The internet is a place for people to connect all over the world, providing ways for users to interact with one another. As many benefits as there are when it comes to the internet, there are also concerns regarding safety. It is advisable that you take precautions when you are online. Here are some tips to help you stay safe while browsing and using the internet.
Safe Email Practices
One of the best ways to stay safe online is to ensure that you are mindful of safe email practices. One of the most common vulnerabilities and access points into someone’s computers and online accounts is through their emails. You want to be wary of any links and files that are sent to you, even if they are sent from contacts you know. Always inspect the source email, to ensure they are correct.
Even in today’s modern age, many scams are carried out through this and people still fall for tricks to gain access to a variety of accounts, have money or funds sent and transferred, or download malicious content like viruses. Be safe and cautious with your emails.
Be Mindful Of Different Websites And Downloads
In addition to your inboxes, you always want to be mindful of your activity online. Everything leaves a digital footprint and if you are not cautious, the websites you access could leave your systems and accounts vulnerable for attacks.
Always use well-known sites as much as possible and establish the safety, security, and legitimacy of any site you are directed to, especially when you are using them for the first time. Be aware of what you are downloading and understand that malware may be present in any files.
Install Anti Viruses
This is why it is important that you take another step to prioritize your safety online. In addition to safe practices, you also want to install antivirus software to ensure that your computers, accounts, and data are protected in the event that you do stumble across potentially dangerous content.
Having certain software on your devices will be able to scan things like your emails and attachments, block potentially harmful websites and do regular maintenance and checks on your systems to keep them clean and running safely.
Read And Understand Terms Of Agreements
The internet is not always a place free of limitations and restrictions. There are also rules you need to follow and abide by in order to prioritize your safety online. Overall, you want to do your research and have a general understanding of internet law as it pertains to your uses. Whether you are running your own business, buying different products or even digital assets, or simply joining websites and creating accounts for personal use, there are different laws tied with everything online.
Terms and agreements may be long and feel like a chore to get through, but if you want to take care of your online data and prioritize your privacy, it is good practice to keep this in mind. When you run a company, it is especially important to have an understanding of the laws and regulations in different jurisdictions or have legal professionals provide knowledge to help with your understanding.
Quality control.
Avoid Public Networks
One good practice to keep in mind when you are online is to avoid connecting to public networks. Places like coffee shops, libraries, schools, and businesses offer free wifi, but that means more vulnerabilities. This is because different devices can access these networks at the same time, with little security in the way.
If you are using these public networks, avoid doing anything that would involve important information like banking or inputting passwords for your various accounts.
Use VPNs
An extra step to ensure your safety while you are online is to utilize a VPN. A VPN refers to a virtual private network, and this can be beneficial to different circumstances to increase your privacy and security, such as accessing public networks as previously mentioned. These tools can mask your computer on a public network to reduce your vulnerability, making it more difficult for others to see your activity, and potentially hack your accounts, systems, or networks.
Online safety is a must for all users, businesses, and websites. There are different ways to ensure that you are safe and that your information remains private. This ranges from the tools you use, programs you install, down to your own habits and practices when you are online. Be mindful of everything to ensure that you keep the information of your family as well as your own safe and secure.
Have you ever tried creating explanation videos as part of your marketing strategy? If not, are you intimidated by the notion of creating an explainer video?
There’s no need to be — they just represent another excellent way to get your content out to your target audience.
In this article we have selected some of the best explainer video examples for you to study and learn from.
Compiling an explainer video isn’t much more complicated than putting together a slide deck in a Powerpoint presentation.
You decide what to say and find some relevant graphics to jazz things up.
More to learn: 13 Remarkable Visual Content Marketing Examples
The only differences this time are that you’ll be recording a voiceover from a written script instead of presenting it live. You’ll need to be concise and truly explain how something is done.
The biggest difference is the final step of putting all the pieces together into an easy-to-access, video file format.
Explainer videos should be 30-90 seconds in length which translates into a written script of around 200 words or less in most cases.
