly happy when a customer is upset, being proactive and optimistic can help a customer stay positive, too.

It is important not only to understand what a customer says, but how a customer feels. An important soft skill is being able to recognize and understand a person’s emotional state. If you struggle to convey empathy, think about being in the customer’s position. How would you feel if you were in her position? How would you like to be treated by an employee? These questions will help you to identify with and better assist your customers.

A sense of humor can make a potentially stressful customer-service interaction more enjoyable. If a customer cracks a silly joke, they will appreciate if you chuckle along with them. However, make sure you are never laughing at a customer (such as when they make a mistake or have trouble with something), but instead laughing with a customer.

A big part of working in customer service is being able to say, “I’m sorry,” whether it’s for a late shipment or the poor quality of a product. You have to be able to sincerely apologize to a customer on behalf of your company, even when the problem was not your fault.

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

The Single Key To Great Customer Service

Advice on providing outstanding customer service tends to fall into two distinct categories.

One is based on folklore sayings such as "The customer is always right"; they sound good but don't give your employees much in the way of practical guidance. The other turns customer service into a series of checklists and canned responses; this sounds useful, but every customer is different and there's no way to codify all the possible responses.

The key just might be good old fashion customer / business interaction. With a well trained staff member that really knows how to listen. "You pick up the phone and can reach a real person!"

Callers get a real person on the second ring instead of an automated call-routing system. Or they emailed and got a surprisingly helpful personal reply instead of an impersonal scripted FAQ response.

And that is it. The secret to GREAT customer service. It is generally a huge plus if the person answering the phone is fluent in the language of the average caller.

Who could have guessed that despite all efforts put into features, pricing, design, partnerships, and more, clients would choose one company over another mainly because they liked their customer service?

What is your ratio of sales staff to customer service staff?

All great service comes from this feeling of generosity and abundance.

Think of all the examples of great service you've encountered: free refills of coffee; letting you use the restrooms even if you're not a customer; extra milk and sugar if you need it; a rep that spends a whole hour with you to answer ALL of your questions.

Contrast those with all the bad experiences you've had: not letting you use a restroom without making a purchase; charging an additional 50 cents for extra sauce; salespeople who don't give you a minute of their time because you don't look like big money.

All terrible service comes from a mindset of scarcity, from business owners who feel they'll go out of business if they don't fiercely guard their bottom line.

They say the reason those in poverty so often stay in poverty is that short-term thinking of desperate survival doesn't leave room to think of long-term solutions. If you really feel secure, abundant, that you have plenty to share, then this feeling of generosity will flow down into all of your interactions with customers.

So share. Be nice. Give refunds. Take a little loss. You should be able to afford it. If not you need to look at your pricing structure.

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

SMART Service Desk Asks How Important Is Your Help Desk?

Well, How Important Is Your Help Desk? Is it more important than the items you sell? Is it more important than your customers? Is your help desk more important than your staff? Before you begin to craft nasty comments or start to leave this blog, think through those questions.

They really are serious questions.  Of course you must have the right products to sell and yes, they are very important.  Yes, without your customers you don’t have a business. Without the right staff nothing gets done properly. So why did we ask if your help desk is more important?

Without the right help desk you could have customers but would they be happy customers?

Without a well-run help desk would customers continue to happy with the products or services they purchased? Without the proper follow-up and care would they use the products properly?

Without the correct help desk software what kind of staff turnover would your company experience? How would that affect your customer retention?

Are those the better and more important questions we should be asking about your business, company or brand?

The key to technology helping a company is keeping IT functions available and operational for use as much as possible.  It is not possible to have 100% operational up time, so what is the best way to handle the times when they are not working?  One very valuable solution is a Help Desk.

Your Help Desk should be a resource designed for IT users or customers to contact when they are having problems with their IT services or products.  Your Help Desk should institute a multi-tiered trouble shooting approach by having personnel with extensive technical knowledge be available to help whoever is in need of that help. Ask yourself when your help desk should be available. Should it be from 9am to 5pm? Should it be a 24/7 resource?

Help Desks are implemented in many different ways, however by following the best practices outlined in ITIL v3, the Help Desk will meet the most important need of the end user, it will get them operational as quickly as possible.  In addition, by following the best practices, the Help Desk will enable the enterprise to have a foundation for the IT department not only to meet the needs of the end user, but for the IT department to link into strategic areas within the company.

