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.
Can A Customer Experience Program Change Your Culture? by Michelle deHaaff
(Customer Think) What’s your NPS? Every month the C-suite at Gold’s Gym places calls to a few gyms in its global franchise to ask whomever answers the phone, “what’s your NPS®?” (NPS=Net Promoter Score, a commonly used customer satisfaction score) If you answer the phone, you need to know what customers think of your gym. Everyone at the gyms knows this.
My Comment: I love the idea of an employee knowing the NPS (Net Promoter Score). It means they know what the customer thinks. As the company works to improve their score, every employee is aware. That can be motivating. If the score goes up, everyone celebrates. If the score dips, everyone is motivated to try to get back to the original score – and then improve! Bottom line, this is a great lesson we can learn from Gold’s Gym.
Every Mistake is An Opportunity to Surprise and Delight by Dave Kerpen
(LinkedIn) Every person and every organization makes mistakes. But if you can follow up those mistakes with a little (or a lot) of surprise and delight, you can not only erase the mistakes – you can create loyal fans for life.
My Comment: Want to learn how to turn a Moment of Misery into a Moment of Magic®? Read this article. Lowes not only fixed the mistake, they went above and beyond. They fixed the problem at hand with a sincere apology, a positive attitude and a sense of urgency. All that did was bring things back to normal. Then they went over-the-top to surprise their guest. I usually don’t advocate giving things away for free to fix a problem. In this case, it may have been warranted, and the payoff was huge. From “Rage to Rave!”
Customer Service 101: Thank You Cards and Doughnuts by Gary Peterson
(Forbes) Our professor asked him to take the stage and speak of the secrets of his success. “Thank You cards and doughnuts.”
The car dealer then went on to explain that he made it a practice that whenever anyone bought a car from him, he hand wrote a thank you card for their business. A hand written card gets read, he explained, and stressed that the simple gesture goes far in building a loyal customer base that generates word of mouth business.
My Comment: My mother taught me to write thank you notes at a very young age – at about the time I could write. It’s a metaphor for just doing the right thing. This article about an entrepreneur proves that thank you notes can be a catalyst in creating a successful business.
Six Tangible–And Extremely Profitable–Reasons To Provide Excellent Customer Service. by Paul B. Brown
(Forbes) If you can turn a one-time buyer into a lifetime customer via good service, six things happen, all of them terrific.
My Comment: I love quick, short articles that give great information. Want some financial (read that as profitable) reasons to deliver customer service. Here are six of them.
Five Tips to Starting a New Customer Service Team by Flavio Martins
(Customer Think) Even though every customer is different, and with each customer service situation you may have different levels of service requirements, there are some customer service basics that you can be sure will be effective in creating a customer focused team every time. Here are 5 tips to starting a new customer service team on the right track.
My Comment: If you have (or are starting) a customer service team, then this article is worth reading. I especially agree with tactic number four, which is to find the best customer service people to interact with your customers. It’s not about staffing for customer service. It’s about staffing the right people for customer service.
