Is The Subject Line "Improving Customer Service" Appropriate In A Message To Superiors?

A iii step process for making your business customer-friendly and build the relationships critical for client loyalty.

No matter what role we agree in the working world, we all know if we respond to customers' requests quickly and efficiently, chances are they will stay with us and buy more from the states. So why is it so hard for us to deliver on this need? After all, it sounds elementary plenty, doesn't it? Only how do nosotros actually go about getting everyone in our organization to reply simply, efficiently and finer to our customers' needs?

First, create a straightforward, unproblematic way for employees to connect what they do every twenty-four hours to customer service improvement.

This is called 'line of sight'. Second, make sure you and your direction team are demonstrating, daily, the appropriate customer service behavior. In other words, 'practice what you preach'. Third, measure and showcase performance. This connects the 'line of sight' daily action taken by employees to the customer service comeback results accomplished.

Customers want to be heard.

With all the options available to customers today to connect with united states of america and our products and services, nothing beats the personal touch. This does not have to be a confront to face up interaction. Unless the customer has launched a complaint when we may want to telephone call them or visit them straight, it is advisable to reply to their requests in the same style as they made the asking. Providing the personal bear on ways responding quickly to their email, text, or social media site request. It'due south all virtually listening to them, no thing how they choose to talk to you. Customers want to be heard and have their requests addressed promptly. And it could be as simple as picking up that ringing phone.

As National Training and Development Leader for a large insurance company, I was part of a senior team implementing a vision devoted to customer intendance. Our team was focused on making it much easier for our customers to do business with united states of america by providing an error complimentary experience with virtually no wait times. This nosotros saw equally the primal to turning our concern around and creating a customer service civilisation that would drive upwards acquirement and profits. 1 of our simple goals was to "answer every phone call inside iii rings." We but wanted someone to selection up the phone. Sounds elementary enough, but the company culture did not encourage employees to practise that.

We were working for a company with a history of poor service. As a event, there were many, many customer complaints and almost of these complaints came in by way of the phone. So knowing that, it seemed easier to allow the phone call go to vocalization mail. We used vox postal service to screen callers – the primary means to avoid dealing with customers. With email, it was easier to deal with client complaints because we could ignore the electronic mail complaints until we were ready to deal with them – in our ain time. Although our marketing department received the social media customer requests, they handed them off to someone else to handle. All these tactics merely served to create more customer complaints – a vicious bicycle. So customers could connect with us in a number of ways, nosotros just didn't really want them to reach the states. Nosotros were non listening to our customers.

Customers want an answer to their question, a response to their request, a solution to their problem.

Ease of doing business is not about us, it's well-nigh what the customer needs. It'due south about picking up that phone earlier it goes to voice mail service, responding to emails and social media requests within the same business organization day and responding to their asking efficiently and finer. So what did nosotros do to plow this poor service situation around? We implemented a three step plan which fabricated it easier for our customers to do business with us—even if they were lodging a complaint.

1. We created 'line of sight' deportment for our employees.

Nosotros provided 'line of sight' to each employee. 'Line of sight' refers to the daily actions each employee takes that will assist them to encounter the company goals. Every employee needs to know which of their actions bulldoze to the desired upshot, meeting the customers' needs. In our visitor, the desired result was improved customer service measured through the number of errors and the amount of time required to complete a customer request. Answering the telephone inside three rings was the very bones requirement, the basic daily task every employee could perform that would gradually reduce response time. This was based on a uncomplicated premise, each customer wants to be acknowledged and heard. And the easiest fashion to practice this is to provide them with a human vocalisation, i that is quick to reply to their phone call to action.

ii. We did what we asked our employees to do.

We began to accept actions, ourselves, to focus on the goal of improving customer service. Nosotros focused on answering our own phones inside three rings, responding to email and social media requests the aforementioned business concern twenty-four hours. We realized, as supervisors, that our direct employees took their cue from us, from what we did. It's about incorporating this behavior into your working solar day, your work life style, demonstrating a passion for customer service.

The President incorporated customer service into his daily life – both inside and outside of work. He practiced what he preached. Many times I saw him selection up a ringing telephone when he was walking by an employee's desk-bound. He would reply using their name and and so take the bulletin. A uncomplicated enough task merely it sent a message to the rest of us that he believed answering the phone within three rings was important enough to him to do, no matter which phone was ringing. Every ringing phone was a customer needing a response.

His married woman told me he did this everywhere he went. Once when they were out to dinner at a very high end restaurant, the phone on the hostess desk started ringing. He permit it go for 4 rings then got upwardly and answered the telephone. The person on the other terminate of the phone asked to brand a reservation and he took the bulletin and promised to have the restaurant phone call them dorsum. The hostess returned to her reception desk as he was hanging upwards the telephone. She chastised him for answering her telephone but he took it in stride and handed her the bulletin advising her that this was a potential customer whom he promised she would recollect. He always practiced what he preached so her response to his action did not bother him. He had focused on making it easy for the customer to do business with them. His passion for customer service played out in all areas of his life.

3. We measured results and showcased our functioning.

'What gets measured gets done' may exist true but even more than of import is what gets measured and showcased drives up commitment – commitment to the customer. We all want engaged employees – those who take the actions they need to take to go the event we want. Still, engaged and committed employees believe in the actions they are taking considering they know these actions volition produce the desired results, those desired by loyal customers.

There are many ways to showcase performance but the ane nosotros used then, and the 1 I go along to utilize, is the whiteboard or large affiche board, mounted on a common wall, with the results posted daily and weekly and summarized monthly. These affiche boards are placed where all the employees of a specific department can easily view them every bit they go through their daily work.

It may seem a rather manual activity when in that location are so many automated options bachelor (reader boards, calculator boards and emails generated past a CRM – Customer Relationship Management arrangement) only I observe affiche boards much more visual. They are splendid visual tools capturing group performance and can be hands used for weekly staff reviews of operation. Employees want to know how they are doing and what their supervisor thinks of their performance. By showcasing results, employees are able to connect their 'line of sight' actions to the results.

For customers, ease of doing business organisation means their needs take been met.

This three step process is all about creating a link between what employees do in their daily piece of work and customer retention. Providing employees with deportment they can perform daily to abound client relationships, seeing their supervisors demonstrate the appropriate behavior and, showcasing the results to improve performance connects the employee to the customer. This is the way to make it easy for customers to practice business organization with y'all and build the relationships critical for customer loyalty.

About the Author

Donna Stevenson is the possessor of Boomer Lucifer to Business organization (BM2B). She is an adept in leadership development and employee engagement, working effectively with all iii generations of employees, Boomers, Generation Ten and Y.

Source: https://www.customerservicemanager.com/make-it-easier-for-customers-to-do-business-with-you/

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