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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: , , , , , , , ,

Book Review: How To Say It: Creating Complete Customer Satisfaction by Jack Griffin

April 1, 2013

Creating Complete Customer SatisfactionThis book is about how to sell and keep customers satisfied.  It is a thorough book going through the sales process all the way through handling with customer complaints about your product.  It also has lists of suggested words to use and words to stay away from which can be a great help to those who are writing marketing material.

I find the book to be a great reference for anyone whether you would consider yourself in sales not.  Even person at the customer service desk in a retail store can learn a great deal from this book.
I think the most important point that anyone can take from this text is to take care of your customer.  While this seems obvious I run into many companies that forget this fundamental lesson.  If each person who reads this book can grasp this one lesson along with the concepts presented you can win in business.
There were two things that annoyed me in this book.  One was the typos at the start that gave me a bad impression of the book at first.  This does go away rather quickly so don’t let it turn you off from reading it as it seems confined to the first section or so.
The second thing were the examples.  There was not a consistent theme with the example letters and e-mails.  The “company” name changed a few time and the format of the examples changed.  While it doesn’t make anything away from what the book is trying to teach it does get a little aggravating at the back and forth between the changes.  It would be easier for people to learn the material if there were more consistency in this area.
As a whole I would recommend anyone who works one on one with customers to read and absorb this book.  You will get a lot out of it.
If you would like to get other peoples point of view or purchase the book you can do so on Amazon.
*Note: I received a copy of this book at no charge in exchange for my honest review.*
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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: , ,

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: , , , , ,