Happy Waitress Even Happier After Receiving Astounding Tip

Happy Waitress Even Happier After Receiving Astounding Tip

Happy Waitress Even Happier

After Receiving Astounding Tip

Many servers in the restaurant and hospitality industries and well, as customer service professionals in general, are underpaid and often overworked. This is unfortunate because, like many customer service representatives who work for minimum wage or less, they often do not make enough to pay for basic essentials.

It is for that reason that a recent story by Lauren Tuck of the Shine Staff put the spotlight on why it is important to provide superior customer service, and on customers who appreciate great service and are willing to open their hearts and bank accounts to help out deserving employees. Tuck’s blog article highlights how the generosity of one customer was touched by a deserving server’s financial plight and took action to make her life better.

The example highlighted in the article also serves as a great example for others in the service industry who may go to work disgruntled and as a result deliver marginal or sub-standard service to their customers. Quite simply by following basic rules of positive service, they can make a customer service experience one that is not only appreciated but also rewarded generously.

For ideas and techniques that can be used to develop excellent customer service skills and deliver superior customer service, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Designing Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures

About Robert C. Lucas

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills.

Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Bob Lucas B.S., M.A., M.A, CPLP is the principal in Robert W. Lucas Enterprises, Inc and an internationally-known author; learning and performance professionals. He has written and contributed to numerous books on the subject of customer service skill training.

He regularly conducts workshops on creative training, train-the-trainer, customer service, interpersonal communication, and management,
and supervisory skills.

Learn more about Bob and his organization at www.robertwlucas.com and follow his blogs at www.robertwlucas.com/wordpress,
www.customerserviceskillsbook.com, and www.thecreativetrainer.com. Like Bob at www.facebook.com/robertwlucasenterprises

Customer Satisfaction Quote – Alice MacDougall

Customer Satisfaction Quote – Alice MacDougall

Customer needs wants and expectations drive their behavior. The challenge for customer service representatives and other employees in any organization is to properly identify what it takes to promote customer and brand loyalty. The easiest way to accomplish this is to ensure that effective customer service and interpersonal communication training is conducted regularly. Also, employees are empowered to handle complaints and other customer issues as they occur, without delays or having to wait for supervisory approval.

“In business, you get what you want by giving other people what they want.” Alice MacDougall

A quote by Alice MacDougall sums up the idea of customer satisfaction.

Customer Satisfaction Quote - Alice MacDougall

Here are a few more Alice MacDougall quotes to enjoy…

  • For the poor the whole world is a self-constituted critic; your smallest action is open to debate. No secret place of your soul is safe from invasion.
  •  I simply don’t believe in failure. In itself, it doesn’t exist. We create it. We make ourselves fail.
  • Poverty is relative, and the lack of food and of the necessities of life is not necessarily a hardship. Spiritual and social ostracism, the invasion of your privacy, are what constitute the pain of poverty.
  • For too many of us ease is far more soul-destroying than trouble.
  • A few hours with Beethoven are more restful than sleep.
  • One must eliminate the traditional and cling to the essential.
  • When one is altering the face of the universe one cannot remember small helpful acts.
  • Really to succeed, we must give; of our souls to the soulless, of our love to the lonely, of our intelligence to the dull. Business is quite as much a process of giving as it is of getting.
  • The small perplexities of small minds eddy and boil about you. Confident from the experience that has led you out of these same dangers, you attack each problem as it appears, unafraid.
  • Work becomes at once a delight and a tyrant. For even when the time comes and you can relax, you hardly know-how.
  • Much of the success of life depends upon keeping one’s mind open to opportunity and seizing it when it comes.
  • Life means opportunity, and the thing men call death is the last wonderful, beautiful adventure.
  • I am always glad to think that my education was, for the most part, informal, and had not the slightest reference to a future business career. It left me free and untrammeled to approach my business problems without the limiting influence of specific training.
  • Hunger and cold, ill-health and pain are nothing. They pass. The thing that remains is ignorant criticism, well-meaning but futile advice, the contempt of a subordinate, the feelings of the underdog.
  • That is the wearisome part of business – there is no peace, no sense of certain, permanent achievement, no stability. The unexpected, and usually the awful, is forever happening.
  • Not only is orderliness an economy; it produces rest.
  • Perhaps nothing in all my business has helped me more than faith in my fellow man. From the very first I felt confident that I could trust the great, friendly public. So I told it quite simply what I thought, what I felt, what I was trying to do. And the response was quick, sure, and immediate.
  • Success is an absurd, erratic thing. She arrives when one least expects her and after she has come may depart again almost because of a whim.
  •  In business everyone is out to grab, to fight, to win. Either you are the under or the overdog. It is up to you to be on top.

