Archive for the ‘Customer Service’ Category

No one wants to be in a situation where they have to raise revenue quickly, but sometimes  that’s just a reality that decision makers have to deal with.  When a past client who does business in a service industry was facing a cash crunch due to price increases from two major vendors, the only solution he could come up with in two month’s time was to push his sales people to sell more contracts. After we spoke a bit longer, he admitted that he’d done the math and that in the back of his mind, he had serious doubts about the sales team’s ability to bring in the targeted funds in the time frame that he needed.

I suggested that he try instituting a nominal price increase to all his clients. He was concerned, stating that he had a client base of 4000 contract holders, and to make such a move would mean that he would have to have reps visit each client to rewrite their contracts, plus, he feared their negative reaction. But that was his assumption, not his challenge or solution.

We took a closer look at the client base and came up with a solution that would assuage his concerns, bring in the revenue quickly, and address any clients who might call to complain. He sent via regular mail and email a notice to clients that they would see a slight price increase on their next billing cycle. For clients who had small contracts of say $40, the price would move to $42. For clients of $400, the price would increase to $420 and so on.

Still worried that he’d have an onslaught of calls, he manned up anyway and braced for the worst. And then….nothing happened. A few dozen customers called and they made what ever arrangements necessary for the new amounts to be remitted. In the end. the client pulled in tens of thousands of dollars of additional revenue per month without much work.

I credit the success of this business owner’s across-the-board price increases to the tactics which included: a pricing model that would cause the customer to say to themselves “who cares,” a well written letter and email campaign, staffing for the ‘just-in-case complaints,’ the right name for the increase, and an accounting system that had no flaws in posting the increase.

There’s always a solution to every challenge. You just have to be willing to open your mind to new ideas and to swirl those ideas around ‘cyclonically’ until you find the best solutions to your challenges.

I showed up at the Arrowwood Resort & Conference Center in Okaboji, Iowa this summer for business, and like most guests, I spent just a few minutes at the front counter checking in.  A few hours later, when I visited the counter again, Paula, the Front Desk Supervisor, responded to me by name as if I had been visiting the hotel for years. I shook the moment off all the while thinking, how did she remember my name.

Later that night, as I once again visited the front desk to ask about a good place to eat, I hear Paula respond to each person who walks up the counter by using their first or last name.  I asked if these were regulars?  “No, I just can remember names.”

She then went on to tell me a story where a guest had walked up the counter and like she always did, she used the persons name.  “Hello Casey.”  The lady stopped dead in her tracks and asked how did she know her name.  Paula said that she remembered Casey from a previous stay at the hotel, and she pays very close attention to people’s names.  Casey, in awe, said she’d not been in the hotel for S I X years!

I’ve heard of hotels that arm employees with ear pieces to make sure they can give each other the heads up on guests’ names so that they and their coworkers can address guests in the same way.  Others post pictures on the walls of VIPs so that on one is overlooked.

If you have face-to-face contact with customers, what does your organization so to make customers feel special?  Paula has a rare talent, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t develop a system that accomplishes the same result.  Maybe you can put in place a call routing software program that picks up a VIP based on their phone number, or you can distribute pictures of incoming guests’ faces on cards bearing their names  before major functions.  If you can’t see a solution for all guests, define your VIPs and target them first.

If you want to go for the gusto and have everyone be recognized, your systems are going to have to be much more complex and may require a unique identifier that a customer carries on their key chain or a facial recognition software so that no one is missed.

Watch out for the sales women at Timberland.  Some of these people are so good at what they do that if you’ve got $50 in your pocket, they will surely find a way for you to spend it in their store.

Here’s the story.

As the president of New York State National Speakers Association, one of my duties is to be present at all statewide gatherings.  On this one specific date I had both a meeting with a client about an hour south of Syracuse and then a NYNSA Pow Wow up toward the Great Lakes about 2.5 hours northwest.  Smack right in the middle is a discount store facility with over 105 stores (95% occupancy) including Nike, Timberland and Aeropostale.

For me, a great way to take a break from more than 6 hours of driving was to stop in and browse around.

For those who know me personally, I can shop all day.  Shopping does not mean buying, it just means I spend time finding the right item before I buy anything. As I did on this day, I enjoy walking the stores.

