If Not Now, When Will You Update Your IT Service Management Software?

When 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 ask for a raise?

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 that same customer 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 another 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

SMART Service Desk Says Customer Service Is A Lifestyle Not A Department

In the world of customer service, a lot of attention is given to the notion of customer satisfaction or absolute delight. There have been entire books written about it, and training classes offered on how to do it are running over from the Internet. Influential customer service authorities tell us we’ve failed if we don’t delight every customer and do that with every interaction. You might ask is this concept even realistic and are any businesses actually coming near achieving that?

Mythological tales are nervously retold around the customer service water cooler. Have you heard this one? A store once gave a customer a refund on a camera brand despite the fact that the store didn’t even carry that brand of cameras. Why, to delight a long time customer.

There are also valid arguments against trying to delight everyone. Giving one customer a refund on items you don’t even sell is the stuff of legend, but you’ll go bankrupt if you do it for every unhappy customer. Something that delights one customer may even annoy another. What delights a customer today may simply satisfy that same customer tomorrow as they become more familiar with a new level of customer service. What you teach your customer they come to expect.

So, is customer delight truly a business imperative? Or, is focusing on customer satisfaction enough?

The answer is somewhere around the midpoint. Delight and satisfaction (much like want and need) actually co-exist quite nicely. In fact, they truly support each other.

Our predisposition to only notice something out-of-the-ordinary plays an important role in customers’ perceptions of customer service. If a customer has three satisfactory service experiences with your company and one extraordinary one, their overall expectation will be heavily influenced by the extraordinary happenstance.

Imagine a frequent flyer who settles into a comfortable routine on his preferred airline. The flights are generally on time, the flight attendants are friendly, and his VIP status provides a few extra perks that make his travel more pleasant. Then one January day, a severe storm in the northeast cancels all departing flights and the traveler must wait until the following day to fly home. While other passengers scramble for accommodations, an airline employee seizes the opportunity to be a hero and books the frequent traveler in a nice hotel room at no charge. Hero moments don’t happen every day, but they can be the experiences that come to be expected.

Does your IT Service Management Software support this kind of delight and satisfaction?

In order to help you and your business we need to open a dialog we can best understand how SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software can be your businesses’ solution. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing cost effective solutions.

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

SMART Service Desk Is IT Service Management Software

What is IT Service Management Software? Software that is a process-based and intended to align the delivery of information technology (IT) services with needs of the business, with emphasis on benefits to customers.

IT Service Management involves a paradigm shift from managing IT as stacks of individual hardware and software components to managing the delivery of support and customer retention services that help an organization achieve its marketing or information goals. The IT department in a large organization should create service level agreements so that services can be measured, justified and perhaps compared with those of third-party providers.

IT Service Management Software brings the benefits of cost savings, alignment with business, and operational efficiency and these benefits are encouraging more businesses to embrace ITIL service management practices. SMART Service Desk delivers IT service management (ITSM), business and workforce enablement with the goal of customer service excellence.

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.

SMART Service Desk - IT Service Management Suite is a flexible and robust solution that can be deployed via Purchased On-Premise, Subscription On-Premise and Cloud Subscription, with the portability to switch between different solutions. It is simple, yet comprehensive; highly configurable ITSM Suite developed in alignment with the ITIL best practice framework to manage the entire service life-cycle across. We offer an integrated and modular solution that is designed to support multiple languages.

It should come as no surprise that nearly 90% of today's customers will stop doing business with any company based solely on a single bad customer experience. News of these negative experiences will spread rapidly through social media.

The challenge of effective IT Service management is to analyze the causes of incidents and permanently remove them by providing solutions for recurring incidents. Lack of effective problem management techniques can cause high costs and low motivation for both users and support staff, since similar incidents have to be resolved repeatedly without anyone able to provide permanent solution.

In order to help you and your business we need to open a dialog we can best understand how SMART Service Desk IT Service Management Software can be your businesses’ solution. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing cost effective solutions.

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

SMART Service Desk Allows Businesses To React Faster

We all know that a Navy destroyer can turn and maneuver faster than an aircraft carrier. A small or medium sized business can react to changes in the market much faster that the huge corporate giants.

Today's information technologies create a whole new business environment by providing powerful tools to acquire, analyses and apply what they learn from software like SMART Service Desk.

Keeping pace in an increasingly competitive world, your business needs to run as efficiently and streamlined as possible.