To get a good feel for crafting yours, just examine the work of others. You’re bound to find something that resonates with you as a good example for brainstorming your own.
Whether you have a new business, or one that’s been around for a while, marketing and branding is a never ending job.
You’ll always need to find the best ways to connect with customers, and convince them that your products and services will solve their problems. One of the most successful ways to do this is with explainer videos.
Here are 26 fabulous explainer videos. You can easily find something similar to your needs to serve as an example.
You should have no trouble getting inspired to make an explaination video part of your marketing strategy.
Lets get started with the examples.
Amazon Echo
Great example of how an explaination video is just the thing when your product is somewhat revolutionary.
This one is long as explaination videos go, but it is great at illustrating how show and tell can be the best route for explaining how a product works.
Hubspot is a leader in inbound marketing, so it goes without saying that their explainer video would be powerful and objective. This one does a great job explaining the consumer’s problem, and then showing how Hubspot can meet their needs.
The script doesn’t contain any fluff, and they’ve kept the video under three minutes (which is very important when it comes to viewer attention spans).
Crazy Egg
This explaination video for Crazy Egg, the heatmap tool that shows why your website visitors aren’t converting, was produced by the folks over at Demo Duck.
It’s a nice example of problem/solution animation, along with screen captures of the web app in action.
This video is simple, and clearly explains the benefits of utilizing Mimecast. It starts with outlining the risks of not securing your email, and then proceeds to show how their product can safely provide a viable solution.
It’s just over two minutes long, but is rich with content that helps the viewer understand the value of the service.
Explanation videos … Spotify
When Spotify “landed in the U.S.”, they released a great intro video to promote their music app.
Best of all, it has no voiceover, just a great soundtrack and fun visuals!
This is one of the best startup videos that we’ve seen so far. It’s simple, contains laser focused content, and answers one question.
The folks at Basecamp managed to paint a very clear picture of what they have to offer, all in 56 seconds.
It’s a teaser video that makes viewers want to learn more about what the company has to offer, and an awesome prototype of what you can produce in less than a minute.
Groupon
The Groupon animated explainer video comes from our fellow Chicagoan Brad Chmielewski. Brad proves that you can explain anything in 30-seconds.
Live Plan
Live plan comes out the gate identifying the customer and their needs in this animation. The company offers a service that helps entrepreneurs easily prepare their business plans online.
The video is short and sweet, but does an outstanding job convincing the viewer about the value of their service; another one marked as one of the best explainer videos so far.
You’ve probably seen it by now, but this edgy viral video came out in March and already has close to 5 million views, skyrocketing Dollar Shave Club to near-overnight startup stardom.
According to Michael Dubin, the founder and star of the video, the spot only cost $4,500 to produce.
Watching these videos, you may start to recognize some common traits that characterize each video.
Here are a few we noticed:
» A little bit of humor can be a great way to keep people engaged.
» Frame the problem and emphasize the pain point your potential customers experience.
» It never hurts to use interesting visuals to keep viewers focused.
» If you can, show your product or service in action. People like to see what you do.
» Most videos on this list are less than 2-minutes (one is only 30-seconds), so keep things short and sweet!
Zoho is another company that you just expect to get it right, and yes, they nailed it. The explainer video introduces their website builder product.
The script is easy to follow, and includes some stats that viewers may find interesting. Custom graphics and fun narration help to make this one both interesting and convincing.
Airbnb
Produced by the talented and creative Adam Lisagor, this live action startup video is an inspiring combination of live video and motion graphics.
Make sure to check out the rest of work at Sandwich Video!
Here’s another one that we would consider one of the best startup explainer videos.
Not only does the video explain how the company helps customers in need of accounting software, they inject a bit of humor in the process, which is always a hit with viewers.
Freshdesk managed to deliver a rock solid sales message- all in less than two minutes. Not bad.
PadMapper
PadMapper, is a great example of using humor to engage an audience.
This video is fun, engaging and effective. One great design.
Mailbox
A fun, quick preview of an email management application.
