Holding On to Customers During Tough Times

In the current economy, there is a very real and growing concern about how to gain and to keep customers. This was apparent at the 2008 North American Conference on Customer Management (NACCM) this year, with attendance lower than it has been in some time. The irony is that much of what was presented provided insight on how to reach out and hold on to customers during tough times.

In stressful times such as these, many companies tend to pull away from their customers, and may even cut back on satisfaction and loyalty programs to try and improve their bottom line. This, unfortunately, is a mistake because it cuts at the very heart of what we all need to be doing during this time engaging customers to the point that they are willing to ride out tough economic times with us, rather than viewing us as yet another business that really doesn't care about its customers and is willing to drop them or cut out the programs and products they care about most as soon as times get tough.

This was part of the overarching message at NACCM, including a conference speech I gave on engagement-that it's important to continue to invest in improving customer engagement. However, one must be smart about how one goes about it. And the five most important take aways from this years conference were:

Engaging your customers (moving beyond 'satisfaction' and 'loyalty') will create a relationship between your customers and your company and/or its product that will help you weather the economic storm or even any mistakes your company may make engaged customers really do stick with you and spend more money!

Use tools that are as effective as possible with the least expense (web-based tools are ideal for this) tools that will not only provide you with data, but will help point you toward what is really going on with your customers

Don't just 'survey' your customers use tools that will provide you with leading indicators that will allow you to predict how a much larger group of customers will react based on the responses of a smaller group.

Don't forget your employees! Engaged employees have a positive effect (a 'spillover effect') on the engagement of your customers.

Engaging your customers means taking action. Even small improvements can mean an increase in your customer's share of wallet, positive word of mouth and referrals and increased retention and productivity from employees

The key in all of this is to overcome the reactionary fear that comes with a downturn in the economy and to look beyond. By spending smarter and in the right areas (what area is more important than those people who allow us all to be paid?) we can do more than survive-we can continue to thrive.

Terence Fugazzi is the VP of Demand Marketing at Allegiance (http://www.allegiance.com). His company provides solutions that help organizations grow and increase profitability through improved customer and employee loyalty and engagement.

What Is Customer Service?

Most of the company loses there many customers every year but they really doesnt know why? Don t allows your customer base to decay while letting your competition gain market share.

Always engage with the customers to know what they want and what are they suggesting for you and ask them how you could be do better be more relevant to them. If you realize that what your customer thinks about you, their needs and what they want your business will be than perfect. Here are the few things that you can do.

1. Discover what your customers think about you and the competition
2. Get insights on new products or services
3. Understand what drives their loyalty
4. Learn where you stand in comparison with competitors
5. Demonstrate a commitment to listening to your customers

Engaging with customers drives improved customer loyalty and satisfaction. Quickly respond to customer concerns, promote the best answers, and point customers to the most up-to-date information, this will help you to improve and make a successful business. Always understand customer needs, prioritize their ideas, and turn them into product improvements. Get Satisfaction provides real-time, dynamic customer support content that leverages the wisdom of crowds.

Your customer service should transform from a cost center into an opportunity for authenticity and responsiveness. Your customers will love you for it. These days, customer service means more than good manners reinforced with a smile. You should manage and track customer service requests from an initial contact through resolution. The service workers and salespeople should have the more information about their product and company and with a quick than, it will possible to respond more quickly to client concerns than in the past. This boosts both customer satisfaction and, ultimately, employee morale. No longer do employees find themselves conducting hit-or-miss searches for the information they need to satisfy customers.

Helping, meeting people s needs create a good image to the company s future. You can cultivate or corrodes your relationship with the customers by a single contact with your organization. That includes every letter you send, every ad you run, and every phone call you make. This includes every employee contact, from the CEO to technicians, sales force, support staff, and maintenance crews. You must always see yourself through your customers eyes.

The employees should be trained to see situations through the eyes of the customers. One of the goals of customer service training is to instill in all your employees the sense that it is their business, too. You should build the sense of ownership by encouraging employees to see situations from the owner s point of view. In other words, your business is only as good as your employee is it is a sobering thought, isnt it? How well are you training your employees to cultivate your customers? Is anyone too high or too low to count? This is the all you should do to upgrade your business.

This article is distributed by MDofPC LLC http://www.mdofpc.com


consumer lawyer

Good Customer Service Is The Livelihood

Why is Good Customer Service So Important? It s simply because customers are turning their backs to businesses that do not deliver value. And great customer support adds value! There s no way around it. No shortcuts. Customers demand value for money, or they are out of the door.