Then I came across the Timberland Store managed by Jamie and staffed by Katie and Sarah.

The store had exactly what I was looking to purchase.  Soft cargo pants.  I found one pair that fit me after reviewing the shoe selection and then they mentioned to me if I purchased $50, I would be given a $10 discount.  Sounded good since these pants were a perfect fit and comfortable.

Minutes later I found myself adding a $2.00 pair of strings for my shoes just to make it over the $50 mark.  Then I realized, the guy next to me was buying 5 pairs of shoes.  He had come in looking for two pairs, but by the time these woman were done with him, he had 5.

These ladies were on their game.  With so little traffic they saw every prospect as a sale: and not just a $20 sale but a $50 sale.  Given the state of the US economy, no-pressure, likable, sales strategies obviously work, since one employee mentioned, “They (corporate) make us get the $50.”

However, telling the staff and making it happen are two distinctly different achievements.  The manager and the staff worked together so well that each helped the other find stock to fit sizes when someone needed shoes or a color or a style.  There appeared to be no territorial behavior.  They knew exactly what to say to close the sale and not once did I feel like they were overselling me.

They were impressive!!

In fact I’m wearing the pants and a shirt bought on that trip which reminded me of the story. What a great purchase.

Are you taking advantage of every opportunity that walks through your door?

If you fly, you know that if an aircraft is late, there’s a good chance that you’re going to miss your connection or be late for something else in your day.  It’s the reason the government and outside companies monitor the on-time arrival of airlines.

Here’s a simple solution. You might apply this thinking to your own business.

Let me give you the background first.  During each college semester, I make 4 to 5 trips to NYC to teach two courses at NYU.  In each case, I couldn’t tell you if the plane left the actual gate early or late.    But I can tell you that on all 5 flights, the plane arrived before the scheduled time.  I felt, and I believe others did, too, that we got a bonus of time by reaching our destination early.  Although it’s a mental game, it’s mentally real.

What if the airlines added a buffer, say 10 minutes to every aircraft’s ETA.  A 9AM arrival time is now stated as 9:10AM.  The airline publishes the times and the passengers and travelers work around the numbers.

Now here’s what’s going to happen.

The plane leaves on time, or late, no one cares unless it screws up their next step.  With the buffer the aircraft then either arrives early….WOW or on time.

Consider the implications.  I travel a lot and very infrequently do I make a call to my ground transportation about a flight based upon 10 minutes either way.  I don’t spend that much time on the length of time compared to the price and the route.  I hate getting stuck in certain airports.  Here the buyer is more interested in on-time arrivals for the purposes of their next meeting (personal or business) than they are for actual flight time.

Then travel agencies could give options differently.  “You can take the 6 AM through DC into Miami arriving at 11:20 or the 7:40 AM arriving at 2.”  With an overall edit to the system, everyone would be on par with similar flight systems and layovers.

Airline management, their unions, and the technology being used today have made limited progress in improving the system.  They still load bags onto planes by hand.  And it appears there is nothing coming down the pipe line that would radically improve the situation, so why not try a simpler fix.  Besides the airlines have cut back on routes so modeling of new traffic patterns most likely would not be a terrific challenge.

When I hear managers say that the new vision of their firm is to get customers to like them better or that the new vision is to create better relationships, I’m always concerned for them.  While I understand what they’re trying to do, I also see how they’re headed in the wrong direction.  You can’t substitute your role of managing well with the position of wanting to be liked.  Business relationships don’t give back the returns you think they will, and if you don’t adjust your focus, you’re going to be disappointed at best and even suffer worse consequences.

Earning new customers involves much more than building relationships and getting people to like your firm. Widen your focus to how the firm deals with your customers from start to finish, well before your employees even enter the picture.  Customers may hear through the grapevine that your company doesn’t deliver on time or that orders are always screwed up.  How well will your “relationship” vision work now?

On the flip side if you throw out the “management guru” philosophies of getting in touch with your customers and first work on the processes that make the customer feel welcome from the get go, the relationship builds automatically.  For example, your firm supplies industrial washers and dryers for hotels and institutions or you create video production tapes for corporate distribution.  One sale is $75,000 a pop and the other is $5000-$10,000, yet they are very much the same.  All day long 365 days a year you ship washer and dryers or create Quicklime, Real Windows, CD and VCR production. You’ve heard some news that some customers may be unhappy with the products you’ve been delivering and that the opinion in the market is that you don’t deliver as promised.

