Is Your Customer Service Listening?

Are you listening to understand or are you listening to simply reply? Do you understand and appreciate the difference? Does this apply to everyone that is part of your businesses’ customer “service?” What is your action plan for what you are hearing?

Effective listening is perhaps the most valuable skill your Customer Service team can have. It is the linchpin in a needs-based, consultative service strategy that determines and delivers what the customer needs and wants. Is your customer service team as effective as it could be? You can teach them how to listen to the customer to resolve the real problem, avoid future difficulties and keep your business running cost-effectively.

Listening properly enables your customer service staff to draw customers into an interactive conversation in which they can ask insightful questions, probe for reactions and respond to those customer reactions correctly.

When it comes to customer service, your people make the difference. Hearing is not the same as listening; in other words, receiving sounds is not the same as paying attention to their true meaning.

From the rational and tangible perspective, really listening is the key to get to know your customers better, understand their needs and get to the basis of their problems. Listening helps us provide a better service by allowing us to focus on truly effective actions that generate the results your customer expects (and deserves).

Your most precious asset, no matter what business you have, is your existing customers. You expended considerable effort to entice these folks to do business with you. So why not intensely focus on their behavior as they are doing business with you? Talk to them and listen carefully.

Some folks refer to this as real customer engagement. No matter the current buzz words you apply the skill of listening to your customer is a vital one. This skill must become pervasive throughout your company.

Let’s look at the following definition; Customer Engagement (CE) is considered as a behavioral manifestation toward the brand or firm that goes beyond transactions. In some businesses Customer Engagement becomes efficient Customer Management… Do manage or listen to 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

Who Sets The Customer Service Standard?

The real question that is almost not talked about is “who” sets the standard for customer service, the business or the customer? When you think about the question is your response, of course the business sets the customer service standard. But, if your customer is able to choose “who” to buy from then the customer just may be the one who sets the standard of care. 

If the customer chooses your competitor over you and you are both selling the same product and at the same price then what made them choose the other guy? Was it customer service? Yes, location, hours of operation and other factors can enter into the buying decision. But never underestimate the factor of post-sale service.

When customers patronize a business, they expect to be sold quality services and products. Of course, customers also assume that the salesperson or customer representative gives them quality service as well. That’s why having customer service standards are important to your company.

Once a business sets its customer service goals or standards, employees need frequent feedback on their performance so that they know if they are reaching the companies’ goal. Further, to ensure that customer service goals will be met, managers should recognize and reward teams and individuals who demonstrate outstanding customer service or who meet or exceed their customer service goals.

Business also need to make sure that the standards they set are actually meeting the wants and needs of their customers. While you can watch the sales level increase or decrease.  They can also just ask the customer through a survey of some type, “How are we doing?” That can and should include customer service as well as product and service questions.

Chances are, you’ve heard plenty of stories, where a customer encounters bad service from an employee or manager at a business and tells everyone about their experience. An angry customer tells all of their friends who patronize the store or writes bad reviews about the business on the Internet. Either way, word gets around that your business is not a great place to purchase from.

In today’s social media context news travels fast, real fast. News services constantly monitor social media looking for juicy stories. The news is happy to present that funny or tragic story that they know will draw viewers.

Your business may have amazing products, but if your customer service standards aren’t very high, you won’t get far. When customers come in contact with every person in the business, they make a judgment about how they feel about the company. With each client you sell services to, your reputation is at stake. That’s why treating each transaction with a customer with respect and consideration is vital.

So who sets your companies' customer service standards?

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

What Is Your Standard For Customer Care?

Companies provide various products and services to their customers in exchange for payment.  Customer expect different levels of care both pre and post purchase. The standard of customer care varies wildly from company to company. Future purchases may well hinge on how well the company meets that unknown standard of expected customer care or service. How does a company meet a standard that is both unknown and ever changing?

In some cases companies actually publish guidelines for customer that outline the manner and way that they expect or intend to deal with customers at least post purchase.

