Inspirational Customer Service Quote – Kevin Stirtz

Customer service success is determined by how well customer service representatives and other organizational employees prepare before their customers arrive. If they follow industry standards in the way they greet, listen and provide service to the people they encounter, they will likely be better received. By delivering excellent customer service and treating every customer as special (because they are), you both win. This can lead to a positive encounter for both customers and employees and often contributes to brand and customer loyalty.

A quote by Kevin Stirtz sums up this concept:

“Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet.”

Other Famous Quotes by Kevin Stirtz…

The easiest and most powerful way to increase customer loyalty is really very simple. Make your customers happy.
Never leave your customers wondering.
To work best democracy needs a diversity of thoughts, ideas and expression. This is only possible with freedom and civility.
Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet.
Every contact we have with a customer influences whether or not they’ll come back. We have to be great every time or we’ll lose them.
Choose to deliver amazing service to your customers. You’ll stand out because they don’t get it anywhere else.
The secret to success in business, and in life, is to serve others. Put others first in all you do.
The best ideas in the world will accomplish nothing if you leave them on paper. Talk about them. Debate, discuss, argue. Put them into action. Then you can change the world.
The best listener is the one who really cares about the other person.
Make it easy for your customers to do talk to you.
Get your customers involved in your business. Make them your partners and they’ll never leave you.
Providing great customer service is the most natural activity in the world. It’s fun to help others because it feels good.
Focus your business on what you do best. Let everyone else worry about the rest.
The first step to success in any business is to ask your customers what they want.

For thoughts and ideas on how to effectively create an environment that can help you achieve positive customer service delivery, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success, Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and How to Be a Great Call Center Representative.

About Robert C. Lucas

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills.

Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Bob Lucas B.S., M.A., M.A, CPLP is the principal in Robert W. Lucas Enterprises, Inc and an internationally-known author; learning and performance professionals. He has written and contributed to numerous books on the subject of customer service skill training.

He regularly conducts workshops on creative training, train-the-trainer, customer service, interpersonal communication, and management,
and supervisory skills.

Learn more about Bob and his organization at www.robertwlucas.com and follow his blogs at www.robertwlucas.com/wordpress,
www.customerserviceskillsbook.com, and www.thecreativetrainer.com. Like Bob at www.facebook.com/robertwlucasenterprises

The Impact of Customer Expectations on Customer Service

by Robert W. Lucas

The Impact of Customer Expectations

on Customer Service

Customers come to you and your organization expecting that certain things will occur in regard to the products and services they desire. If you and other customer service representatives or employees fail to deliver them, your customers can easily desert to a brick and mortar or online competitor.

If you pay attention to your customers and strive for excellent customer service, you increase the chance that customer and brand loyalty will more likely result.

Typical customer expectations include one or more of the following things when they patronize an organization:

Expectations Related to People

Friendly, knowledgeable service providers.
Respect (to be treated like they are intelligent).
Empathy (to have feelings and emotions be recognized).
Courtesy (to be recognized as “the customer” and as someone who is important to you and your organization).
Equity (not to feel that one individual or group gets preferential benefits or treatment over another).

Expectations Related to Products and Services

Ease of accessibility.
Availability of products and services (no lengthy delays).
Reasonable and competitive pricing.
Products and services that adequately address needs.
Quality (appropriate value for money and time invested).
Ease of use.
Safety (warranty available and product free of defects that might cause physical injury)
State-of-the-art products and service delivery.
Easy-to-understand instructions (and follow-up assistance availability).
Ease of return or exchange (flexible policies that provide alternatives depending on the situation).
Appropriate and expedient problem resolution.
Restitution for the inconvenience, damage or loss.

For proven strategies for meeting customer needs, wants and expectations and for creating a customer-centric organization, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success, Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and How to Be a Great Call Center Representative.

About Robert C. Lucas

Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

He regularly conducts workshops on creative training, train-the-trainer, customer service, interpersonal communication, and management,
and supervisory skills.

Customer Service Quote – Michael LeBoeuf

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Quote – Michael LeBoeuf

Organizations and customer service representatives that go out of their way to identify customer needs, wants and expectations, have a better chance of increasing brand and customer loyalty than competitors who do not.

By working hard to create a customer-centric organization, businesses increase the likelihood that customers will return and tell others about their positive service experiences.

For proven customer service ideas and strategies for building a strong service culture and delivering stellar customer service in your organization, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success, Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and How to Be a Great Call Center Representative.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

In my book Customer Service Skills for Success, I define customer service as “the ability of knowledgeable, capable, and enthusiastic employees to deliver products and services to their internal and external customers in a manner that satisfies identified and unidentified needs and ultimately results in positive word-of-mouth publicity and return business.”

