5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of November 3, 2014, by shephyken - TOP CUSTOMER SERVICE AND BUSINESS ARTICLES Each week I read a number of customer service articles from various online resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too. Track Customer Experience, but Don’t Forget the Financials by Bill Fotsch (HBR) Businesses are always on the hunt for customer feedback. They e-mail us surveys. They ask us to stay on the phone after a service call to rate the interaction. Many rely on metrics such as the Net Promoter Score to track how customers feel about them. The most disciplined firms not only exploit the data to identify problems with their products and services but also get everyone on staff involved in fixing them. My Comment: There’s an old saying that customer service doesn’t cost. It pays. No doubt that customer focused companies enjoy repeat business and loyal customers spend more on average, so it’s worth spending time, effort and dollars on customer service. Let the people in charge of the numbers (finance) prove it to the rest of the company. Exceptional Customer Service Affects Small Business Profitability by Scott Moyer (Huffington Post) Creating positive customer service experiences will inspire emotional responses toward a business, including trust, gratitude and loyalty, and through word-of-mouth, every customer has the potential to become a brand advocate and increase profitability. My Comment: Training, employee appreciation, measurement, customer care/empathy and the personal touch; these are a few of my favorite customer service strategies! Big company or small, these strategies and tactics are paramount to any company’s customer service strategy. Steve Jobs Said it Best, Start with the Customer Experience by Oliver (Surveypal) I was reminded of the importance of the customer experience while I was watching this video of Steve Jobs at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in 1997. In the video, Jobs appears to be responding to an attack, but is actually doing something much more interesting. He thinks carefully and makes a critical philosophical point about his – and Apple’s – approach to creating new products. My Comment: Steve Jobs was the master at understanding what the customer wanted – even before the customer knew he or she wanted it. This short article and great video are an excellent reminder to some of what Steve Jobs taught us about how to be successful in business. Want to Keep Your Customers? Be Proactive by Nicole Fallon (Business Daily News) What happens when you lose a customer? If you think you can just ramp up lead generation to compensate, you may want to reconsider. According to research by client engagement tool CLIENTpulse, it costs five times less to keep an existing customer than it does to gain a new one. My Comment: All the stats indicate that it is far less expensive to keep customers than to acquire new ones. So, why don’t more companies remember this? This article is a great reminder of this very important concept. 16 questions every true customer-driven startup should be able to answer by Aki Kalliatakis (Ventureburn) The evidence is in: Customer-driven companies are far more successful than those that neglect their customers. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the ROI of customer management is that your business will still be around in five years to talk about it. But what is it that makes one company stronger than its rivals? Is there a checklist of factors that can be used to benchmark your startup? My Comment: These questions are great. And, while the title of the article infers that the questions are good for customer focused start-ups, I can’t think that any company – start up or mature – couldn’t use these questions to remind themselves of the importance of being customer focused. Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or hyken. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to ift.tt/PsfjQ3. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken The post 5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of November 3, 2014 appeared first on Shep Hyken.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 14:36:26 +0000
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