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Monday, April 27, 2015

SMART Service Desk Looks At Your Business Solutions

Is your business in need of new customers or do you just want to keep or existing customers? Do you know your existing customer can be the tool you need to attract new customers? Is keeping existing customer while adding new ones sound like the solutions your business, or any business needs?


Companies put tremendous marketing resources towards attracting new customers. And, as important as customer acquisition is for any business, implementing a parallel strategy focused on both customer acquisition and retention will deliver the greatest long-term success. But where should you start?

If your IT Service Management Software is doing its job properly you will be a long way toward keeping your existing customers happy. You will also find that your happy customers will be telling their family, friends and co-workers about how great your business is treating them and how great your products are working out. 

That upbeat social media buzz from existing customers is what will help attract new customers to try your brand or company. The first question on a prospect’s mind when considering a purchase is, “What solutions are available?” Your goal is to create awareness and make sure that your solution meets the buyers’ need when they’re ready to make a decision. What better resource than you existing happy customers. You want to use necessary resources to make sure they stay happy customers. This goes back to how well your IT Service Management Software is working.

Social network users are constantly sharing, curating and consuming informational content. Often, the headline or a short description of the content appears on the social network together with a link to view the content on a company website. Businesses need to share this informational content and have it written for prospects who are in research mode, learning about the solutions that are available.

Businesses that successfully convert new customers from social media create and distribute content that provides proof points to the sale. Content that assists in meeting this goal proves that your solution provides more value than the other solutions the prospect has researched. 

Businesses that create content that teaches customers how to get the most out of their product or service will increase customer satisfaction. This content can be part of information included at time of purchase or present later on as education videos on their website or YouTube.

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Friday, April 24, 2015

Try SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software For Your Business

Do you know when it is the right time to add or update new IT Service Management Software?  That pretty depends on what we are talking about.  Could it be… When is it the right time to retire?  When is it the right time to buy a new house? When is it the right time to start a family?


When is it the right time for your business to do something about your customer service headaches? Now there is a question that just might be keeping you up at night. Or do you just lay there watching your customers jump over the fence rather than counting sheep?

And, may I ask, just where are those customers jumping to? Or maybe, what are they jumping away from? Do you want to wait until all of your competitors have already improved their customer service?  That sounds like more than a little bit too late! In fact that sounds like a move that may end any chance of being competitive.

Finding a new customer is one thing. Have that customer return for another purchase is another matter altogether. Keeping your customers long-term is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Have you heard the expression, “You don’t know what you don’t know?”  Unless you have a customer service management system in place that is exactly where you are… You don’t know what you don’t know and you don’t know it about the most important part of your business, your customers.

There is no need to lose sleep even one more night.  Your customer service business solution is as near as your phone, SMART Service Desk at 602-235-0975. Are you picking up your phone yet?  Why not?

Our system is easy to implement, easy to use, expandable and the best news yet, is that it is affordable.  Now are picking up your phone?

Do we need to say it again? SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software allows you to deliver a better, more efficient and personalized customer experience that is easy to implement, quickly establish and very cost effective.

Does there need to be a different question?

Are you looking for customer service solutions to help you deal with customer interaction? SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software should be your solutions. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Thursday, April 23, 2015

SMART Service Desk Asks: How Well Do You Educate Your Customers?

Did you know that educating your customer is a very big plus in your marketing efforts? Marketing is nothing more than understanding the needs of your customers and then communicating to them the superior advantages and benefits they can derive by doing business with you and purchasing your products. Think of marketing as ongoing education. You are educating customers, prospects, and referral sources why it’s in their best interest to do business with your company.

Customer education is (or should be) an integral part of your Know – Like – Trust cycle. How well you do this shows up on your bottom line.

Here is what should make up your cycle of sales… Bring in customers… Keep the customers you have… Bring in more customers… Increase your average transaction size… Increase the frequency of purchases.

Many businesses have a lot to say to their customers, but they don’t take the time to consider whether the message they’re relaying is one their clients need to hear. In a world of nonstop marketing ploys, what your customers really want is some insight.

There’s a big difference between marketing to your customer and educating him. A lot of companies believe they’re educating their consumers because they’re elaborating upon the features, advantages, and benefits of their products. What’s relevant to the consumer, however, isn’t what the company values about its own product, but what the product can do to solve a problem for him. By using its marketing to do a lot of navel-gazing, a business shortchanges its customers by only providing them with the information it deems important.