Learn About Robert C. Lucas – Your Customer Service Skills Expert and Award-Winning Author that is a huge fan of Alice MacDougall

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills.

Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Bob Lucas B.S., M.A., M.A, CPLP is the principal in Robert W. Lucas Enterprises, Inc and an internationally-known author; learning and performance professionals. He has written and contributed to numerous books on the subject of customer service skill training.

He regularly conducts workshops on creative training, train-the-trainer, customer service, interpersonal communication, and management,
and supervisory skills.

Learn more about Bob and his organization at www.robertwlucas.com and follow his blogs at www.robertwlucas.com/wordpress,
www.customerserviceskillsbook.com, and www.thecreativetrainer.com. Like Bob at www.facebook.com/robertwlucasenterprises

Customer Satisfaction Quote – Donald Porter

Customer Satisfaction Quote – Donald Porter

Loyal customers are the most valuable asset of an organization that an organization can have. By identifying and meeting their needs, wants and expectations, customer service representatives and other employees can help ensure that they not only demonstrate customer and brand loyalty but also tell others about their positive service experiences.

“Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” Donald Porter

As Donald Porter, a V.P. at British Airways once said:

Customer Satisfaction Quote - Donald Porter

For strategies and techniques on how to build effective customer and brand loyalty in your organization, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success by Robert W. Lucas.

Here are a few more cool quotes from Donald Porter…

  • “No matter how great the reputation, all organisations are only as good as today’s performance.” – Donald Porter
  • “legions of disappointed customers have taken the opportunity to vent their frustration online”

Learn about the Customer Service Blogger – Robert C. Lucas who is a big fan of Donald Porter

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills.

Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Bob Lucas B.S., M.A., M.A, CPLP is the principal in Robert W. Lucas Enterprises, Inc and an internationally-known author; learning and performance professionals. He has written and contributed to numerous books on the subject of customer service skill training.

He regularly conducts workshops on creative training, train-the-trainer, customer service, interpersonal communication, and management,
and supervisory skills.

Learn more about Bob and his organization at www.robertwlucas.com and follow his blogs at www.robertwlucas.com/wordpress,
www.customerserviceskillsbook.com, and www.thecreativetrainer.com. Like Bob at www.facebook.com/robertwlucasenterprises

Technology Is Rapidly Changing the Face of Customer Service

Technology Is Rapidly Changing the Face of Customer Service

Customer service is changing rapidly as technology encroaches on the traditional world of retail marketing and sales.  Customer and brand loyalty are quickly becoming a thing of the past as many customers search for the finest quality at the cheapest price through technology.  As all this occurs, new knowledge and skills related to the capabilities and operation of various forms of computer, Internet, cloud and mobile technology are being required of customer service representatives and others in their organizations.

Technology Is Rapidly Changing the Face of Customer ServiceTo give an insight into this phenomenon, think about the fact that virtually every aspect of our lives is now impacted by some form of technology. People around the world are now part of a 24/7/365 society, meaning that many have to technology 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and can communicate at any time and in virtually from any place.

Ecommerce now dominates the retail industry. According to the website Internet World Stats, there are over 7 billion people worldwide in 233 countries and regions in 2012. Of that number almost two and one-half billion now use the Internet.  Further, the International Telecommunication Union reported that in February 2013 there were 6.8 billion mobile phone subscribers around the globe (over 96% of the worldwide population).  Mobithinking (www.mobithinking.com) reports that at the end of 2012, there were over 321 million mobile subscribers in the United States alone.

