Professional Customer Service Training
Is it a don’t?
The must do’s and avoid at all costs when dealing with customers, straight from the experts’ mouths.
In a recent Business Week playbook, five experts weight in on what to do and not do in order to secure customer loyalty.
Do invite customers to participate in the new product development process. By that, I mean put them on advisory panels, constantly test new ideas against them to see whether they meet their needs, and get their input before launching a product.
Don’t assume the customers are going to ask for the ability to participate in a company’s activities.
-Robert Schieffer, clinical associate professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management
Do find ways to bring customers together regularly, whether it’s through a quarterly or yearly conference, party, or meeting. The ones who’ll show up are probably the evangelists, and they love to meet other evangelists. Meeting one another under your party banner will help reinforce their feelings of emotional attachment. Plus, it gives them something new to tell others.
Don’t allow even one employee to be grumpy or haughty toward customers. Evangelists are just as, if not more, loyal to your people than they are to your product, service, or brand. An employee with a bad attitude toward customers is like a virus that spreads bad word of mouth, and the years spent cultivating a good reputation can be lost in months or weeks.
-Ben McConnell, co-author of Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force
Do remember that loyalty is built over time through a collection of positive experiences.
Don’t assume that the lack of complaints is equal to a satisfied customer base.
-Glen Urban, professor at MIT Sloan School of Management and author of Don’t Just Relate—Advocate! A Blueprint for Profit in the Era of Customer Power
Do keep the following in the mind: Customers who become promoters must first believe that a company offers superior value in terms of price, features, quality, functionality, ease of use, and all the other practical factors. Additionally, they must feel good about their relationship with the company—they must believe the company understands and values them, listens to them, and shares their underlying principles. A company able to combine these factors will create promoters, customers who eagerly recommend a company or service to family members, friends, and colleagues.
Don’t treat your customers as if they were expendable. Companies that break the Golden Rule by misleading, coercing, and disrespecting their customers effectively turn them into detractors. Examples in today’s world are countless, but they include nuisance fees and hidden charges, poor in-store service, and dreaded automated customer help lines. Such mistreatment causes customers to switch to competitors, cut back on their purchases, and, worst of all, warn others to stay away from the company.
-Frederick Reichheld, a fellow at Bain & Co.,
founder of that firm’s loyalty consulting practice, which strives to help clients improve customer, employee, and investor loyalty, and author of The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth
Bottom line- communication and engagement are essential to secure loyalty.
Article Source
Tags: Professional training for customer service, training customer service professionals, professional training in customer service, customer service training for professionals, customer service training by professionals.
Additional Business Training.com Resources
Tags: customer service training by professionals, customer service training for professionals, Professional training for customer service, professional training in customer service
