Brand and Customer Loyalty Is Earned Not Given Freely

Consumer behavior and spending habits, customer needs, wants and expectations and customer satisfaction levels change constantly. There can be wide differences in the way that customers perceive an item or event when seeking services and products depending on diversity factors, such as, age, gender, race, ethnic background, and other individual factors.

A key to developing brand or customer loyalty is to hone and upgrade your customer service skills and product knowledge regularly as a customer service representative in order to increase satisfaction and customer retention. By providing excellent customer service, you help ensure continued business and positive word-of-mouth publicity.

One simple strategy to work on is to develop solid customer relations skills (e.g. verbal and non-verbal communication, dealing with diverse customers, and handling service breakdowns and conflict).

For hundreds of ideas on how to create and maintain a customer service environment that allows customers to feel comfortable and enjoy their customer-provider interactions, 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.

Trust is a Crucial Part of Customer Relations and Customer Retention

by Robert W. Lucas

Trust is a Crucial Part of Customer Relations and Customer Retention

An important point that many customer service representatives and other employees often forget is that customer satisfaction drives organizational success. If sound customer service skills are not taught to every employee at all levels and they fail to consistently provide excellent customer service, chances are that customer retention and trust are going to be negatively impacted.

When customer service breaks down, at issue in many provider-customer relationships is how well the organization meets customer needs, wants and expectations. When customer service representatives do not deliver products and services promised on time, in the manner promised and at the quality level expected, customer satisfaction and customer trust can be negatively impacted.

Unfortunately, once trust is gone it might never be regained, at least to prior levels. This is why employees must be vigilant in what they promise and in how they deliver products and services to customers.

If you want some specific ideas and strategies for building and maintaining trust with your customers get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success.

Partner With Customers When Building Positive Customer Service Cultures

by Robert W. Lucas

Partner With Customers When Building Positive Customer Service Cultures

Being a customer service representative can sometimes be a stressful and frustrating job if you work in an organization that does not effectively value and support customers. In such organizations, customer service training and supervisory coaching needed for you to develop the customer service skills to deliver excellent customer service are lacking. Even so, if you adopt a positive attitude of a professional customer service provider, you can effectively contribute to a customer-centric environment in which you and your customers work together for a win-win outcome.

Probably the most important strategy for employees in any organization to adopt in order to create a positive customer-centric service culture is to form a solid relationship with customers. Such partnerships can lead to a meeting or exceeding your customers’ needs, wants and expectations. After all, customers are the reason you have a job and the reason your organization continues to exist. With that in mind, you should do whatever you can to promote a positive, healthy customer-provider relationship. This can be done in a number of ways.

Here are a few simple customer relationship-building techniques:

Communicate openly and effectively.
Smile—project a positive image.
Listen intently, and then respond appropriately.
Facilitate situations in which customer needs are met and you succeed in win/win situations helping accomplish organizational goals.
Focus on developing an ongoing relationship with customers instead of taking a one-time service or sales opportunity approach.

If you are looking for additional ideas and strategies on how to create a more positive customer-centric environment that can lead to customer satisfaction and customer retention, get copies 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.

Three Tips to Enhance Customer Service

by Robert W. Lucas

Three Tips to Enhance Customer Service

Many things interfere with a customer service representative’s ability to effectively deliver customer service and help build customer and brand loyalty by increasing their satisfaction levels.

Here are three tips for effectively dealing with potential problem areas that can interfere with your ability to provide the best customer service. These techniques can also assist in creating a more customer-centric environment that helps address your customers’ needs, wants and expectations.

Keep personal emotions under control. When your emotional state rises because of personal issues or an angry reaction to a person or situation at work, take a few minutes to get away, if possible. Ask a co-worker or your supervisor to cover for you while you go for a short break to clear your head. While away, do not dwell on the issues causing the reaction. Instead, read a book, take a walk and think of positive things, focus on other issues so that when you return, you will be ready to listen to your customers effectively and deliver quality service.

Address personal issues before coming into contact with customers. If you have personal issues that are distracting from your work performance and preventing you from effectively assisting your customers, seek help through your Human Resources department. Many organizations offer an Employee Assistance Plan (EAP) that provides support for financial, legal, health and many other personal issues. In most cases, services are outsourced to a third-party vendor and are not provided by your organization’s employees. The services are anonymous and no reports listing your name are available to your supervisors or other employees in the organization.

Work to improve your listening skills. To verify the accuracy of your perception about your own listening effectiveness, ask several people in your workplace who know you’re listening abilities well to rate you. Have them use the scale of Outstanding, Above Average, Average, Poor, and Ineffective. Once they rate you, have them provide hints on how to improve your effectiveness. These submissions or ratings could be done anonymously on a piece of paper in order to get more candid feedback. Once you get the information, objectively analyze it and then incorporate it into your listening improvement action plan, as necessary. You might checkbooks, articles, Internet sites dealing with the topic of listening and interpersonal communication, or enroll in seminars or college classes that cover effective listening.

For additional ideas and strategies for enhancing your customer service skills, increasing customer satisfaction, promoting customer retention and building brand and customer loyalty, get a copy 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.

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.

Customer Service Excellence Quote – Macy’s Department Store Motto

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Excellence Quote – Macy’s Department Store Motto

Customer service excellence should be a primary goal for any organization. Attainment of this crucial element by any organization is key to success Without it, and satisfied customers who keep coming back and sharing their positive experiences with others, there is no reason to exist.

By going above standards of quality products and services, any organization can become a leader in its industry. It can also quickly develop and maintain customer and brand loyalty through the achievement of customer satisfaction.