Boom Town
Here’s one more example of how to create an awesome explainer video without animation. In this production, real estate professionals are presented with a common problem, and Boom Town saves the day with their highly targeted service.
The video is short enough to not agitate the viewer, and just long enough to make the sale.
This is definitely one of the better explainer videos for startups, in our humble opinion.
ZenCash
This video for ZenCash, also produced by Demo Duck (the parent company behind Video Brewery) has a unique hand-sketched style which really seems to draw viewers in.
The client reported nearly 75% of visitors clicking play and watching a majority of the video, well above the industry average for a 90-second explainer video.
Explainer video production.
Wizzki
A platform for managing the hiring process. An interesting application.
Constant Contact
Explanation videos don’t always have to sell or explain a product or service.
With this production, Constant Contact uses fun graphics to give the viewer tips on email marketing.
It’s easy to follow, and the tips can be implemented by anyone regardless of what email service they’re using.
It’s a subtle way of coaxing the viewer to visit their website, which always has value.
Explanation videos … Mint
From my experience, this Mint.com overview video is one of the most referenced explainer videos of all-time. It was created by Nate Whitson and the talented crew at Picturelab.
InTouch CRM
Here’s another laser focused startup video with a flawless script. It does a great job of identifying the customers main problem, and presents the solution in a clear and concise manner.
The graphics are impeccable, and many business owners could definitely relate to the characters (even though they’re animated).
When a viewer watches a cartoon and sees himself in the storyline, it’s bound to be successful, isn’t it?
Student Hut
A tool for college students to review and discuss any college class before deciding on their course of study.
Olark
An interesting customer service tool. This one does a very good job of explaining what they offer and includes a special offer at the end.
Capital Media
If you aren’t convinced that Facebook marketing could help your business grow, you will be after watching this video.
Capital Media has produced an in depth startup explainer video on using Facebook to reach more customers.
The script queues up well with the visuals, and the storyline is simple.
The production clearly presents both the problem and the solution to the viewer, and it doesn’t hurt that the narrator has a cool European accent.
Tonx
Nice video that tells a story about why every coffee lover needs their freshly roasted coffee mail order service.
CashOut
This explanation video falls more in the lines of a demo and does a good job of illustrating the value of “easy” to the small business owner much more quickly than written content.
A unique point about it is it uses no voiceover.
Content Marketing Institute
Content Marketing Institute is another powerful leader in inbound marketing.
Their explainer video doesn’t have the catchy animations, but it does a great job of explaining who they are, and their position in the content marketing industry.
This video is a perfect example of how to produce a non-animated startup video.
The bottom line
Businesses use explainer videos to sell, educate and entertain their customers. That’s why it’s important to choose your explainer video production company wisely. You want someone that has experience, and a diverse, creative portfolio.
These are just a few examples of what you can create with the right team. If you plan to tackle this project on your own, do your research and take your time.
First impressions are lasting, and your startup video is your introduction to the world.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
13 Remarkable Visual Content Marketing Examples
SEO Mistakes That Will Kill Your Content Marketing Performance
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. My favorite Angelou quote. Maya certainly has a firm grasp of the subject of sharp customer service, doesn’t she?
Feelings and emotions are the heart of sharp customer service, aren’t they? And social customer care is really the key to your marketing campaigns … particularly word of mouth marketing. So you are getting the picture, right?
Customer care is no longer an emerging trend to merely keep an eye on – it’s a burgeoning movement that companies would be very wise to embrace.
Instead of returning to a store or calling a helpline, people are increasingly turning to social media to resolve their gripes. It is called social customer care.
With everyone so focused on the very big and positive impact that customer care can have on the customer experience, many companies fail to realize that social customer care can have just as big and positive an impact on the employee experience.
And that alone multiplies the importance of customer care to customer experience design.
