Ten Customer Service Secrets to Win Back Customers – Stress Management
Ten Customer Service Secrets to Win Back Customers
Ed Sykes
Recently I was facilitating an Outstanding Customer Service program and broke for lunch. Knowing that the restaurants in the area had much to desire as far as service I gave the students an extra fifteen minutes for lunch.
Sure enough a group of four students came rushing into the classroom with their lunches in hand. They sincerely apologized and quickly explained that they receive poor service at a restaurant This restaurant is part of a national chain. Hint: its name references a day in the week. I can
Sorry, No Customer Service After 4:00 P.M. – Travel
Sorry, No Customer Service After 4:00 P.M.
David Leonhardt
A few months ago, I wrote about ingenious styles of customer service that every business should know about, mostly because their employees were inflicting them on their customers.
For instance, I warned about "in your face customer service" and "run for cover customer service", two equally effective opposites...like pouring too much sugar on your Cheerios one day, and pouring too much cayenne pepper on them the next.
I also warned about "do-it-yourself-extortion", "consistent filibuster customer service", "Invisible Man customer service", "present-at-attendance customer service", "customer service on steroids", and "satirical customer service".
You will have to read about these clever anti-sales pitches at:
http://www.thehappyguy.com/customer-service.html , because today I want to tell you about a 100% revolutionary approach to customer service that my wife and I discovered in a village high up in the mountains.
We were on our annual honeymoon, a three-day escape from parenthood to lick our wounds and give our tattered spirits a chance to recuperate.
To tell the truth, the weekend was more like a marriage encounter. It gave me a chance to find out just who is that strange woman passing me in the hallway at full throttle, pinching her nose and radiating the sweet smell of mushy diaper as she whooshes past. And it gave her the chance to discover the even stranger man who blows a muffled "Oof!" every time Little Lady invents a new "Hop On Pop" dance move.
Check-in at the fairly expensive Resort-on-the-Edge-of-Nowhere was 4:00 p.m., and it was made very clear that we would not be welcome until then. Its always an ominous sign when a resort begins by warning you when you will not be welcome, so we arrived at 4:00 p.m..
At 6:30 we stopped by the front desk on the way to dinner to request an additional pillow. Being in a sleep-related establishment in, we figured there would an off-chance that this request might be reasonable.
Wrong. The desk clerk could not provide a pillow because the laundry department closed at 4:00, and he had no way of accessing anything that was not right at the desk, he told us with a deadpan face.
"But we were not allowed to check in until 4:00 p.m.," I protested.
At this point, Deadpan Clerk pulled from under the desk a box big enough to hold almost half a pillow, and started rummaging helpfully through it to see if he could find a pillow. He could not, he announced.
In the hospitality business, folks should know how to treat people hospitably, or so I thought. If that were the case, I suppose I would never have written about Hotel Stella and the Wicked Witch of Lido http://www.thehappyguy.com/Hotel-Stella.html or about the paper-thin walls in many hotels these days http://www.thehappyguy.com/hotel-jokes.html . OK, so the latter was largely fiction, a desperate search for a column topic, but the Hotel Stella torture story was 100% true.
Back at the fairly expensive Resort-on-the-Edge-of-Nowhere, Deadpan Clerk proceeded to assure us that we were not the only ones he mistreated. Phew, what a relief! In fact, just a few minutes earlier a man had come looking for an iron for his wife probably for his wifes dress, as men rarely iron their wives, but Deadpan Clerk never clarified that.
He proudly related how he had explained to the man that irons were not available after 4:00 p.m., unless he had one in his magic little box.
"But we were not allowed to check in until 4:00 p.m.," the man protested.
He sent the man back to inform his wife that she will have to attend the dinner theatre in a dress looking like a prune the dress, not the wife...at least, not that we were aware of.
NOTE: Although no missing persons report has been filed, we did not see the man again.
Deadpan Clerk was proudly informed us that he had sent the man away without an iron. Apparently we did not rank high enough to deserve even their very worst customer service.
I should end this story on a happy note. But how I escaped alive, along with the strange woman I pass every day in the hallway. It turns out she is my wife, go figure. And a most compassionate wife, too...she even helped Deadpan Clerk escape alive, too, at least until I return to the fairly expensive Resort-on-the-Edge-of-Nowhere.