Good customer service is the livelihood for any company. You can propose promotions and cut prices to bring in as many new clients as you want, but unless you can get some of those clients to come back, your business won t be money-making for long.

Good customer service is all about getting customers back. And about sending them away happy enough to pass affirmative feedback about your company along to others, who may then try the product or service you, propose for themselves and in their turn become repeat customers.

If you re a good seller, you can sell anything to anyone once. But it will be your approach to customer service that decides whether or not you ll ever be able to sell that person anything else. The spirit of good customer service is structuring a relationship with customers a relationship that individual customer feels that he would like to pursue.

How do you go about structuring such a relationship? By remembering the one true top secret of good customer service and acting accordingly; you will be judged by what you do, not what you say.

Some key points about the good customer service are as below.

1. Keep in mind there is no system that the class of customer service can exceed the class of the people who offer it.
2. Understand that your people will care for your customer the way they are cared.
3. Know your customers
4. Tell your customers who you are.
5. For superior customer service, go the extra mile.
6. Your customers should be addressed when they walk in.
7. Give customers the advantage of the hesitation.
8. If a customer makes a request for something special, do everything you can to say yes.
9. Train your customer service associates properly, in how to handle a customer complaint or an irate person?
10. Want to know what your customers think of your company? Ask them!
11. Always tell your customer what you CAN do for them. Don t begin your conversation by telling them what you CAN T do.
12. Diffuse anger by saying I m sorry or I apologize.
13. Use your customer s name at different points in the call.

This article is distributed by MDofPC LLC http://www.mdofpc.com

Customer Service Is A Power Tool

To provide service to a needy is considered one of the prime in any culture or tradition. Today, in this era of Information Technology prime importance to the satisfaction of customer. Company s in any field attempts to fulfill the needs of customer, let it be the field of telecommunication, retail or even computers.

What is actually service? Service is a process carried out to satisfy the recipient of the same. In case of customer service the server attempts to satisfy the customer of a particular product. Customer service can be defined as is a process for providing competitive advantage and adding benefits in order to maximize the total value to the customer. As an example consider the customer care centre of a particular telephone service provider like Reliance. A customer with certain difficulty in the company s product approaches with the expectation of resolving it. The duty of the organization is to satisfy the simply by solving his problem. Thus Customer Service can be considered as any contact between a customer and a company that causes a negative or positive perception by a customer. Therefore in the above case depending on his satisfaction the customer will have negative or positive impression on the organization.

Customer product service is the ability to provide a service or product in the way that it has been promised. It depends on number of factors like time, approach of the service provider and most importantly the understanding of the customer need. Customer product service is about treating the product of customer as you would like to be treated with your product.

The commitment to providing value added services to external and internal customers, including attitude knowledge, technical support and quality of service in a timely manner is the aspect of customer product service. Here the pains undertaken by the service provider is not significant. What makes difference is the ultimate result. No customer has to wonder about the process of solving the problem. It is up to the service provider to deal with all the stages which he comes across in resolving the customer s product problem.

Why does a service provider take so much pain in satisfying his client? A company can only benefit if it has lots and lots of customers. Profit making is ultimate goal of any organization. Remember that it takes months to find a customer but seconds to lose one.

This article is distributed by MDofPC LLC http://www.mdofpc.com

Cultivate Relationships to Increase Margins

A critical component of customer relationship management (CRM) - and yet often overlooked - is the cultivation of existing customers. We've seen it all too often; companies spend nearly all of their time and scarce resources trying to attract new customers - while existing customers are largely ignored. This practice can be costly in terms of lower profitability and higher customer turnover rates. Companies seeking to improve their CRM practices should look no further than cultivating existing customer relationships.

The Importance of Cultivation

All too often, businesses large and small become focused on one simple thing: attracting new customers. While this is an important dynamic for real business growth, it can become toxic if it is overemphasized and becomes the ONLY focal point for the business.

Customer acquisition is often the most costly and least profitable component of the overall customer experience. Companies throw promotions, price discounts, or free products and services at potential new customers - all of which can quickly hike up acquisition costs and squeeze profitability.

Don't Make a Loss Leader be a Total Loss

We see examples of high acquisition costs every day. Grocery stores and other retailers are famous for offering loss leaders - popular products or commodities at an unprofitable price - in order to get customers in the door. Mobile phone companies subsidize new phone sales - again unprofitably - in order to land more subscribers. Even car dealers often sell new cars at very narrow margins in an attempt to land longer-term service relationships.

