Customer Service Is More Than Just Being Nice~By Flavio Martins

Many organizations tackle the issue of customer service by just telling their employees to smile.

Be polite. Never lose your cool. But isn’t that a little like closing the barn door after the horses have gotten out?
Good customer service should be about a good customer experience with your product. This begins with the relationship your company cultivates with a customer.

This relationship will be tested by the entire process of the buyer seller relationship.

1. The images and promises of the marketing campaign

People begin to form opinions of your company and products from the messages they receive before they even purchase your product. Often, they receive these images before they have even thought of buying. Will your images match the experience?

2. The ease of ordering/purchasing the product

Once someone has decided to purchase your products or services, how easy do you make it for them to do so. Is there someone to answer the phones or will they get a voice mail message? Actually, many companies lose sales in this way. Some people, who want to act now, will simply hang up and go on to the next company that will answer their call.
Also, many leads are not followed up A message is left but no one gets back. When the buyer does reach you, are your systems in place to make the purchasing process as simple as possible? Buyers want to feel that they’ve made the right decision in choosing your product. By creating an easy process for ordering, you help them feel confident in their decision.

3. How well does the product live up to the expectations of the marketing?

Your customer now has your product in his possession. Will it live up to any hype used in the marketing campaign? Or will there be a letdown when the actual product does not match the expectations? Marketing is a powerful force. It will create expectations that must be fulfilled by the product. When it doesn’t, it can create customer satisfaction problems. Make sure your product matches expectations.

4. How well will the product live up to the expectations of the customer?

In addition to the marketing message, a customer usually forms his own expectations based on past experiences with similar products, observations and conversations with others. Will this add to the experience or create a letdown? Product must match expectations or exceed them. Anything less will create a potential customer service problem.

5. When something goes wrong, how is it fixed?

Do you acknowledge that problems can happen? Have you decided how to satisfy customers? Have you looked at the financial ramifications of your solutions? Better yet, look at the product itself. If you find many customers with similar products, perhaps it is most appropriate to address weaknesses in the product itself.

6. What are the procedures?

Even with the best of products, problems can occur. It’s best to address these issues beforehand. Decide what processes will be used to satisfy your customers. Think about replacement and its cost, discounts, etc. If you are going to replace a product, how quickly can you get it to someone? As a replacement, it must take precedence over new orders.
Jo Ann Kirby, President of KRG Communications Group, has 20 years experience in sales, cusotmer service, telephone sales, management with an extensive background in training and development. Her background also includes extensive B2B telesales management experience. Jo Ann has been published in The Toastmaster, NAPPS Network and Commerce magazines. Jo Ann says:
Customers will tell more people when they’ve had a bad experience then when they’ve had a good experience. Solving customer problems not only affects that specific customer but many other people as well.
-Jo Ann Kirby, President of KRG Communications Group http://www.krgcommunications.com

7. Can your organization be easily reached or is the process frustration to most?

Everyone has frustrating stories to tell about voice prompts that go nowhere. They don’t cover your problem and they continually loop back into the system without a way to speak to a live operator. Make it easy for people to speak with someone. Test your systems thoroughly. Automation can be a great help and a cost saver for organizations but it must be used judiciously.

8. Can the customer service rep actually help?

Customer services reps must be empowered to solve problems. They must be able to do more than empathize and smile. Nothing is more frustration than a nice customer service rep that is unable to resolve your problem. Give your staff the appropriate information and training. Let them have responsibility and accountability for their actions. Employees tend to rise to the level that is expected of them.

Good customer service requires an ongoing examination of methods.

Making these suggestions part of your daily customer experience management routine will start the thought process necessary to truly deliver world class service. 


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Author: Flavio Martins Flavio Martins on the Web Flavio Martins on Facebook Flavio Martins on Twitter Flavio Martins on LinkedIn Flavio Martins on Google Plus Flavio Martins RSS Feed

Flavio Martins is the VP of Customer Support at DigiCert, Inc., and leader of an award winning global customer service team. As a customer service blogger, and customer service fanatic, he's on a mission to show that excellent service can be consistent, simple, and easy. Blog: Win the Customer!... View full profile

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Impact Of No More Third-Party Cookie Targeting In Firefox

By John Ebbert

Mozilla's move to stop third-party cookie tracking in the latest version of its Firefox browser - echoing Apple's Safari browser attributes - has attracted wide attention across the advertising industry. And no wonder - Mozilla's Firefox has about a 23% share among consumers in the browser market.
AdExchanger reached out to a selection of executives in the industry and asked the following question:

With Mozilla shutting off third party cookie targeting, what will be the impact on online ad buyers?

