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A Case Study

A case in point is the sending out of mailings to customers about new products by a certain company. Now, the mail house entrusted with sending out the mail had been cleaning up the mail file of the customer-company for years, without them knowing about it.

During one such mail out, a new employee handling it used the initial address file to send out the mail, which resulted in thirty percent of the mail being returned because of the addresses being insufficient. A query from the customer’s side brought to light the file cleaning, which resulted in the inadvertent mistake, which caused mail to be returned. When asked what they would like the customer to do, the suppliers gave a clear-cut response for a fresh address file to be prepared in a way that would help eradicate the problem. Had this been done earlier, it could have saved the wasted time and money for both.

In another case, a printer informed the customer after a long time about the additional charges that he had been applying for converting the three color red, green, blue pieces, which he had been getting, into the 4 color CMYK version.

Customer-Supplier Links

In both the cases, the company was also a supplier. It supplied electronic files, containing the artwork to the printing company, and the addresses to the mailer. This resulted in the printer and the mailer assuming the customer’s role. These roles are reversed when the mailing is sent out or printed material is supplied. Therefore, in most instances of such customer-supplier situations, one being unaware of the requirement of the other, they maintain whatever is supplied as standard, even when the change would not require much cost or effort – resulting in loss to both.

In a customer-supplier situation, if you are aware that the product you get will be sub-standard if the raw material is poor, and your supplier relies on you to supply the input/raw material, and check for flaws in the raw material, then it is important to find out the exact requirements of your supplier. Your focus should be to identify everything that would help minimize the chance of error, the time of supply and the cost of your job. If required, make suitable changes in your processes, which would speed up product delivery with minimum risks.

Use A Checklist

A checklist is necessary to know input requirements. In your role as supplier, make sure you have such a checklist. In case you do not have it, determine the input requirements from your customers and create one, keeping the objectives of benefiting your customers, along with the reduction in risks and time required for meeting their needs, and helping them save money. Take your supplier’s suggestions on ways to help him do a better job for you, and guide your customers to give feedback on the product, so that it can be designed to suit their requirements.

Mastering the art of switching roles in your dealings with your customers and suppliers allows you to lead and follow according to situational demands. Even though it requires time and effort, it will result in greater profits by generating more business and contributing to savings.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution’s Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six
sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Here is some information to help you stay proactive – to be in control of yourself and your emotions.

1. Have a safety valve for your emotions. If you suppress your anger and emotions all the time, you are likely to blow up at the wrong time at the wrong person. Express your anger, frustrations, and emotions to your safety valve – friends and family you trust.

2. Get plenty of rest. Do not deprive yourself of sleep. If you are overly tired, you are more likely to say and do irrational things. Know how much sleep you need each night. Most people need between six and eight hours of sleep each night.

3. Learn how to relax. Relaxing requires practice. Learn to relax your body and your mind. Put worry thoughts out of your mind. Replace them with pleasant thoughts. Only about two percent of what we worry about ever comes to pass. Heed the words of Mark Twain: I have experienced many terrible things in my life, a few of which have actually happened.

4. Exercise. It is one of the greatest tension relievers. Continuous exercise that is at least 15 to 20 minutes in duration, at least three times a week, is so valuable. Something as simple as a brisk thirty-minute daily walk can help you cope with lifes tensions.

5. Prioritize your work and do only one thing at a time. People have a tendency to get very stressful when their minds are cluttered and they perceive they have too much to do in too short a period of time. If this happens to you, you may indirectly voice your frustrations in your tone of voice. If you prioritize, you will learn to work on only one thing at a time and keep your work in perspective. It is also very important to remember that so called customer interruptions are not aggravations – they are part of your job!

6. Keep a sense of humor. Laughter is another great tension reliever. See the humor in lifes situations. Learn to laugh at yourself a little. Do not take yourself or your situations too seriously. Spend time with friends who like to laugh and joke. It will help to keep difficult situations in perspective.

7. Develop hobbies. Have outlets that get your mind off work. They help you to be a well-rounded individual. Hobbies help you to relax and to focus on other aspects of your life.

8. Eat right. If you eat junk food and load up on caffeine throughout the day, you are likely to experience emotional highs and lows throughout the day. The sugar high and caffeine can make you hyper. Then when the high wears off, you may feel tired. Also, different types of foods affect people in different ways. For instance, some foods make people feed sluggish or stuffy. Listen to the signals of your body. Give it fuel that keeps it energized and emotionally sharp.

