CustServ: Customer Relations: The New Competitive Edge

White House Pushes for Better Customer Service

29 Mar 2010

1500 AM Federal News Radio online carries the story of President Obama pushing for agencies to give better customer service.

According to the article:

The Obama administration is trying to change the perception that government and customer service don’t mix well together.

As part of the take-away from the Modernizing IT forum held at the White House in January, the Office of Management and Budget plans on setting up a community of practice for agency managers who are responsible for customer service.

The forum brought together 50 chief executive officers from some of the largest companies across the United States and federal technology officials to share best practices and ideas to improve how the government manages technology.

OMB says the community of practice will provide an environment for agencies to share best practices for delivering customer service.

Continue reading…

Are you experiencing a better customer experience?

Posted by meikah | No Comments »
Filed under Customer Service Reference, Public Service, customer service

The Social Contract: Customers, Companies, Communities, and Conversations in the Age of the Collaborative Relationship

10 Mar 2010

The Social Customer is giving away a free ebook on The Social Contract: Customers, Companies, Communities, and Conversations in the Age of Collaborative Relationship.

This ebook brings together a collection of experiences from some of the brightest people in business today. From executives at major corporations, leading industry analysts, best-selling authors, application vendors, and customer service professionals, come real stories of how companies are integrating social channels into their traditional methods of engaging today’s socially-empowered customers.

Read how industry leaders are using social media to get closer to their customers in order to build better relationships. You’ll see how customer communities are already impacting the way that customers are supported, and the effect that’s having on top and bottom lines.

Brent Leary, Co-Founder, CRM Essentials LLC
Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
David Alston, VP Marketing & Community, Radian6
Ellen Filipiak, SVP Customer Care at DIRECTV
Dr. Natalie L. Petouhoff, CRM, Customer Experience, Customer Service, and Social Media, Forrester Research
Frank Eliason, Senior Director in National Customer Operations at Comcast
Kevin Ryan, Vice President, Social Media at Barnes & Noble.com, Content
Mark Simmons, Senior Director of Marketing and Customer Support, Six Apart
Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D., Peppers & Rogers Group
Sanjay Dholakia, Chief Marketing Officer, Lithium
Scott Rogers, Director of Strategic Planning, David’s Bridal
Martin Murtland, Vice President & Managing Director, Dow Jones
Tish Whitcraft, SVP of Customer Experience & Operations, MySpace
John Burton, Director Product Management at SAP Labs
Emily Yellin, Author of Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us

Download the free ebook now!

Posted by meikah | No Comments »
Filed under Customer Communications, Customer Management Insight, Customer Relations Management

Customer Service Reference: Consolidating Customer Touch Points for a Branded Customer Experience

1 Jun 2009

Global CEM publishes a case study written by Sandra Marlene De Zoysa, Group Chief Customer Officer, Dialog Telekom PLC. Title is Consolidating Customer Touch Points for a Branded Customer Experience.

What Ms. De Zoysa shares is how Dialog Telekom PLC is able to manage their various touch points to create a customer experience brand solely their own.

Dialog offers customer support through multiple customer touch points. Our Retail Service Centre’s and Franchise outlets span across all provinces of the country whilst Dialog Enterprise Contact Centre provides 24×7 Customer support via Web Chat, E-mail, Fax, SMS and Voice, IVR & 3G Video. Dialog also provides an array of self-help channels for customer convenience and accessibility.

A branded customer experience works to amplify a brand through intentional and consistent delivery of on-brand experience across all touch points. To optimize the branded experience, an organization has to deliver most unique brand values and meet or exceed the most critical needs and expectations of its target customers through peak and end experience.

Effective Customer Experience: Peak - End Theory

Read the case study.

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Filed under Customer Relations Management, Customer Service Concepts, Customer Service Experience, Dialog Telekom PLC, customer service

Using Customer Service as a Strategic Weapon

4 Dec 2008

Yes, you can. In fact, armed with only just the customer-service weapon, and your business will be safe from harm.

Writing for ITWorld, Vincent Deschamps, chief executive officer and chairman of the board for Echopass Corp., shares his thoughts on CRM and how to use customer service as a strategic weapon. He suggests:

Align with the company’s vision.

Focus on the customer experience.