High-cost acquisition programs can be effective in landing new customers. However, in order to make the practice profitable, companies must focus more attention on taking care of existing customers and building meaningful and lasting relationships. Simply put, incremental revenue generated from an existing customer can be achieved at nominal costs. As a result, the cultivation phase - or back end - of the customer experience process can often be the most profitable.

Customer cultivation is important for one very important reason; it can significantly improve the customer lifetime value for your company. Customer lifetime value - simply put - represents the total revenue collected from a customer less any costs to acquire, serve and support the customer over the life of their relationship with your company.

Cultivate Your Relationships to Improve Your Margins

For example, if we commit $140.00 to acquire a customer that buys a $150.00 MP3 music player, we have made a margin of only $10.00. However, if we can develop and nurture the customer relationship at a nominal cost of only $50.00, they may turn around and spend $300.00 dollars on music downloads, gifts for friends, and related products over the next year - a respectable margin of $250.00.

If a meaningful customer relationship was never established after the initial transaction, then the lifetime value of the customer is a measly $10.00. However, by cultivating the relationship and obtaining additional follow-on revenue in our example, we increase the customer lifetime value to $260.00 from $10.00 - a healthy increase of 2600%!

How to Cultivate

Every new customer transaction plants a seed. What your company does with that seed can make a significant impact on future profitability. Will the seed lay there and be forgotten? Or will it be fed, watered, and nourished into a lush asset that bears fruit on a regular basis?

In order to get the most out of your customer relationships, you need to cultivate what you sow:

* Relate: Relate with your customers through regular and meaningful contact, observations, and ongoing interactions.
* Retain: Retain your customers by creating barriers to switching to a competitor and create an atmosphere of exclusivity.
* Expand: Expand your relationship with your customers by offering complimentary products and services on an ongoing basis.
* Innovate: Keep your customers excited and engaged by surprising them with new product innovations or special bundles that are tailored just for them.
* Analyze: Analyze your customer behaviors and cultivation activities to predict and anticipate future wants and needs.

Very few companies get customer cultivation right the first time. Doing it effectively can take strong leadership, a clear vision, and an effective measurement system to continuously evaluate customer lifetime value. However, those companies that do it right can reap significant rewards.

Robert Howard is the Founder and Chief Executive of ClearBrick LLC, a leading provider of customer experience business solutions, research, and advice.

ClearBrick can be found online at http://www.ClearBrick.com.

Customer Service, How Good Are You?

Are you running your own internet business or home based business? If yes, how well are you handling your customer service?

Customer services are one of the most important aspects when your internet business starts. Many forget that servicing customer must always become the top priority area that need to be concerned and given most efforts. Now, are you giving a proper customer service to your customers?

Speaking on getting things done in a proper way, why not get the customer needs met first and in a timely manner. We have been so concerned about starting an online business, we forgot about the buyer. They are the ones who supposed to get the focused, who help us get and maintain our business. We have to give honor to the customers. Once this is through, we as the business owner can then relax knowing that needs of the people have been met.

We all know that the customers are always right and they have more said so than we should give them credit for. Case and point, you go to the shop to buy things and you spend money on the things you want and other needs. The fact that you went to the shop to purchase items means that the shop will be in business a little bit longer. It is called Business to Consumer, when a business does the business for the sole purpose of providing for the customer. We all have done some sort of business. We know how we want to be treated. For the most part, we expect exceptional customer service, reliability and honesty. We just want to be treated properly, in nicely manners and with the proper approach.

Now I believe you run your own business or you might in the future, keep in mind that the customer could be you and someone else owns the business. You might become customer at certain point when you involves in buying some stuff. Basically you want to get the best customer service from the seller. The same things apply here, you want to treat the customer with respect and provide for them knowledgeable, friendly, energetic customer service. In any successful business, the customer service is what keeps them on top. The customer service that they provide is world class. So, the main key to keeping customers is being friendly, provide service that focus on reliability, make sure the staff is knowledgeable and provide genuine Customer Service.

These are special qualifications of a professional customer service representative. Just because you call someone on the phone and the help does not make them a good representative. It is when they go all out to help you. They are more than happy to help.

I believe you heard this before, they say that good help is hard to find. That holds some truth to it. No many businesses nowadays trying to give generous assistance to the customers. For them once sold nothing else need to be done. This is wrong and will make you out of business sooner or later.

