customer needs

Building Customer Relationships Is an Integral Part of Selling

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Building Customer Relationships Is an Integral Part of Selling

Building Customer Relationships Is an Integral Part of Selling

Building customer relationships is an integral part of selling. If you are a customer service representative who deals with selling products or services, there is a difference between simply providing the information requested by a customer and building a lasting customer relationship in order to help make a sale. This is because you need to gather information to determine actual customer needs or why they are talking to you in the first place before you can effectively offer a specific product or service.

It is not unusual for a customer to ask for price early in a conversation. Several factors account for their actions. Many times it is because they have a history of a customer service representative who has taken advantage of them or not provided a competitive price. In other instances, they may have heard the phrase “buyer beware” and are acting cautiously to feel that they are in control of the interaction. Whatever their reason, you must respect that they are the customer and that you treat them with respect. You must act professionally in order to build trust and identify what best suits their needs. At the same time, you should not withhold the requested information from them.

The sales process is a lot like walking a tightrope. Too much deviation in one direction or another could mean your customer walks with the memory of a rude, controlling or uncooperative sales representative. On the other hand, taking the time to move forward slowly and carefully, can end in having the customer feel as if she or he guided the transaction and succeeded in getting a deal with which they are pleased.

The key to effectively interacting with customers during a sale is to ask appropriate open and closed-ended questions that guide the customer to explain what they need, want and expect. Without such information, you cannot properly negotiate with them to provide a price that is fair for them and your organization.

In situations where a customer asks for pricing upfront, he or she may simply be comparative shopping or trying to control the negotiation in order to get a lower price. Without first asking questions to determine your customer needs, you cannot appropriately respond to their request. This does not mean that you immediately say “no.” It means that you counter professionally with something like, “I’d be happy to share pricing information if you can just answer a question for me. How important are complete satisfaction and guaranteed satisfaction to you?” Once they respond to this, you can provide information about the product/service that you are offering and reinforce your organization’s commitment to customer satisfaction. before moving into price negotiation.

Simply giving pricing to a customer might cause them to say thank you and leave instead of allowing you to share the benefits of the product or service to the customer. Your goal should be to explain how the product or service features you are offering can help meet their needs and wants. You should also provide details about the quality, customer satisfaction, post-sales service, return policies, and other pertinent information that make you the preferred vendor or supplier for customers.

Building customer relationships is an integral part of selling. If you are a customer service representative who deals with selling products or services, there is a difference between simply providing the information requested by a customer and building a lasting customer relationship in order to help make a sale.

For additional techniques and strategies on how to build strong customer relationships, identifying customer needs, wants and expectations and delivering the best possible customer service, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Two Strategies for Reducing Stress in a Customer Service Environment

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Two Strategies for Reducing Stress in a Customer Service Environment

Two Strategies for Reducing Stress in a Customer Service Environment

In a struggling economy, customer service managers around the world realize the value of providing service on demand and maintaining customer-centric environments. With the competition for customers, many organizations are making ongoing advances in system efficiency to address customer needs.

Tasks that used to take hours, days, and even weeks are now done almost instantaneously or certainly in a greatly reduced time frame. Because of evolving technology, transportation, and systems, the speed at which customers expect product and service delivery will likely increase in the future. All this is creating a situation in which customers continue to demand more and faster customer service. The idea of getting it now has so permeated consumer mentality that your failure to provide the quickest, most efficient delivery of products and services is the kiss of death for you and your organization. As a result of this “get it now” mentality, each new generation of consumers has less memory of the long waiting times experienced by their forebears. People are accustomed to getting what they want, when and where they want it with little or no wait time.

Today, if customers cannot get what they want from you and your organization when they want it, they go elsewhere. In many cases, they can just log onto a computer and surf the Internet to get their needs, wants and expectations met – often faster and cheaper. These continuing changes and expectations increase pressure and stress for you and your coworkers.

The following are three simple strategies to help maintain your sanity and potentially reduce stress on any given day as a customer service representative.

Regain control. Sometimes, we just have to say “Enough!” and step back to analyze where we are with commitments and factors that are impacting our lives. If you regularly feel that you are “swimming upstream” and that all sorts of people or tasks are coming at you constantly, with little break, stop. Take a deep breath, look at what is causing this feeling and the actions occurring and develop a strategy for modifying or dealing with them. Don’t be embarrassed or afraid to ask for help. Many times, when people become overwhelmed and start to get depressed about it, they are ashamed that they feel they cannot handle things themselves and avoid seeking help. This only allows things to continue to build and overwhelm. If you get to such a point, it is crucial that you get help so that you can continue to perform professionally and help your customers.

