Customer Service-How Survey Help You Know More About Your Customers?

The most vital aspect in evaluating the customer’s
satisfaction is through customer service. Customer
Service is a way to communicate with the customers by
providing assistance about the product or service. A
good customer service reflects satisfied and happy
customers. Another way to measure your company’s
customer service is through surveys.

A customer service survey shows the solid reputation
of the business you have established. Customers have
the chance to evaluate whether their expectations are
met and if they have been treated well by the company.

Through customer service surveys, positive and
negative remarks are clearly shown. This is basically
getting feed backs from your valued customers. Because
of this, the business can modify the processes, set
other standards and develop a better customer service.
Customer service surveys mainly help a company in
making good business decisions.

Writing a very good customer service survey can give
you good results. Surveys that aren’t written well
will definitely spoil the possible outcomes. To avoid
this from happening, just follow the guidelines below
and you can be assured of a well devised survey
questionnaire.

The survey objectives are very important; carefully
identify your specific objectives. When goals are not
clear, you may be lost and you’ll find out that your
questionnaire had gone too long and unfocused. You
will never get any information in just a single
survey, the right thing to do is to be direct about
the information you want to get.

Your expectations should be properly lined up.
Successful surveys act as tools in denying and
confirming the assumptions you have based on your
objectives. Always keep up with the customer’s
expectation and you’ll get informative answers.

Questions in the survey must be easily answered.
Customers don’t want to have a hard time answering
your questions. Never use abbreviations, slang or any
technical jargon's in your questionnaire. You will
obtain more answers if you make easy questions.



You can use two to six kinds of questions. Use
different kinds of questions such as the following:

- Questions answerable by yes or no. (For example:
Will you purchase this product again?)

- Questions answerable by multiple choices. (For
example: Which product do you love most? A. MP4 B.
Laptop C. PSP

- Using scale or rankings, e.g. rate our customer
using the 1-5 scale. 1 as the highest down to five as
the lowest. (For example: Please rate our service from
1 to 5)

- Use open ended questions.(For example: What are your
suggestions to better improve our services?

Alternate easy and difficult questions. Mixing easy
and difficult questions can make the customers answer
more because this will make them interested. Do this
by setting two easy questions first, like the yes or
no and the multiple choice questions. Afterwards, you
can use open ended questions. By this process, your
customers will not feel that you are giving them a
hard time answering each question.

Lastly do not make biased questions. Successful
surveys should get the true point of the customer and
not the answers you want to hear. This is a true the
way to measure customer satisfaction.

Companies highly regard customer service surveys. It
is a very important tool to make new business
decisions for the betterment of your product and
service. The focal point of the many businesses is to
gain 100% satisfaction ratings from the customers.
Using surveys is definitely helpful to achieve
excellent customer relationship.

Dan and Deanna "Marketing Unscrambled"

Customer Service -Tips For Doning It The Best !

Have you ever wondered what keeps customers’ loyalty
on a certain product or service? One of the most
considerable facts is keeping the people aspect of the
business alive. Treating customers as individuals and
not just representation of financial returns can give
you the competitive edge. Having a good customer
service I therefore vital for any businesses to
sustain its operations.

1. Keep in mind that there is no way to exceed the
quality of customer service without the qualified
people providing them. Having contented employees is a
sure source of a good customer service. Pay your
personnel fair wages; give them benefits and train
them. This can exude their character and thus can lead
to a greater customer service.

2. Always remember that the way you are treating your
personnel will be reflective of how they treat your
customers. You are their role model so try to act as
an epitome of good server. Greet your employees
enthusiastically every day and listen when they speak.
A rude customer service is not merely a reflection of
the employees’ attitudes but more of their employer.

3. Know your customers and let them know you.
Recognizing your customers and calling them by their
names are indications that you really know them. They
will feel important by this simple gesture. On the
other hand, by letting them know who you are, they can
also feel comfortable that they can reach you easily
when problems arise.

4. Give pleasant greetings when your customers walk in
the door. Do this at least within 30 to 40 seconds
when customers enter. Greetings are important in
customer service and these will let the customers know
that they are respected. To appreciate their presence
in your store can also let them feel that they are
valued. Greet them with a smile.



