What Do Customers Really Want?

An Interesting Survey

Click Here to read the Amazing Service Guy.

How To Make Your Customers Love You

It surprises me how many businesses are out there for whom it’s okay to have a client who is dissatisfied. Many times, the business objective seems to be just to do the bare minimum that gets their money from the client.
If you are actually in the business spending time, i.e. you are spending part of your life, why not aim to delight the customer?

I will give you one reason why you want to delight the customer. Most of services business comes through referrals. And a delighted customer is much more likely to refer someone than a customer whose expectations you have barely managed to meet.

To Delight, What Matters Most is You

If you have been able to delight a boss at a job, a team manager at a voluntary organization or for that matter another client, you will know what it takes to delight a customer. The skills that go into delighting a boss are the exact same skills that help you delight a customer. Broadly, the ability the inspire trust, the ability to ask the right questions and listen to the customer and the ability to under promise and over deliver are the skills you have to develop if you want to delight customers.

Inspire Trust

Does someone who works with you trust you? Will they want to share their secrets with you? Or ask for advice? The pattern of behavior that inspires trust is very important. It’s the sense of “Yes-this-person-can-do-it” feeling that’s important in the beginning of a relationship.

After you establish a relationship, your track record (delivery on promises and honesty) counts.

Listening

Asking the right questions and listening to customers is important to make the customer articulate what she wants and make her feel important.
Most people have a need, the need to feel important; the need to be acknowledged and understood; the need to feel valued and cared for. When you deliver a service, the above needs come to the fore. When a client’s need for feeling important is not satisfied, it hurts him/her and she/he feels neglected.

How do you make the client feel important and cared for? There is one simple way.

Listen to your client well. It’s as simple as it sounds. And it’s easy to implement.

Over Deliver

If you deliver to her specs, the client would think that’s what she bought. You have to over deliver. This means that it has to show that you had worked harder and smarter than what she asked for. It can be that if the client asked for 10, you give her 12. If she asked for x amount of quality, give her more than that. If you have to deliver on 17th, deliver it on 15th itself. That positive “surprise” is an essential element in delighting customers.

Taking the customer into confidence when things go wrong
In case you are unable to meet a commitment, the best way out is to own up to the shortfall. The thumb rule is: make a bad news known to the client as soon as possible but delay good news till it actually materializes. Both will prove your sensitivity to the customer.

Most service businesses are relationship based businesses. That means that the more customers you can keep, the better business you will build and the more profits and revenue you will make. On the other hand, if your repeat business is low, that translates into higher customer acquisition costs.

About the Author: Chaitanya Sagar is the Co-Founder and CEO of p2w2 (for PeopleToWorkWith), which helps small businesses outsource services like business and financial planning, software, virtual assistance, and research. This article is from her blog.

Johnny the Bagger

You Tube Video on Customer Service

Click to watch here.

Magic Johnson’s Captivating Customer Service

The NBA great builds a retail empire in the inner city.

LOS ANGELES (Fortune Small Business)

As an NBA Hall of Famer, Earvin “Magic” Johnson faced down such giants as Larry Bird and Julius Erving. Diagnosed with HIV in 1991, Johnson has fought off full blown AIDS for the past 18 years. Now, as a coffee shop proprietor, he’s fighting his latest battle against…scones.
“My customers in urban America are so skeptical, we have to win them over,” he says and the skepticism extends to exotic pastries. “So in my Starbucks, we serve sweet potato pie.”
Sixteen years after retiring from pro basketball, Johnson is finding almost as much success as a small business owner as he did on the court. Magic Johnson Enterprises, a private Los Angeles based company, has 35 employees and assets of more than $700 million. It works with local entrepreneurs to open franchises in inner city neighborhoods across the U.S., and has signed a unique deal with Starbucks (SBUX, Fortune 500) that allows MJE to open franchises and split the revenue fifty fifty.

Magic’s brand beats HIV
Now Johnson is advising big box stores such as Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500) on how to crack urban markets once the economy allows the stores to expand again. The key, he says, is paying attention to customers. When Johnson makes public appearances, as he does about 100 times a year, he isn’t just signing autographs. He also gives his office phone number to any customer who complains to him personally, even if the problem is a dearth of sugar packets. If the problem persists, he wants to know about it.

“Minorities appreciate that, because we are used to corporations coming in, opening up their building, but then disrespecting us with their service,” Johnson says. “If you don’t engage us, we’re going to cut you off our list.”

He found that out the hard way. One of his first franchises was an NBA store that lost $200,000 before it closed. The reason? Johnson picked the inventory based on his own preferences rather than the customers’.

Another early venture, a movie theater near L.A.‘s gang-ridden Crenshaw district, seemed doomed to failure until Magic sat down with the gang leaders and asked for their respect. It worked. The theater is now one of the highest earners in the AMC chain.

Johnson is on to something, says Dominique Hanssens, chair of the marketing department at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. Selling sweet potato pie instead of scones, he says, “shows customers that you’re trying to figure out how to serve them in new ways.” By targeting a less affluent market, Johnson benefits from less competition, greater loyalty and, paradoxically, more revenue in the long run.