Learn to say “no.” Take the approach that antidrug campaigns at schools have taught children for years in relation to drugs – “Just Say No” – when it comes to accepting more responsibility or assignments whenever possible and appropriate. Obviously, you are not likely to tell your boss or customers that you won’t do something or help them, but when possible and feasible, decline to assist others (e.g. family, friends, co-workers, or whomever).

If you are overcommitted, seek assistance from others in the workplace. Speak to your supervisor or team leader and let them know what you are working on and your time commitments. Often, they do not realize how much work they have given you if they routinely pass along assignments as tasks come up, especially in a high-pressure or chaotic work environment.

For additional information on customer service-related stress and strategies and techniques for reducing it, so that you can continue to provide excellent customer service, get a copy of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and Customer Service Skills for Success.

Encouraging Customer Loyalty Can Result in Increased Customer Retention

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Encouraging Customer Loyalty Can Result in Increased Customer Retention

Encouraging Customer Loyalty

Can Result in Increased Customer Retention

If you are a customer service representative, one of your key roles is to help create a customer-centric environment designed to identify and meet customer expectations. To accomplish this, you must ensure that you continue to enhance your knowledge of the organization’s products and services. You must also continually hone your customer service skills in order to communicate, negotiate, and serve customers while you deliver excellent customer service.

To get hundreds of ideas and strategies on how to create a positive customer service environment that can aid in achieving customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

Strong Customer Relations Result From Excellent Customer Service

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Strong Customer Relations Result From Excellent Customer

Strong Customer Relations Result From Excellent Customer Service

Providing excellent customer service should be the goal of everyone in your organization, not just front line customer service representatives. Ultimately, customer satisfaction and customer retention are about how well you care about your job and the quality of customer service you provide. By working closely with your customers to build and maintain strong customer relations with them, you not only have an opportunity to meet but also exceed their needs, wants and expectations.

 

To sum all this up, it comes down to possessing strong product knowledge and customer service skills and applying both anytime you come into contact with an internal or external customer.

Customer Relations Equal Sales, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention

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Customer Relations Equal Sales, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention

Customer Relations Equal Sales,

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention

If you are not striving to build the best customer relationships possible with those you encounter in your organization, then you are failing as a service professional.

Everyone from front-line customer service representatives to senior management has a responsibility to do what it takes to secure customer trust and continually focus their efforts (and those of the organization as a whole) on meeting customer needs, wants and expectations. Delivering excellent customer service should be not only a goal; it should be the goal every day that you go to work.

Customer Satisfaction Helps Build Brand and Customer Loyalty

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Customer Satisfaction Helps Build Brand and Customer Loyalty

Customer Satisfaction Helps Build Brand and Customer Loyalty

To be successful as a customer service representative, it is important that you recognize that consumer behavior has changed in the past decade or so, and that this impacts your customer’s needs, wants and expectations.

There are several important things you can do to provide customer satisfaction and help ensure brand and customer loyalty:

  • Work to maintain a positive customer service attitude.
  • Ensure that every action that you take is focused on providing excellent customer service.
  • Identify and focus on assisting all internal and external customers to the best of your ability.
  • Practice positive customer service skills with any encounter you have with a current or potential customer.
  • Strive to identify trends in customer service and regularly upgrade your customer service skills to address changing expectations and attitudes.

For additional thought and strategies for dealing with a changing customer service environment, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Appropriate Service Recovery Strategies Can Lead To Customer Satisfaction and Retention

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Appropriate Service Recovery Strategies Can Lead To Customer Satisfaction and Retention

Appropriate Service Recovery Strategies

Can Lead To Customer Satisfaction and Retention

Delivering excellent customer service should be the goal of every customer service representative and organization. Unfortunately, when things do not go as planned and customer service breakdowns occur, customer needs wants and expectations are often not met. Obviously, this is when customer satisfaction and customer retention become an issue to be addressed immediately and in a positive manner.

The following is a personal experience that my wife and I encountered yesterday when we went to a movie theatre that we visit frequently.

We went to see a movie yesterday and within 30 minutes of the start of the film it was dragging – the sound and picture were not synced. On the positive side, an employee (not the manager) came in three times to update the packed theatre. On the downside though, he explained that they had been having trouble like this all day with this movie. To that comment, someone yelled, “Then why do you keep selling tickets to other groups?” A valid question to which the employee responded that “We thought it would stop.”

They finally canceled the show and gave rainchecks. The employee even went on to tell us the next showing was at 7:15…as if we would stick around to try again.