5. Give your associates training on how to properly
handle an irate person or a customer complaint.
Guidelines must be set on what to do and say in each
conceivable case. Front liners play the most crucial
role in the customer’s experience. Be sure that your
staff know what to say and do to create a more
positive and pleasant customer experience.

6. Devise a "What do you think of our company"
questionnaire. Create a short and simple questionnaire
with questions like what customers don’t like, what
should be changed and what should be done to have
better services. This will be useful in customer
service since your clients will be the ones
suggesting. Make sure you get all the important points
and act on them.

By the questionnaire, you can anticipate and identify
customers’ needs. It may not be obvious but customers
don’t usually buy the products and services but the
nice feeling and solutions to their problems. Many
customers are emotional rather than logical. You must
anticipate their needs by talking to them regularly.
This way, you can be aware of their problems and you
can take care of their upcoming needs.

Customer service is an important part of a business
and it should be viewed as an extension of one’s job.
Always remember that the customer is the most
essential asset of a company and without them, your
business will not exist. Keep them satisfied through
superb customer service and you will be assured of
continuous business operations.

Customer service if it is online or offline it is very
important. Knowing how to work with the customers
is one of the important parts of doing business. If you do not
have happy customers then you soon have no business
at all. Your customers are what keep you in business.

Dan and Deanna "Marketing Unscrambled"

Training For Customer Service People!

Effective customer service training can be done in
three quick steps. Once your employees have completed
the training course you’ve formulated for them, your
business is sure to immediately enjoy increased
revenues as well a bigger and more loyal customer
base.

Step 1: Prepare materials and tools for customer
service training. Be as detailed and specific as you
can when composing materials for customer service
training. It is imperative that your employees
understand how you perceive good customer service to
be. Give them concrete examples of acceptable and
unacceptable behavior. Provide them with a list of dos
and don’ts to remember.

Secondly, help them understand why offering good
customer service is important to the business and how
it will ultimately affect them as well. Employees will
be more motivated to improve their customer service
skills if they believe that doing so is beneficial to
them as well.

Prepare scripts regarding SOP for common customer
service issues. This will ascertain that your customer
service team will be able to deliver a speedy and
uniform response to your clients. Determine your
desired response schedule and make sure that the
training materials are designed to help them comply
with the desired response time. Last but not the
least, make sure that you provide them a clear outline
of authority and escalation.

Step 2 Take all the time you need to train your staff.
If you have to outsource your customer service
function temporarily then go ahead and do so. Paying
experts to work for you is certainly better than risk
alienating your customers with insufficiently trained
individuals.

Focus on one lesson at a time and don’t progress to
another level until you’re sure that they’ve mastered
their lessons. Hold periodical tests to ensure that
they continue to retain knowledge of previous lessons.

Let them make a gradual approach to their new set of
responsibilities. Have them start with something small
and relatively easy like handling routine customer
service calls. Always clarify their job duties and the
level of authority they’re working with before
allowing them to interact with customers.

Last but not the least, remind them to consult your
FAQ section before delving in to more complicated
processes of resolution.

Step Three Monitor the progress and performance of
your customer service team. Subject your employees to
scheduled and spontaneous simulation calls to give you
a chance to evaluate their response in critical
situations. Make sure that you provide them feedback
afterwards, identifying their strengths and weaknesses
and offering suggestions for improvements.

Develop an incentive program to further motivate your
employees. Make sure, however, that your program does
not in any way encourage your employees to act
opposite to your customers’ interests, as was the case
with AOL a few years ago.

In evaluating your employees’ customer service
abilities, take equal note of the quantitative and
qualitative aspects of their performance. For the
quantitative side, consider specifying a quota for the
minimum number of calls resolved every month. For the
qualitative side, consider the feedback provided by
caller.

Last but not the least, always be prepared to make
changes with how you run your customer service team.
As they’re the ones directly interacting your
customers, your team - and its policies - must be
flexible in order to respond quickly to a caller’s
needs.

Perform these three steps as suggested and your
customer service training is sure to be a success!

Dan and Deanna "Marketing Unscrambled"

If You Are A Company That Provides Good Customer Service These Are Things That You Do!

If you are in the service industry, a good customer
service can be your bread and butter. By having good
customer service, you can generate more profit as it
will promote company loyalty. It can create a win-win
scenario for both the business and the clients. The
clients can get a good experience and can get their
money’s worth while the business specifically the
employees, can have a share in the profits in the form
of bonuses and raises. To have an excellent customer
service, here are some secrets worth sharing.