“The lifetime value of his customers can be quite high, even if they don’t bring in as much money in the short term,” Hanssens says. “Everybody loses business in a recession. But it’s better if your existing customers stay with you and just spend a little less.”

By Desa Philadelphia

First Published: June 11, 2009 in Fortune Small Business

Contrary to Belief, An Angry Customer is Your Friend

Fear not your angry customers. They are not the enemy. Quite to the contrary, angry customers are possibly some of the best friends your business has.

Every business has had to deal with angry customers. Even the best trained, most conscientious customer centric businesses have occasional lapses where they do not measure up to their customers’ expectations.

When that happens, if you get past the anger, the tone of voice, the occasional insult or invective, you’ll realize that angry customers are speaking to you because, although they feel wronged, they also feel that you can help remedy the situation. This is a golden opportunity to win and solidify your customer’s loyalty.

A study by Technical Assistance Research Programs shows that customers who have had a problem resolved successfully and amicably tend to be more loyal than customers who have never experienced a problem with a particular business.

When a problem arises, where things do not go the way the customer had hoped, smart businesses use this opportunity to fix the error quickly and happily. They learn from the error to ensure that it does not occur again. And this is where the angry customer helps you.
Here’s how successful companies turn angry customers into loyal customers.

Step One: Be a smart listener
As all customer-focused businesses know, the world revolves around the customer, not the business. So when the angry customer calls, it really is your boss calling. Would you interrupt your boss if he or she were angry? Not if you wanted to stay employed.
For the same reason it is imperative to let angry customers say their piece. Do not try to resolve the issue before they’ve had a chance to explain not only the nature of the problem but also the ramifications it has had on their lives. The urge to fix a problem before acknowledging the pain is often where service calls go awry.

Many businesses place a high value on resolving calls quickly; they measure average length of call or interaction, and reward their reps for lowering the amount of time spent per incident.
While this particular metric seems important to the internal operations of many businesses, we have never heard a customer say that the most important aspect of the call was to get off the phone as quickly as possible.
Frankly, if a customer is concerned enough to call or visit a business, then he or she wants that business to know the exact nature of that problem, and why that problem is bothering him or her.

While it is not pleasant news, what’s bothering the customer is exactly the kind of information that businesses need to hear in order to hone their operations.
Unfortunately, if service reps are trained and rewarded for quickly ending calls, or worse yet, not trained on how to deal with customer anger, then an opportunity to collect this valuable knowledge is lost. Also lost is any hope of a repeat sale, because that customer’s next purchase is going to your competitor.

Step Two: Be empathetic
When your organization makes an error, or offends a customer in some way, the first order of business is an apology. If you want to successfully recover from this mishap, you need to know the best way to apologize.
The first thing is to shut up and listen. Do not try addressing the problem or the solution until the customer has said what he or she wants to say. Apologizing too soon reeks of insincerity. Making excuses for the problem is also inappropriate. Other than asking questions to clarify the problem, your initial responses should be empathetic: “Oh that is not good!” “I can understand why that would be upsetting to you.”

Step Three: Be thankful
It is imperative that the next words out of your mouth are, “Thank you for telling me about this issue.” Thanking a customer for complaining not only disarms some of the anger, but it also sets the expectation for the resolution of the issue. This should be followed immediately by sincerely saying, “I apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced.”

Step Four: Be resolute
Only after Step Three are you ready to discuss the explanation and resolution of the problem.
Resolution time is not the time for lame excuses. Never place the blame for your customer’s problem on another employee/department/vendor, or, heaven forbid, on the customer. Remember, the goal is to resolve the issue to the customer’s satisfaction, not to take the heat off of you.

Step Five: Be forthcoming
Most importantly, do not ever use the dreaded phrase “company policy.” Why? Company policies are written with the company in mind, not the customer. And, most people know this. By quoting “company policy” you end up alienating more good customers than you will foil conniving ones.

Even when your policies are in place for good reasons, do not use the phrase “company policy.” It is fraught with negativity. Instead, simply explain WHY the policy is in place. If there is a good reason, share it! If not, then re-examine it, it may be causing customer unrest.

Armed with new knowledge from angry customers, smart businesses work to prevent similar problems from recurring. Getting on the same side of the issues with your angry customers drives repeat business and referrals, major contributors to profitability

By Chuck Dennis, Customer Retention Specialist at Knowledgence Associates, author of numerous articles on customer service, viewable at this website.

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

Carl Jung (1875–1961)

ANNOY IS TO DISTURB OR IRRITATE ESPECIALLY BY REPEATED ACTS.

And it’s the last thing we want to do. Isn’t it?

Of course, it’s never our intent. But our intent doesn’t matter. What we do matters.

BE SALES BRIGHT

Here are the sales facts

They don’t like it when

we’re pushy
we call too much
we’re “just checking in”
we’re unprepared
we’re disrespectful of their time
we keep calling if they say
they’re not interested
we don’t respond fast enough
we appear not to understand them, their industry, their situations, and their challenges
we don’t work in their interest
we don’t listen
we don’t know about our own products/ services
we’re rude, arrogant, or inattentive
we’re vague or unclear
they’re made to feel like they’re interrupting us
we seem like we’re “just trying to sell them something”
And, they can’t stand it when we won’t take no for an answer.