Here are a few more quotes from Michael LaBoeuf…

A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.
The world is your mirror and your mind is a magnet. What you perceive in this world is largely a reflection of your own attitudes and beliefs. Life will give you what you attract with your thoughts think, act and talk negatively and your world will be negative. Think and act and talk with enthusiasm and you will attract positive results.
Every company’s greatest assets are its customers because without customers there is no company.
The greatest management principle in the world is: ‘the things that get rewarded and appreciated get done.’
All of us live at the feeling level, and our feelings are in large part a result of the way we perceive things. You observe or are told something, you interpret it, and only then do you have a reaction at the feeling level. The point is that feeling is preceded by perception, and all of us are capable of controlling our interpretation [the associations and assumptions] of what we see. If we can control our interpretation, then it logically follows that we can exercise some control over our feelings as well.
The most important key to successful investing can be summed up in just two words-asset allocations.
When you write down your ideas you automatically focus your full attention on them. Few if any of us can write one thought and think another at the same time. Thus a pencil and paper make excellent concentration tools.
Too many start-up business fail simply because their owners continue to think and act like employees.
The ultimate goal of a more effective and efficient life is to provide you with enough time to enjoy some of it.
It’s important for you to understand that stock and bonds go up-and they go down. You need to be comfortable with that fact.
As for worrying about what other people might think – forget it. They aren’t concerned about yours. They’re too busy worrying about what you and other people think of theirs.
We talk about saving time and killing time when actually we can’t do either. We have no choice but to spend it at a constant and flowing rate.
The things that get rewarded, get done
Knowing nothing about investing might be a benefit. You won’t have to unlearn many popular beliefs propagated by Wall Street and the media that aren’t true.
Index investing is an investment strategy that Walter Mitty would love. It takes very little investment knowledge, no skill, practically no time or effort-and outperforms about 80 percent of all investors.
Adversity is an experience, not a final act.

Customer Service Quote – Lewis Carol

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Quote – Lewis Carol

Customer service representatives and others who interact with internal and external customers have an opportunity to be successful in satisfying customers if they adopt a customer-centric attitude. By being concerned for customer needs, wants and expectations and treating people as they want to be treated, service professionals stand out from their competition. This is because too many employees in organizations really do not care about their job or the people they serve.

For ideas and strategies on how to effectively identify and satisfy customer needs, wants and expectations, and create customer satisfaction and loyalty, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success, Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and How to Be a Great Call Center Representative.

About Robert C. Lucas

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

Happy Waitress Even Happier After Receiving Astounding Tip

by Robert W. Lucas

Happy Waitress Even Happier

After Receiving Astounding Tip

Many servers in the restaurant and hospitality industries and well, as customer service professionals in general, are underpaid and often overworked. This is unfortunate because, like many customer service representatives who work for minimum wage or less, they often do not make enough to pay for basic essentials.

It is for that reason that a recent story by Lauren Tuck of the Shine Staff put the spotlight on why it is important to provide superior customer service, and on customers who appreciate great service and are willing to open their hearts and bank accounts to help out deserving employees. Tuck’s blog article highlights how the generosity of one customer was touched by a deserving server’s financial plight and took action to make her life better.

The example highlighted in the article also serves as a great example for others in the service industry who may go to work disgruntled and as a result deliver marginal or sub-standard service to their customers. Quite simply by following basic rules of positive service, they can make a customer service experience one that is not only appreciated but also rewarded generously.

For ideas and techniques that can be used to develop excellent customer service skills and deliver superior customer service, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Designing Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

About Robert C. Lucas

Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

He regularly conducts workshops on creative training, train-the-trainer, customer service, interpersonal communication, and management,
and supervisory skills.

Customer Service Excellence Quote – Sam Walton

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Excellence Quote – Sam Walton

Quality customer service, customer service excellence, stellar customer service, excellent customer service, or whatever you call it in your organization, can lead to enhanced customer satisfaction levels. It can also help increase brand and customer loyalty and revenue as customers react to and tell others about their positive service experiences.

By focusing on your customers and addressing their needs, wants and expectations, you and others in your organization can help guarantee that customers will continue to come back again and again.