Learning to give employees secure, consistent access to information should be a first priority. You have an advantage over larger competitors because you can react quickly to business changes. But you can quickly lose this edge if your company information gathering network is frequently down, sluggish, or unsecured. A secure, reliable network based on intelligent software lets your employees access the information and tools they need to keep ahead of competitors.

Create effective business processes with partners. Some large companies make efficient, secure business processes a prerequisite for doing business with them. To meet the business needs of your partners, you need a secure, reliable information approach.

You need streamlined customer communications. Delivering fast, knowledgeable service is the best way to keep customers satisfied. Linking your network phone system to a customer relationship management like the SMART Service Desk solution is a great way to enhance customer communications. When a customer calls, a pop-up window with their records appears on an employee's computer screen or communications device.

Every business should have a strategic plan in place before the big day arrives, most medium sized business owners are so busy just trying to survive that strategic planning and customer relations management often gets relegated to the “I’ll get to it tomorrow list.”

Planning for future growth it will be helpful to create a to-do list, crunch the numbers and marshal your human and production resources. It's always easier to fight a battle on paper (or a computer spreadsheet) than to shoot first and ask questions later. No matter how much pressure you're getting from your customers to deliver the goods right now, you need to take the time to sit down with your partner or staff to map out a plan of attack. 

For a manufacturing company or a wholesale distributor, this means estimating how many units of your product you think your customers will buy and how much it'll cost to produce or import them. A service company like an ad agency or a web design firm will have to estimate how many additional employees or independent contractors will be needed to service the expected influx of new accounts.  

In order to help you and your business we need to open a dialog we can best understand how SMART Service Desk can be your businesses’ solution. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing cost effective solutions.

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

SMART Service Desk Asks How Big Is Your Business

There are many ways when being a small business can give you an advantage as you seek to remain efficient or win customers. Other time when appearing to be larger than you actually are is a wiser move. How can your business create the impression of being bigger? Here are four ideas that may help.



Incorporate

An incorporated business is perceived to be a bigger company. Incorporation can be a quick, inexpensive and relatively easy task – it might even enable you to pay less tax and take more out of your business. Working out roughly whether you would be better off as an LLC company is simple enough to do, although you should seek tailored advice from a qualified accountant before making definite plans to change the structure of your business.


Build Your Brand

Successful big businesses realize the importance of having a world-class brand and making full use of its potential. Branding is much more than your choice of corporate colors, typefaces or catchy strapline, of course. Branding is best defined as the experience customers have when they engage with your business, so it extends to such things as how you dress and how you answer the phone or communicate by email. Your business might be small, but that doesn’t mean you should have limited ambitions. Having a brilliant brand can help you to punch above your weight.

Improve Your Website 

On the whole, large companies have good websites. Having budget to commission a top agency helps, of course. When potential customers want to find out more about you, chances are they will look online, which is where you can come unstuck if your website looks like a basic DIY job, complete with gaudy colors, poorly chosen typefaces, terrible imagery or badly written copy.  If you want to appear bigger, now could be the perfect time to improve your website or (budget permitting) get a brand new one done. You might be a small business, but there’s no reason you cannot have a website that makes a big impression – often for a fraction of the money spent by the ‘big boys’. While you’re at it, make sure your email address looks the part, too. People who work for larger businesses don’t normally use free webmail addresses (eg Gmail, Yahoo! or AOL) for work emails.

Does Your Address Impress?

Including your address on your website could immediately show that yours is a home-based business. Even if not, potential customers can quickly search online to find your exact location, and if that’s in a residential area, they’re likely to work out you’re a small home-based business. Paying for a PO Box address can provide a solution or you could rent a trading address, perhaps in a more desirable area of town. There’s nothing wrong with being a home-based business, of course, but bigger companies aren’t usually operated from someone’s home.

In order to help you and your business we need to open a dialog  we can best understand how SMART Service Desk can be your businesses’ solution. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing cost effective solutions.

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

SMART Service Desk Demonstration

Are you curious how SMART Service Desk can help you take your business to the next level in 2015?  You can watch a short demonstration on YouTube.  The correct URL is http://youtu.be/cLMpTVIyVsM

Understand how you can enable comprehensive, best practice based Incident / Case management processes via intuitive, easily adopted, enterprise scale web technology. Integrates core service and support components into one complete Help Desk solution which help you to reduce service costs and increase service delivery operational efficiency. 

Learn to manage service issues from the initial call; too complete job and service restoration. With SMART Service Desk you can reduce call volumes and encourage user self-service by letting users search FAQs, approved solutions, and workarounds. You can use Increase customer / user satisfaction ratings using surveys to identify your company weaknesses.