9. Give yourself quiet time each day. Have a hermit spot where you can go to be completely alone, even if it is for only ten minutes a day. You need time to yourself – to melt your tensions away.

10. Create a mental focus. Create specific goals to focus on and strive for. People who know what they want in life feel more in control of their lives. Thus, they are usually less stressful.

Great Customer Service –
The essence of excellent customer service is going beyond the expected. Anticipating a customers needs so thoroughly that you fulfill the desire before it has even been expressed. Understanding what the customer expects, then exceeding those expectations. Take the initiative. Be memorable. Bring a sense of mission and artfulness to all your interactions. The customer that leaves feeling just satisfied has not been truly served – for satisfaction is only the starting point.

Pj Germain

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Have you heard people say that if not for customers, work will be a lot smoother? They ask questions for which the answers are so obvious. Or they can find the answers if they will just read the instructions that are provided with the product. They just have to call and ask all kinds of questions and sometimes you are not even the person who is supposed to handle such questions. Are you looking for good reasons that will help you feel better about this?

First thing is if there are no customers, then there is no business. If there is no business then you do not have a job. It does not even matter if yours is not a customer-facing job. Customers are needed. Question now is how you can look at the situation differently so that providing good service to the customers is something that you can be happy doing.

Basic reason, of course, is that you get paid to do the job and providing good customer service is part and parcel of the job. It does help to remind yourself that the organization promptly pays you and it is only fair to deliver your responsibility.

Next reason is that good customer service is the best pre-sales effort for the next purchase by the customer. People go all the way out to run promotions and write great copy to entice customers to buy their products. Nothing though can beat good customer service. There are customers who will repeatedly buy from the same company because they are happy with the service provided.

Good customer service is not about falling over yourself providing everything the customer asks for, but it is providing the customer what they rightfully should get for having bought a product from your company.

There is also a completely personal angle that you can look at where service is concerned. Most people nowadays are conscious of their social responsibilities and like to donate or make contributions to worthy causes. Why not make good customer service as such a contribution? In this case, you also get paid for it. In the words of N. Eldon Tanner, “Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth”. The moment you can start thinking that service is something that you want to do, then every customer request will be much easier to respond to.

Is it going to be easy? Not all the time. There will be difficult situations but there will also be customers who will be very appreciative of the service that you provide. For those difficult situations, say to yourself that this is why you are paid a salary and just do it. The moment you stop fighting it, handling the situation gets less difficult.

Now, how do you handle difficult situations so that they do not upset you? The best way to handle this is to calmly listen to the customer. Many a time service representatives have a solution even before the problem has been described. Stop to listen first. Then ask clarification questions if necessary before providing the resolution.

Theodore Roosevelt said, “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”. It will do well to remember these words. If you can listen with a sincere desire to help and be happy to help the customer, you will feel good providing service. Some people even enjoy it. In addition, your whole attitude and listening with care will come through and even the customer’s demeanour will change.

Good customer service is not about having a good customer service week once a year. It is about providing good service every day. As you start work daily, if you can accept that your purpose for being there is to respond to customer needs with concern and a desire to help, it will be a lot easier to get through work. You can even start enjoying it.

Remember at a minimum you are getting paid to respond to customer requests. You are also helping to drive more sales from customers because of the excellent service you help provide. Besides this, from a purely personal perspective, you get an opportunity to be of service even without getting out of your normal routine.

Start having a different outlook to providing good customer service. It will make a great difference to how you support your customers and importantly to how good you feel deep inside you.

Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of Be Successful News, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business. http://BeSuccessfulNews.com/

Imagine the following scenario: six months ago you paid someone to come and do your gardening. You’d like to use them again but you can’t remember their name and have lost their business card. You end up going to another gardener, which means that the first gardener has probably lost a customer for life.

How easy would it have been for that gardener to stay in touch with you by sending you a newsletter with gardening tips and product recommendations? If you’re running your own business, you can’t afford not to have a newsletter. Sure, it seems that every business sends out one nowadays but that is no reason to avoid using this invaluable marketing tool. It’s an excellent way to build ongoing customer relationships, establish trust and build credibility.

The most cost effective way to send out a newsletter is by email. That way you avoid printing and mailing costs, and it’s so much more immediate.

Here are 5 tips to using email newsletters as a way of staying in touch with your customer base:

1. Use the 80% 20% Rule

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is talking only about themselves in their newsletters. Think about the newsletters that you delete and the ones that you make the effort to read. Usually the most interesting ones contain solid information and tips that benefit you in some way. Think about what would really interest and help your readers and write articles on those topics accordingly. 80% of your newsletter content should directly benefit your reader. Only allow 20% of your content to promote your business.

