More Customer Love…

As If I haven’t prattled on enough lately about customer service people and loving customers… some more ideas and chunks of info must be useful to assist people to really think about what they do and how they might make this whole area better. If this resonates with your organisation then you could use this as a brainstorming tool to get practical action to take place.

So here, take a lok at more weird and whacky ways to “love the customer!”

Concentrate on the customer, figure out  what they need – want – love – aspire to – entertain them – quiz them – excite them – prod and poke them! (careful!) – cause them to giggle – get VERY curious about them (In the right way…)

• Thrill them with a fresh approach or two to loyalty
• Tell them things (good things, bad things, things they want to hear and get engaged with)
• Wrangle with them (Perhaps their minds.) – Massage them (metaphorically perhaps)
• Tell them to love you / cause them to love you!
• Care about them intensely but don’t tell them
• Invigorate their souls
• Cause them to blink (for the right reasons)
• Feed them deeply satisfying nourishment
• Talk to them seductively (think more metaphors…)
• Tenderly hold their hand/s
• Cause them to blush (by doing Ok things…)
• Give them a passionate embrace
• Dance with them
• Know their fears
• Know what they love
• Develop personal profiles of them (not stalking!)
• Know why they love your organization
• Keep them warm and comfortable…
• Readily and effectively tantalize them
• Get quirky with them (like they are experiencing a Cirque Du Soleil clown act!)
• Thrill their senses
• Knock them down with a feather
• Build them up with kindness
• Awe inspire them with a sensational view
• Throw windows of exceptional opportunity at them
• Link them to things they will love (think strategic alliances here)
• Give them a recipe they will love or at least might love it if they try it
• Cause them to cry with splendid delight
• Caress their emotions/soul with every ounce of passion you can muster
• In short, build the relationship with them, because people buy from people they like/love.

There, now go love your customers, your bottom line will appreciate it. One things for sure though, your competition will not be able to keep up if you get started.

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Going past one no…

Oh please, dear sales person, if I say no once perhaps you had better dig a bit deeper, ask more questions…  if I have an objection about the price, then ask why… what do I already know and how do I know that.

If I have a niggle about one point, perhaps there are other points you can focus on… and hey how do you get past the issue of price “Why would I spend $5 – 6,000 if I can get one for $3-4,000?” simple, it’s like cars they do basically the same thing, some are perhaps better quality, some provide more status, you want quality and status, you pay… Here’s why (outline a benefit).

Oh and if you’re calling me in Australia but you have an American accent that sounds like you are in an overseas call centre and the line is crap, I am going to be suspect about you right from the start. Sure you get some points for being first on the phone after my email enquiry, but those points were soon lost.

I will probably buy, but from which company… let’s see who can sell to me the best. Sure price is not everything but a big difference in price gets me wondering and you need to be able to spell out how what you provide is better.

If your business is thinking of using a call centre to help with your leads, then do some CAREFUL research first.

“Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.” Dilbert.

So now I have had four calls from people wanting to set up an appointment – answer my questions – send me more info.

The first two – dodgy… American accents bad lines and hard to understand. ergh…

The second two, one female one male – the female asked great questions and provided good answers – the guy however ummed and arghhed a bit but got through the info, clarified a few points but still a bit average. He did suggest to check out the quality of the units I was after and to get lots of brand names and model numbers of the gear others were saying they would supply.

So who will I buy from… I will see if any other companies will ring today and compare the figures they say they will email me.

UPDATE!

 Day one got me a bunch of calls from interested parties, day two fielded some more and day FIVE I had a guy on the phone who said “So, got your enquiry, what do you want….” FAIL… he prattled on about quality and said he would email me the material… price “can’t match the low priced stuff, but it’s crap anyway…” (Ok thanks for the feedback, and also thanks for giving me the brand names I should be looking for that made things easier).

My research showed some interesting info, the lady who had chatted so nicely, had good info, and asked good questions to establish my needs the best… well turns out the Co she works for gets slammed in forums all over the net… and what’s also worrying they have about three different business names they trade under!! A quick search of those found more issues… oh boy it just became a bigger minefield!

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Making your staff pay…

What your employees earn for the organisation needs to be more than what you pay them, but how much? There are costs to cover having employees, so it makes sense to earn more than just what they cost the organisation.

In some organisations they seem to have no idea how much value their people add to the organisation, so lets have a think about the issue.

Let’s look at a range of costs and how it all adds up (their wages while they are on holidays and wages for a person who may replace them, as well as superannuation, insurance etc).