When you’re just marketing to people, you’re trying to sell them on your products. When you’re educating people, you’re helping them understand the benefits of your solutions. Consumers can find information anywhere these days, but when it comes from you, the benefit is twofold: you establish a more knowledgeable customer base and you develop longstanding loyalty.

Does everyone need your product? Simple, all you need to do is to educate them about their need and how easy it is to make that purchase.

If sales is truly a transfer of confidence (Know – Like – Trust) from the seller to the buyer, an educated customer is a buyer. Assuming, of course, you can get your message to enough happy customers and continue to keep them.

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Service Desks Need To Learn From Their Customers

Is your customer service and support cutting-edge, up-to-date or is your customer service more than just a bit old-school? Did you know the best way you can improve is with the best SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software and by learning to listen to your customers.

Is your service desk run by one “IT guy” or via service desk software?

Never put the service desk before your customer’s needs. Don’t implement strict procedures whereby you will only deal with issues that are submitted as a ticket and confined to the service desk.  Instead take in requests/incidents via every method of communication available to you and your customers – make your company/brand widely accessible. 

It’s first about helping customers not following IT-created procedures and processes.

Learn to listen to your customer and their issues. Understand them for their point-of-view. It’s important that you don’t just hear the words but that you understand the tone of voice (and where appropriate body language), and most importantly that you don't rate the severity of the issue against the IT manual you have in your desk drawer. 

The customers’ problem may not be of high importance to the IT department but it's important enough to the customer for them to have taken time out of their precious working day to seek advice and help.

Learn to anticipate customer’s needs. Don't make a decision based solely on how it works for the IT department. You need to think about how it affects the people in the organization. Remember that if IT fails business people cannot do their job properly, and chances are these are the people making money for the business. Remember that they probably pay your wages – you are their overhead. Put yourself in their position in the context of IT and support.

Always respond to customer’s needs. Nobody wants to hear the word “no” or “we can't help.” Even when you cannot meet all customer needs or fix all their issues there will always be something that you can do to make their IT (but business-affecting) issue easier to deal with.

Regularly ask for feedback. Encourage and welcome suggestions on how you can improve IT support, this will help prevent future issues with support and also help you better understand your customers.

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

SMART Service Desk Asks Do You Cater To Your Customers?

Do you cater to your customers? Step one in that process is to remember the following “It's Not About You... It's Really About Them!”

The basic rule you learned in kindergarten is the core of customer service: treat others the way you'd like to be treated: with dignity, respect and courtesy. 

If you can follow the Golden rule consistently you will be well on your way to becoming a customer service professional. It's easy in principle but often gets overlooked when problems arise. Treat your customers as intelligent people worthy of respect, entitled to information.

We have all been blessed with two ears and one mouth. This configuration suggests we should listen twice as much as we speak. In customer service situations, listening skills hold the key to satisfying customers. Before you can solve customers' problems you must understand them. You do this by listening. Really listening. Listen for words and concepts; listen for facts and emotion; listen for problems and solutions, which are often embedded in the information customers give you.

"Hire for Smile and Train for Skills" is Southwest Airlines' hiring philosophy. It reflects their belief that a new hire with a positive attitude can be trained for new skills, whereas a skilled hire with a bad attitude is far more toxic, to customers and other employees alike. 

Whatever your skill level, your attitude can enhance it. Stay positive and endeavor to make a difference and you will. And remember, your attitude is contagious. If yours is positive its effect will be too.

The customer may not always be right, but the customer is always the customer. In a sense, you work for your customers. They too are your boss. Keep them happy and you'll keep your boss happy too.

Many customer service representatives fail to realize the important role they play within a company. Companies spend thousands of dollars attracting new customers, yet a skilled service representative can save such hard earned customers from migrating to competitors when problems arise.

Give your customer service representatives the software support they need, SMART Service Desk.

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Monday, April 20, 2015

SMART Service Desk Presents Understanding What Your Customers Need

If you can always have what your customer needs in stock will go a long way to being very successful in business.

Did you know that SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software can go a long way toward helping you reach that goal?

However good your product or service is, the simple truth is that no-one will buy it if they don't want it or believe they don't need it. And you won't persuade anyone that they want or need to buy what you're offering unless you clearly understand what it is your customers really want.