The first thing you as the business owner need to is, employing the right people the first time means getting it right on the fly. When you get it right, the customers also have it right. When the order the product or receive the services, they want to feel like they are being taken care of and their needs are being met. When they happy, they will do the job which is marketing it for you and it is all happen because of your top class customer service.

Needless to say, if the customer feels that they are being treated like their concerns are being met, they will tell everyone what a wonderful company you have. On the other hand, if they feel like their concerns are not being met, they will call up and start to make complaints. Once a complaint is out regarding your company, it can have a negative impact on your business and it will get worse you will out of business.

The most important to get things right from the beginning is to train your employees and equip them with the tools that they will need to be successful when taking a call for a purchase, complaint, compliment or any other reason. Do it right the first time, complaints are less likely to happen and you can be rated number one customer service according to JD Power and Associates. When recognition is set in, you can be reputable company that cares for the employees as well as its customers. A successful internet business will always have a world class customer service.

If you are running your own home based business then you should also practice a top class customer service. Learn all the basic skills of treating and handling your customers. Your business will grow by itself when others are happy with your service.

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What Is a Customer?

Do you know what a customer is? Did you know that the base of the word customer is actually custom? It actually is derived from the habits of people that make it a habit to make frequent visits to a store.

In my mind, there are two different kinds of customers - an internal customer and an external customer. Some alternative names for customers are clients, buyers, and purchasers. All businesses have customers; it's up to you whether or not you have loyal customers by the way you treat them.

Let's take a closer look at the differences between internal and external customers and then at some of the ways that you can increase customer loyalty. To begin with, an internal customer would be someone within your own company that might work in another department or even on another team. An external customer would be someone you sell products to or provide services to that is outside of your organization.

Now let's look at some of the ways that you can make sure that you keep existing customers, as well as gain new customers. One of the first things that I believe a company should realize is that a customer, contrary to a current shift in thinking, does really know what he or she wants. Way back when I was working in the telephone service center for a large credit card company, we received intensive training on how to treat a customer and make them happy. What are some ways that you can do that?

1) Listen to the customer - remember your mother telling you not to interrupt and that it is impolite? Most customers will definitely tell you that they would rather have you listen to what they are saying than having you take the bull by the horns and butting in and stopping what they are saying.

2) Provide virtual cues that you are listening by summarizing back to them what they have just told you. You don't have to repeat word for word, just enough to let them see if you understand will do the trick. This lets them know that you have been listening and paying attention and also lets them know that you care about their needs. If you are on the phone, you can also do virtual nods vocally by adding little tidbits of agreement like uh huh, yes, you bet, etc. This would work the same as if you were face to face and actually nodding your head.

3) Take a moment to be in their shoes. Think about how you would feel if you were in the same situation they are in when they are speaking with you. Would you be angry? That could explain why they seem angry. This is called being empathetic. What does that mean in more detail? It just means showing that you understand their situation and can feel their pain, sadness, or what have you.

4) When they are all done explaining what it is they want to say, do another summary in more detail covering the important points of the conversation and clarify with them any points that you are unclear on. They'll let you know if you don't quite have it right or you are right on target.

5) Let them know the action points that you are going to take to resolve any issues they might have. If possible, let them know a date when you will do this. Then be sure to meet those deadlines.

So what does all this mean? Why take all these steps? A satisfied client is one that you go out of your way to service. Especially with the economy the way it is, one lost customer can hurt your bottom line in a big way. Showing that you care will help seal a long-term relationship, which in turn will have your client talking about you and your excellent customer service. That's what it's all about - providing customized care, giving the client the service they expect, and doing it all with a positive attitude.

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Survey Your Customers: Recession Proof Your Online Business

It cant be denied that with the state of the economy many small online business owners are fretting over whether or not they will be able to withstand this economic storm and keep their business afloat in the coming months and years.

With consumers becoming not only stingier but also commercially aware it has gotten harder to use the same old selling tactics. As an online business owner its become even more important to stay on top of consumer trends and demands.

Now with the economy being in the shape its in, its crucial that your prospective customers feel that you know, and are willing to meet their needs. By giving your customers exactly what they want they are more likely to view you as the go to website and part with their hard earned cash.

The goal is to build trust so they will continue to use your services over and over again, or recommend you to others. This is the only way your business has any chance of surviving this economic state.