Customer care has evolved well beyond the posting of an 800 phone number that allowed customer to call and make inquiries about product usage and problems. From social media to direct phone based apps are just part of the mix that customer have come to expect (demand) when dealing with today’s product sales and service interactions. Companies that fall behind find the customer quickly moves to companies that provide (meet) current customer expectations.

Does your companies Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) meet today’s customer service expectations?

Each market had its own unique regulations and protocols for customer acquisition, service, switching, billing, and communications with market operators and utilities. An astute team of energy market experts recognized that the cumbersome, resource-intensive CIS systems developed for regulated rate payers would never work in these markets. Instead, a new breed of competitive retailers would require a technology platform that could support a very different revenue management model, a model that enabled faster market entry, quicker addition of new products and services, agile pricing and supply contracts, accelerated cash flow, and a significantly lower cost to serve.

Do regulations affect the way you are constrained to deal with customer interactions? 

Customers expect trouble free usage, at a known level of performance as well as education that enhances the standard Customer Care with local resources and quick delivery. Does your company provide customer service contracts that go beyond just product repair and maintenance?

When your buys a Customer Care Package you know that they expect a service team to support them, while they work or use your product. Does your Customer Care Package support give access to your benefits at any sales office or locations?

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

What To Do When Customer Service Fails

Most companies care about their customers.  Without them a business is “out of business.” The motive to care is really related to survival. Mo matter how hard you try to please 100% of your customers it is not always possible.  What does your company do when caring isn’t enough?

A recent survey placed Comcast customer service near the bottom of the list. Many online stories cover at least one side of the story when it comes to the wrong way to do customer service. Not all customers are created equal, but they are all people and should be treated as such. Some customers spend more, some spend less. Others don’t spend at all. But alienating a customer based on any type of disconnect – be it looks, communication, or any other factor – is a huge customer service fail.

The first principle of creating customer loyalty is “Be the Customer.” “Walk in the customer’s shoes” is common sense insight, but certainly not common practice at some companies. Should “People over Profit” be the core value at your business, given the customer’s emotional toll from a catastrophic event, companies certainly should be more empathetic.

A company could use an event to build brand loyalty by telling its customers they were waiving the cost of any lost any lost unit. Instead it only reinforced the collective customer perception that some companies are the worst at customer service.

What is it with cable providers and their customer service? Another horror story, recounted by Time, comes from former Engadget editor-in-chief, Ryan Block who was given a rough ride by a “customer retention specialist” when he called to cancel his contract with Comcast.

As the recording of the call (or at least, an eight-minute snippet of it) proves, sometimes an agent needs to know when to give up.

In a painstaking call that often feels like a political debate rather than a customer service query, Ryan asks multiple times if it’s possible to arrange to cancel the service over the phone and the unrelenting agent continually refuses to supply an answer, instead coming back with questions asking why he wants to disconnect.

Ryan eventually managed to get disconnected, but the impact on Comcast’s reputation suffered a big blow, and the company was forced to issue a statement outlining its embarrassment at the way the customer was spoken to. The Comcast cancellation story is notorious for the agent’s over aggressiveness.

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

Choose The Right IT Service Management Software

Is your company or your business in search of IT Service Management Software to help with your internal and external IT management?

SMART Service Desk is a robust and highly flexible IT Service Management (ITSM) application, built on ITIL best practices that help customers and users meet the dynamic needs of a growing business and achieve the highest level of service quality, delivery and performance. We offer the best location or cloud based experience you’ll find in the industry.

Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, SMART Service Desk Software, is a vendor for ITIL Best Practice & ISO 20000 Standards Service management (ITSM) Solutions, Service Desk, CRM, EAM and support software for medium to large enterprises. SMART Service Desk has key customers, such as Toyata, Mitsubishi Motors, Saudi Credit bureau, Tamer Pharma and Oman Arab Bank. Founded in 2008, SMART Service Desk Software is a privately held firm with offices in the United States, India and Partner offices in UK, Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE and Qatar.

SMART Service Desk is the leader in Help Desk, IT Service Management, Quality Management & Customer Relationship Management Integrated Solutions, which are applicable to a wide range of different service organizations. SMART Service Desk of software solutions can be adapted very quickly, easily and economically to suit the customer's systems and business processes. Many our customers have got head start in process definition, to Fast-track your ITIL V3, ISO 9001, ISO 20000 & Other ISO Standardization, initiatives to enhance quality of services and customer satisfaction.

