The Frontline Makes Your Bottom Line
It happens all the time: A full-page ad is placed in a major monthly publication. The ad touts the service excellence of their product. Catchy phrases. Great promises. Major dollars are spent to create an implied image in the mind of the consumer. And it can vanish in a heartbeat if promises made are not promises kept-if the derived image cancels out the implied image!
Perhaps this has been your experience: You have been standing in line at the bank looking at a sign hanging on the wall that says “Our Customers Are Our #1 Priority” while the customer in front of you is yelled at by a teller for not having the proper forms needed for the transaction. Or perhaps you’ve had the interaction with a clerk who rolls her eyes when you ask one too many questions about the product. The point is: we will all talk about the derived image-not the glossy ad. Couple this “talk” with chat on the Internet and you’ve exponentially reached thousands.
Why should you care what your customers are saying?
* It costs 6 to 8 times more to get a new customer than to keep an old one.
* There is a 12% higher profit margin with your existing customers.
* Companies that keep their existing customers enjoy a 9% higher growth rate than ones who don’t.
* When each customer leaves they tell at least ten people they know and with e-mail and Internet they may potentially tell thousands or millions. Just look at the power of City Search and Yelp! to make or break a company.
It doesn’t take much to make a negative impression. Here are some of the most common customer complaints: unprofessional staff; disinterested staff; bad attitudes matched with a sense of boredom; more enthusiasm for chatting with co-workers than with the customer and a lack of an ability to solve problems.
Your employees have probably had customer service training but perhaps you are still seeing customers leave. Why is this you ask? It’s because leadership didn’t take the time to find out how the customer service “rules” affect the actual customer. Here are ten tips to take your customer service from drab to fab:
1. The single most important thing you can do to increase customer satisfaction is to treat your employees well. One disgruntled employee can easily alienate dozens of customers. Find out what is wrong and fix it.
2. Keep employees in the loop so that they are in the know and FEEL like valued insiders. With the power of the Internet your employees can find out corporate news before you do. Don’t let this happen to your company. Talk to employees often and in-person.
3. Teach employees to think of themselves as business consultants rather than employees. Empower them to make customer-pleasing decisions without having to call a supervisor.
4. Ask employees to change their viewpoint. Have them look at all customers as multi-million dollar businesses and treat them accordingly.
5. Embrace new ideas and reward innovation. Seek and act on advice from your frontline because most of the time they are the only contact a customer has with your company.
6. Recognize and reward each other. Think in 360 directions. A manager needs praise from a subordinate a much as from her boss. Encourage peer-to-peer recognition for helping each other resolve customer issues.
7. Constantly seek innovation. Ask everyone to study the competition and find out what they do that makes them better. The frontline will see what a higher-level manager will not.
8. Seek and act on customer feedback. Don’t bother with customer surveys. Assign an employee or employees to scour the Internet for both positive and negative conversations about your company.
9. Make your current customers feel important. Offer them price cuts or coupons, make every transaction with them pleasant, communicate transparently and have a live person answer your phones, thanking the customer for his business .
10. Seek and reward referrals from current customers. One local chiropractor provides a free adjustment to any patient who refers someone else. She gets dozens of referrals every week and her practice thrives even during economic turmoil.
Don’t just pay lip service to improving customer service. Good customer service is the linchpin to survival at any time but especially during difficult times. Start by treating your employees well, keeping them in the loop, and releasing them to do what it takes to send each customer away happy.
© 2009, McDargh Communications. Publication rights granted to all venues so long as article and by-line are reprinted intact and all links are made live.
Since 1980, Hall of Fame speaker Eileen McDargh has helped Fortune 100 companies as well as individuals create connections that count and conversations that matter. Executive Excellence ranks her among the top 100 thought-leaders in leadership development. Looking for help with work and life challenges? Visit http://www.eileenmcdargh.com/shop.html today!
Five Reasons NOW Is the Perfect Time to Start Your Business
The article below was contributed by Leah Grant. I hope you find it motivational and useful!
Top Five Reasons Why Now Is The Perfect Time To Start A Business
Turn on the TV and all you’ll hear is how the stock market still hasn’t fully recovered and how unemployment is still rising, so you might think I’m out of my mind to suggest that now is the perfect time to start a business. But I stand by my statement.
If we look at history, more millionaires were made during The Great Depression than any other time in US history and during our last recession in the early 90s many companies still thriving today were born, like Clif Bar.
There are numerous reasons why starting a business now is advantageous, but these are the top five.
Is Working from Home Really Possible?
Submitted by: Barbara Murtaugh
I never thought of myself as a stay-at-home mom. I liked the direction my career was going and always thought that I would work outside the home, even after my children were born. And that’s exactly what happened . . . until my son Sean was 3 years old. That’s when little sister Melissa joined her big brother Sean.
After the birth of Melissa, my husband and I decided that with the stress of both of us working full time, never spending any time with our children, and the rising cost of daycare, it was time for me to come home. The question was, “Is working from home really a viable option?” Would it be possible for me to be a stay-at-home mom to my children, and have an income from a job that I enjoy and that is beneficial to our family, both personally and financially?
Our First Advertiser!
A big thank you to Matisse and Jacks for taking the plunge and becoming an advertiser on a Mom Ad Network I joined just a couple of days ago!
They offer healthy, nutritious, natural and junk-free, bake-at-home snacks. No doubt they’re scrumptious!
I’d link to them, but it’s better if you click one of their ads (over that way —>>>) so they know we love them for supporting Moms and WAHMs!
Moms are Sharp Shopping Machines
I came across the article below and thought it was worth sharing.