Would your first reaction be to start implementing a customer-relations-building initiative?  Maybe you would even start to make phone calls to clients and ask them why they have been disappointed with the product.  Both might be good ideas, but you’re already barking up the wrong tree.  Customers don’t always know how your company works, so they can’t give valuable feedback on how to solve a problem. Also, just because you’ve made contact with a customer doesn’t mean that they will like you, it could mean that they now have an employee’s name to attach to their problem…that’s all.

A better approach is to build quality into your product/s.  Customers walk away happy when everything happens correctly.

A customer’s individual experience with your firm means more to them than how much business you process in a year.  Just because you ship 500 washers a year or 300 presentation tapes a year does not mean anything to the one person that is laying down the money to improve their business.  The higher the ticket item, the more you have to remind yourself of this point. Perhaps many of your customers think for months, should they or shouldn’t they buy.  The discussion is typically sealed when the buyer feels that parting with the money will give them a return of something more than what they spent.  The washer may make them $37,000 net per year and the tape may bring them $100,000 worth of new business if all goes well.  They want to feel as secure upon purchasing as they do on the day that their purchase arrives and for months after.

To do this start at the beginning.  The sales people or the materials of the firm should show them the process.  You sign and we start.  Delivery is in 4 weeks. With everything in between defined.  The check arrives and you send them an even more complete package to get them involved to the extent they want to be.  For the washer, you help confirm they know layout and the tools needed for on-site delivery.  For the tape firm you schedule a meeting with all the proper people and have an outline of how you can build a winning product.

Don’t ask the customer what they want!! Have a formula of questions that draws out what you need.

Make sure everyone is present and consider recording the sales call for future reference.

Throw in additional value.  That could be a booklet about tools to increase productivity or to improve marketing.

Even to the very end you keep the process going as it is designed. Don’t deviate or cut corners if the process works. You may have given your pitch  2000 times, but the customer has only heard it once.

Get the entire company behind you. If you’re dealing with items that have options or customization, a production expert might walk the buyer through a few paces so that the customer feels that your team understands them.  You want the process to win over the customer.

It’s like when you return to your hotel room after dinner and find a chocolate on your pillow.  How happy do you feel just before you bit down on your treat?  Hate to break it to you, but patrons in 1200 other rooms had a chocolate on their pillows, also.  The staff didn’t select only you to get a special piece.

Again, this is not to downplay the relationship-building process, but to put it in perspective.  You do a bad job, customers don’t return.  If you build a process that builds relationships, customers feel excited to work with a firm that’s responsive and delivers products or services as ordered.

I’ve lived through so many good and bad business experiences,  so you’d think I would find it more and more challenging to be surprised.

And yet, there’s a new “jack-in-the-box” always around the next corner. While visiting The Breakers, a 5-star resort in Florida, a bellman forgot to pack two pieces of my luggage in the trunk of the limo that transported me to the airport. Of course, I didn’t discover the oversight until I was being dropped off at the airport. The moment of realization was an unpleasant one, because the mistake meant that I would not make it home that evening. The direct result of the hotel. When I returned to spend another night, the hotel did not take responsibility for the error and still charged me for the evening. When another hotel patron overheard my situation at the front desk, she suggested a solution.  She had to leave early and her room would be vacant for the night.  Perhaps they could give her room to me since she’d paid for the night and couldn’t get a refund. The front desk would not hear of the change, and yet they said they would sell the room and charge for it should someone else request a room.

What a surprise since just a few hours earlier, as speaker at an event, I was considered a VIP at the hotel.  You would think that a business with an upscale clientele and “brand” would have staff that would know how to offer superior customer service!

On the flip side, I did receive customer service when I arrived home–in this scenario, I was an “average Joe” buying a new TV from a large retail chain.  You can’t get much more anonymous than that.

