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Serve Them Well

July 24, 2013

Serve others.  If you have read self development materials for any length of time you have heard this and for good reason – it is the root to many good things in life.

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.” Zig Ziglar

When you serve other people you are able to release stress and get out of a depressed state.  You can do many things to serve:  be in the military, donate time to a non-profit, or even creating a product that fills a need and makes you rich is still an example of serving others because you have filled a need and brought it to the marketplace.

Recently our car was totaled in an accident when a vehicle hit ours from behind (nobody was seriously injured).  Of course, it is can be a nerve racking experience.  Questions are up in the air and you are lost if you have never been through one before on what to do about getting your vehicle repaired, rental cars, etc.  However, it was made a lot easier thanks to my agent who took the time to explain things to me and the other person’s insurance adjuster who was there to serve us.  They should both feel good about what they do and the help they provide in moments like they deal with.

The more people you serve the better your life and those around you can be.  A service animal serves the need of their owner but the owner, in turn, provides for the needs of the animal.  Along with that service comes a bonding friendship between the two.  This can be achieved with people as well as animals.

Figure out a way to serve many and go do that.  Impact millions and make life better for everyone around.

“Service to many leads to greatness-great respect, great satisfaction.” Jim Rohn

Filed Under: Business, Careers, Customer Service, Leadership, Life Coaching, People Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Impact

April 10, 2013
Server

Photo courtesy of torbakhopper.

What impact do you have on people in your day to day life?

Think about it for a second. You directly and indirectly influence, in some way, hundreds if not thousands of people’s lives each and every day.  It doesn’t matter what you do assuming you leave the house or pick up the phone.

Take for example the server in the picture.  He is providing a meal to the patrons which gives them the energy to go out and impact their hundreds of lives.  By working in the restaurant he providing a service to a paying customer which provides a job to cooks, cashiers, dish washers, and in the end turns a profit for the owner.  By working, the server is also providing a life for himself and possibly a family which in turn impacts more people.  This is a very shortened example and we could go on and on how this one server being a host to this one table alone has an effect on hundreds of people.

Now, I ask the question again, what impact do you have on people your day to day life?  Are you in a drive thru window handing out food?  If so, congratulations.  You are providing meal time with that family, helping a single mom who is working two jobs do one less thing that night, and you are impacting everyone you are working with.

Be proud of the impact you make and stand tall – you helped a lot of people today.

Filed Under: Customer Service, Life Coaching, Motivational, People Tagged With: , , ,

Treat People Well

January 30, 2013
All Are Significant

Image Credit: Studio JRU

“You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place on the world, but it requires people to make the dream a reality.” Walt Disney

You need people.  You can call yourself a loner or say you don’t like people but we all need each other.  You need someone to hire you for a job or you need someone to buy your product if you are running your own business.  We are all connected in one way or another and we should treat each other well.

Next time you are in line at the supermarket during a busy holiday instead of getting frustrated at the lines and people take a minute to thank the clerk.  For that matter, thank the people around you in line for the few minutes you spent together – it might seem odd but you can brighten their day and you will be the person they are telling their family about when they get home!

It all comes down to the fact as humans we need interaction and connection.  Treat people well.

 

Filed Under: Customer Service, Leadership, Life Coaching, People Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Customer Service Survey

August 23, 2012

Customer ServiceI am doing research for a project and I want to know what customer service problems you encounter when you are out shopping or dining.  The following is a brief survey and should take less than 4 minutes to complete.

Feel free to pass this survey on to friends, family, and colleagues!


Filed Under: Customer Service Tagged With: , ,

The Math of Customer Service

May 25, 2012

Dollar SignToday I had the opportunity to guest post on Chris LoCurto’s blog.  It is an issue I have been thinking about for many years.  Check it out at ChrisLoCurto.com

Filed Under: Customer Service Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Overcomplicated

February 19, 2012

overcomplicatedOne of the worst things you can do for your customers is to make things overcomplicated for them.  Take a look at the picture to the right of the school sign in Michigan (source).  Do you think this is good “customer service” to the tax payers?

I recently had a problem with my cell carrier.  My wife’s phone had a battery problem.  Granted, the phone was four years old but all I wanted to do was pay them for a phone and sign a new contract extending my time with them.  The problem being we were not eligible for an upgrade on that line for 14 days!  When I called customer service they told me they could upgrade me to another phone but not the one she wanted to get.  That one would have to wait.  So I call one of their stores and am told we can upgrade as long as it is in the same month – GREAT!  The upgrade as coming in on the 29th, oh, wait, because it is a leap year they moved us to March 1 meaning we were not in the current month.  Hmmmm…

So, I went to Twitter and within ten minutes got a response from someone who was customer friendly and helped us upgrade the phone, pay them for the phone, pay the upgrade fee, and sign a contract.  It took three different customer service reps and five phone calls to get approved to upgrade a phone two weeks early.  I was literally asking them to allow me to hand them money and it took this many steps to get someone who could take care of it.

This is a simple issue of over complicating an issue in an organization.  The first person I spoke with sh0uld have had the authority to make a two week decision.  Do your customer service people have the tools and power to take care of your customers?  If not, why not?  If you can’t trust them then you have the wrong people in that position.

Of course their should be limits and boundaries.  I have been involved with customer service for over a decade and some of the requests from customers can be quite outlandish.  You must put barriers up somewhere but you have to give enough freedom for your reps to make decisions and exceptions when needed.

Bottom Line:  Allow those that have direct contact with your customers be able to serve your customers.  You will be rewarded many times over with happier employees and much happier and loyal customers.