Many business find that Customer Surveys are effective tools to help understand your customer satisfaction issues as well as to see how well you are meeting your customer needs.

Our SMART Survey Management solution is complete functionally rich software, which can be can used to do just that.

Surveys for Service Support Delivery: Get Support Feedback, after completion of Incident or service Request Tickets. You can integrate employee or customer feedback with your existing business processes.

Surveys for Customer Feedback: Measure and evaluate customer satisfaction, every time a customer interacts with your company. You can take actions and solve customer issues based on real-time feedback.

Surveys for Employee Feedbacks: Get periodic employee surveys, since satisfied and motivated employees create more satisfied customers.

Surveys for Training Feedback: Get end of course, student satisfaction feedback. This may help show weakness that can occur in your educational or instructor areas.

SMART Survey Management Solution, can be integrated with your existing Human Recourse, ERP Systems and your websites.

In order to help you and your business we need to open a dialog so we can best understand how SMART Service Desk can be your businesses’ solution. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing cost effective solutions.

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

Do You Walk In Your Customer’s Shoes?

The need to be empathetic with your customers is often overlooked by many businesses. One reason is that understanding your customer’s needs is much harder than tracking the hard numbers from sales. But not fully understanding your customer can mean you are missing out on many sales possibilities.

Just what does that old saying mean… “Walk a mile in someone’s shoes”? Or, the Native American  Proverb – “Never criticize a man until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins.” They are about truly understanding what the other person is going through.

There is an expanded version of that old proverb and it goes… Don't judge me till you walk a mile in my shoes or live a day of my life. Is your idea successful selling “all you need to do is stock your business with just the items that you like?”

If that is your method how do you know about sales you may be missing out on?

What software tools is your business using to track, follow-up, respond and service your customers? If they call, email or post to social media with a question or complaint how does your business make sure that their needs are addressed and don’t fall through the cracks?

Being able to empathize means to be capable of identifying and understanding another person’s feelings, without experiencing them for yourself at that particular moment. This means in turn that it becomes complicated at times to understand what a person is undergoing, if you haven’t undergone it for yourself.

Now, if you think about events since the beginning of the year, I’m pretty sure that there was at least one person, a colleague, your boss or even a friend – whosoever – that has angered you for any reason. If you reflect what happened in this situation, angered emotions might stir up again, but this time try to recall the situation – if possible – as unemotional as possible.

You want to make sure that your business communications with your customers put their needs center stage and that all promised follow-up actually occurs. Even if that needs to happen across several different employees. What tools do you have in place to improve and grow your business during 2015?

We have your solutions and are ready to help grow your business. Is this The knock on your door?

In order to help you and your business you need to open a dialog so we can best understand how SMART Service Desk can be your businesses’ 2015 solutions. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing our very efficient easily installed and cost effective solutions.

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

Put Customers First

When it comes to putting customers first, many businesses are a lot more talk than action. If you are unsure what it really means to put your customers first, check out these seven ideas to place your customers back at the top of your business thinking. That is what they deserve.

Fulfill Customer Needs
Meeting customer needs is the first step to putting them first in your business. Instead of looking for a way to market new products for the purpose of making a profit, think about how your products and services meet the needs of your customers and market them as such.

Really Listen 
To know what your customers’ needs are, you need to be ready to listen to what they have to say. Active listening involves moving beyond the mere words to the true message in those words. Find out what your customers want and what they think of your business and adjust accordingly.

Pay Attention to Social Media
Social media is an essential tool in customer service today. By practicing effective customer management online, you will be prepared to address customer needs and concerns much more efficiently.

Keep The Right People
To ensure your customers receive a first-class experience with your company every time, staff your front office with the right people. Choose employees that are willing and able to put your customers first as well.

Provide Proper Tools and Training
Once you have the right people on staff, equip them to make your customers a priority through proper training. Provide the Tools your staff needs. Ongoing training offers employees the tools necessary to serve customers across a wide range of needs and situations.

Put Customers First
In many cases, companies don’t put customers first because they are afraid the investment will negatively impact their bottom line. It is important to move past that fear and be willing to take risks for the sake of your customers, knowing in the long run, they will pay off for your business as well.

Tell the Truth
No one likes to be lied to, even a little white lie that seems fairly harmless at the time. Put your customers first by always telling them the truth – even if the truth doesn’t make your company the biggest profit.

Customers come first if you want your company to truly meet its potential. With these tips in mind, you can rest assured your customers will become the priority for your business.