Through all this technology, consumers spend billions of dollars each year. For example, eMarketer reported in January 2013 that consumers spent nearly 25 billion dollars on orders placed through mobile technology (e.g. phones and tablets) alone. This does not include travel services and tickets purchased.  Technology sales are catching up with retail sales.

According to Adobe Digital Marketing Blog, the digital sales on Black Friday in 2012 reached approximately 1.3 billion dollars.  Some sources estimate that $1 in every $4 dollars spent on merchandise is now through technology. These numbers do not take into consideration the sales of online retailers from other countries.

To find out about products and services, many people turn to the Internet to do their research. In many cases, they are now using bookstores and other retail sources to browse potential products, and then order via technology. And why wouldn’t they when giants like Amazon and Wal-Mart are deeply discounting and in many instances offering free shipping.

Entire industries are changing as a result of this worldwide trend. An example is the publishing industry, which has virtually reinvented itself to stay competitive and meet the rapidly changing needs, wants and expectations of a global customer base. One of the biggest factors causing this change is the evolution of eBooks and electronic readers. Book prices are spiraling downwards as more people read on a technology-based device. Amazon now sells more eBooks than they do print versions.

As a service provider, if you are not staying abreast of these changes, gearing up with training and education to develop and maintain knowledge and skills, you may soon find yourself outsourced.

About Robert C. Lucas

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

Customer Satisfaction Quotes

Customer Satisfaction QuotesCustomer satisfaction quotes (2)

Customer satisfaction is a result of addressing the needs, wants and expectations of your customers. Many customer service representatives and others in their organizations forget that service is a relationship proposition. By establishing rapport with each person with whom you come into contact, and communicating on a one-to-one basis, you can effectively find out what each internal or external customer hopes to get from their encounter with you and your organization. You can then apply your knowledge of the organization’s product and services to your satisfied customer.

The quotes on this page provide a summary of this concept.

Customer Satisfaction Quotes

For ideas and strategies on how to better achieve customer satisfaction when dealing with a diverse global customer base, get copies of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and Customer Service Skills for Success by Robert W. Lucas.

About Robert C. Lucas

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

Customer Service Quote – Sam Walton

Customer Service Quote – Sam Walton

“The goal as a company is to have customer service

that is not just the best, but legendary.”

– Sam Walton Founder of Walmart

Customer Service Quote - Sam Walton

Customer service is not just the job of customer service representatives and others on the “front line.” It is a crucial role that everyone from the CEO down must fulfill in order for an organization to be successful.

Certainly, the first people to come into contact with a customer are often those who answer the phones or respond to electronic messages as part of their job description. However, isn’t that something that everyone in the organization does every day? The challenge is that many people who are not hired specifically to fill a position designated as “customer service” forget that they also represent the organization each time that they come into contact with someone during the day.  They often do not consider their peers or other employees as internal customers and fail to provide a level of quality attention that they deserve. This might happen when someone from within the organization asks for information, only to have to call several times to follow-up when it is not provided as promised.

The bottom line is that if every employee adopts a customer-centric approach to doing their job, their reputation and that of the organization will potentially soar. By creating a service culture where everyone takes responsibility for positive service delivery; everyone wins.

For ideas and strategies on how to develop a customer-focused attitude, get a copy of the book Customer Service Skills for Success.

Learn All About Robert C. ‘Bob’ Lucas Now and

Understand Why He is an Authority in the Customer Service Skills Industry

Robert C. ‘Bob’ Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

In my book Customer Service Skills for Success, I define customer service as “the ability of knowledgeable, capable, and enthusiastic employees to deliver products and services to their internal and external customers in a manner that satisfies identified and unidentified needs and ultimately results in positive word-of-mouth publicity and return business.”