Here are some of the highlights:
- 89% of moms surveyed use the internet at least twice a day
- 86% said search engines were the best way to find information
- 70% use search engines before making an ONLINE purchase
- 57% use search engines before making an OFFLINE purchase
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eBiz News: Moms Fuel Search Engine Marketing, Dynamic Reviews
By Michelle Megna
August 30, 2007
This week in Web commerce news, research shows that moms are super-searchers when it comes to online shopping and are spending more than men, while two companies partner up to provide user-review technology to e-tailers and a third announces the release of shipping and tax updates to its e-commerce platform.
DoubleClick Performics recently released data resulting from a usage study targeting “moms.” The study, completed in cooperation with Microsoft and ROI Research, showed that of the nearly 1,000 moms surveyed, 89 percent use the Internet at least twice a day, and 90 percent have been using it for more than seven years. Eighty-six percent of respondents said search engines are the most efficient way to find information.
Market to Moms to Make More Money
The study also revealed that moms are heavy search engine users when it comes to both online and offline purchases, coordinating travel and many other planning activities. Stuart Larkins, vice president of search for DoubleClick Performics, said in a statement, “We gained a much better understanding of just how much moms rely on search engines to accomplish a wide range of tasks, literally on a daily basis.”
To that end, the survey showed that:
- Seventy percent use search engines to gather information before making any online purchase
- Fifty-seven percent use search engines to gather information before making any offline purchase
- Sixty-four percent use search engines to find out where to purchase products offline
- Seventy-six percent spend one hour or more per day using the Internet, and 36 percent spend three or more hours per day
- Respondents are heavy Internet users: 89 percent are online twice a day or more, and over two-thirds (69 percent) say their average online session lasts 16 minutes or more
- Eighty-six percent feel that search engines are the best way to find information, and 89 percent always start with the same search engine
- Eighty-two percent will modify and search again if the initial results do not provide what they are looking for, and nearly two-thirds will view multiple results pages before abandoning a search
- Fifty-seven percent primarily search using a browser toolbar
- Forty percent say they will try a different search engine if their first search is unsuccessful
With regard to purchases made in the eight product categories under study, 92 percent of respondents say search engines were helpful in providing valuable information prior to purchasing, and 79 percent say the same for the offline purchases they made. Seventy-two percent compared prices on consumer goods, while seventy-one percent used search engines to find retail locations.
The demographics of the respondents were as follows: participants are highly educated and affluent, between the ages of 35 and 49, with 60 percent having college or higher education and about one-third having household incomes of $100,000 or more; 46 percent of the moms are employed, with 26 percent employed full-time and 20 percent working part-time; a third have a single child, while 40 percent have two children.
In other online shopper demographic profiling, the coupon site Gogoshopper revealed that women are now spending more than men, with overall online spend increasing significantly over the past two years. According to the site, beauty and jewelery merchants have also seen strong growth, with analysts attributing this trend toward increased confidence among consumers in completing more expensive transactions online.
Next Generation Storefront: Dynamic User Reviews
In social commerce news, PowerReviews and Endeca Technologies, Inc., have entered into a partnership to enhance the online shopping experience by updating the latter’s Guided Navigation technology.
The joint venture now allows shoppers to narrow product selection based on their specific lifestyles, intended uses and desired pros and cons in the product. The resulting experience, according to the companies, offers a preview of the “next generation storefront,” and is designed to boost conversion rates, increase customer satisfaction and provide competitive differentiation compared to sites that simply offer product page level reviews.
Customer reviews and ratings have become an integral part of online shopping decisions — 71 percent of online shoppers read reviews before they purchase a product online, based on a recent Forrester Research study. In addition, customer reviews and ratings are rated the No.1 most helpful Web site feature in making informed product decisions, with 92 percent of customers finding them extremely or very helpful in making online shopping decisions, according to an April 2006 study by the eTailing group and J.C. Williams Consultancy.
With that in mind, the partner companies say social navigation is an emerging capability that leverages user-generated content reviews, opinions, recommendations and posts to create new ways to explore, find and analyze information. In the case of Endeca and PowerReviews, this is achieved by leveraging user-generated tags (pros, cons and best uses of products reviewed using PowerReviews) combined with product characteristics (price, brand, specifications) to present a cohesive and comprehensive collection of refinements and navigation options. This is made possible using Endeca’s core MDEX Engine technology, which takes PowerReviews’ ever-changing user-review content and displays dynamic refinements with the speed and flexibility to allow shoppers to choose the path that suits them best, according to the two firms.
The first live example of this tag-based approach to social navigation can be seen on PowerReviews’ shopping research portal Buzzillions.com. The portal demonstrates customer-guided shopping, utilizing the combined capabilities of PowerReviews and Endeca. For instance, the Digital Camera page on Buzzillions.com illustrates how shoppers can find a digital camera that is ideally suited to them based on their photography lifestyle, interests and intended camera uses. With just a few clicks, the consumer answers questions relating to his affinity group (people like him), intended uses, pros he is seeking and cons he would like to avoid, and narrows the product selection from 536 digital cameras to a handful to look at more closely.
Quick Release Features with RAD
Finally this week in e-commerce news, MarketLive introduced its Rapid Application Development (RAD) technology, which enables e-tailers to quickly upgrade features at their sites. The company just released a “quick view” roll-over feature, en estimated tax and shipping calculator and a global shopping cart using the RAD system.
“Before, under the old process, it took a long time to develop and customize features,” said Ken Burke, founder and chairman of MarketLive, “but now we can release modules for new functionality every two to four weeks, and our clients can install it in 20 minutes, test it, and they’re good to go.”
Michelle Megna is managing editor of ECommerce-Guide.com.
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