Knowing and understanding customer needs should be the focus of every business, whether it sells directly to retail customers or to other businesses. Once you have this knowledge, you can use it to persuade potential and existing customers that buying from you is in their best interests.

Consumers have more power than ever before, thanks to social media, easy on-line comparison-shopping, and a proliferation of choices. Customer diversity continues to increase, putting a premium on micro-segmentation and deep customer insight.

Your software should help decrease the noise-to-data ratio, the data deluge occasioned by the Internet and actually make it easier to understand your customers.

Economic uncertainty and data overload confuse customers as well, making them less interested in products than in flexible, adaptive solutions. We can all agree customers are less loyal and far less trusting than they used to be. This is especially true in industries whose reputations suffered during the financial crisis, including banking, pharmaceuticals, energy, airlines and media. But even if you're in an unrelated industry, you’re likely to feel some of the same effect.

You need to learn to track key customers’ experiences as they traverse your company’s pathways and note where the experience breaks down.  Some hospitals ask interns to experience the check-in process as fake patients. 

One client asked managers to listen in on its call center. If you can’t exactly put yourself through a customer experience, try role-playing exercises at all points of the customer’s experience within your brand.

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Friday, April 17, 2015

Your Business Needs SMART Service Desk

As you know, your customer expectations for service are rising every day. Being able to meet these new needs often means providing a type of personalized service that goes above and beyond what your competitors can deliver.

Give your customers the answers and solutions they need, whenever and where-ever they need them. Today’s customers expect to have access to customer service and on their terms. And that means providing them with options to access and support 24 / 7.



Your customers expect a deeper, more satisfactory experience with your company. Our customer care solutions improve their experience at every touch-point, from simple billing questions to Tier III technical support, and from outbound problem resolution to relevant, personalized sales offers.

We take a people-centric view of the customer experience. Our robust mobility and social business solutions empower your employees to collaborate, communicate, and carry out their customer service tasks with the best information and tools available. 

Our managed services are dedicated to optimizing the customer experience, regardless of the device your customer chooses to use to connect to you with. And then, as headlines regularly remind us, all of these conversations and transactions must be conducted in a secure and safe manner.

Customer care has moved from the back office to the front lines with the explosion of mobility, social, and cloud. IT organizations find themselves in the center of the customer experience supporting critical touch-points including online and mobile applications. 

Many companies are struggling to support these services and find themselves in a constantly reactive state. The result is that business performance and customer experience suffers. SMART Service Desk Management offers an IT organization the core capabilities to provide a true consumer experience for IT services; from a service strategy, to a strong service portfolio and a great user experience.

Our mission is to improve the way organizations get and keep loyal customers. Our solutions have proven to dramatically impact service performance and consistently exceed customer expectations.

Exceptional customer service requires more than knowing what to do. It also involves attitudes, motives and values. Participants in customer service identify dimensions that influence delivery of exceptional customer service in the future. When these dimensions are in alignment, improved job satisfaction, increased teamwork and customer loyalty result.

Finally, SMART Service Desk is where your customers are. Our multichannel, global environments provide service in your customers’ preferred language and channel, including: phone, social media, chat, email, and Web self-service.

At SMART Service Desk we are here to bring you solutions. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Do Your Customers Know More Than Your Sales Staff?

Do you know that research shows consumers no longer perceive a distinction between online and brick and mortar shopping? Whether it’s buying from their laptop, browsing main street shops or hanging out at the mall, it’s all shopping. To adapt to the competitive new reality, smart retailers are drawing on classic retailing truths of the past and augmenting them for the now.

Innovative retailers are embracing this new reality, using digital to extend their storefronts. These are five observations on how shopping is changing.

Today’s typical consumer is much better educated than ever before. Fast talking sales people have lost their edge when it comes to being pushy in closing a sale using a customer’s ignorance to move them to a substitute.

In the past people came into stores with little to no knowledge and relied on a salesperson to advise them on what to buy.

Today’s shoppers have become accustomed to doing their own research to get the maximum value out of every dollar they spend, and to feel secure about the purchases they’re making. 

With this power shift comes a great opportunity for retailers; those that use tools and insights from the web have the opportunity to close the gap between the smart online consumer and the offline retailer, and to stand out in a competitive marketplace. 