Of course, as a customer service author, trainer, and consultant, all of this did not sit with me since my wife and I had already consumed $14.00 in snacks and drove 20 minutes to get there. So, I went to see the manager. Unfortunately, he was busy in the projection booth trying to fix the computer, so I gave his supervisor my card and told who I was and what I do. I then explained that this incident and the way it had been handled was contrary to service recovery strategies offered by excellent organizations. I further pointed out that by giving us a rain check, they only gave us an opportunity to return and spend even more time and money for snacks (an obvious win for them). I suggested that true service recovery is designed to “make the customer whole” and compensate them for their inconvenience.

Since the supervisor had just arrived at work and was not sure what exactly happened, I explained the situation. He then asked for our original ticket stubs and in exchange gave us our money back. He also and let us keep the rainchecks. Finally, service recovery had occurred. Too bad it took me asking for it to get satisfaction. That was good for us, but all the other people in a packed theatre did not get this and some probably left dissatisfied.

I suggested that he give the manager my business card and tell him what I’d shared about service recovery. Hopefully, I will not have to test their system again and the staff will receive training on effective service recovery should they ever need it in the future.

If you are looking for ideas on effective service and how to provide service recovery when things go wrong with your customers, get a copy of my book, Customer Service Skills for Success.

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.

Motivational Customer Service Quote – Zig Zigler

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Motivational Customer Service Quote – Zig Zigler

Successful customer service in today’s globally-connected, technology-driven world is about customer service representatives and other employees in the organization having a positive customer-centric attitude. It is also about effectively identifying and satisfying the needs, wants and expectations that each customer brings to a service encounter.

Motivational Customer Service Quote - Zig Zigler

For strategies on how to identify needs, wants and expectations in various customer environments and situations, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success 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 Role of Mission and Vision Statements in Customer Service

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The Role of Mission and Vision Statements in Customer Service

Most successful organizations have written mission and vision statements that answer the questions of “What do the organization do?” and “Why does the organization exist?” Mission statements should always tie back to the vision statement and should be incorporated into the infrastructure (e.g. HR policies and procedures) and the service culture of an organization. Both mission and vision statements succinctly define the service culture and how the organization will act related to satisfying customer needs, wants and expectations.

The Role of Mission and Vision Statements in Customer Service

Leadership, real and perceived, is crucial to service success. In successful organizations, members of upper management make themselves clearly visible to frontline employees and are in tune with customer needs and expectations. They also “walk the talk” and continually drive and communicate the mission and vision of the organization through their words, actions, and decisions. Ultimately, these measures set the tone for a more ethical, productive, and customer conscious organization.

If all employees are aware of what their organization stands for, how it accomplishes its mission, and where it is headed in the future, they can play a crucial role in creating a service culture that strives to identify and meet customer needs, wants, and expectations.

Part of ensuring that everyone in the organization is working toward the same goals is to ensure that all policies, infrastructure, and actions support the mission and vision statements. For example, performance appraisals should have language that addresses how supervisors, managers, and employees are doing at addressing established goals and objectives and actions taken to uphold ethical standards. Additionally, all individual and department goals should be tied to the organizational mission and goals.

Although it is wonderful when organizations go to the trouble of developing and hanging a nicely framed formal mission or vision statement on the wall, if they are not a functional way of life for employees, they serve little purpose.

For additional ideas and strategies on ways to enhance customer service in your organization, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

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.

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.

Characteristics of Organizations with Strong Customer Service Cultures

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Characteristics of Organizations with Strong Customer Service Cultures

Many organizations struggle to gain and maintain strong customer and brand loyalty. However, what they often fail to do right is to create a service culture that nurtures and supports customers.Characteristics of Organizations with Strong Customer Service Cultures

The following are some common characteristics for leading-edge customer-focused organizations that you might use to help create a positive customer service culture in your own organization.

  • They have and support internal customers (for example, peers, co-workers, bosses, subordinates, people from other areas of their organization) and/or external customers (for example, vendors, suppliers, various telephone callers, walk-in customers, other organizations, others not from within the organization).
  • Their focus is on determining and meeting the needs, wants and expectations of customers while treating everyone with respect and as if he or she is special.
  • Information, products, and services are easily accessible by customers.
  • Policies are in place to allow employees to make decisions in order to better serve customers.
  • Management and systems support and appropriately reward employee efforts to serve customers.
  • Reevaluation and quantitative measurement of the way business is conducted is ongoing and results in necessary changes and upgrades to deliver timely quality service to the customer.
  • Continual benchmarking or comparison with competitors and related organizations helps maintain an acute awareness and implementation of best service practices by the organization.
  • The latest technology is used to connect with and provide service to customers, vendors, or suppliers and to support business operations.
  • They build relationships through customer relationship management (CRM) programs.

For additional ideas and strategies for building a strong service culture, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

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.

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.

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