The Macy’s Department Store motto succinctly sums up this premise:

“Be everywhere, do everything, and never fail to astonish the customer.” Macy’s Department Store Motto

About Robert C. Lucas, Award-Winning Author just explained

why Macy’s lasted for more than 100 years as an industry leader.

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

Generating Positive Customer and Brand Loyalty

by Robert W. Lucas

Generating Positive Customer and Brand Loyalty

Customers are your reason for existing as an employee. They are also the key element in your organization’s success. For that reason, customer service representatives must consciously go out of your way to identify and anticipate their needs, then address them in an expedient and professional manner.

Just because someone is a customer today, does not mean that they will remain so in the future. Unfortunately, consumer opinions in many parts of the world have shifted related to customer and brand loyalty. In the past, people often exhibited brand loyalty for cars, laundry detergent, restaurants, airlines, and many other items and services. With the advent of technology, global trade and easy access to alternative and comparable products and services, it is not unusual for someone to move to a new product, service or provider to meet their needs based strictly on factors like price, service or availability. The result is that many well-known major organizations and products have changed dramatically, evolved or disappeared in the past decades. Examples are Montgomery Ward, Pontiac and Plymouth automobiles, Eastern Airlines, and Steak and Ale and Bennigan’s restaurants. In instances where manufacturers have recognized the need for product modifications to address customer needs, wants and expectations, they have modified or added additional varieties to their product lines (e.g. Coca Cola and Pepsi, Tide detergent, Cheerios cereal, and Crest toothpaste).

In order to help ensure customer loyalty, you must place your customer first in all dealings and know your products, services, policies, procedures, and competition well. You must also continually seek to enhance your knowledge and skills while staying attuned to current consumer behaviors and trends. Ultimately, your goal is to be the “go-to” person and organization for whatever products or services you offer. You want to deliver the best customer service possible.

For strategies and ideas on how to create customer loyalty, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success 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.

Two Tips for Building Strong Customer Relationships

by Robert W. Lucas

Two Tips for Building Strong Customer Relationships

Customers like doing business with those who understand them and their needs and go out of their way to deliver timely and quality services and products at a fair price. This can lead to consumer satisfaction and that is a big factor for many customers in remaining loyal to a brand or organization.

Here are two simple tips that can help enhance customer retention and provide quality service to customers.

1. Pay Attention

As you listen to your customers, focus all your attention on them so that you can identify and address their needs. If you are providing service face-to-face use positive nonverbal cues (e.g. face the customer, smile, use open body gestures, make eye contact, stop doing other things, and focus attention on the customer) and language. Ask open-end questions to determine the customer’s needs. Also, use the active listening techniques to ensure that you get all the information you need to properly address your customer’s needs or concerns.

2. Deal with One Customer at a Time

You cannot effectively handle two people (on the phone or in-person) simultaneously. When more than one call or customer comes in at the same time, seek assistance or ask one of them to either wait or if you might get back to him or her at a later time. Then, give personalized attention to the other customer.

Providing stellar customer service is not always easy, but if you strive to gain and use positive customer relationship management knowledge and skills, you can effectively identify and satisfy customer needs.

For additional strategies on effectively providing stellar customer service, get a copy of Please Every Customer: Providing Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and Customer Service Skills for Success.

About Robert C. Lucas

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

Strengthening Customer Communication

by Robert W. Lucas

Strengthening Customer Communication

Customers who feel that they have an active role and control of a service-provider interaction often feel more important and valued. Improved interpersonal communication can lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction and retention and reduced stress for you and your co-workers.

Take advantage of the following strategies to build stronger relationships with your internal and external customers.

Gather Information

Ask for customer input whenever possible. By knowing more about their needs, wants and expectations, you will be better able to provide services and products that satisfy them. Use strategies you will find in this chapter to gather valuable information from people who you encounter on a daily basis.

Be Consistent

People tend to like what is familiar. If customers come to know that they can depend on you and your organization to regularly provide timely, factual information, they will likely be more loyal. Provide information and updates to customers on a regular basis, not just when it is convenient for you. This is especially true when you are working on a problem or service breakdown. Remember that they do now know what you know. For example, if you are gathering information or need more time than expected, come back to the customer with periodic updates to give them a status check.

Demonstrate Openness

Customers often want to see that service providers understand them on a personal level. The worst thing you can do as a service provider is to hide behind a policy or deflect responsibility when dealing with a customer issue or question. Think of how you likely react when a service provider says something like, “I can’t do that because our policy says…” You probably feel the hairs rise on the back of your neck and become agitated. Your customers are no different. When interacting with them, take the time to put yourself in their place before saying something or taking an action that might create an adversarial situation.

Be Personable

Service providers who tend to be “all business” or robotic in their service delivery often fail to get high marks from customers. Even if you are knowledgeable, efficient and follow all the rules in delivering service, you could end up with a customer who is dissatisfied if you do not demonstrate some degree of humanness. This means connecting on a personal level and showing compassion and concern for your customers and their emotional needs.

By communicating effectively and regularly with your customers, you show that you are more than a customer service representative; you are a person. For example, if someone tells you during an interaction that they are celebrating a special event take the time to ask explore the topic briefly or relate a personal example. If it’s their child’s birthday, you might wish the child an enthusiastic “Happy Birthday” and ask him or her how old they are or what they hope to get for their birthday. Depending on the type of business you are in, you might even offer a small present (e.g. a free dessert, a piece of candy, a toy, coupon for a discount on their next visit, or whatever might be appropriate). At the least, upon concluding the transaction, wish them well or congratulate them one more time.