Related: Why the Landscape Is Changing for Social Customer Care
The fact that approaches to social customer care can vary adds to this challenge. Some companies are using social channels to resolve customer concerns and questions publicly, while others prefer to take social feedback offline and route the customer to phones or online chats. Some are investing in social-listening tools and vendors, while others are creating in-house social-care teams.
In the end, the biggest challenge is finding the right balance. That is would we will address today … steps to achieving the best in social customer care.
Here are 11 steps we recommend our clients take to make goals of customer care the very best and balanced they can be:
Sharp customer service … customer care is not just about solving problems
Customer care should not necessarily be any different from “serving customers”. Solving problems is always important, but helping our customers improve their utility, experience or lives is just as compelling—if not more.
Be more specific; suggest ideas; offer information of value; or recommend solutions from which both you and your customers will benefit. Use any form of suggestions to upsell your customer on the value you can provide … not revenue. The two are not mutually exclusive. A simple: “did you know” portfolio of useful tips, tools, tricks, and tutorials is a powerful and painless accompaniment to your usual response.
Ironically, the people to whom angry customers are exposed most often are usually those whom we pay the least (both in terms of compensation and attention).
Under these conditions, it takes major cultural mojo to inspire and/or motivate them to deliver brand magic at every twist or turn. The trick is to empower your employees to deliver world-class customer service, no matter where they stack up in the “who’s who in your zoo” pecking order.
Customer care never ends
As evidenced by Subway in addressing an online issue about the length of their subs, their response time cost the brand much negative publicity. The fact that this conversation erupted over a weekend certainly isolated the fact that the brand was not “plugged in” to its community or audience.
Truthfully (and in fairness), the same outcome might have happened during the week, but the real lesson here is that a listening strategy tied to customer feedback needs to be always on.
The important point here is to make sure customers can get a hold of you when they need to, and that you can contact them when you need to—and you do indeed need to when they’re having a problem, venting frustration, or simply calling out for help.
Delegate and empower
The paradox of customer service is that the lower down the totem pole you go, the more impactful and important customer service becomes. Every single employee in an organization represents the company.
They are a window into or out of the business; and as far as your customer is concerned, they are the only window. Best to keep it clean, functional, and make sure that what lies beyond the window is suitable viewing—don’t you think?
Perhaps this is why Zappos describes themselves as a service company that happens to sell shoes, or that Southwest Airlines describes themselves as a service company that happens to fly planes.
All customers are not equal
Every single customer—irrespective of their stature, seniority, and their status in life and with the company—deserves to be treated well, respected, and given appropriate attention and effort.
In other words, the minimum level of your bar needs to be higher than the minimum level of your competitors’ respective bars, and therefore higher than your industry averages.
Know who your best customers are and put your best attention on them.
Customer care means near real-time
The ability to solve problems in real time is the consummate difference maker. The more time that elapses between problem and solution, the greater the risk of that problem mushrooming out of control.
The good news is that this is exactly where everything is going… largely thanks to technology. For example, if you have OnStar in your car, you practically have a call-center at your beck and call—a proactive and actionable one with little to no action required on your part.
Customers will pay for awesome service
Building on several of our earlier recommendations is one fairly counterintuitive one: service can actually become a source of revenue for companies—not just directly (i.e., new business from old customers); but also indirectly (i.e. new business from new customers.)
Apple’s Genius Bars give us a glimpse of how premium customers will pay a premium for premium service.
Also, Netflix and Amazon show how premium service is not always incremental, but instead manifests itself in terms of recurring revenue, repeat business, loyalty and higher barriers to entry.
Be proactive.
Anticipate and be proactive
Old customer service translated to speak when it was spoken to. New customer care anticipates requirements, listens attentively for customers in need, and proactively searches for problems to fix.
An active and engaged listening strategy will help to identify opportunities, spot problems before they balloon, and in doing so, surprise and hopefully delight consumers by making an unexpected move in the form of responding to them.
Give away your expertise the heart of customer service
Responding to consumers via blogs, podcasts, social networks and twitter-like platforms is admirable, but a learned art. You’ll need to be adept at knowing when to open up a conversation, pull it in, and close it down.