Filed Under: Careers, Customer Service, Leadership Tagged With: , , , , ,

Persistence

February 15, 2012

Fort Fisher AquariumYou need persistence in life.  It is a fact to winning in just about everything you do.  If you don’t keep moving forward and moving obstacles you will fail before you get to the finish line.

What brings up this topic is a place in North Carolina.  It is the aquarium at Fort Fisher and I can only assume the other aquariums in the state do this as well.  We visited back in 2006 and upon walking into the lobby you are greeted and asked if you would like to have your picture taken at no charge.  You can see the picture we had taken just under 6 years ago to the left.

This seemed innocent enough and, of course, we knew they would want to sell us a package which we did not buy as we were on a budget for the trip.  However, once we got home I received an e-mail asking if I would like to purchase the picture now.  I deleted it and kept going.  Then I got another one, and another one, and another one.  Just earlier this month I received another one offering my Valentine’s borders and gifts of the picture we took several years ago.

I in no way look at this as a bad thing.  I could always opt out of the e-mails if I decided to.  However, I get to relive the memory of this trip and this moment each time they send out the marketing e-mail.  Their persistence turns into a trip down memory lane for me and you never know, someday I may purchase a high resolution version of the picture.

Bottom line is you need to be persistent if you want something.  Do not annoy and nag but don’t be willing to settle for less than you deserve and push through the rough spots and WIN!

 

Filed Under: Customer Service, Goal Setting Tagged With: , , ,

Lack There Of

January 22, 2012

We all have ran into poor customer service at one point or another.  Whether it has been a clerk that didn’t say thank you to the rep on the phone that you can tell doesn’t care what you’re complaint is.  However, what surprises me most are the businesses that are quickly losing market share but continue on the downward spiral of the most basic thing they can do to keep customers in their stores.

ApathyI was recently in a national video rental chain and had a small problem.  To put in in perspective it was all of 99 cents.  When I called the clerk’s attention to it I was simply told that the wrong sticker was on the game and they took the game from me and walked off to replace the sticker.  This was innocent enough but this was the second of three problems I had with this store from three different clerks in a five day time span.

It is common knowledge that it is easier and more cost effective to keep a current customer than to try to gain a new one.  In this case, brick and mortar rental businesses are losing rapidly to online rentals, streaming, and kiosk services.  Why go to the store and pay $1.99 for one night when I can go to iTunes and pay $2.99 and not have to get into my car?  Valid question.  The reason we do it is for selection, price, and for the family to get out of the house a little bit.  Often we need to pick up one or two grocery items which are also convenient to this particular place.

Of all three issues I had in the last few days two could have been fixed with “I’m sorry.”  This would have cost the company nothing, I would have been satisfied with that response, and we all would have moved on.  Now because of the workers at this location not being trained in proper customer care I had a decision to make.  And my decision was to not go back to any of their retail stores.  I would much prefer to pay a little more at a small businesses in the area or rent online than to deal with people who are not there to care for their customers.

The bottom line in this whole thing is “I’m Sorry” would have went a long way and kept me as a weekly customer.  It would have cost the company nothing – no free rental, no refund, no cash.  I would have felt that I had received service from the clerk.

When you have a customer who has a problem what can you do to make sure they are satisfied?

Filed Under: Customer Service Tagged With: , , , , ,

Is it that hard to care?

August 13, 2011

Argue & TwistHave you ever had a problem with the service in any kind of establishment?  Sure, we all have at one time or another.

Have you ever asked to speak with the manager only to ind that though they are not arguing back you know you are going to walk out unsatisfied?

Any industry that has a customer needs to have customer service skills.  This means ALL businesses need customer service skills.  But how many times do you find the office manager who just doesn’t have the time to talk to you or in my case a dentist that can’t make himself apologize?

This past week my daughter went in to see the dentist.  She was getting a little work done which she has had previously with little issue.  She told the dentist twice that she was hurting and rather than take a moment to explain to my wife what the problem was he turned to his hygienist and told her to make an appointment where she could be sedated, tossed down the drill, and walked out.  Of course, my wife was upset by the lack of care so I called and talked to him to find out was going on.

After several minutes of explaining to him that the problem was not that he felt that he could not perform the work but that he didn’t take the time to explain what the problem was when my wife was sitting in the same room he continued to say “I assumed she knew what the problem was.” and “If she had a question she should have spoken up.”

Really?

The average person can see where the flaw in basic customer service is here.  All I wanted was to find out the problem and a simple apology for acting the way he did.  I really got neither since he didn’t care.  He didn’t even bother to argue his point.  It was simply our fault for not asking.

Your customers should not have to ask.  You should be out seeking their problems and finding solutions to them.  This is what keeps your customers happy and keeps them coming back to you.

If you are at a grocery store and there are no carts available at the door you have the option to go out and get one yourself.  It is your problem since you are the one wanting to shop.  How would you feel if his was the response you got at that store?

At Walt Disney World guests were forgetting where their cars were in the parking lot all the time.  The tram operators took it upon themselves to start writing down where they were in the parking lot at a certain time and this list of times is handed to cast members at the end of the day.  If you can not find your car but know what time you parked they can help you get in the general area of where you were picked up.  Where your car is parked is not their problem but they saw an opportunity to help their guests and did so.  By doing this you have less frustrated people who see their visit to your location as pleasant.  Was this a hard thing to do?  Absolutely not.

Now you have a decision to make.  Are you going to be like the dentist who will no longer be getting our business (he lost two patients with one unapologetic attitude) or are you going to be the tram operator who took the initiative?

Photo courtesy of Fimb.

Filed Under: Customer Service, Life Coaching Tagged With: , , , ,