Every moment in a consumer’s educational journey matters. To win these moments, smart retailers need to be there when inspiration strikes consumers and as they start researching purchases online.

The Google Effect has changed shopping from the bottom up. There was a time when a person searching for information would have turned to a library, opened an encyclopedia, or maybe contacted a professional for the answer.

Today that same individual goes to their computer, smartphone, or tablet, points that device to Google (or their search engine of choice) and within seconds accesses not one, but many possible sources of answers to their query. Yes, it can be argued that in some cases their information and answers may be incorrect, but they are still going to feel empowered.

Is your business ready for this new breed of shopper?

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Do You Bring A Fun Factor To Shopping?

Shopping, one of America's favorite pastimes is changing rapidly. Is your brand, company or business ready for that evolving future?

When it comes to shopping, more Americans are skipping the stores using their computer and now pulling out their smartphones and tablets. Still, there's more on the horizon for shopping than just point-and-clicking.



No one thinks physical stores are going away permanently. But because of the frenetic pace of advances in technology and online shopping, stores that survive and prosper will likely offer amenities and services that are more about experiences and less about selling a product. Think: Apple Inc.'s stores complete with Genius Bars.

Among the things technology watchers are predicting are holograms in dressing rooms that will allow shoppers to try on clothes without getting undressed. Their homes will be equipped with smart technology that will order light bulbs before they go dark and orange juice before they run out. Perhaps they'll be able to print out a full version of dinner ware and other physical products using 3-D technology in stores or even at home.

Shoppers just touch their smartphones to a coded tag on the item and then select a color and size on their phone. Technology in the store keeps track of the items, and by the time a shopper is ready to try them on, they're already at the dressing room or checkout, customer’s choice.

Convince and choice are the biggest factors that will be driving this new breed of accommodating technology. 

Unlike other retailers that use tablets as displays or payment systems, there is a beauty sample delivery service aimed for a more customer-centric approach. Like browsing online, the iPads in the stores gently nudge shoppers to popular items in a matching or related category. The screen near the skincare products, for example, displays six hand-picked skin-related items and the accompanying reviews from the beauty retailer's website.

Even a store layout can suggests a website. Unlike in Sephora or a department store, products are organized by type, not company. Instead of having an Essie kiosk, all the pink nail polishes from all the different brands are in a bin together, for example. That makes the shopping experience feel a lot more like searching a website, where people tend to browse terms like "blush" rather than the entire offerings of a given beauty brand.

Are you ready for these changes and those in the customer service areas?

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com


Tuesday, April 14, 2015

You Do Listen To Your Customers… Don’t You?

A good business will spend a lot of time talking to their customers face to face. You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers.

Even if your face to face is done with video chat, make time for customer communications.

Remember not to hard sell, during open communications. Perhaps, you could even say if you find yourself slipping into “Hard Sell” you have failed during your other communications.



It’s tempting! You’ve got an awesome product and you really want to make sure as many people as possible make that purchase, but the truth is, no one likes being sold to. If you come across as knowledgeable and helpful, you’ll do far better with potential customers. Sharing the story behind your products, or the unique aspects of your business is more authentic, and that authenticity will make your brand memorable and more appealing. 

Just be careful not to take this point too far. You still need to be confident in your product and prove that what you sell is worth buying.

Think of it as networking. It doesn’t have to just be about selling. This is a great opportunity to get to know some of your local customers and create relationships with them. Remember that every great business is built on the foundation of supporters and customers: people who keep coming back for more. Do your best to get to know people who seem truly interested in your business. You might even meet other business owners who you can learn from, or share your own knowledge and experiences.

Try to always get customer feedback. Along with networking, you can also use this opportunity to try and get feedback from your customers. Do they like your products? Where do they typically shop for these kinds of items? Do they have any suggestions for improvements? Why do they chose your products now? Keep in mind that this should happen naturally through conversation and not come across as some sort of survey. You still want them to have a pleasant experience! They should feel as though they’re chatting rather than talking business.

First and foremost, always be polite. While this goes without saying, it will go a long way in creating repeat customers. A friendly, positive attitude and professional demeanor will help you gain your customer’s trust. Don’t forget to say ‘thank you’ to everyone. They didn’t have to shop with you, or even consider your company!