Your expertise is one of your most valued assets. Use it to your advantage by freely giving it away.
Care is your most important commitment
Care is a commitment, not a one-off happenstance. And there’s no more important commitment than that which we make to our lifeblood—our customers. A commitment, like a relationship, is for keeps.
We need to visibly demonstrate our commitment to our customers in practice and in action. They need to explicitly feel its effect and benefits.
We simply have to get smarter each time we deal with the same person—specifically in terms of how we treat them. It helps us become smarter as a company so we can learn, evolve and improve on the whole.
Focus on continuous improvement
Our final recommendation is an obvious one. Feedback loops need to be active, direct and effective at improving, evolving and moving the business forward.
This highlights an organization with an entirely new set of criteria, beliefs, and characteristics that reflect a company truly in touch with its customer base.
If customer care is deemed a chance for the company to connect and evolve with its lifeblood it will become a cultural obsession.
The Point
The ability—or inability—for a company to serve its customers in a way that is consistent with meeting or beating their expectations will prove to be the ultimate differentiator. It will separate the corporate winners from the losers in the near future.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.
It’s up to you to keep improving your customer attention and focus. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on customer service from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Stunning Customer Service Lessons and Their Examples
How often, as a customer, do you experience WOW customer service … the type that you normally can’t imagine? If it is often, would you consider yourself an expert in customer service skills?
Average or less customer service seems like the norm in many industries. In some, it’s so common that when we provide great service, we yield customers who feel like they’ve won the lottery, if only for a moment. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Creating a customer service evangelist should not be rocket science, should it?
If you were asked to name the top 5-10 items that have the greatest influence on creating a customer service evangelist, what would your list include?
Our agency often runs customer experience/service design workshops, and this question is a key exercise in the workshop.
With that said, let’s get into some specific skills that every support employee can master to “WOW” the customers that they interact with on a daily basis…
Connect and give credence to every customer
This is critical. This is where you establish rapport and begin a relationship building process. Connecting means you’re building trust that runs both ways. Do this by engaging your customer.
Start by giving them your name and asking theirs.
Be interested in them and what they want. Ask questions. Listen. Respond appropriately. Have a conversation with them. Be genuine.
People know whether you are genuinely interested in helping them or not. If you are, they are more likely to respond positively to you and to develop trust with you. If you are not interested, they’ll sense it.
You’ll have a much harder time developing the trust you need to help them.
Customer service skills … Patience
If you don’t see this near the top of a customer service skills list, you should just stop considering customer service.
Derek Sivers explained his view on “slower” service as being an interaction where the time spent with the customer was used to understand their problems and needs better from the company.
If you deal with customers on a daily basis, be sure to stay patient when they come to you stumped and frustrated, but also be sure to take the time to figure truly out what they want — they’d rather get competent service than being rushed out the door!
Good customer service examples.
Pay special attention to complaints
Remember that complaints are often your best source of insights. In a recent article on Inc., Evernote CEO Phil Libin spoke about why he loves his most negative customers.
As he said in the article, customer feedback is great for telling you what you did wrong. It is not as effective on what you should do next.
Avoid criticizing specific employees but make sure everyone knows when there is bad news. Use it as a learning opportunity. Discuss what went wrong and how you might prevent it in the future.
Good service duties … attentiveness
The ability to listen to customers is essential to providing great service for some reasons.
Not only is it important to pay attention to individual customer interactions (watching the language/terms that they use to describe their problems), but it’s also important to be mindful and attentive to the feedback that you receive at large.
What are your customers telling you without saying it?
Gain insights
If you have a genuine conversation with your customer, you will discover insights into their wants and needs. Customers don’t always know what they want, or they might have trouble expressing it.
Often people know what they want, but they’re unsure how to get it. That’s where your engagement comes in.
By asking pertinent questions and paying attention to the answers, you can discover a lot about your customer. You can help guide them to getting what they want. That’s the role you fill.