How much?

If we work on a figure of $800 per week that’s nearly $42,000 pa. Here are the ‘hidden costs’.

- 4 weeks wages for a fill in employee while the other is on holidays    $6,400

- 1 week personal leave                                                                    $800

- Superannuation @ 9% pa                                                               $3,700

- Workers compensation Insurance                                                    $300

- Payroll tax @ 5%                                                                           $2,100

- Training and development or uniforms and ‘tools’                               $2,500

- Incentives and bonuses                                                                   $1,500

- Accumulated P/A savings to cover 10 yr long service leave                 $960

- Accumulated P/A savings to cover the other worker on 10 yr leave       $960

TOTAL:                                                                                         $19,220

That’s just under half of the annual wage so they need to be earning the organisation a total of AT LEAST $61,200 to pay their way and cover their costs.

Let’s break it down further, on average it’s suggested out of a whole year people only work 220 days so that makes it $324 per day or $40.45 per hour. If you take into account ‘slack or down time’ (it’s raining, they are waiting for supplies, not feeling too well, angry at the boss for spending time reading business articles.) then that figure could readily go up.

For some of our readers they will know this hourly figure intimately and they will have their employees earning solidly above the basic level so they know they can cover longer term costs and thrive readily.

The thing is though, now you have some starting points to work with how will you change things in your business to make sure your business covers its costs, makes a profit and you come out smiling with lower stress levels?

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Guaranteed! But at what cost…

It’s standard practice to have a guarantee for many products and services. For some in business it’s the thing which sets them apart from their competition, for others it’s a legal compliance issue which they prefer wasn’t there.

What does it cost your business and how should you handle it?

Being a service nut I like the way it can make your business stand out from the crowd, compliance or not… so handling guarantees becomes a major issue you solidly stand behind, giving every customer ‘peace of mind’ in knowing you will be there with them if ANY issue arises.

Over the period of a year or three it can be easy to look at the cost of supplying services to fulfill your guarantee obligations to keep your ‘customers happy and fulfill your legal obligations. In the intervening ‘learning phase’ it may be a case of  guessing how much guarantees might cost. Here are a few points you might consider in the process.

• Is there a consistent percentage of sales which you can attribute to guarantees?
• What is the time taken by staff in providing guarantees?
• What is the cost of providing the staff to do these tasks?
• Is this time significant enough to impact on other aspects of  your business… e.g. making profits from std sales.
• How much will the cost eat into your profit margin?
• What will you need to add to your operating costs to take into account this ‘cost of doing business’?
• How will the cost variation affect your average dollar sale and will that still make your business competitive?

I’m sure there will be other questions to ask in the process as you explore guarantees and their impacts further. The main thing is to be very mindful that guarantees have a cost, learn to live with that and allow for it in your forward planning.

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Step in early or wait for the problem to arise.

It’s a dilemma many Supervisors, Managers and Leaders face. You have a team who waiver from the path occasionally, do you let it go until it becomes a problem, or do you step in early and keep things on track.

I figure if you take a Leaders view you provide the guidelines so the team can follow the lead, therefore you don’t wait for a challenge to arise, you provide a great set of guidelines to ensure things stay on track. If things stray from the path, you then get to put on your ‘coaching hat’ and provide support to ensure the team are aware of the guidelines and assist them to explore how they might have ‘strayed from the path’.

This is one of the reasons I often suggest a great set of Values – Mission and Vision be in place as a foundation to always work from. It allows the Leader to have back up, to allow the team to explore if they are holding true to the values of the organisation.

I guess it becomes a case of ‘see something, do something’ before things become an issue. In a decent situation it can be more of a chat which takes place asking questions about how things are going, and what sorts of examples the team may have about how things are going and if they match to the values etc.

This can be a more powerful position to work from as it works more on the teams internal motivation and thought processes rather than having things imposed or pushed on them when challenges arise. It’s as if they have come up with the solution or drive to solve the challenge, rather than being told the answer.

The real trick to all of this is getting things to fit to the way people communicate – If people are not used to being asked questions relating to ‘values and beliefs’ then they might find it hard to respond, let alone act on the information. However the Leader who is a more flexible communicator will find ways to weave these into normal conversation and start the ball rolling, perhaps using examples of how things might fit in certain situations.

Be flexible in your approach, get in early and lead the team then tweak the details to suit, I’m sure you will find leadership can become a whole lot easier if you try this out.

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