About The Author
David Leonhardt is a humor columnist:
http://www.TheHappyGuy.com/positive-thinking-free-ezine.html
Read more satirical articles and funny stories:
http://www.TheHappyGuy.com/humor articles.html
Read more personal growth articles:
http://www.TheHappyGuy.com/self-actualization-articles.html
Read more travel articles:
http://www.TheHappyGuy.com/travel-articles.html
Info@thehappyguy.com
Wheres Your Focus, Money or Customer – Marketing
Wheres Your Focus, Money or Customer
Andrew Henry
Is your website Really useful
I had a rep in yesterday who was telling me he had a website, not realising Im a man of many talents he was telling me about all the new companies he was working with and the great products he could offer and reminded me to go to his website.
When hed finished, I asked him:-
"what is the purpose of your website" a question which he couldnt answer.
"does your website tell me what you want me to do when I go there" - err no was the answer.
"Can I sign up somewhere to hear about what your latest products/services are" No.
"Can I buy something directly from the website" No
"Is there a list of your products and services, or reviews of any of them or of the companies you resell for" No
"Are there any articles about whats happening in that industry and the issues I should be concerned about" No
"So whats the purpose of your site" Dont know really.
"What do the people that normally go there do" Can I get that information
As you can see, his website was a complete waste of time.
Hes running his own business and supporting his family and driving a nice Mercedes and his online marketing is effectively ZERO.
How many people are there online who could help this guy - Thousands Easily.
So why are so many people failing
My Answer = Because they put the money before the business.
For most Internet newbies looking to start making money - thats as far as they define their model. There are thousands of people around who can tell you how to make a website, where to host it, where to get content, how to create a product, how to start a newsletter, how to buy and sell on Ebay, how to setup an affiliate program, how to arrange JVs and how to get traffic and all the other aspects of an online business - but even with this knowledge theyre failing to achieve their goals.
They need to take action, that goes without saying and there are lots of people not becoming successful purely because theyre not taking any action to move them towards their goal, but I think the fundamental issue even before that action is the state of mind that theyre in.
Im sure that any 1/2 decent marketer can tell you that youre not going to make money by selling, matching products with peoples needs is slightly different to selling, and that difference is responsible for more failing efforts than you can imagine.
My rep yesterday could see so much improvement in his business just by thinking of the needs of his customers and potential customers and there are lots of small actions he could take to improve things. Why hasnt he because hes thinking constantly about selling, hes forgottent that having a website is one thing but making money from it by offering people something that addresses a need they have is a different thing.
Since he was kind enough to buy me lunch and a beer I ran over a few things he might like to consider regarding both his online and offline business. He was like a child that had just been given the keys to a sweet shop, he could see the potential and he knew it all made sense - and that he could actually make these changes without too much effort.
So why am I saying all this No, its not to promote my latest product or sell you something
These incidents serve as a constant reminder to me of how some people dont realise that permanent changes can be made in an instant If youve ever been burnt by fire, youll know how quickly your mind can set up permanent links.
Where we are today is based on the choices weve made, our future can be however we want it. The only thing that needs to happen is for us to decide what we want. This seems so simple, and for anyone who has come to realise the truth in that short statement knows that the change can be swift and permanent.
Unfortunately so many people are walking around in a trance feeling like a victim of the world around them that not only do they not take a look around them and see the possibilities, but they build a container around their world and define its limits.
Money is a means to an end, its a currency. If you consider your time and happiness as having a higher value then it becomes much easier to set goals which free up your time and allow you to become happier.
If the main thing in your sight is money then you can become caught in a world that revolves around money and restricts your view of the important things in life.
I used to wonder why people didnt get it but now I know that before you can get it, you need to be in the right state of mind open to possibilities.
A guy called Maslo once defined what he termed a hierarchy or human needs which have been the basis for many management, leadership and other training courses. His model outlined the various levels of peoples needs like the requirement for food and shelter etc., if you focus your efforts on meeting peoples needs you can find that selling becomes much easier and you feel much better about doing it which has repercussions of its own.
About The Author
Andrew Henry
Internet Marketing Consultant
Money&Motivation Publishing.
www.moneyandmotivation.com