SMART Service Desk will help you to improve service quality and resource utilization across your entire IT infrastructure. With SMART Mobile Custom Applications can access applications from SMART Phones for faster and better-informed business decisions.

Our SaaS solutions on Cloud let you seamlessly manage services, customers and quality improvement programs. Available through any Web browser, our solutions are designed to help you shorten deployment times, reduce risks and lower costs, including support and maintenance expenses.

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

What You Don't Know About Feedback

First, not all feedback is created equal. Feedback comes in several different flavors. Feedback is both internal and external.

There are actions and inactions that could be sabotaging your business success? What if there are few key things you’re missing that could help you get even better results? There’s only one way to find out, and that’s by getting feedback, the correct feedback.

Poorly conducted performance reviews and customer questionnaires, harsh criticisms by thoughtless colleagues or customers, and bad experiences with feedback systems all contribute to the temptation to steer clear of feedback if at all possible.

You may worry that all the feedback will be negative. Many people avoid asking others what they think about their products and services because all feedback will be about negative experiences only. It all depends on how and what you ask about.

The question “What do you like best about your job or shopping experience?” will tend to get positive responses. “Tell us what we can do to improve your…?” should get a variety of honest answers. “Tell us what we did wrong during your most recent shopping experience?” This question will tend to receive negative responses, because that is what you asked about.

You don’t know whom to ask. The person who can offer the most effective feedback on your business may vary depending on when you need the feedback and what kind of feedback you need. You could include a satisfaction survey to every shopper or provide an online method to gather random feedback.

Believe it or not, you can learn to be your own best reviewer, particularly if you practice listening critically. First, think about problems that you know you have had in the past and ask employees how to handle it "when" it arises again.

Whether you like it or not, customers are continuously publishing feedback on your products and services on the Internet and via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. What your customers take time to say is incredibly valuable. Positive feedback boosts your business and criticism can help you to improve your offerings.

Social networking is becoming the norm. Buyers expect a much more interactive experience, and they are less and less impressed with marketing copy. It’s an accepted truth that listening to customers is critical, but previously it was still possible to run a company while ignoring this virtue.

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

The New Facts About Feedback

Delivering great feedback is inexpensive, easy to learn, and there’s no shortage of expert advice out there on how to do it well. Nearly 3/4 of employees want more feedback than they are currently getting. So it’s clear that there’s still a lot of room for improvement.

Before any feedback will be effective, the recipient must see the source as credible for developmental advice. Critically, the person you’re giving feedback to must believe you have their interests at heart. If not, your feedback won’t be effective in driving behavioral change, no matter how well intentioned.

More often, it’s not that employees aren’t aware of the issue, it’s that they don’t know how to respond. So just pointing out that they have a problem isn’t enough to be helpful. To improve performance, constructive feedback must go one step further and provide specific feedback around potential causes and solutions.

From the Harvard Business Review, most employees prefer corrective feedback to praise and recognition. A majority of employees prefer corrective feedback to praise and recognition. In this survey of 900 global employees, 57% of respondents stated that they prefer corrective, negative or constructive feedback, while only 43% stated that they prefer praise or recognition.

Though older workers have a preference for both more positive and negative feedback than younger generations. While this is interesting and provides a strong counterpoint to the millennial feedback myth, it’s worth noting that the research didn’t control for rank or role, so some of this effect is likely to be explained by seniority.

A recent study by the London Business School shows that outstanding performers need more positive affirmation after setbacks. The researchers looked at the performance of top talent after they’ve had a major setback that involves loss of status. The findings show that when previously high performers lose status, their performance suffers. And the very best performers suffer the most. The mediocre performers, by contrast, barely suffer at all.

The research also shows that it was possible to mitigate the effects of this performance drop with targeted affirmation. The academics suggest that this reinforces just how important it is to give your star a break after they’ve bungled something or lost face. As their manager, you have a critical role here in helping your top talent regain their status by letting them know how much you value their work.

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