Click below or scroll down for more:

• Aaron Bell, CEO, AdRoll
• Sam Barnett, CEO, Struq
• Jonathan Mendez, CEO, Yieldbot
• Dax Hamman, CRO/CSO, Chango
• Eric Bosco, CEO, ChoiceStream

Aaron Bell, CEO, AdRoll

"The Internet is great because it allows ideas and content to flow freely. You can hop from your custom radio station, to your bottomless Gmail account, to a friend's Twitter feed, to a foreign newspaper, to a game of Scrabble with your mom. We’ve come to rely on these services and expect to access them for free, without paywalls or contracts.
Display ads make this possible. They are the lifeblood of the Internet. The only form of display with a reliable return on investment for advertisers is audience-based targeting. And that’s the reason just about every product or service brand now uses these techniques.
The internet economy has matured to depend so heavily on this type of advertising, parties on either side must not act unilaterally with crude changes, or else privacy could devolve into a cat-and-mouse game. Browsers will add obstructions, advertisers will find new workarounds, and with no standards, ultimately the users will be the ones left behind. While early AdChoices and Do Not Track are not perfect, they are coordinated steps towards a thriving internet in which users have more transparency and control."

Sam Barnett, CEO, Struq

"The implications of these changes are bad for business, bad for the Internet, and bad for users. The first result will be that websites and publishers will see an immediate reduction in their revenues, as non-personalised ad targeting commands onlymmerce, a small fraction of the CPMs that targetable impressions are able to command. The changes will also have a direct, detrimental impact on ecommerce businesses, many of whom rely on cookie-based performance marketing to bolster their sales.
This seems a strange move at a time when the industry has taken great strides to collectively self-regulate with a focus on giving consumers choice. This removes that choice when consumers have consistently indicated that they would prefer fewer, more-relevant ads."

Jonathan Mendez, CEO, YieldBot

"Privacy in general online is a slow roll but it is inextricably being driven by consumer sentiment and heavy lobbying in DC to eliminate the use of 3rd party data. For some ad tech players it's obvious eliminating 3rd party data will kill their business.
For consumers the effects will be negligible. Over the past decade 3rd party data has done little to make advertising more relevant. This is the root of the entire issue. If consumers experienced benefits from this data use and thus advertisers, there would be no issue with its use.
For publishers it will drive CPMs higher. Considering the largest publishers on the web are Google, Facebook and Yahoo that should be a good thing for the digital ecosystem. Publisher 1st party data is better data for advertisers anyway. Performance will improve for advertisers and in the end the irony will be that more ad dollars will flow to digital because of eliminating 3^rd party data (and moving towards 1st party data) than came to digital from having it."

Dax Hamman, CRO/CSO, Chango

"Like many in the industry, including the IAB, we would prefer this move was not occurring, but at the same time, don't expect revenue impact from it.
The decision to include this functionality activated by default will lessen the consumer experience by removing relevancy (and not just in advertising), remove their choice (because many won't know this is occurring) and set a precedence that fails to balance the needs of the consumer and the marketing industry. For small publishers, the decision is worse; such organizations will loose the ability to generate revenue from advertising, and may therefore disappear.
While this move alone won't have huge ramifications, we could see new behaviors occurring in the future, such as publishers not allowing visitors access to their content with certain browser types. After all, as an individual on Facebook you are not the consumer, you are the product, and you cease to have value, Facebook may cease to let you in."

Eric Bosco, COO, ChoiceStream

"Mozilla’s default third party cookie setting will cause the percent of users opted out of tracking to jump from 1% to about 20%, which will be significant for the first time. Programmatic media buyers with accurate targeting needs will avoid Firefox inventory. The general inventory reduction will have an impact on prices. Loss of an entire audience segment will have an unknown but potentially bigger impact.
In the short term, Firefox 10 users will have a less relevant and more annoying ad experience. Without tracking from impression to conversion, the majority of display campaigns on Firefox will likely be low cost CPC campaigns such as tooth whitening products, supplemental diet pills, etc. This is a terrible outcome for the industry, which has been evolving beyond the click and will be forced to step backward.
Longer term, the publishing and ad industries will change business models and technology. The lower advertising value of a Firefox user will accelerate the trend towards pay walls. Advertisers will find work-arounds such as browser envelope profiling (see https://panopticlick.eff.org/), Flash cookie persistency, or yet to be engineered alternatives. These work-arounds will reduce transparency to consumers compared to the existing, self-regulated methods of the IAB and NAI."

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