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Monday, April 13, 2015

Increasing Your Know, Like and Trust Factor

How do your increase your customer base?  You get more people to know, like and trust your business, company or brand. The current reality is, your audience won’t grow real momentum until you’ve mastered your “know, like, trust” factor.




Offer the right products. Research, ask questions, and dig deep to ensure you create what your target market wants to consume.

Develop a valuable free product: Use it as an incentive to build your email list. First discover what’s keeping your audience up at night, then offer a detailed solution packaged in an eBook, special report, or white paper.

Encourage sharing to a wider audience: This expands your network and helps more people get to know you. Social media simplifies the mechanics of sharing, but to leverage its power you must be remarkable in some way … thought-provoking, engaging, stimulating and entertaining.

Build relationships with key influencers: In the authority stakes (as in all of professional life), who you know is almost as important as what you know. Use social networking and blog post commenting to attract the attention of influencers in your topic. Don’t be a suck-up, but be smart and tactical. After all, you won’t be the only one vying for their attention!

Consider creating a blog: Focus on your target market, express your business personality, and use it as a base to express your unique company perspective. Some great advice sites are out there to help you get better at this.

Interview experts in your field. This proven technique lets you tap into the audience of an authority figure.

Guest blog: If you write articulate, interesting, and unique guest posts for relevant market blogs, you can tap into a whole new audience. It’s the quickest way to get known by more people.

Be creative: Content marketing isn’t all about the written word. You can explore webinars, product reviews, podcasts, infographics, white papers, eBooks, and video to name a few. What would appeal to your audience?

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Friday, April 10, 2015

Which Software Will Solve Your Problems

There is no question that there are many choices of customer service software for you to choose from. But, like all categories of products they all aren’t created equally. One thing is for sure they have many different price points.



Another area that you have to consider is how much it costs to implement the solution. There are two other related factors.  How long it takes to implement the different products and how long it takes to train your staff (or new staff) to be able to successfully use the product.

There is a solution that is both robust and easy to implement and use. SMART Service Desk is that solution. It is scalable in cost so that no company is too small to benefit from our solutions.

Increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. Our SMART Service Desk solutions can be adapted very quickly, easily and economically to meet your exact business needs. Achieve faster implementation, successful change management, and lower total cost of ownership with our 100% configurable, intuitive and affordable solutions.

Here is what one of our customers said about SMART Service Desk; "We needed a tool with automated workflow and easy to use interface. SMART Service Desk’s built-in workflow has made big improvements in our Service Operations - especially having online approval."

Your company can benefit from improved customer satisfaction and life time value from initial contact to post-sales support. SMART Service Desk provides a detailed 360 degree view of your customer interactions. You can improve customer service and delivery operations, maximize revenue opportunities and delight your customers with our affordable and mobile solution.

SMART Customer relationship management (CRM) software, offered both on-premise and cloud-based CRM, help businesses reduce costs and increase profitability by organizing and automating business processes to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty in the sales, marketing, and customer service fields.

Through SMART CRM solutions we deliver outstanding ROI through automation in customer service, and sales force automation. We also offer mobile apps that allow you to manage your customer relationships on your mobile devices, and software integration adaptors that integrate data and reporting from social media directly into your CRM application.

With our solutions your business can foster employee engagement, retention and productivity. Your satisfied employees can help create more satisfied customers and Improve processes, products, and services, and ultimately your organizational profitability.

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.


SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Will Advanced Case Management Help Your Business?

Should we first define Advanced Case Management? Advanced case management (ACM), also known as dynamic or adaptive case management, refers to the coordination of a service request in finance, health, legal, citizen or human resources-related matters, on behalf of a subject such as a customer, a citizen, or an employee.

The concept of ACM has been embraced by large corporations such as IBM, and is most simply defined as a comprehensive strategy that approaches cases from every possible angle, simultaneously emphasizing the importance of integration in meeting the needs of a client, also known as management from a 360 degree perspective. Can it be as simple as the following point-of-view... that "Advanced Case Management, rather than being a new technology, is actually just a new way of thinking about how the technology we use integrates with the services a company provides."

The tasks required by a case usually involve creating a case folder or container for all required artifacts. Another important step in the processing of a case involves following business procedures, both determined and ad hoc, ensuring the delivery of the service. Due to the dynamic and unique nature of each case, the requested services usually require collaboration with other specialized workers both inside and outside of the servicing organization. When combined, case management is highly collaborative, dynamic, and contextual in nature, with events driving a long lived case-based business process. The aggregation of many cases with a semblance of consistency, insight, and optimization becomes a challenging effort for both the case worker and the organization.