As Sam Walton, founder of Walmart is quoted as saying:

Customer Service Excellence Quote – Sam Walton

For information, ideas and strategies on how to deliver excellent customer service get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Here are a few more quotes from Sam Walton, Walmart’s Founder…

“We couldn’t care less about what is forecast or what the market says we ought to do. If we listened very seriously to that sort of stuff, we never would have gone into small-town discounting in the first place.” Sam Walton
“When somebody made a mistake – whether it was myself or anybody else – we talked about it, admitted it, tried to figure out how to correct it, and then moved on to the next day’s work.” Sam Walton
“You can make a positive out of the most negative if you work at it hard enough.” Sam Walton
“I learned a long time ago that exercising your ego in public is definitely not the way to build an effective organization.” Sam Walton
“If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you—like a fever.” Sam Walton
“I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.” Sam Walton
“Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up.” Sam Walton
“One person seeking glory doesn’t accomplish very much.” Sam Walton
“High expectations are the key to everything.” Sam Walton
“I guess real merchants are like real fishermen: we have a special place in our memories for a few of the big ones.” Sam Walton
“Many of our best opportunities were created out of necessity.” Sam Walton
“If you get one good idea, that’s one more than you went into the store with, and we must try to incorporate it into our company.” Sam Walton
“I’d hate to see any descendants of mine fall into the category of what I’d call ‘idle rich’ – a group I’ve never had much use for.” Sam Walton
“To succeed in this world, you have to change all the time.” Sam Walton
“It was almost as if I had a right to win. Thinking like that often seems to turn into sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Sam Walton
“If you take someone who lacks the experience and the know-how but has the real desire and the willingness to work his tail off to get the job done, he’ll make up for what he lacks. And that proved true nine times out of ten.” Sam Walton
“Take the best out of everything and adapt it to your needs.” Sam Walton
“Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.” Sam Walton
“The truth is when those Butler Brothers folks turned down my discounting idea, I got a little angry, and maybe that helped me decide to swim upstream on my own.” Sam Walton
“Focus on something the customer wants, and then deliver it.” Sam Walton

About Robert C. Lucas

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

Customer Service Tip for Adult Educators

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Tip for Adult Educators

The face of higher education is continuing to evolve. Ethnicity, the numbers of attendees in terms of age and sex, expectations, the manner in which information is delivered and virtually every aspect of the way you do business and education has been touched in some way by events over which you sometimes have no control.

Things such as world events, the economy, changing technology, competition from new sources, and the values of learners shift rapidly. The potential student population is also expected to grow in coming years as Generation Yers (Millennials – 1980s to early 2000s) are aging, since this is the largest generation behind the Boomers (1946-1964).

The one aspect of the whole process over which you and your organization do have control — is the level and quality of service that you and your institution provide to your customers – your students.

To deal with this trend…

If you remember nothing else related to customer service, think about this. EVERYONE that you and your institution come into contact is either a customer or potential customer! If you can get your mind around that fact and treat students and their caregivers with the best quality of service possible; then, you have tremendous opportunity to compete effectively with all other institutions of higher learning and knowledge sources.

This action alone can lead to customer loyalty and positive word-of-mouth publicity for you as an educator and your institution.

About Robert C. Lucas

Quote on Delivering the Best Customer Service Possible – Jeff Bezos

by Robert W. Lucas

Quote on Delivering the Best Customer Service Possible – Jeff Bezos

Customers are a funny lot… they pay you money that they worked hard for and in exchange only expect to receive what they need, want, expect and are promised by you and your organization. They truly do not expect that, when they contact you or someone else in your organization, they will encounter problems with the product and services received.

To help ensure that you meet their expectations, put yourself in their position and deliver the best possible customer service. Ensure that you have the knowledge, skills, and attitude that will provide you the tools necessary to effectively interact and communicate with them to determine what you need to do to satisfy them and help build customer and brand loyalty.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com summed this sentiment up in a quote:

“The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works.” Jeff Bezos

For ideas and strategies for delivering exceptional customer service to all potential and current customers get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success, Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures, and How to Be A Great Call Center Representative.

Here are a few more Jeff Bezos quotes to enjoy reading…

“I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.”
“If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.”
“What’s dangerous is not to evolve.”
“Part of company culture is path-dependent – it’s the lessons you learn along the way.” – Jeff Bezos
“My own view is that every company requires a long-term view.”
“We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.”
“A company shouldn’t get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn’t last.”
“The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works.”
“There’ll always be serendipity involved in the discovery.”
“I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it’s not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that’s not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you.” – Jeff Bezos
“The thing that motivates me is a very common form of motivation. And that is, with other folks counting on me, it’s so easy to be motivated.”
“Life’s too short to hang out with people who aren’t resourceful.”
“If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail.”
“The common question that gets asked in business is, ‘why?’ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‘why not?’”
“We expect all our businesses to have a positive impact on our top and bottom lines. Profitability is very important to us or we wouldn’t be in this business.” – Jeff Bezos
“The human brain is an incredible pattern-matching machine.”
“We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details…”
“It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work.”
“Your margin is my opportunity.” – Jeff Bezos
“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.”
“Work Hard, have fun, make history.”
“You don’t want to negotiate the price of simple things you buy every day.”
“If you never want to be criticized, for goodness’ sake don’t do anything new.”
“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.”
“Maintain a firm grasp of the obvious at all times.” – Jeff Bezos
“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.” – Jeff Bezos

About Robert C. Lucas, Your Customer Service Guru that is a big fan of Jeff Bezos

Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

He regularly conducts workshops on creative training, train-the-trainer, customer service, interpersonal communication, and management,
and supervisory skills.