In order to help you and your business you need to open a dialog so we can best understand how SMART Service Desk can be your businesses’ 2015 solutions. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing our very efficient easily installed and cost effective solutions.

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

Advance Planning Makes Your Year Operate Smoother

Companies have been achieving improved business performance by implementing and operating with an integrated business management process. A significant number of companies have led the evolution from fundamental demand and supply balancing to an integrated strategic deployment and management process. This evolving process is known as integrated business planning.

The process is about planning because it involves intentionally setting goals and developing an approach to achieving those goals.

The process is strategic because it involves preparing the best way to respond to the circumstances of the organization's environment, whether or not its circumstances are known in advance; nonprofits often must respond to dynamic and even hostile environments. Being strategic, then, means being clear about the organization's objectives, being aware of the organization's resources, and incorporating both into being consciously responsive to a dynamic environment.

Your planning process needs to be disciplined in that it calls for a certain order and pattern to keep it focused and productive. The process raises a sequence of questions that helps planners examine experience, test assumptions, gather and incorporate information about the present, and anticipate the environment in which the organization will be working in the future.

Strategic planning can be complex, challenging, and even messy, but it is always defined by the basic ideas outlined above – and you can always return to these basics for insight into your own strategic planning process.

Making sure you are ready for the coming year would be even easier if you had communications from your customers from the years past. SMART Service Desk can help you capture feedback and data that will help you predict there future needs and wants. Customer solutions from a single source. Your customer's data maybe different that any other company.

Strategic planning has also been described as a tool – but it is not a substitute for the exercise of judgment by leadership. Ultimately, the leaders of any enterprise need to sit back and ask, and answer, "What are the most important issues to respond to?" and "How shall we respond?" Just as tools alone do not create the bookshelf, so the data analysis and decision-making tools of strategic planning do not make the organization work – they can only support the intuition, reasoning skills, and judgment that people bring to their organization.

In order to help you and your business you need to open a dialog so we can best understand how SMART Service Desk can be your businesses’ 2015 solutions. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing our very efficient easily installed and cost effective solutions.

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

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Martin Luther King Jr. Day (officially Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.) is a federal holiday marking the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. It is observed on the third Monday of January each year, which is around the time of King's birthday, January 15. The floating holiday is similar to holidays set under the Uniform Monday Holiday Act.

King was the chief spokesman for nonviolent activism in the civil rights movement, which successfully protested racial discrimination in federal and state law. The campaign for a federal holiday in King's honor began soon after his assassination in 1968. President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law in 1983, and it was first observed three years later. At first, some states resisted observing the holiday as such, giving it alternative names or combining it with other holidays. It was officially observed in all 50 states for the first time in 2000.

The idea of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday was promoted by labor unions in contract negotiations. After King's death, United States Representative John Conyers (a Democrat from Michigan) and United States Senator Edward Brooke (a Republican from Massachusetts) introduced a bill in Congress to make King's birthday a national holiday. The bill first came to a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1979. However, it fell five votes short of the number needed for passage. Two of the main arguments mentioned by opponents were that a paid holiday for federal employees would be too expensive, and that a holiday to honor a private citizen would be contrary to longstanding tradition (King had never held public office). Only two other people have national holidays in the United States honoring them: George Washington and Christopher Columbus.

Soon after, the King Center turned to support from the corporate community and the general public. The success of this strategy was cemented when musician Stevie Wonder released the single "Happy Birthday" to popularize the campaign in 1980 and hosted the Rally for Peace Press Conference in 1981. Six million signatures were collected for a petition to Congress to pass the law, termed by a 2006 article in The Nation as "the largest petition in favor of an issue in U.S. history."

Former Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat, created the holiday in Arizona by executive order just before he left office in 1986, but his Republican successor Evan Mecham, armed with an attorney general's opinion that Babbitt's order was illegal, rescinded it days after he took office. In 1989, the Arizona state legislature replaced Columbus Day with the King holiday. In 1990, Arizonans were given the opportunity to vote to observe an MLK holiday. In 1990 the National Football League threatened to move the Super Bowl that was planned to be in Arizona in 1993 if the MLK holiday was voted down. The state legislature passed a measure to keep both Columbus Day and Martin Luther King Day, but 76% of voters rejected the King holiday. Consequently, Arizona "lost $500 million and the Super Bowl" which moved to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. In a referendum in 1992, the voters approved recognition of the holiday.

In order to help you and your business we need to open a dialog so we can best understand how SMART Service Desk can be your businesses’ 2015 solutions. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing our very efficient cost effective solutions.