Segment the customers.

Take care of the agents.

Find the best partner.

Inspect what you expect.

Read more…

On the list, I think the most overlooked are numbers 1 and 6. Most companies don’t really view customer service as part of their strategic goal. They think that it is only a component of sales or marketing. In fact, other departments think that customer service skills are only for those in sales or marketing. A big misconception, indeed.

Also, for number 6, again, many companies miss out that from the beginning, they need to measure everything they do in relation to their goal. I agree that all companies must ask themselves these questions first: Do you want to improve customer retention? Increase revenues? Double business without increasing costs?

Deschamps is right in saying that “Regardless of the goal, include measurements. Set the bar high, and know what’s happening inside your customer service organization.”

Posted by meikah | No Comments »
Filed under Corporate Strategy, Tips, customer service

Are Customers Empathetic?

30 Jun 2008

Given the proper background of things, yes, I believe so. Customers can be empathetic. Thus, companies should do the same. Empathy has never been more needed than today when there is global economic crisis. With fuel prices up, we expect all other goods and service will be increasing too, if they have not done so already.

I’m sure you’ve heard or read about airlines increasing fares and charging on checked luggage. Other establishments have also made changes in their fees to cope with rising business operations.

In my previous post, I shared the Amazon’s remarkable customer service unlike some couriers’ delivery system that don’t bother about the condition of the package as long as the recipient gets it. Customers should be happy by that alone.

I’ve just read an interesting article about couriers and customers striking a good deal about how to serve and be served. In the spate of rising costs of sending packages, customers are now willing to delay delivery if possible.

LA Times Online carries the story of overnight delivery now being a luxury, and that customers are cutting back. Here are some interesting snippets from the article:

“Customers are definitely trading down to cheaper services,” said Norman Black, spokesman for Atlanta-based United Parcel Service Inc. “The stagnant economy is affecting almost all of our business customers, and when business slows down, they don’t have as much to ship.”

“Once we crossed over that threshold and started turning toward 30%, our customers wanted to take a second look” at reducing shipping costs, FedEx Chief Financial Officer Alan Graf said in a conference call with analysts and the media. The company is counting on strong international business and domestic cost cuts to improve the earnings picture, he said, “while at the same time — unlike some in our market — not sacrificing service.”

“Now, I’ll ask a customer, ‘Do you really need it Friday?’ If it’s yes, I ask by what time. I’ll ask if they are willing to pay for overnight,” Neil Harris, a business owner, said. “I’ll tell them I’ll pay the freight if I can ship it by Monday. A lot of the time, the answer is that they can wait.”

Read more…

However, I don’t think customers are willing to compromise the quality of service they receive. Not now. Not ever.

Posted by meikah | No Comments »
Filed under Courier Services, Customer Relations Management, Customer Service Concepts, DHL, FedEx, UPS, customer service

Kudos to Customer Service as CustServ Makes it to O!

10 Dec 2007

Let me start the week by thanking Troy Worman for putting CustServ on the list of O!

O! stands for outstanding bloggers. And to be included on the list below is another inspiration for CustServ to work harder for the welfare of customers and for the continuing pursuit of exceptional customer service.