Tips for Customer Service Representatives – Nonverbal Communication with Customers

by Robert W. Lucas

Tips for Customer Service Representatives – Nonverbal Communication with Customers

When interacting with customers, it is crucial to remember that many studies have found that nonverbal messages often overshadow verbal ones. This is why customer service representatives should continually remind themselves to guard the unspoken messages they send to customers and potential customers via facial expressions, gestures, posture, appearance, and other unspoken means. Strive to make all forms of communication positive.

To get a better idea of how you present yourself nonverbally to customers, ask a co-worker to use the following guidelines and evaluate your nonverbal communication during a service transaction with a customer. Once it is over, spend some time having your peer provide feedback on how well you did along with any suggestions for improvement.

Body Language – Does your body posture and positioning send a relaxed positive (e.g. confidence and self-assurance) or tense negative (e.g. uncertain, confused, or unconfident)

Facial Expression – Does your face say, “Hello, welcome, I am able and ready to serve you” or does it show a bored, disinterested employee who is going through the motions of providing service?

Eye Contact – Are you making appropriate and adequate eye contact to show interest without causing possible discomfort or offense?

The Tone of Your Voice – Does your voice project a smiling professional who sounds even-paced, comfortable and confident?

For additional ideas and strategies on how to effectively communicate with customers and potential customers, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success, How to be a Great Call Center Representative and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

About Robert C. Lucas

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

Customer Satisfaction Quote – Alice MacDougall

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Satisfaction Quote – Alice MacDougall

Customer needs wants and expectations drive their behavior. The challenge for customer service representatives and other employees in any organization is to properly identify what it takes to promote customer and brand loyalty. The easiest way to accomplish this is to ensure that effective customer service and interpersonal communication training is conducted regularly. Also, employees are empowered to handle complaints and other customer issues as they occur, without delays or having to wait for supervisory approval.

“In business, you get what you want by giving other people what they want.” Alice MacDougall

A quote by Alice MacDougall sums up the idea of customer satisfaction.

Here are a few more Alice MacDougall quotes to enjoy…

For the poor the whole world is a self-constituted critic; your smallest action is open to debate. No secret place of your soul is safe from invasion.
I simply don’t believe in failure. In itself, it doesn’t exist. We create it. We make ourselves fail.
Poverty is relative, and the lack of food and of the necessities of life is not necessarily a hardship. Spiritual and social ostracism, the invasion of your privacy, are what constitute the pain of poverty.
For too many of us ease is far more soul-destroying than trouble.
A few hours with Beethoven are more restful than sleep.
One must eliminate the traditional and cling to the essential.
When one is altering the face of the universe one cannot remember small helpful acts.
Really to succeed, we must give; of our souls to the soulless, of our love to the lonely, of our intelligence to the dull. Business is quite as much a process of giving as it is of getting.
The small perplexities of small minds eddy and boil about you. Confident from the experience that has led you out of these same dangers, you attack each problem as it appears, unafraid.
Work becomes at once a delight and a tyrant. For even when the time comes and you can relax, you hardly know-how.
Much of the success of life depends upon keeping one’s mind open to opportunity and seizing it when it comes.
Life means opportunity, and the thing men call death is the last wonderful, beautiful adventure.
I am always glad to think that my education was, for the most part, informal, and had not the slightest reference to a future business career. It left me free and untrammeled to approach my business problems without the limiting influence of specific training.
Hunger and cold, ill-health and pain are nothing. They pass. The thing that remains is ignorant criticism, well-meaning but futile advice, the contempt of a subordinate, the feelings of the underdog.
That is the wearisome part of business – there is no peace, no sense of certain, permanent achievement, no stability. The unexpected, and usually the awful, is forever happening.
Not only is orderliness an economy; it produces rest.
Perhaps nothing in all my business has helped me more than faith in my fellow man. From the very first I felt confident that I could trust the great, friendly public. So I told it quite simply what I thought, what I felt, what I was trying to do. And the response was quick, sure, and immediate.
Success is an absurd, erratic thing. She arrives when one least expects her and after she has come may depart again almost because of a whim.
In business everyone is out to grab, to fight, to win. Either you are the under or the overdog. It is up to you to be on top.

Learn About Robert C. Lucas – Your Customer Service Skills Expert and Award-Winning Author that is a huge fan of Alice MacDougall

Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

He regularly conducts workshops on creative training, train-the-trainer, customer service, interpersonal communication, and management,
and supervisory skills.