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

What Is Your Company Wants and Needs

In this new year of 2015 what can SMART Service Desk CSM do to fill your companies’ needs and wants?

Better customer service follow up?

Increased efficiency for internal communications and IT management?

Improved Social Medic Outreach?

Find out how SMART Service Desk can help you improve relationships with your customers. The answer may not be as obvious as it is overlooked: what customers really want. No matter how great your product is or how talented your staff is, one of the things that customers are most likely to remember is the direct interaction they have with your company.

Bottom line, your customer service team is the most important face of your company, and customers’ experiences will be defined by the skill and quality of the support they receive.

A strong company will already have great customer relationships. But a smart company will always be asking “What is good customer service?” If you are not constantly on the lookout for opportunities to improve your customer service, then your relationships will stagnate. Here are a few customer service tips for identifying ways to better serve customers.

First, it’s important to make sure that your customer service team has the right tools and skills for your managing customers’ needs. The right CRM software can compensate for shortcomings in this area. But what skills should you be looking for in a customer service representative?

Customers appreciate a professional employee who will see their problem through to its resolution. At the same time, you must have good time management skills and not spend too much time handling one customer while others are waiting. Stay focused on your goals to achieve the right balance.

Ultimately your customers rely on you for their knowledge of your product. Stay informed enough to respond to most inquiries and know where to turn if the questions become too detailed or technical for you to answer. But don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know” either. Customers will appreciate the honesty and your efforts to find the right answer.

As we have mentioned the customer isn’t always right… right? The ability to interact with the customer to solve the real problem no matter the cause. Whether your team works directly with customers or looking for feedback on social media, they’ve got to keep the customer’s happiness in mind.

In order to help you and your business we need to open a dialog so we can best understand how SMART Service Desk can be your businesses’ 2015 solutions. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing our very efficient cost effective solutions.

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

Thank Your Customers For Complaining

How do you know how well your business is doing? Is all you look at “the Sales Numbers?” You may have a fabulous product set, deliver the finest service and have a wonderful infrastructure (well – and then we wake up!) but without the ability to measure each of those, we are in danger. 

Competitors will start nibbling at your heels, opportunities to improve customer service will not be identified, inefficiencies in your costs will not be addressed.

Thank your customer for complaining and make sure you mean it. The average business hears from only 4% of unhappy customers. The other 96% don't complain - at least not to the places they did business. While the study was conducted a number of years ago, current independent studies still show similar findings. Your ultimate business goal should be to try to discover any problems before the customer complains. Consider you can simply ask how you are doing.

If you have a customer who makes a complaint about something related to your business, you should assume the there are others who probably had the same issue, but never said a word to you.

It’s a well-established fact that the majority of your customers generally won’t utter a peep. They typically prefer to avoid confrontation, and so they will just leave and start doing business with one of your competitors. You want to avoid this like the plague. The best way to do that is to make sure you ask your customers regularly for their candid feedback. And then be sure to make adjustments and let them know what you did.

It’s one thing for you to figure out what you think your customers need, but it’s even better when they tell you. Since most customer complaints are usually based on failed expectations in the service or product. Their complaint is an excellent opportunity to assess how well you are actually meeting the wants and needs of your customers.

If more than one customer makes the same suggestion or complaint, guess what? That’s a clue you probably should take a closer look at an issue. You need to figure out if you need to tweak your sales message, your product or service, or the way you provide service and support. Whatever it is, its bound to improve your business because you will be responding to the stated needs of your customers.

Keep in mind when they are done complaining, they will be talking to their friends and family.

It’s so important to remember that the way you handle a customer complaint is not the end of the matter! In fact, it’s actually much closer to the beginning. A complaint is a tremendous opportunity if you handle the situation tactfully.

With SMART Service Desk you can track and understand all of your customer interactions. It also allows you to track and understand how the internal parts of your business are responding to those customers.

In order to help you and your business we need to open a dialog so we can best understand how SMART Service Desk can be your businesses’ 2015 solutions. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing our very efficient cost effective solutions.
SMART Service Desk
600 West Ray Road
Suite D-3
Chandler Arizona 85225
602-235-0975
info@smartservicedesk.com
http://smartservicedesk.com

The Customer Isn’t Always Right

I know that all business people are raised with the saying… “The Customer Is Always Right.” The phrase was originally coined in 1909 by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge's department store in London, and is typically used by businesses to convince customers that they will get good service at this company and convince employees to give customers good service.

The awful truth is that many times the customer isn’t in the right.  There is an alternate saying and that is; “The Customer is King, To Avoid Being Fired Treat Customer Accordingly.”