What do they like?

A return on their investment (to get more, to save more, to look good, to feel good, to be loved*).

That’s it.

Anything else and we’re wasting their time (and ours).

Don’t be sales dumb.

Be SalesBright.

AVOID ANNOYING

How do you and your team avoid annoying?

First, consider your current sales process - from contact through closure. Include, also, what happens when you follow up with customers in your service efforts.

Write down the known “annoyers” that occur at each stage – things you’ve been told by prospects and customers directly and things you’ve been told by them through their actions (e.g., not responding to your repeated calls).

Now, the difficult part… Brainstorm replacement activities that’ll be considered by your prospects and customers to be helpful rather than annoying.

Choose what you feel are the best ideas, try them, evaluate results, and adapt accordingly.

And, remember, with time comes change (technology, environments, competitive situations, etc.). The things you do today may not be acceptable in the future… just as the things you did in the past may now be unacceptable.

WRITE BETTER EMAILS

Here’s how…

Shorten it.
Write clearly (to make it easier to understand).
Begin with the most important point and continue in descending order of importance (to minimize the chance that what you hope to communicate isn’t missed).

Attention spans are short and getting shorter. (Do you like reading long emails from people?)

Your email communication should provide value and/ or move the process along. It’s not an art form where people will tolerate a slow opening act or introduction.

Sales check:

How long has it been since you and your team reviewed your standard email communications (e.g., your approach, follow-up, urgency-creating and inbound inquiry responses, etc.)?

Manager’s thought:

To not review your team’s standard email communications on at least a quarterly basis is to potentially miss out on some great ideas you can implement system wide (or miss some system-wide communications that should be terminated immediately).

Sales reminder:

Email is not a substitute for contact. If you don’t make live contact on a regular basis, you can be sure your interpersonal skills will deteriorate and your sales value will decrease.

You’ve been advised. You are now responsible.

Author: Sam Parker of Give More Media
Printed in the JustSell October 2009 Newsletter

The Internet Amplifies Customer Complaints:

Are You Prepared?

Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other Internet communication tools have empowered customers with the ability to express their grievances and complaints like a megaphone to the world. The old adage that a satisfied customer will tell three people and an unsatisfied customer will tell ten has expanded exponentially with advances in technology. Now disgruntled consumers can rant online about their bad experiences dealing with a business to audiences of thousands, or in some cases millions, of people.

Recently, a musician who felt United Airlines damaged his guitar on a flight was so fed up with trying to get reimbursed that he wrote a song, made a video and posted it to YouTube. Titled “United Breaks Guitars,” the video was viewed more than 2.5 million times in less than a week and prompted national media attention. As a result of the video’s popularity, United Airlines contacted the musician and offered to reimburse him for his guitar, but the damage was already done.

In the same way that an online rant can damage a company’s reputation, successfully handling complaints online can showcase a company’s dedication to customer service, setting it apart from the competition. Companies like Comcast and Zappos.com, for example, have received praise for their Twitter accounts that respond to tweets from unhappy customers. Successfully responding to consumer complaints can build customer loyalty and enhance a business’s reputation which can turn an initially negative situation into a positive one for a company. The following are a few tips to assist your company with addressing online complaints and comments regarding your business.

Continually Monitor the Online Conversation. In addition to personally surfing through popular social networking, news, and review Web sites looking out for postings, there are also tools you can use to monitor who is talking about your company online. For example, Backtype.com and Google Alerts will send you e-mail messages when people post comments online or if your company is mentioned in the news. One of the easiest ways to monitor the conversation, however, is to simply do an Internet search of your company’s name every couple days, keeping an eye out for new results.

Pick your battles. Depending on the size of your business, it can be extremely time consuming to address every blog post, comment or tweet. When choosing rants to respond to, look for ones that are less than a few days old, on prominent sites and are about problems that you can solve.

Offer full disclosure. When defending your company online, don’t pretend to be an unbiased consumer. Tech savvy individuals can easily deduce who is behind comments so it’s best to be honest and admit up-front that you represent the company.

Take the conversation offline. Some companies have made the mistake of hashing out disputes online for everyone to see. Instead, respond with brief and polite messages that ask the customer if you can contact them directly by e-mail or phone to discuss the specific details of their complaint.

Don’t say anything privately that you wouldn’t want public. Just because you’ve taken the conversation offline, it doesn’t mean that your e-mails and phone conversations won’t end up on the Internet, so always remain polite and professional.

Follow through. Don’t drop the conversation when resolving a dispute and always follow through on promises. Consider providing a little extra perk, such as coupons, after the issue has been resolved.

Know when to walk away. There’s no satisfying some angry customers and at times a business can only offer a sincere apology and walk away from the conversation.

Tim Burns is the Public Affairs Director for the Better Business Bureau Serving Eastern Michigan. The BBB is a non-profit organization that works to promote trust in the marketplace and prevent fraudulent and unethical business practices. Your local BBB can be reached online at BBB or Facebook.