When I arrived home from Florida, I called Best Buy to find out about our TV on order. Sydney, the woman who answered the phone, not only remembered me from a couple of days earlier. She remembered my name. I would assume that Best Buy has quite a few calls in a given day and as a Sales Operator, there must be many responsibilities to handle. The fact remains….she remembered a 30-second call from the day before where I asked to be transferred to Sarah, another incredible employee. Sarah was not scheduled to work that day, so she took care of connecting me with the manager, Sydney. That’s it.

I was impressed that when I spoke with Sydney, she knew who I was by recognizing my VOICE, even before I had a chance to state my name!

Out of this world!

Funny, I’d never put Best Buy in the 5-star league and yet, they out performed The Breakers.

I know someone who spent a good deal of his summer lounging by a pool, vacationing with friends, and overall just kicking back and enjoying life.  Oh yeah, he was a manager, too.  How did he have time to manage his employees and amass so much leisure time, too, you may ask.  He didn’t.  He chose hanging out over working hard, but he had a good reason.

As he explained to his superior, a regional manager for the firm, the “economy” was bad in the area.  He was even generous enough with his time to take the regional manager, who was unfamiliar with the ins and outs of this particular city, on a joy ride through its worst slum…boarded up windows and gang-sign graffiti offered “proof” that the man with a tan couldn’t be blamed for his office’s poor sales.

The vast majority of the beautiful city was running quite smoothly, but the regional manager didn’t get that tour.  He was shuffled straight to the airport before he got a sniff of the truth that his local subordinate opted to darken his tan rather than increase his office’s sales.

Yes, I realize the economy has hit most of us in one way or another.  Some of us have gotten pummeled worse than others, too.  And while sales have taken a hit in many industries, I hope that you’re able to separate reality from perception.

Be careful not to discount your ability to perform on the job because the economy is suffering. There have always been and will always be those who bend with the times and create opportunity.

Also, be fair with yourself. The same assets you brought to your job are those that can help you now.  Don’t forget that you have those strengths and you might just need to change your perception of reality to begin to utilize those strengths today.

Companies like ebay and Amazon.com have to adjust to the economy and the current market conditions to continue to realize healthy profits; and adjust is what they do.  So where are you adjusting what you do to continue to thrive in today’s business environment?

It’s not just about persistence it’s about changing tactics to bring in new business.

On the program Hell’s Kitchen, the restaurant undergoing a business makeover gave away food as a way to announce the reopening of the restaurant. Their marketing tactic was successful, and the next day the restaurant was full.

If you suspect that the economy has become your crutch, toss it aside and take responsibility to walk on your own two feet again.  Adjust strategy and tactics, get creative with marketing and sales, and find ways to revive assets that have been nearly dormant since the downturn started.

Someone’s always doing well…it might as well be you.

There were two feet of snow on the ground in Syracuse last February, and the last thing I expected was to be visited by a local painter.  This is typically a sale done in the fall or in the spring as home owners inspect their weather-beaten homes.

Not the case for College Pro Painters.  An area supervisor stopped by to ask me if I would like a quote. Really.  A quote in February.  At first I was shocked and then amazed.  So much so that I said sure, give me a price.

As you’d expect he immediately went into the pitch, I’ll send someone out to talk with you.  I cut him off to say, “You guys can come and look at the house from the outside.  You don’t need to see me to put together a quote.  So when you are ready, call me and we’ll set something up.”

He handed me a hang tag and was on his way.  For days after this experience I kept thinking College Pro.  With so many consumers being concerned about just covering their mortgage payments, I would think that painting the exterior of the home is probably not even on the to-do list for many families, this summer.  However, I have to believe that College Pro Painters’ jump on the competition helped them secure extra jobs in a market that offers slimmer pickings than the norm.

The next day, I experienced a similar sales push from someone in the document services industry, Avalon Document Services.  A package arrived at my office.  Along with my completed copy-service order, I received a dozen cookies and a hand-written letter outlining additional services that this regional copy center offers.  The rep, Danielle, took the time to write the letter in her own hand instead of constructing the letter on her computer.  Even if only a handful of customers say, “Huh, I didn’t know they did that,” and purchased additional services, think of how much money Danielle might have earned for her firm by making the extra personalized effort.

Here were two firms pounding the street to stand out and to secure business.

Nice job!

Get this.  The APTA wants donations to help promote scholarships in the industry.