Every good company tries to treat their customers as their number one priority. Studies show that many businesses are ready, willing, and able to go the extra mile for each and every one of their customers.

From his publication Poor Richard's Almanac Benjamin Franklin leaves us with this pearl of wisdom; “Well done is better than well said.” Does your company “Walk The Walk” when it comes to “Good” customer service? 

Does your companies’ employees have the tools they need to properly care for your customers? How do you follow through? Do customer problems fall through the cracks? A rigid attitude is the antithesis of great customer service.

Can poor customer service have negative consequences? 78% of consumers have reportedly bailed on a transaction or not made an intended purchase because of a poor service experience. Source: American Express Survey, 2011

Reports of bad customer service reaches more than twice as many ears as praise for a good service experience. Take the time to address unhappy customers and do everything in your power to remedy the situation. It's not only worth keeping their business, but also avoiding any negative word of mouth exposure. Source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs.

One thing SMART Service Desk software can tell you is this: The customer has all the answers. And it’s up to you to get the answers out of them. Think about that for a bit and you’ll recognize that there is a big difference between having all the answers, and always being right.

One of the most fundamental responsibilities of marketing is to keep a pulse on what’s going on in the market. The easiest place to measure that pulse is with your own customer base. Don’t just guess what your customers need.

Finding the right customer service tools will enable your company employees to always be right in the way they can treat your customers.

In order to help you and your business we need to open a dialog so we can best understand how SMART Service Desk can be your businesses’ 2015 solutions. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing our very efficient cost effective solutions.

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

Gain Customer Data and Feedback From Communication Channels

When you truly listen to your customers you need to consider how to show them you are listening. Learn to listen to customers from the communications channel of their choice.  Perhaps most importantly learn to respond in a way that shows you care about their needs and wants.

To be effective with customer communications you need to understand the keys to delivering personalized, relevant and timely customer communications. Your business needs to provide consistent experiences across your customers’ entire journey with your operations and brand.

At SMART Service Desk we can help your business with concepts that focus on the utilisation of company transactional documents. These documents such as statement of account, invoices and other customer transactional documents viewed as ideal media to promote company products to customers.

The rationale behind this was cited in analyst research by trends that, transactional documents are opened and read by more than 90% of consumers. Because the average consumer is bombarded with advertising, e-mail, direct mail and other forms of solicitation each day, SMART Service Desk can help you understand where to respond so you can cut through the clutter and stand out.

Not only are transactional documents more likely to be opened and observed than other types of document, they are also more likely to be studied for longer than say a direct mail piece. Thus, a company has an opportunity to communicate and promote its message to the customer.

The technology that supports customer communications management also allows sophistication in the content of the messages. Customer communications management technology may consist of the many different documents.

There are a number of key factors concerning the way in which our software helps youir marketing communications professionals.

The data extraction process presents marketers and businesses with an opportunity to combine data from multiple systems to enable a customer analysis and response. Through this customer analysis process it is possible for marketers to evaluate the marketing mix and position individual products to the customer in respect of relevance to the customer or the results of purchase propensity model.

The end result of this process will be the creation of a data model, data acquisition and decision rules that enable a document composition engine to follow its own set of document application rules to construct individual documents on the basis of data items contained within an individuals data record.

Thus the concept of one-to-one marketing is established.

In order to help you and your business we need to open a dialog so we can best understand how SMART Service Desk can be your businesses’ 2015 solutions. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing our very efficient cost effective solutions.

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

Customers Wants Versus Needs

Consumer wants and needs should drive marketing decisions, and no strategy should be pursued until it passes the test of consumer research.

Turning the tables and switching perspectives is an excellent way to view selling. Consider visiting the theme of viewing life through other people’s eyes (your customers), and think about the buying process rather than your selling process.

Wants vs Needs. While it would seem the distinction between these two should be straightforward, in our daily lives the lines seem to get blurred. We need water to survive but we may want to drink $6 dollar bottles of sparkling water. Similarly in business there are things we need to do our job as opposed to things we want because it will make doing our job easier.

Listen Unbiasedly

Too often salespeople are actively listening for trigger words or problems they can fix, and as soon as the client says either of them, they jump right in and try to close the sale. The reality is that what they mentioned may not be a want or a need at all. Listen with an open mind and use keywords to get started.

