Tag Archive - customer service

Learning From Your Customers

August 21, 2010 in Business, Headline with 11 Comments

custserv 291x300 Learning From Your Customers“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates

The genius of Bill Gates lies not so much in his ability to create new technology–after all, he bought, not invented the programming language of BASIC, which begat DOS, which begat Windows. Rather, his genius is his sales and marketing skills. By closing the deal and getting his newborn operating system inside an IBM computer in 1980, he beat out the competing operating systems that were vying for the same honor, and he positioned Microsoft to become the software technology leader of the world.

Bill Gates has also been concerned about listening to the customer and learning about the customer’s needs. When something doesn’t work for the customer, Microsoft marshals the brainpower of thousands of programmers to fix it. (Granted, they don’t always get it right the first time, but they keep trying until they do and send out millions of patches in the meantime.)

Picking the brains of your unhappy customers–hopefully, not angry–customers can be the most potent tool you have for improving your own products and sales. Knowing how to gather that information, how to manage it, and how to use it is your mission. If you’re not learning from your customers now, start tomorrow. Their input is invaluable.

Turn Every Disaster Into an Opportunity

June 29, 2010 in Business, Featured, Leadership with 23 Comments

Customer Satisfaction 265x300 Turn Every Disaster Into an Opportunity One way to turn disaster into opportunity is to simply show clients or customers how well your company stands up for it’s products and/or services. It is amazing how may times a customer will come back to a company despite having received a bad shipment, a late delivery, or the wrong color order if the company goes the extra mile to fix the mistake.

The best-case scenario is that not only will you have a loyal customer, but you will also have a customer who relates his or her experience to someone else. What could be better than to earn great buzz about your company after you took care of someone when something went wrong?

Make customer service your number one priority. Often people just want to be heard or have something fixed. Remember: they wanted your product or service to begin with, and they still want it…they just want it a particular way!

Most successful businesses realize that every department that deals with the outside world is an offshoot of customer service. Sales, marketing, shipping, and even accounting need to put on their best business face with every interaction. This way, you can turn lots of disasters into opportunities.

A Story About Leading

October 30, 2009 in Leadership with 11 Comments

leadership1 300x300 A Story About LeadingA leader set up a team to look at the way an organization responded to public requests and concerns. The team consisted of mentors involved in various functions of customer service. The leader studied the way his team worked and decided that the average time to handle feedback requests could be reduced from 72 to 24 hours by eliminating certain steps. At the first team meeting, he outlined the purpose and goal of the team, then presented his findings and asked the team to come up with a plan to reduce the turnaround time on requests and concerns.

The team responded by saying, “What do you need us for? It looks like you’ve done it all yourself.”

Maintaining results is about getting commitment, everyone’s commitment. Involving people at the end of a process isn’t going to impact much on buy-in. In order to manage continued job performance, get the team involved fast and often. The extent of their contribution might rest on their experience and insight, which you can develop and facilitate. Start fast, do always and you are leading in a team effort way. To get to commitment, flex your approach in contributing, collaborating, communicating and challenging within each of the roles of the leader.