Advanced case management uses multiple services, including content management, business process management, business rules management, analytics, business monitoring, collaboration, integration, document capture, document creation, and case design.

Does your business need help with its advanced Case Management in the customer service or human relations realm?

SMART HR Case Management is a web based Service Automation Application Software, which streamlines HR service delivery by using business process automation, which enables you to increase productivity, accelerate business performance, and lower your cost of ownership. With an easy to build, HR service catalog, organizations can present to employees pre-defined services / queries related to employee benefits or relations.

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

IT Service Management Software Goals

IT Service Management Software Goals.  Does that statement seem strange to you? Companies have goals and people have goals, but can software have goals? 

Software can certainly help you reach your goals.  But, can it truly have goals of its own? If it is designed by people who know the IT Service Management industry inside and out it can be created from the ground up to direct its users toward what are common senses goals that they should be meeting.



Best of all it can be designed to have adaptations so it can be responsive to changes as marketing and service evolve.

IT service desk software design goals may be as simple as not falling behind on addressing IT service requests.  They can also be as aspiring as increasing first-call resolution rate by a certain percentage or implementing service level agreements for IT service management.

It’s impossible to manage goals that you don’t measure for. The first step in improving IT service management should involve identifying your key performance markers that help you track IT service desk performance. Once this is accomplished, you can plan for reaching service goals, and everyone will have a better understanding of how to hold themselves accountable for doing their part. 

IT executives are tasked with transforming their IT organizations from a traditional technology provider to a service provider. Meeting this challenge requires a systematic and lifecycle approach to IT service management (ITSM), to align business goals and IT objectives. Should your software package not be designed to help you meet these very same tasks?

Drive better business outcomes by leveraging 100% of your business data. Big Data analytics promote proactive problem solving, user self-sufficiency and process improvement by delivering connected intelligence to ITSM users. Powerful, scalable, easy to use and desktop or cloud enabled solutions need to be part of the mix.

Reduce hardware and software costs while optimizing your ROI, and end-to-end cost and depreciation to make more informed decisions about your IT goals and solutions.

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

What Does It Take To Win A J.D. Power Award

Just what does it take to win a J.D. Power Customer Service Award? Does your company or business have the training and tools it takes to even be considered?

From the J.D. Power website:

Based on ongoing, cross-industry customer feedback, J.D. Power provides businesses with opportunities to pursue top performance certification. 

These distinguished certification programs are designed to help businesses at a local and national level improve their operations through a combination of voice-of-the-customer feedback and other relevant measures such as a rigorous on-site evaluation of customer service processes. Companies must attain a high level of performance in sales and/or service excellence as compared to a national benchmark to become recognized.

Certified Contact Center Program

The J.D. Power Certified Contact Center ProgramSM offers meaningful recognition to boost awareness, sales, and profits by sending a clear and unequivocal message to your customers and entire organization that you're dedicated to providing the highest levels of customer satisfaction.

    Learn more about Contact Center Certification   http://www.jdpower.com/node/3939
    See the list of Certified Contact Centers    http://www.jdpower.com/node/3805

Certified Call Center Program for Outsourcers

The J.D. Power Certified Call Center Program for Outsourcers sends a clear and unequivocal message to the marketplace that your call center provides the highest quality of customer service to the end consumer. Certification from J.D. Power and Associates, a globally renowned leader in customer satisfaction, is designed to underscore your commitment to customer satisfaction and differentiate your company from your competitors.

Certified Technology Service & Support Program

The J.D. Power Certified Technology Service and Support (CTSS) ProgramSM enables enterprise customers to gain confidence in customer service operations before they make purchasing decisions. Jointly developed by J.D. Power and the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA), the CTSS program sets a new standard for excellence in service and support addressing the critical challenges that service organizations face in today's highly competitive market.

SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software is a great start to creating your very own customer service legends. We know that your satisfied customers will return again and again. Let us help you increase productivity, reduce operations cost and improve customer experience with our ITIL compliant solutions. No matter the size of your business we have your customer retention solutions.

SMART Service Desk is not associated or affiliated with J.D. Power in any way and provides this information for educational purposes only.

SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com