Friday, February 25, 2011

The 5 most deadly mistakes in Customer Care.
During a recent survey in the USA it was found that 77% of the respondents perceived the reasons for bad service has to do with the human factor.
The first of this is ‘INCOMPETENT STAFF” “Incompetent” is just other words for “UNTRAINED” “ “NOT YET COMPETENT” “DO NOT KNOW THEIR PRODUCTS” The list is pretty long.
The second is lack of friendliness. _ This links to the above. If service staff is incompetent they will know it and they are blaming their company for it. They will be projecting their frustration onto the client. And the client will pick this up immediately.
If you could eliminate the first two you have eliminated more than 50% of your problems with customer service.
There are 3 more serious reasons and just think where you can go if you eliminate all 5
WE ARE PUTTING OUR MONEY WHERE OUR MOUTHS ARE.

What are you prepared to pay to improve your customer service ? We are going to make you an offer you cannot refuse:
Should you take our offer you can make the price .
Here is our deal : Over a period of 30 days we will train your customer care staff in the soft issues of customer contact and service whilst you will undertake to give them the product knowledge they need. Here is the challenge to you : You can make the price. IF we do not have a 100% improvement in your customer care ratings during that period we will refund you everything you paid us and you get to keep all the results.
If we succeed you undertake to pay our price.

What have you got to loose?
Phone me now : This offer is not going to last
John Brandow 082 222 5002

Customer service - where are the banks?

In a recent MSN Money-zogby customer service poll in the USA there were no banks in the top ten customer service excellence companies. There were 4 in the worst list. I will challenge anyone to tell me it is different over here. In a country where service is a swear word the banks are most probably to be found in the same company.
What makes great customer service:

The same poll list the following as what clients percieve as the biggest contributors to customer service in any company:

When thinking about a company's customer service, which one of the following features is most important to you?
Feature % most important*
Knowledgeable staff 44%
Friendly staff 18%
Readily available staff 15%
Flexible policies for return/exchange of merchandise 9%
Service after the sale 9%
None -- product is all that matters 1%
Not sure 1%
Other 1%

In other words 77% had to do with the servicing staff and which leaves only 23% for all the other technical jargon

SO When government said bring back the knowledgeable guys irrespective of the colour of their skin they may just be on about something hey?

Friday, February 18, 2011

Defying the cage animal concept

I like to call people drawing a monthly salary "Cage animals" They go to work everyday and they get paid every month. What happens in between is irrelevant. He/she gets fed every month.This also implies that you belong to someone- the one that is feeding you. Entrepreneurs and business owners (O yes there are major differences) are different. They are hunters : If you do not hunt you do not eat : It is that simple. We ( my wife and I) have been Entrepreneurs for the past 11 years. Had very hard times, had exceptionally good times , Had hard times again (we were in the property business and the insurance brokerage business ) when the economy hit us like a train. So ? Go and work for someone again.
Not in this life. Started a new venture again 6 months ago and we are not looking back. ( The business ? Private homeschool mentoring centres - the market is huge, the knowledgable players are few and with the shambles in the public school system it is the right time now !) I think quoting Nike here would be appropriate : Just do it ! But I like their biggest competitors slogan much more : "Impossible is nothing"

The gate is wide open go and get that business

The gate is wide open go and get that business

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