Impact of the Economy on Customer Service Representatives

Impact of the Economy on Customer Service Representatives

Impact of the Economy on Customer Service Representatives

On an individual level, customer service representatives should be researching and upgrading their knowledge and skills related to dealing with people from around the world. This means, reading more articles and books on various cultures, customer service, and human behavior, attending training programs, taking educational courses, attending more conferences focused on customer service and generally becoming attuned to the world around them. This enhanced perspective and environmental knowledge will provide tools necessary to provide the best customer service possible.

Not since the 1980s have economic indicators (e.g., stock trades, home sales, purchases, international transactions, and construction) been in such turmoil worldwide. Many people have lost jobs, personal savings are dwindling, people are losing their homes, and spending is down greatly around the world. As the economy took a downward spiral in the latter part of the first decade in the twenty-first century, consumer confidence shifted, many organizations struggled to provide quality service levels with reduced staff, and budgets and revenue from products and services slipped for most organizations as consumers held onto precious cash.

In addition to government policy and economic changes, new legislation impacting healthcare and taxes, job elimination in the government sector, and shifts in consumer spending have significantly impacted many organizations, forcing downsizings and in many cases closures. This is especially true in small businesses where a Gallop Poll of small business owners found that “30 percent of owners say they are not hiring because they are worried they may no longer be in business in 12 months.” Further, 66 percent of those interviewed said they were worried about the current state of the economy and its impact on business. Obviously, this has long-term implications for hiring in the service industry and for consumers who have been curtailing their buying habits since the start of the recession out of the same fears that business owners are experiencing.

According to an interview comment by Phil Rist, executive vice president of BIGinsight, a consumer-centric information portal, “Events that have transpired over the past four years have forever changed consumers, and this is evidenced in what they deem expendable and untouchable purchases. The financial meltdown, natural disasters, and the threat of terrorism have sent shock waves through consumers and impacted their priorities. The added layer of advancing technology has changed how they research and make purchases . . . the retail landscape will likely never be the same.”

Overall, consumers do business as never before. Large numbers of customers search and do their homework for products and services online and often use retail outlets as a showroom to physically examine things they are interested in potentially purchasing. The result is that sales in brick-and-mortar stores are down for many retailers and suppliers. Best Buy instituted a price-matching strategy in March 2013 to combat this shop-around practice. They decided to match prices for all product categories against all local retail competitors and major online operations such as Apple.com, Dell.com, hhgregg.com, homedepot.com, Lowes.com, and other highly recognized retailers.

Another important factor related to the changes in the economic environment that have occurred in recent years is that many companies have made dramatic shifts in the way they do business and attempt to attract and hold customers. They are reevaluating their pricing and presentation of products and services, as well as, their policies and procedures for providing service. People and technology are being harnessed in different ways to allow them to compete in a global society. The approach to customer service in many instances is no longer “business as usual.” Instead of viewing it as something that should be done well, most organizations now see it as something that must be done. Managers have realized that they can no longer maintain the status quo and do things like they always have if they plan to stay in business and generate profits.

Impact of the Economy on Customer Service Representatives

Because of the financial meltdown that occurred during the high point of the recession, many organizations that have been household names for decades and had international presence have cut back severely on the size of their workforce and sold off, merged, or closed operations. They have also have taken dramatic steps to attract and keep customers. Companies like Chrysler, General Motors (GM), Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and American Express received funds through the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 from the U.S. federal government to remain financially solvent. In addition, companies struggled (and still do in many instances) to find a balance between profitability and providing quality service. For example, companies like Sears, J.C. Penney, Best Buy, Dell, Borders Books, Hollywood Studios, Blockbuster, and other notable companies have continually juggled their retail and service policies since 2010 in an effort to remain competitive and stay in business. Some succeeded while others did not. All of this turmoil and change has had an adverse impact on the economy, the service industry, and ultimately employees and potential employees.

For more information on how the customer service profession is changing and the skills, customer service representatives need to succeed in providing quality customer service, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

About Robert C. Lucas

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

The Impact of Technology on Customer Service

The Impact of Technology on Customer Service

Organizations of all sizes in different parts of the world are struggling to harness the power of service technology to deliver the best customer service possible. The wonderful thing about changing technology is that through the use of new innovations, even small organizations can create an image equal to their larger counterparts since someone visiting their website or contacting them in other ways have no idea how many employees or assets they have. The key is that once a customer does contact an organization, that customer service representatives and other employees who interact with them must project a positive and professional image during interactions. Creating a positive customer-centric service culture is the job of everyone in the organization from upper echelons to front line employees.