Understanding how your client decided to enter the buying cycle is a key component to differentiating between a want and a need. The spectrum of reasons is wide—at one end they may know of a competitor using X to do Y, while at the other there has been a catastrophic failure event that cannot happen again. Can you tell which one is a want and which is a need? Could both of these examples be needs? The only way to truly know is effectively question your client and understand what moved them to enter the buying cycle.

Provide Them with Options

Identify the benefits and features you think your client wants most and spread them out across several different options and/or packages. If you’ve parsed out the benefits and features properly, your discussions should help you learn what is really most valuable to them. This may also be a good time to discuss your clients other buying options. Clients today are savvy enough to know about your competition, so bringing them up yourself has three positive outcomes — it shows you’re confident in your offering, it develops a deeper level of trust, and it gives the client all the information they need to make a decision they soon won’t fall back on.

The basic principle here is never assume anything. If you hear the client say what you think is a need, reiterate the statement using one of the keywords above and get feedback. For example, “So if I understand you correctly you need… While this may sound simple, it’s often overlooked. Reiterate and you’ll get the confirmation you’re looking for or realize it’s time to move on.

In order to help you and your business we need to open a dialog so we can best understand how SMART Service Desk can be your businesses’ 2015 solutions. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing our very efficient cost effective solutions.

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

Have You Seen The SMART Service Desk Demo?

Did you know that you can see a short demo of SMART Service Desk so you can further evaluate our product and see what kind of a fit we can be to your business?  All you need to do is watch our demo.
The correct URL is http://youtu.be/cLMpTVIyVsM

Enable comprehensive, best practice based Incident / Case management processes via intuitive, easily adopted, enterprise scale web technology. Integrates core service and support components into one complete Help Desk solution which help you to reduce service costs and increase service delivery operational efficiency. Manage service issues from the initial call; too complete job and service restoration. With SMART Service Desk you can reduce call volumes and encourage user self-service by letting users search FAQs, approved solutions, and workarounds. You can use Increase customer / user satisfaction ratings using surveys.

Many business find that Customer Surveys are effective tools to help understand your customer satisfaction issues as well as to see how well you are meeting your customer needs.

Our SMART Survey Management solution is complete functionally rich software, which can be can used to do just that.

Surveys for Service Support Delivery: Get Support Feedback, after completion of Incident or service Request Tickets. You can integrate employee or customer feedback with your existing business processes.

Surveys for Customer Feedback: Measure and evaluate customer satisfaction, every time a customer interacts with your company. You can take actions and solve customer issues based on real-time feedback.

Surveys for Employee Feedback: Get periodic employee surveys, since satisfied and motivated employees create more satisfied customers.

Surveys for Training Feedback: Get end of course, student satisfaction feedback. This may help show weakness that can occur in your educational or instructor areas.

SMART Survey Management Solution, can be integrated with your existing Human Recourse, ERP Systems and your websites.

In order to help you and your business we need to open a dialog so we can best understand how SMART Service Desk can be your businesses’ 2015 solutions. We look forward to meeting your business needs and providing our very efficient cost effective solutions.

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

SMART Service Desk Improves Both Internal and External Communications

Business and companies need to serve their customers but in many cases they first have to improve their internal communications to be able to do so much more efficiently.

With all of the advances in smart phones and social media companies need to revamp their own internal communications so they can effectively take advantage of the sweeping increases in the different channels that are now open and will be coming open.

Today’s employees no longer passively receive information. They no longer have a limited number of prescribed channels through which to respond. Thanks to social media, all stakeholders – inside and outside your organization – are now empowered, connected and expecting to be heard.

This shift is a key reason for the blurring boundaries between Internal and External communications. It's changing how we communicate with our people, as we now craft internal messages while bearing in mind the potential external impact. And because more employees are in contact with customers – and vice versa – all employees need to genuinely buy into your brand values and be ready and willing to deliver on there promise.  Your customers expect this as a primary baseline.

For example, if one of a company's aims is to be publicly viewed as technically excellent, there must be something happening inside the organization that motivates people to become so. More importantly the IT structure must be able to support the brand image. If you want to project externally that the company’s services are joined up you have to ensure that internally people know what those services are and that when they are out selling or telling people about the business, they are equipped to do this.

In its simplest terms, internal communication is communication within an organization. It encompasses both "official" communication -- memos, guidelines, policies and procedures, etc. -- and the unofficial communication that goes on among and between the staff members of all organizations -- the exchange of ideas and opinions, the development of personal relationships, and the proverbial conversation around the water cooler. It goes in all directions among line staff (those who do the specific work of the organization and work directly with the target population), administrators, supervisors, clerical and support staff, volunteers, and, perhaps, even upper management and owners.

