PCMag.com reports:

Every small business wants to grow, and grow quickly, but rapid expansion comes with its own costs, and customer service is usually one of the first things to go. “Our customers are everything to us,” says Dina Kaplan, the co-founder of blip.tv, an online network of independently produced web shows. “And fanatical customer service is the best type of marketing we can put out there,” she adds. But with over 44,000 show producers who publish more than 4,000 episodes a day, taking care of those customers at a 30-person company is no easy task.

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Here’s another hot serving of CustServ roundup. Read and learn about customer service and customer experiences.

Charlene O’Hanlon of CTOEdge says that customer service requires a dose of IT.  She adds, “Unified communications coupled with social networking can provide a more personalized end-user experience and faster response time to customer complaints and queries.”

Robert Bacal of CustomerThink shares insights from a book, Perfect Phrases For Customer Service 2.0. “The focus – to give you the tools to interact with customers more effectively, so the company, the customer, and you, the person dealing with the customer, all benefit.”

Jay Thompson of The Phoenix Real Estate Guy says that a customer confluence is the key to business success. The post is a series of customer service experiences both good and not so good.

Tom Vander Well of QAQnA asked a very important questions, Should CSRs Perform Their Own QA Assessment? With a good foolproof assessment or evaluation tool, I say, why not?

Service Untitled gives tips for using Twitter for customer service. One of the uses is that “Twitter can help you build a positive brand image because great customer service gets the “buzz” which leads to more customers through the attention.”

I recently read an interesting article in Inc. by Tali Yahalom called “How to Improve Your Company’s Customer Service.” In it, she says that improving your customer service starts with your staff. She then goes on to talk about establishing service levels, using online tools like CRM systems, etc. I agree with Tali. These all pale in comparison to her first point: having the right people talking with customers and the right people in front-line supervisory positions.

We’re a training company and I’d like to put a plug in for our customer service training but really, just as important as training, is hiring the right people. If your representatives and managers have positive, upbeat, customer-focused attitudes, training is easy!

Too often we see companies skimp on hourly wages for reps and supervisors or rush through the hiring process and expect that training will make superstars out of everyone. Nope. Sorry. What we see from our end when we deal with companies like this, is hundreds of dollars (OK…tens of thousands sometimes) rolling out the door due to turnover. The wrong people are hired and they either wash out during training or they make it through to the call floor where they make their customers, managers, and co-workers miserable. A few weeks or months later, they’re gone. And the company is out the cost of hiring, training, and possibly the loss of a few customers.

If this sounds familiar:

• Create a profile of your ideal representative based on the stellar performers you currently employ. What skills do they have? How do they demonstrate their customer-focused attitude?
• Review your hiring practices. Are you paying a fair wage for this type of work in your area? How do you assess applicants? Do you need to use testing? If so, what kind? Test your current employees to identify scoring ranges across your high and low performers.
• Track the results of your new profile and processes and adjust as needed.

Readers: If you have tips to share with others on interviewing techniques or hiring assessments for call center agents or supervisors, please leave a reply below.

Despite reading about the negative effects of bad customer service, many companies still turn a blind eye to improving their customer service strategy.

Well, here’s an inconvenient truth about bad customer service. Read the article here.

David Dillon, CEO of Kroger, vows to improve the company’s customer service strategy. In so doing, he will enjoin his team to do the following:

1. Pursue the Customer 1st strategy.
2. Spend more time visiting stores and meeting with associates.
3. Work to better understand customers’ current and future needs.
4. Maintain or create more customer reward program such as the expanded fuel rewards program and health initiatives,  Kroger Plus loyalty card data, which personalize its outreach to customers.
5. Launch programs that will take care of internal customers as well as cut costs yet improve efficiency.

Tough job! But Kroger is bent on doing it.

Read:  Kroger CEO: We’ll keep focus on customer service

Over the weekend, my friend and I got to talking about customer service. He recalled an incident when he was touring Europe. He lost his wallet!

He had to call his credit card providers: American Express, Diners Club International, and Standard Chartered Bank. The last two didn’t give him that real-time customer service. He was told to wait and do this and that. But American Express (Amex) was different.

Amex asked him where he was at that time they were speaking to him, and what was his next stop. He told them he was now heading to Florence. He was instructed to go to the Amex office in Florence.

When my friend reached Florence, he immediately went to Amex office and an Amex guy was waiting for him with a replacement of his Amex credit card, and went, “Would you like to make a cash advance now, sir?”

Of course my friend needed cash. He lost his wallet. My friend said yes and a few seconds later, the Amex guy left and came back, and handed him an envelope with cash in it.

No questions, no red tape!

When my friend came back to the country, he canceled all his other credit cards and is now sticking with Amex only.

Now, that’s what I call real-time customer service that inspired loyal customers.

What kind of customer service do you have?

For this week’s good customer service experience, a guy shares his experience with Home Depot.

He shares:

I recently had a GREAT customer service experience that I have to share with all of you! I’m the first one to complain when I have a bad experience (like with Sears or Comcast), and I want to be sure and share the good ones too.

A few weeks ago I was in the market for a new lawn mower (my 17-year-old Craftsman has been on its last leg for years now). I did my research with Consumer Reports and decided that Toro was the way to go (great blend between cost and performance.) I had it narrowed down to a few models, and off we went to Home Depot to see what they had.

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Parature Inc., releases this video on The Cult of the Customer.

Based on the speaker’s best-selling book, The Cult of the Customer, you will be introduced to powerful customer service and experience concepts that can help increase:

Customer loyalty
Employee morale
Employee loyalty
Value to your customers
Your bottom line
The value of your brand

Watch the video

How do you define an ultimate customer service?

Perhaps, this video from Fox 8 News will tell you. View it here.

With social media and micro-blogging sites, it’s now easier to rant about or praise a product or service you’ve just had. Other customers can surf the Web and find blogs such as this one to leave their stories as comments.

However, there are websites out there that let customers post their complaints at no cost.  These websites have, in fact, become tools for consumers who are looking for services or contemplating purchases. These sites, too, become resources for competing business. Not only that, the sites are also viewed by consumer protection agencies, lawyers, even law enforcement agents for information to support a case or investigation.

I got the list from an article on ajc. Here’s the list. Check each one out!

• www.complaints.com - Forwards complaints to businesses with consumer’s approval. Also allows businesses to post responses. Appliance retailers were subject of frequent complaints to this site.
• www.complaintsboard.com - Offers tips for consumers and advice on issues including credit scores and home mortgages. In the CFA analysis, the site received frequent complaints from appliance retailers and insurance companies.
• ww.consumeraffairs.com - Publishes selected complaints that are “representative” of a problem. Publishes consumer testimonials, plus responses from businesses about actions to resolve complaints.
• www.my3cents.com - Allows consumers to share bad and good experiences regarding a company or product. Offers to forward postings to company with consumer approval. Provides consumer advice. Received the most complaints of the Web sites since 2008, with appliance retailers, airlines and banks among the top compliant getters, according to the CFA analysis.
• www.ripoffreport.com - The site has been in business since 1998, making it among the pioneers. Companies can submit a “rebuttal” explaining their side of the story. Appliance retailers and airlines were among companies receiving the most complaints, according to CFA’s analysis.

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