The Impact of Technology on Customer Service

In years past, service-based technology consisted of the telephone and facsimile. Now, there are many new developing technologies (e.g. Skype, smartphones, tablets, and cloud-based solutions) and web-based tools available (e.g. blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon) as organizations strive to gain and hold their edge over local and international competition.

Billions of dollars are being spent worldwide to create systems through which customers can access products and services to satisfy their ever-changing needs and whims. This is occurring because the quality of service received or perceived by customers can either enhance or diminish an organization’s brand and reputation. In a global economy, diversity abounds. Each current or potential customer also brings along cultural values, beliefs, and backgrounds based on their background. All of these elements influence customer expectations and perspectives.

As organizations strive to hang onto market share and customers while eking out some degree of profit is a sluggish economy, they are seeking viable alternatives to be responsive to customer needs, requests, problems, suggestions and complaints. Technology-based service delivery systems are viable options.

Many organizations have dedicated customer service professionals to staff their telephones or call centers and communicate with customers via the Internet, blogs, email, and other technological means. Some organizations also outsource and off-shore their service functions to call centers, marketing, and similar companies in order to reduce direct, ongoing staff expenses from their budgets and receive tax breaks. Unfortunately, these cost-saving strategies do not always work because many consumers have begun to rebel against having to talk to people located in other countries, whom they sometimes feel do not understand them or their needs.

Larger organizations continue to add and upgrade hardware and software capable of contacting and serving customers and tracking service-related analytics while adding human resources and training to meet customer needs.

smiling woman on telephone edited

In smaller organizations, and those who have yet to use alternative servicing strategies to maximum potential, the responsibility for answering the telephone and providing service through other means often falls on anyone (e.g., administrative assistant, salesperson, driver, partner, or owner) who is available when a customer visits (face-to-face or via the Internet or computer), the telephone rings, or an answering system receives a message.

No matter the size of your organization, everyone must accept ownership for service delivery in order to provide positive global service and ensure that customers are satisfied in order to maintain some degree of loyalty.

For additional ideas, strategies and techniques on how to provide the best customer service possible, check out Customer Service Skills for Success, Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures, and How to Be  Great Call Center Representative.

About Robert C. Lucas

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

In my book Customer Service Skills for Success, I define customer service as “the ability of knowledgeable, capable, and enthusiastic employees to deliver products and services to their internal and external customers in a manner that satisfies identified and unidentified needs and ultimately results in positive word-of-mouth publicity and return business.”

Three Tips for Developing Customer and Brand Loyalty

Three Tips for Developing Customer and Brand Loyalty

Companies and customer service representatives are always looking for ways to develop a service culture that can increase customer and brand loyalty in today’s global competitive business environment. By exhibiting basic customer service skills and delivering excellent customer service with each customer-provider encounter, the chances that a customer will return and stay loyal are increased significantly.

Three Tips for Developing Customer and Brand Loyalty

Here are three simple strategies that can contribute to higher customer and brand loyalty in your organization.

  1. Always act in the best interest of your customers. Listen to them, ask questions, anticipate their needs, deliver what you promise and exhibit high levels of professionalism in everything that you do whether your customers are present or not.
  2. Take the time to personalize your customer interactions and to make each customer feel special. Use a customer’s name often during an interaction, listen, smile, ask questions to show interest and strive to project a positive image. This can all lead to enhanced trust and helps ensure that the customer returns.
  3. Treat all customers as if they are crucial to the organization—they are! Do whatever is possible and reasonable to maintain a strong customer-provider relationship and keep the customer returning and recommending that others should do likewise. Whether someone is a new or existing customer should make no difference.

For additional ideas on developing customer and brand loyalty and on how to deliver effective customer service to your customers, get a copy of Customer Service: Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures by Robert W. Lucas.