100 Bloggers, 37 Days, 3i, 43 Folders, A Clear Eye, A Daily Dose of Architecture, The Agonist, All Things Workplace, All This Chittah Chattah, Angela Maiers, Antonella Pavese, Arizona High Tech, Arun Rajagopal, AttentionMax, A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye, Badger Blogger, Bailey WorkPlay, Being Peter Kim, Brett Trout, Best of Mother Earth, Beyond Madison Avenue, Biz and Buzz, Bizhack, BizSolutions Plus, Blog Business World, Bloggers Showroom, Blogging for Business, Blogher, Blog Till You Drop!, Bob Sutton, Brain Based Business, Brain Based Biz, Brains on Fire, Brand Autopsy, The Brand Builder Blog, Branding and Marketing, Branding Strategy, Brand is Language, BrandSizzle, Brandsoul, Bren Blog, Business Evolutionist, Business Management Life, Business Pundit, Business Services, Etc., Busy Mom, Buzz Canuck, Buzz Customer, Buzzoodle, Career Intensity, Carpe Factum, Casual Fridays, Change Your Thoughts, Chaos Scenario, Cheezhead, Chief Happiness Officer, Chris Brogan, Christine Kane, Church of the Customer, Circaspecting, CK’s Blog, Come Gather Round, Communication Overtones, Community Guy, Confident Writing, Conversation Agent, Converstations, Cooking for Engineers, Cool Hunting, Core77, Corporate Presenter, Crayon Writer, Creating a Better Life, Creating Passionate Users, Creative Think, CRM Mastery, Crossroads Dispatches, Cube Rules, Culture Kitchen, Customers Are Always, Customer Experience Crossroads, Customer Service Experience, Customer Service Reader, Customers Rock!, Custserv, Craig Harper, ‘Cross The Breeze, Daily Fix, Dawud Miracle, Dave Olson, David Airey, David Maister, David S Finch, Design Your Writing Life, Digital Common Sense, Director Tom, Diva Marketing, Do You Q, Duct Tape Marketing, Empowerment 4 Life, The Engaging Brand, Essential Keystrokes, Every Dot Connects, Experience Architect, Experience Curve, Experience Matters, Experienceology, Extreme Leadership, Eyes on Living, Feld Thoughts, Flooring the Consumer, Flooring the Customer, Fouroboros, FutureLab, Genuine Curiosity, Glass Half Full, The Good Life, Great Circle, Greg Verdino’s Marketing Blog, Hee-Haw Marketing, Hello, My Name is BLOG, Holly’s Corner, Homeless Family, The Idea Dude, I’d Rather be Blogging, Influential Marketing, Innovating to Win, Inspiring & Empowering Lives, Instigator Blog, Jaffe Juice, Jibber Jobber, Joyful Jubilant Learning, Joy of Six, Kent Blumberg, Kevin Eikenberry, Learned on Women, Life Beyond Code, Lip-sticking, Listics, The Lives and Times, Live Your Best Life, Live Your Inspiration , Living Light Bulbs, Logical Emotions, Logic + Emotion, Make It Great!, Making Life Work for You, Management Craft, Managing with Aloha, The M.A.P. Maker, The Marketing Excellence Blog, Marketing Headhunter, Marketing Hipster, The Marketing Minute, Marketing Nirvana, Marketing Roadmaps, Marketing Through the Clutter, Mary Schmidt, Masey, Masi Guy, The Media Age, Micropersuasion, Middle Zone Musings, Miss604, Moment on Money, Monk at Work, Monkey Bites, Movie Marketing Madness, Motivation on the Run, My 2 Cents, My Beautiful Chaos, Naked Conversations, Neat & Simple Living, New Age 2020, New Charm School, Next Up, No Man’s Blog, The [Non] Billable Hour, Note to CMO, Office Politics, Optimist Lab, The Origin of Brands, Own Your Brand, Pardon My French, Passion Meets Purpose, Pause, Peerless Professionals, Perfectly Petersen, Personal Branding , The Podcast Network, The Power of Choice, Practical Leadership, Presentation Zen, Priscilla Palmer, Productivity Goal, Pro Hip-Hop, Prosperity for You, Purple Wren, QAQnA, Qlog, Reveries, Rex Blog , Ririan Project, Rohdesign, Rothacker Reviews, Scott H Young, Search Engine Guide, Servant of Chaos, Service Untitled, Seth’s Blog, Shards of Consciousness, Shotgun Marketing, Simplenomics, Simplicity, Slacker Manager, Slow Leadership, Socially Adept, Social Media Marketing Blog, Spare Change, Spirit in Gear, Spooky Action, Steve’s 2 Cents, Strategic Design, Strength-based Leadership, StickyFigure, Studentlinc, Success Begins Today, Success Creeations, Success From the Nest, Successful Blog, Success Jolt, Talk to Strangers, Tammy Lenski, Tell Ten Friends, That Girl from Marketing, Think Positive!, This Girl’s Weblog, Thoughts & Philosophies, Tom Peters, Trust Matters, Verve Coaching, Viral Garden, Waiter Bell, Wealth Building Guy, What’s Next, WordSell, Writers Notes, You Already Know this Stuff, Zen Chill, Confident Writing, Idea Sellers, Tune Up Your EQ, Know HR, Mission Minded Management, Managing Leadership, Matt’s Idea Blog, Black in Business, Design Your Writing Life

Posted by meikah | No Comments »
Filed under Customer Service Experience of the Week

A Successful and Outstanding Blog(gers) Party

26 Oct 2007

There are particularly two reasons to celebrate today. First, CustServ is up and is slowly getting back on its feet. Second, SOB’s 2nd-year SOB anniversary party hosted by Liz Strauss was very successful.