The American Public Transportation Foundation
Please “champion” the effort to ensure the future of our industry!
Dear Colleague:

We face a critical shortage of skilled and seasoned employees as thousands of workers from the “Baby boom” generation near retirement. We need to provide incentives to attract the  best of the best of our emerging talent. Your 2009 Champion gift will help achieve that goal, which in turn will helpus plan for a healthy, vibrant workforce. As you know, The American Public Transportation  Foundation provides scholarships for young professionals pursuing careers in public transportation. Your support will make our industry stand out from all the others. Our goal this month is to raise $5000.

….and yet when it comes to making our public transportation system stronger, they have been lacking in leadership.  Industry leaders are no closer to improving the transportation system then they were years ago.

Here is a sampling of what I recommended to the industry at a keynote to APTA’s executives.

US public transportation needs four factors to achieve 10+ % ridership:

1. Universal payment system. (You should be able to use your card in NYC, San Francisco and Atlanta and your own community as a universal pass.) This little switch would enable users to keep only one card in their pocket and most likely try another service around the country.

2. Connectivity of community public transportation systems with other communities (County roads, bridges and infrastructures, link to the next infrastructure. The same is necessary in order to increase ridership. Currently the systems do not connect.) Currently you can’t travel from Seattle to San Diego or Atlanta to Boston without jumping to an Amtrak or another service. It’s like building a bridge only half way and then stopping in the middle of the gorge.

3. Singular transportation guides throughout the system. (There needs to be one universal travel guide so that like airline travel, no one needs to relearn how to use a system.) I know I personally dread trying to figure out the maps in each city. Airlines have one system and so should the public transportation sector.

4. Transportation authorities need to be established. (Today, road and mass transit are at odds over how to use funding. With a transit authority the objective of the organization is to serve the public transportation needs in the best manner possible.) Right now the road and highway industry is 10x more powerful than all the other services so when it comes to funding. They get 90% of the pie even if it’s not the best use of the money to move people in that region.

5. Lastly, the future of public transportation will never improve until the industry moves from viewing that there are two types of users to three. Currently there exists the lingo that there are people with CHOICE and those Without Choice. With choice means they can use alternative forms of transportation, however, if gas goes up $1 per gallon, they might move into the Without Choice category. Obviously these users have only one method to get to work, shopping, visiting the doctor, etc. The group I suggested the industry see in the future is the group with MEANS. These are the people who earn $1 million per year and use the NYC Metro to get to work in the morning. These are the people with political clout and financial capital who would insure that NYC never closes the metro system.

What this means to the industry is “density” must be defined differently. They may get 50 people on the train in a low-income neighborhood and 17 people from the high-income community. The difference is the high-income travelers will make sure that there is a system at all for two reasons. They will be aware of the product AND it’s self serving. Their kids use it every day. (For those that don’t know, the industry looks for density of population to determine service development.)

Where is my order?

I hate to say it, but in a given day I see more bad things happen than good things.  For example, a sheet metal manufacturer that received my call because of a referral, who definitely has the facilities to do the work, just told me that my order, which he’s had in his hands for 5 days,  has not been written up or placed in the system yet.

“We’ve just been busy working on a backlog of business.”

DON”T TELL ME THIS!!!

This guy worked hard to get the business. He spent time on the phone reviewing the project, worked up a quote, then reworked the quote to meet specific metal-cutting needs, then didn’t put the order in.

He could have easily said, “We have your order and we have a two-week production schedule.  Does that work for you?”  Or, “Your order did not specify a date you needed the order; is there a date you required the product?”

Give me something that sounds like the order is in house.  In the computer or not, I now feel like our order is taking second fiddle, and yet I have no rush for the order.  One week, two or three is fine with me.

Given the lack of urgency he’s displayed about my business, I won’t refer other business to this vendor. I might tell two or three others about my experience and caution them about how their project won’t be completed in a timely manner.

I’ve said this many times.  “Firms lose more business out their back door than their front door.”

And all this is solvable.  Paper, email or verbal orders are input within 24 hours of processing with an email confirmation of the delivery date.  If no date is specified, manufacturing scheduling software that takes into consideration time and materials as well as other projects in house AND profitability creates a manufacturing date.

Any costs associated with installing a new methodology could probably be paid for with an extra order or two from a happy customer or a referral from a happy customer…which I am not!