Internal communication is a lot more than people talking to one another, however. It's the life blood of any organization, the way in which everyone gets the information needed. It means that anyone can easily get his question answered, as well as that no one gets left out when there's an event that isolates a staff member.

What is your company doing to both serve your customer and improve your understanding of those valuable customers? Does your company have the software and structure to accomplish this? A quick call to SMART Service Desk can get your new year off to a profitable start.  Make that call to 602-235-0975 to get you started.

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

Customer Service From The Customer’s Point Of View

Customers today expect world-class service. They’ll reward companies that provide it by remaining loyal, and they’ll take their business elsewhere if service is mediocre. A business’ customer service representatives are the face and voice of the company. Businesses today realize the value these frontline employees bring. Those that invest in their employees' success see the quick return on investment that customer service train­ing provides.

According to a Santa Clara University study, the customer is more likely to get what they want when the employees like the customer.  Customers can help by showing common courtesy, acknowledging when the employee is being helpful, complementing their service and offering to submit a positive review to the management.

From a customer point of view the definition of customer service is: "Customer Service is a function of how well the business is able to frequently and consistently exceed the expectations of its customers."

How well is your business doing when compared to that metric?

Can you see how these customer service definitions puts the organization first, and the customer second? This seems logical, of course, since it’s the organization doing most of the work in customer service, and not required of the customer.

The definition of Customer Relationship Management: The principles, practices, and guidelines that a company follows when interacting with its customers. From the organization's point of view, this entire relationship not only encompasses the direct interaction aspect, such as sales and service related processes, but also in the forecasting and analysis of customer trends and behaviors, which ultimately serve to enhance the customer's overall experience.

Customers expect a business to have what they want, when they want (or need) it and at the best possible price. They also want the business to show appreciation that they choose the business where they made their purchase. If they have a problem with the purchase the customer expects the business to help with or deal with that problem to their satisfaction no matter what (or who) caused the problem.

If the business is perceived by the customer to fail in any aspect of the transaction there is a distinct possibility the customer will use social media to take the business or brand to task. This can happen, in many cases, with no real interaction with the business post sale.

A happy customer is far less likely to praise a business than an unhappy customer is to complain about one.

What is your company doing to both serve your customer and improve your understanding of those valuable customers? A quick call to SMART Service Desk at 602-235-0975 can get your new year off to a profitable start.

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

What Does ITIL Really Mean to Your Small Business?

ITIL Defined

According to the official ITIL site (www.itil-officialsite.com), ITIL® is the only consistent and comprehensive documentation of best practice for IT Service Management. Used by thousands of organizations around the world, a whole ITIL philosophy has grown up around the guidance contained within the ITIL books and the supporting professional qualification scheme.

ITIL consists of a series of books giving guidance on the provision of quality IT services, and on the accommodation and environmental facilities needed to support IT. ITIL has been developed in recognition of organizations growing dependency on IT and embodies best practices for IT Service Management.

The ethos behind the development of ITIL is the recognition that organizations are becoming increasingly dependent on IT in order to satisfy their corporate aims and meet their business needs. This leads to an increased requirement for high quality IT services.

ITIL is supported by a comprehensive qualification scheme along with a network of accredited training, consulting and technology providers operating across the globe.

The primary benefit coming out of most ITIL projects is a significant reduction in IT's Total Cost of Ownership (i.e., operations cost) along with the ability to deliver reliable, high value services to their client base. 

Today, ITIL best practices have been adopted by organizations of all sizes including Disney, IBM, Caterpillar, Shell Oil, Boeing and governments across the globe.

How Does ITIL Benefit A Small Business?

In addition to an overall improvement and increased efficiency of your business’s IT services through consistency, the benefits of using ITIL include: reduced costs, increased customer satisfaction, improved productivity, better delivery of third-party services in service procurement, and maximized skills and experience of your IT staff. Because ITIL provides predictable processes and a set framework, making it is easier to meet your customer’s expectations, as well as monitor and measure incidents. It may also enable a better relationship with your IT service provider because it provides a basis from which to negotiate realistic service levels.

Identify any gaps between your existing services and your goals for improvement so your team will be able to identify proper strategies. Finally, make a decision about your methods for project management, using timelines, charts, and any other project management tools. Once ITIL has been implemented, be sure to monitor the service strategies and improvements to see if you need to make any changes.

Do you want to learn more about ITIL and how it can help businesses of all sizes? A quick call to SMART Service Desk can get your new year off to a profitable start.  A quick call to 602-235-0975 will get you started.

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