Before you can even consider providing the right products at the right price you have to find out what your customers expect from you. For years companies have been doing this through the use of surveying your customers through consumer surveys. With the advent of the internet it has become even easier to target groups of people and get their input, feedback and ratings on your product, service and overall online business performance.

By providing an incentive of some sort you can entice your visitors to take a few minutes to provide you with the answers you need to build a stronger online business. You can offer a free ebook that your visitors can download after they complete the survey or even a downloadable video.

In order for visitors to take the time to provide you with honest answers they have to feel they can trust you. Thus, its important to clearly state at the beginning of the survey that any personal information you receive will not be shared with others. Its also nice to let them know they are helping you to better serve them. Consumers enjoy knowing that they are role players in the development of online businesses.

Keep the survey to no more than 20 minutes. After that survey takers tend to get anxious and annoyed; therefore they may not read the questions carefully and provide inaccurate information.

If the survey deals with quantitative (numeric) data you want to be sure that you use the same rating scale throughout the survey. If you started with 1-10, dont switch to 1-7 somewhere else in the survey. You also want to breakdown each issue into single coherent, concrete concepts. Dont ask the visitor to rate both the speed of the checkout and the delivery in the same question, break it down so each item gets its own rating.

When dealing with a qualitative (text, non-numeric) survey try to encourage the user to provide more detailed responses. The trouble with simply using close ended yes or no questions is you wont get sufficient data to improve your online business with. Instead of asking, "Did you like the product?" Try "What did you like most about the product?" This allows the visitor to provide their personal opinion.

It also makes it easier for you when you are looking for trends and surprises when evaluating the survey responses.

After the survey is conducted, publish the results on your website or blog and invite comments and responses.

A successful surveying of your customers campaign will provide valuable insight into what your target market expects from you. With this information you can make necessary adjustments to your online business. You can offer products and services that better meet with the needs of your prospects as well as tweak and update your online business performance.

The online businesses that will ride out the economic storm are the ones that will be able to fully satisfy their customers and build long term loyalty. To do this, create a survey and analyze the results.

Jeff Casmer is a leading legitimate work at home expert and is a work from home business owner. His "Top Ranked" Work at Home Directory (http://www.24hourwealth.com) gives you all the information you need to Work From Home in the 21st century.

Turbulent Business Times? Focus On The Customer

As technology marches on, you hear about all sorts of marketing: telemarketing, internet marketing, and so on. What you don't see businesses focused on anymore is the customer. Instead of asking for a name, most companies ask for your "customer ID number". Instead of saying "good morning, and thank you", you hear, "which department can I transfer you to". The customer has truly become lost in the shuffle of electronics and new age gadgets.

Customer service is all about focusing on the customer and on their needs. In the old days, back when we still traveled around by horse and buggy, a person could go into a store and could barter with a friendly clerk who knew their name, their occupation, how many children they had and if they'd had a good winter or not. Now, though, consumers are lucky if they find a pharmacy that prescribes the right medicine to the right person.

Good customer service focuses on building long term relationships with clients by supplying an ever-evolving line of products and excellent service. Businesses that believe in customer service are not focused on the profit from one sale, but rather making sure that the customer is happy with their purchase, so that they will think good thoughts about the company the next time they need a specific product. Customers want to feel appreciated and listened to. Great service is all about listening and caring about the customers, rather than planning their next ad campaign or sales deal.

Say that a consumer purchases a bed frame from a company. During that transaction, the salesman was rude and didn't listen to the consumer. When the consumer called a few days later to discuss a problem he had, he was hung up on. Now imagine this same customer purchasing the bed frame from a company that focuses on customer service. The consumer is listened to, and is helped. When he leaves, he feels as though the salesman really did care about him. The next time this consumer needs a piece of furniture, who do you think he is going to look to?

Good customer service can take take a good company and make it great! Assure your customers that you will be there for them and not only will you win repeat business, but unsolicited referrals. Some companies that have outsourced their customer service to the lowest bidder have realized this when their repeat business started to decline. Naturally, they ended up pulling this back in-house.

You can avoid this blunder by putting "great customer service" high on your mission statement. When you make you customer number one, your payoff will outshine any marketing campaign.

Almost every business can work with customer service, if they want to. The problem is that too many times, companies look to the future instead of to the present.

http://www.Greatpricedfurniture.com recognizes that every consumer is important, and strives to build a good relationship with all consumers, so that the next time they need a piece of furniture, they will know who to call.