1. Strive to build customer loyalty. Customer loyalty
is the most important secret to achieve good customer
service. It will be nice if you know your customers’
full names, contact numbers and other personal
information. Some may see this as spying your customer
but they are mistaken. This is simply a reminder of
few important concerns that you might need sometime.
If you show concern for what matters to your
customers, you are just building their loyalty and you
are acquiring customers for life.

2. Provide authentic customer service. Nowadays,
service has been a cliché and just a traditional way
of dealing with customers. If everyone’s doing it,
it’s a high time that you personalize your service. Be
creative; personally know your customers and identify
their individual needs. Make certain that your
offerings are valuable to your customers.



3. The old adage "customer is always right" is still
applicable. If one customer approach you and
complains, be serious on handling his concern. If the
customer is angry and upset, calm him with soothing
words first and show him how serious you are in
correcting any problems.

Once the customer is satisfied by how you addressed
his complain, thank him for conveying the problem to
you. Keep in mind that advertisement will not be
enough to repair a damage done by failing to address
customer complaints. Silent complainers can also do
great damages to your business. These are those who
just walk out your shop without any complains but
you’ll never see them again. They are openly
criticizing your services to other people thus
establishing a bad reputation for your business.

4. Be honest with the customers. Once your customer
suspects that you are lying to them, he is an instant
lost buyer. If a customer seeks for your advice about
a product, openly tell them what they need to know. In
the end, they will thank you for being so genuine with
what you offer.

5. Go the extra mile. If you want a superb customer
service, you should exert extra effort. You can send a
birthday card or insert a thank you note on a
customer’s package. You can send a congratulatory note
when a client gets promoted or you can clip the
article if you see their photo or names in print.
There are various ways to bring your clients closer to
you.

6. Pass it on to your staff. If you are handling other
personnel, educate and train them about good customer
service as well. There will be times when you can’t
directly deal with your customers and your staff must
be able to show them the excellent customer service
they want.

Competitors are just eyeing to cater those unsatisfied
customers of yours, so you better take care of your clients
through a good customer service. It should not only be
a lip service; authentic customer service is one which
comes from the heart and achieved through visible
actions.

Dan and Deanna "Marketing Unscrambled"

Every Company Needs Good Customer Service !

Customer service is often a vastly underrated aspect

of doing business. If you truly want to succeed, you

need to train yourself - and your employees - to

understand that the customers’ needs always come

first.



7 Effective Strategies for Customer Service



Please your employees the way you wish them to please

your customers. As the boss, you have fewer chances

coming face to face with your customers than the

people you employ. As such, you’ll have to mostly rely

on their performance when it comes to customer

service. If you want them to treat your customers

well, make sure you give them similar treatment at

work. Like breeds like and if they don’t get any

motivation from you, they won’t have any motivation to

provide excellent customer service to your clients

either.





Personalize your approach. One thing customers have in

common is the pleasure they receive when firms or

establishments they patronize make it clear to them

that they know who they all are. You have to prove to

your customers that you appreciate them. You can do

this by addressing them by name in your calls and

newsletters. Take note of their birthdays and send

them personalized greetings from your company. Make

them feel important and they’ll prove that you’re

important to them, too.





Give it your best plus more. Train your employees to

go the extra mile for the customers. Your competition

may just as efficient as your team is in resolving

customer support issues, but can they be as courteous

or as cheerful as your team is? Being respectful and

smiling at all times may seem little things to improve

your company’s customer service but it’s often these

little things that make a huge difference to your

customers.



Be fair. No request should be too small to be

considered, and no customer should be too

insignificant to take care of. Sure, there are certain

privileges that VIP clients are entitled to and other

customers are quick to understand, but there are also

certain privileges that everyone have the right to

enjoy like common courtesy and dedication. Never let

your customers think that you’re guilty of favoritism!



Listen. Train your employees to have the patience to

listen. This may be hard when the caller is stubborn

and unreasonable. Even if you end up unable to resolve

the issue - which isn’t surprising if there shouldn’t

be any issue at all in the first place - your

customers would still put the phone down in a happy

mood because they knew you cared enough to listen to

them without complaint. Sometimes, people pretend to

seek for solutions when all along, they simply desired

to have someone listen to them.