Over six hundred people came to celebrate and so by this number alone, I believe that SOBs are really successful and outstanding. Up until today, there are still people dropping by and leaving their greetings.

What is a Successful and Outstanding Blog(ger)s to me (as I’ve also learned from being an SOB)?

Being successful and outstanding do not necessarily point to the number of hits your page gets. Rather, it’s about the extent of your impact on people’s lives. It’s about being able to touch them, inspire them, being like a family to them.

Because of SOB, and my fellow customer service bloggers, I strive hard to blog better and be an inspiration to others, the same way that they have been to me. Being an SOB and a customer service blogger, I also want to wield an enormous influence on companies and inspire them to build meaningful customer relationships.

I would also want that same influence on customers to demand exceptional service every time, and at the same time help companies provide that kind of service to them.

The road is long and bumpy at times, but with everyone’s help, I know we can make a difference.

Again, congratulations, Liz and fellow SOBs!

Posted by meikah | 4 Comments »
Filed under Becky Caroll, C.B. Whittemore, Liz Strauss, Maria Palma, Phil Gerbyshak, Service Untitled, Tom Vander Well

“How To Become a Customer Action Hero”

23 May 2007

hero and customer service Jeanne Bliss, author of Chief Customer Officer: Getting Past Lip Service to Passionate Action, put out a very sound advice on how to become a customer action hero.

You would think that judging from the term “hero,” you are expected to jump out of buildings, fly to your customer’s side, or do impossible things. But no, Jeanne’s tips are easy to do, if you are willing to commit to doing it. All it takes is commitment, really knowing what your customers need or want, and work on satisfying them. Pretty seems like the whole organization has only one agenda, and that is to please customers.

Here are three of the five tips from Jeanne.

Find this out: Is the customer commitment real or “Memorex?” Remember that brilliant ad campaign from the Memorex audiotape people who challenged viewers to discern if the voice they hear bellowing was real or their Memorex audiotape of the sound? Well, you’ve got to get down to the nitty-gritty with your executives to find out if they will put their skin in the game to demand accountability for fixing those things that are getting in the way of your customers’ repeat business. If they won’t–I won’t say it again, but your company may be a “you know what” (read the article title again).

Elevate ‘customer’ as an asset of your business. Right now, you can probably recite where you are in meeting your sales goals. Do you know as much about your customer goals? These are the counts of customers in and customers out, a clear accounting for customers by revenue group; customers who renewed with you and why; and customer referrals. This is about elevating customer metrics into the strategic stratosphere, to make the knowledge of customer gains and losses as widely and wildly understood as if you made quarterly sales goals. In my book, Chief Customer Officer, I call these the “Guerrilla Metrics” because you essentially need to wage a campaign to power the customer metrics onto the strategic agenda of your business.

Prioritize and fix the top 10 things bugging your customers. To a large degree, sometimes inactivity from the survey data exists because people don’t know what to work on. Certainly in reviewing the data, everything seems broken. Whenever I ask customers questions, I always want to ask them how we are performing and how important the area is to them. That way, you can assemble a triaging system for the issues you’ve heard from customers. Focus on fixing the high-priority, low-performance items and on ensuring that you stay steady on the high-priority, high-performance items.

Read more…

*Photo from Stock.Xchng

Posted by meikah | 2 Comments »
Filed under Customer Relations Management, Internal Customers, Jeanne Bliss, Surveys, Tips

Handling Airlines Customer Service

19 Mar 2007

If Land’s End has Jeanne Bliss as its chief customer officer, then Southwest Airlines has Fred Taylor Jr.

Every day, we hear countless horror stories happening in airports or even on board the plane. With the number of flights taking off and touching down in every airport, you would think that these problems are endless. Even so, delays and cancellations or lost luggage and what have you’s are facts of life in airports. I believe though that these problems have to be taken care of—and successfully.