About Robert C. Lucas

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

Service Recovery Strategies: Rebuilding customer relationships after breakdowns

Service Recovery Strategies: Rebuilding customer relationships after breakdowns

Managing conflict with customers involves more than just resolving the disagreement. If you fail to address the emotional and psychological needs of those involved, you may find the conflict returning, repercussions and/or severe damage to the customer-provider relationship may occur. Often poorly handled service recovery efforts result in such things as complaints to a service provider’s supervisor, complaints to consumer agencies, bad word-of-mouth publicity and lost customers.

Depending on the severity of the conflict and how you handle it at each step of the resolution process, it may be impossible to go back to the relationship as it was before the disagreement. The key to reducing this possibility is to identify and address conflicting issues as early as possible. The longer an issue remains unresolved, the more damage it can cause. Make the effort to help protect and salvage the relationship between you and your customers.

Often, customers are rational once they can get past their need for emotional ownership of the situation. If you can apply some basic emotion-reducing communication strategies (e.g. empathize, agree with the customer, lower your volume and monitor your voice tone) the situation may become more manageable. Just remember that your customers are human jut like you and human behavior is sometimes volatile. Allow them to vent and calm down, then focus on recovering and rebuilding the relationship. The following strategies can assist in your service recovery efforts:

Service Recovery Strategies: Rebuilding customer relationships after breakdowns

Reaffirm the value of the relationship. You cannot assume that customers feel the same as you or understand your intent unless you communicate it. Apologize sincerely and tell them how much you value the relationship between them and the organization. Also, stress that your goal is to assist them in whatever manner possible.

Customers typically tell others about the bad experiences they have. The result is that damage can be done to your organization’s reputation. This is a strong reason for you to do whatever you can to resolve the issue and appease your customer

Demonstrate commitment. You must visualize and demonstrate your desire to continue or strengthen your relationship. The way to do this with customers is through sound interpersonal communication efforts (e.g. active listening, empathy, and positive verbal and non-verbal message). Once you have smoothed things over a bit emotionally with the customer, take definitive action to positively address the service or product breakdown. If that means involving a co-worker or supervisor, then do that.

Be realistic. Because of cultural, gender, generational and behavioral style differences, it is difficult for some people to “forgive and forget.” You have to systematically help restore their trust. It can take a while to accomplish this, but the effort is well worth it. Take the time to follow-up with your customer following a recovery initiative. Send a card, discount or gift certificate, or take some other proactive measure to show them that you are truly sorry for the breakdown in communication and that you are willing to work to regain their trust.

Remain flexible. A solid customer-provider relationship involves the ability to give and take. It is especially crucial that you and the other people involved making concessions following a conflict. Avoid any references to policy or organizational standard procedure. If you cannot meet a customer’s complete desires or demands, work toward a compromise and offer possible alternatives.

Keep communication open. One of the biggest causes of conflict and destroyed relationships is poor communication. Service breakdowns usually result in escalated emotions on both sides. Step back mentally and take a deep breath before saying anything
that you might regret or that could further frustrate or even anger your
customer. Be willing to compromise and let the customer take the lead in the
discussion, if that appears to help calm them and allows you time to work
towards an agreeable solution.

Gain commitment. You cannot do it all by yourself. Get a commitment to work toward reconciliation from your customer.

Also, once they have relaxed a bit and seem to be more receptive to listening to your suggestions, reaffirm that you have acted in a manner to resolve the issue to their satisfaction and let them know that your goal is to help them as best you can. Then ask that they let you know in the future if any service or product, that you and your organization provides, does not meet their needs or expectations so that you can immediately try to rectify the situation.

Monitor progress. Do not assume that, because the conflict or problem was resolved, it will remain that way. Deep-seated issues often resurface, especially when commitment was not obtained. Be sure to do follow-up with the customer shortly afterwards to ensure that a spark is not rekindled into a blazing fire in their mind. Statistically, a large percentage of customers who desert to a competitor do so without letting you know why.

About Robert C. Lucas – Customer Service Guru

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

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