Make good use of your FAQ section. If you don’t have

one, create one immediately. Having a FAQ page is an

effective way of offering customer service. Common

problems may be discussed here to negate the need for

calls regarding the same issues. FAQ sections prevent

your customers - and employees - from wasting their

time.



Never leave things unresolved. Every complaint must be

successfully addressed. Train your employees to

perform follow-up calls to ensure that all complaints

had been resolved. For complicated issues, make sure

that you give clients progress reports to let them

know that you’re still working on their case. Do your

best to give them a specific time period for which

they can expect the issue to be fully resolved.

Dan and Deanna "Marketing Unscrambled"

LESSON #51: How to Create a Sales Letter

LESSON #51: How to Create a Sales Letter

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Business Outsourcing - Some Difficulties That Could Happen !

Business outsourcing is becoming more and more popular
each day. However, you need to be careful when you do
decide to hire an outside company for your project.

Some of the problems that may occur is turnover,
knowledge, and attitude problems. These can be
difficult to handle.

When you hire a business outsourcing company to
provide you staff on a temporary basis problems often
occur with turnover rates.

Outsourcing companies have a higher turnover rate than
most companies and you need to be prepared if you tend
to go through employees quickly.

When turnover occurs you have to continue to train
them. If you need to pull an employee from their
current workload to train a new employee then this can
create a problem with that employee getting behind.

Turnover can also cause problems with knowledge of the
company. When you have to retrain employees about
policies and procedures it might take some time for a
new employee to get the hang of things.

Most employers believe it takes approximately two
weeks for a new employee to get settled in. However,
your customer service may take a hit and you might
have customers complaining about your service.



Another thing you need to think about with outsourcing
is that the employee is not working for you. Many
temporary employees want a full-time job with the
company they are working for because they need the
benefits.

However, when an employee is not really working for
you then they don’t take on the mission and the vision
of the company and believe in instilling it.

Often times, you might see outsourced employees not
care about the company like they should.

You should ensure all outsourced employees will hold
true to the company although they are not really your
employee.

Dan and Deanna "Marketing Unscrambled"

Business Outsourcing - If It Is For Customer Service, Do They Speak So That The Customer Can Understand Them?

If you are looking to save money and thinking about
using a business outsourcing company for your
telemarketing or your technical support needs, you
must consider the communication issues that might
arise with outsourcing.

Many times when people call a customer service or call
center for assistance with their account information
for a company they complain because there is a
language barrier and it is hard to understand what the
people are saying.

If you are considering hiring a company for your
outsourcing needs, you should ensure that the customer
service representative’s first spoken language is of
the customers who will be calling.



If it is not, it should be guaranteed to you that the
representatives will be able to speak your language
well enough to understand them.

One way to guarantee the language barrier will not
exist with the customer service representatives from
the outsourcing company you are hiring is for you and
other team members to make phone calls to the
representatives who will be representing you.



This way, you and your team members can speak to the
individuals and verify if their spoken language is
good enough for your customers.

Most communications problems with call centers and
customer service representatives occur from using
offshore outsourcing groups.

Business outsourcing can save your company a lot of
money. However, it is for you to decide which is more
important, your customer satisfaction with your
customer service and support or the amount of money
you are saving through your outsourcing endeavors.

You may find your customer count goes down once you
begin outsourcing your customer service needs.

Dan and Deanna "Marketing Unscrambled"

Business Outsourcing- Do You Go Outside Your Own Country?

Many people believe business outsourcing to companies
outside of the United States is not right and we
should hire our own citizens.

Many of the accusations are regarding keeping the
money in the U.S., dodging taxes, and more.

When a company uses business outsourcing for their
project needs, customer or technical support, or call
centers they are saving a lot of money they would
normally have to pay to the government in Federal
taxes.

Businesses usually have to pay a double tax.
Corporations are taxed on an extremely high level
income tax rate. When a company uses a business
outsourcing company then they don’t have to pay the
taxes to the United States.

In addition, they are able to pay a much lower wage to
people who are willing to accept whatever they can
get. This can save a business millions of dollars in a
year.



Another big criticism is that American companies need
to keep the money in the United States. They need to
create the jobs for Americans and Americans need the
money.