2. Choose a schedule and stick to it

Consistency is the key when sending out newsletters. Whether you decide on a monthly or fortnightly newsletter, make a commitment to yourself to keep to this schedule. If your newsletter is good, your customers will start to look forward to hearing from you and you don’t want to disappoint them, do you?

3. Pick a quality newsletter provider

A service like Aweber will provide you with the best in service at a very reasonable price. As part of signing up, you get free templates to use. Customize these with your logo and photo to add that personal touch. Aweber also manages people wanting to unsubscribe from your list automatically, which is a great time saver.

4. Plan your content

Instead of inwardly groaning when suddenly it’s time to send out your newsletter again, why not brainstorm and work on some article ideas in advance? Think of your newsletter as an ongoing, fun project and it will be.

5. Put your sign-up box on your website

Make it easy for people to sign up for your newsletter by putting a sign-up box prominently on your website. Also invite people to sign up by putting a sentence at the end of your email signature, saying something like ‘Sign up for my newsletter with the latest articles, news, tips and stories at ‘

The time and effort that you put into your newsletter will pay off dividends by increasing repeat business, and bringing in new business.

Kevin is the publisher and editor of Be Successful News, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business. http://BeSuccessfulNews.com/

Providing good customer service to a difficult customer or client can feel like walking a diplomatic tightrope. But if you handle a customer’s complaint the right way, you can turn the situation around and even turn that person into a loyal customer. Here are some tips to help you when faced with a difficult customer.

Don’t Take It Personally

How you handle the first contact with a dissatisfied customer is critical to diffusing the situation. If a customer or client approaches you with an adversarial attitude, voice raised, he isn’t seeing you as an individual at that moment – only as a representative of your company. Try to remain objective, and don’t take it personally. If your first reaction is to become defensive, you’re already well on your way to losing control of the situation. Let him do most of the talking initially, and just listen.

Try Honestly To See Things From Your Customer’s Point Of View

Show respect for your customer’s opinions. Whether he’s justified or not in being upset, it’s important to put yourself in your customer’s shoes for a moment. Use phrases like, “I can certainly understand why you’d feel that way.” Draw on your own experiences as a dissatisfied customer. You may have been more diplomatic in the way you asked to have your complaint resolved, but you did expect to be treated with respect and taken seriously. If you can do this for your difficult customer, in most cases he’ll begin to calm down at this point.

Call Attention To A Customer’s Mistake Indirectly

It’s seldom a good idea to directly tell anyone that they’re wrong. Such a direct accusation causes embarrassment, builds resentment and hardens someone’s attitude, and makes it less likely that the person you’re talking to will want to listen to what you have to say.

If you think that your customer or client has made a mistake, begin by using phrases like, “Well, I thought otherwise but I might be wrong. Let’s look at this together.” Being willing to admit that you could be wrong will make it easier for your customer to admit that he might be wrong, too. Even if you know for a certainty that he’s wrong, begin by using diplomacy so that your customer can ‘save face’ if he’s proven wrong. If he feels humiliated, you’ve probably lost any chance for future business with him.

If You’re Wrong, Admit It

If you or someone at your company has made a mistake, admit it and apologize, sincerely and in no uncertain terms. If you’ve missed a deadline, mixed up an order or delivered a product or service below your usual standards, there really is no acceptable excuse to a customer who was depending on you.

If you agree that your client has a right to be upset, you’ve effectively removed any grounds for argument and you can begin to negotiate a resolution. When a customer complains, sometimes what they’re really saying is, “How are you going to make this right?” In effect, they’re giving you another chance. The customer you’ve truly lost is the one who doesn’t complain, but simply never returns.

Decide If You Really Need The Business

The only way to win an argument is to avoid it. But there will times when, despite your best efforts, you will have to decide if the difficult customer’s business is worth the time and emotional strain it costs you. Fortunately, these situations are the exception.

Handling difficult customers can be challenging, but it’s well worth mastering the negotiation skills required to win their loyalty. When they’re satisfied with the way you handle their complaints, they can also be among your biggest sources of referrals. And since customers are the lifeblood of any business, the more you can rely on regular customers and referrals then the less time and money you’ll have to spend to get new business.

Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of Be Successful News, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business. http://www.besuccessfulnews.com