Let’s take the case of Fred Taylor Jr., senior manager of proactive customer communications at Southwest. He handles all kinds of customer service problems, and writes about 180 letters a year to Southwest customers.

According to an article on New York Times Online, Taylor does not only composes these letters, he sends out roughly 20,000 mea culpas. Each one bears his direct phone line. And this year, he has already surpassed this number when he sent out apology letters to 22,000 passengers who passed through a choked Las Vegas airport on Feb. 19 and 20.

You can just imagine the stamina Mr. Taylor has by overcoming customer-service problems like these. I wish I could interview him and learn about his personal abilities to handle them.

On a related article, still by New York Times, I got a glimpse of how Taylor write the reports of these incidents. The same reports are used by others at Southwest to explain delays to customers. They are simple and expresses clearly the “we’re-on-top-of-things-and-you-can-rely-on-us-anytime” assurance. NYTimes exact words were: Taylor “gives a lighthearted, at times sketchy recap of the operating mayhem that is airline routine.”

Below are some samples:

DEC. 5 A belt loader that conveys luggage ran into a plane in Baltimore. Flight to Hartford canceled.

DEC. 9 Salt Lake City-to-Los Angeles flight took off and then returned after ?a rather large bird took the scenic route through the left engine.? Inspection found no problem. Departed again 1 hour, 15 minutes late.

DEC. 10 Las Vegas-to-Oakland flight ?delayed while a customer spoke with the airport police about his ?hot pocket.? Apparently, this dude is a nervous traveler and somehow a book of matches in his pants caught fire by accident ? which reminds me of a similar concern that I had when I caught my kid brother (2 yrs old at the time) trying to pee in a light socket.? Matches extinguished. No injury. Passenger allowed to travel on.

What does this tell us?

We don’t need to overblow an already overblown situation to solve it. What our customers want to know is that we are handling the problem as best we could without giving them the run-around or some highly technical explanation that an already stressed out customer won’t understand at all.

Sources:
New York Times Online, “Airlines Learn to Fly on a Wing and an Apology”
New York Times Online, “With 3,200 Flights a Day, a Few Problems”

Posted by meikah | 4 Comments »
Filed under Corporate Planning, Customer Relations Management, Fred Taylor Jr., Jeanne Bliss, Southwest Airlines, Tourism

Customer Service News Round-Up

20 Feb 2007

The past few days, if you made the rounds of customer service news, you would know that it has been an exciting week. I guess it’s always that way when there’s an ocassion like Valentine’s Day. Since there’s something to celebrate about, albeit a Hallmark inspired holiday, we expect more than the usual serving of food, or service.

So, how has customer service improved or deteriorated since then? Join me again in making the rounds and let’s learn together.

First stop is at Springwise, your daily fix of entrepreneurial ideas. One feature there is about the airport wine tasting and retail. Vino Volo offers an alternative to noisy and harried airport restaurants.

At Vino Volo, customers can sample wines either by the glass or in tasting flights. Plates of cheese, cured meats, salmon rolls and other gourmet fare complement the flavours of the wine in a relaxed, upscale atmosphere. The experience doesn’t have to end when a flight begins boarding: wines are available for purchase by the bottle and can be shipped to a customer?s home (subject to state law).

Next stop is at TMCNet’s First Coffee, Paul Greenberg, CRM consultant and author of CRM at the Speed of Light and Chief Customer Officer of BPT Partners, has reportedly announced the finalists for the 2007 Steppin’ Out Awards. The award hopes to remove the gap between the traditional CRM vendors and the newer Web 2.0 based customer-focused vendors. It also takes into consideration the business model that a company is strategically executing. To me this is a worthwhile because it gives a wholistic approach to business processes.

Then we go to Customer-Centric Jobs. This site is put up by a group of customer-service bloggers to provide a venue for customer-centric companies to find like-minded employees.

Our last stop is at GoingToMeet.com, a conference directory. There are a number of upcoming events that touch on customer service. Just key in “customer service” or any related keywords.

Very interesting posts and sites. Check them out!

Posted by meikah | No Comments »
Filed under Customer Relations Management, Entertainment, Marketing, Products & Services, Tourism

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