The money and the jobs should stay in the U.S. and
this would be supporting the local economy. Many
people believe this argument to be true but the money
savings is the biggest benefit. S

Arbanes-Oxley has also forced companies to flee out of
the jurisdiction of the United States so they do not
have to be compliant.

Many people complain about companies outsourcing their
employees and giving jobs to people outside of the
United States.

However, businesses benefit much more because of the
high taxation's that occur on businesses and the strict
policies toward businesses.

Dan and Deanna "Marketing Unscrambled"

Business Outsourcing - Drawing Up The Contract !

When you consider business outsourcing it is important
to draw up a contractual agreement for you and the
outsourcing company to sign.

This agreement will define the project in full
including items such as the time line, budget, people,
and more.

When you decide on a business for outsourcing it is
important to draw up a contract. The contract will
spell out all of your expectations to the project and
what the role of the company and their employees will
be.

This gives you the opportunity to hold the company
accountable for the work you are asking to be done.

When you sign a contractual agreement for business
outsourcing the contract will specify the time frame
of the project and set a time line.



The time line will set milestones during the project
and specify each with an expected completion date. In
addition, many contractual agreements will specify
percentages of payment according to the completion of
each set milestone.

If the completion or the milestone is not met on the
expected date, a stipulation may be defined on the
contractual agreement also.

The contract signed between you and a business
outsourcing company will define the budget of the
project and what the company has agreed to do the
project for.

If the company has underbid the project, then they
must pay the excess funds to complete the project. It
is not your responsibility if the company underbids
and the contract should be clear on this.

This includes the amount of hours it takes for
completion of the project. If the company promised the
project would be completed in a certain amount of
hours and it is not then their staff will be working
for free until the project is completed.

You must sign a contractual agreement along with the
business outsourcing company you are hiring. This is
to protect the company and the funds you have for the
project.

Dan and Deanna "Marketing Unscrambled"

Risk Management When Outsourcing !

The steps should include identification, planning,
mapping, defining, developing, and mitigation.

A business outsourcing group is your best option for
risk management issues. This is because if something
happens you can put the blame on someone else and it
is not all on you.

The first step the company will cover is identifying
the risks that may occur to the company or the domain
of interest.

You will need to establish a plan with the company for
the remainder of the process for your risk management.

When you are working with a business outsourcing
company they will map out the social scope of managing
risk, the stake holder’s objectives and identity, and
the basis risks are evaluated.

They will also determine if there are any constraints
that might slow down your project for establishing a
good risk management process.

You will then need to establish a framework which will
explain an agenda for all activities you need to
complete to meet your goals. This will be a process of
setting certain time lines for completions of certain
projects.

Once you have worked with your business outsourcing
group with these steps you will then need to develop
an analysis plan to verify your risk management
solution is successful. You will need to mitigate also
using the resources available to you.

A business outsourcing company will help you with all
of your needs when you need to establish a solid risk
management plan for your business.

When you hire a business outsourcing company for your
risk management needs, you need to spell out the
context for your risk management process.

Dan and Deanna "Marketing Unscrambled"

Business Outsourcing - Know How You Are Working With

When you decide upon business outsourcing for project
needs it is important to verify who the people are who
will be working in your business. You should verify
the employees as you would your own.

If you run backgrounds tests on your employees, then
you should do the same with an outsourcing business’s
employees.

It will be hard for you to demand that outsourcing
employees agree to a background check or a drug test.



What you can do is use only a company who will provide
the proof to you the people are acceptable. You should
get a name of every person who will be entering your
business working on the project.

Sometimes when there are a lot of people entering the
business from an outsourced company it can be
confusing who is with the company and who is in the
building without authorization.

Be sure you know each employee who works for the
outsourced company and provide them with temporary
badges to wear. This way, anyone who is not wearing
one of the temporary badges can be questioned with
reason.

Your employees have a right to feel safe at their
place of work. You cannot bring in people who have
dangerous backgrounds to work on an outsourced project
for you.

You should verify all of the provided information and
know every person who will be working on an outsourced
project. All of these employees from the business
outsourcing company should be properly introduced to
your staff so everyone feels comfortable with the
people walking through the halls.

Dan and Deanna "Marketing Unscrambled"