Good customer service examples … clear communication skills
Make sure you’re getting to the problem at hand quickly; customers don’t need your life story or to hear about how your day is going.
More importantly, you need to be cautious about how some of your communication habits translate to customers, and it’s best to err on the side of caution whenever you find yourself questioning a situation.
Knowledge of the Product
The best forward-facing employees in your company will work on having a deep knowledge of how your product works.
It’s not that every single team member should be able to build your product from scratch, but rather they should know the ins and outs of how your product works, just like a customer who uses it every day would.
Without knowing your product from front-to-back, you won’t know how to help customers when they run into problems.
“Read” Customers
You won’t always be able to see customers face-to-face, and in many instances (nowadays) you won’t even hear a customer’s voice!
This skill is essential because you don’t want to misread a customer and end up losing them due to confusion and miscommunication.
Look and listen for subtle clues about their current mood, patience level, personality, etc., and you’ll go far in keeping your customer interactions positive.
Customer service skills.
Calming demeanor
There are a lot of metaphors for this type of personality: “keeps their cool,” “staying cool under pressure,” etc., but it all represents the same thing.
It represents the ability that some people have to stay calm and even influence others when things get a little hectic.
The best customer service reps know that they cannot let a heated customer force them to lose their cool; in fact, it is their job to try to be the “rock” for a customer who thinks the world is falling due to their current problem.
Goal oriented
This may seem like a strange thing to list as a customer service skill, but I assure you that it is vitally important.
When we empower employees, we note that many customer service experts have shown how giving employees the unfettered power to “WOW” customers don’t always generate the returns that many businesses expect to see.
That’s because it leaves employees without goals, and business goals + customer happiness can work hand-in-hand without resulting in poor service.
Handle surprises
Sometimes the customer support world is going to throw you a curveball.
Maybe the problem you encounter isn’t specifically covered by the company’s guidelines, or maybe the customer isn’t reacting how you thought they would.
Whatever the case, it’s best to be able to think on your feet… but it’s even better to create guidelines for yourself in these sorts of situations.
Persuasion skills
This is one a lot of people didn’t see coming!
Experienced customer support personnel know that often, you will get messages in your inbox that are more about the curiosity of your company’s product, rather than having problems with it.
To truly take your customer service skills to the next level, you need to have some mastery of persuasion so that you can convince interested customers that your product is right for them (if it truly is).
Tenacity
Call it what you want, but a great work ethic and a willingness to do what needs to be done (and not take shortcuts) are a key skill when providing the kind of service that people talk about.
The many memorable customer service examples out there (many of which had a huge impact on the business) were created by a single employee who refused just to do the “status quo” when it came to helping someone out.
Remembering that your customers are people too, and knowing that putting in the extra effort will come back to you ten-fold should be your driving motivation to never “cheat” your customers with lazy service.
What Have You Learned?
How about you? Do you have stories of people or companies that have completely “wowed” you with their customer service? Please join the conversation and share your thoughts.
Need some help in building better customer service for your customers? Have you noticed the growing importance of customer service you provide, especially for your marketing? Creative ideas to help enhance your word of mouth marketing?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your customer service improvement and pay for results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas for your service to customers.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on customer service from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
David Freemantle quoted: Feelings have a critical role in the way customers are influenced. Have you noticed that you learn best when you examine the work and results of others? We certainly feel you do. In this article, we will examine customer support in three great customer service cases.
All of these offer some excellent points you can apply to your business that will help amplify your marketing.
I’ve been with the same dentist for more than 15 years. He’s friendly, personal, and generally on time with his service schedule. I have considerable confidence in his abilities and he had my business loyalty, at least until now.
He does what I expect a dentist to do and he does it explaining all the issues and options without having to play 20 questions with him.
For that reason, I never thought about considering a change in service providers.
Then one day my wife and I started spending our winters in Florida. And now the option of finding a Florida dentist became a necessity.
The new dentist changed my entire perspective on the service expectations that I had developed over the past 15 years.
This new dentist was younger and surely ‘less experienced’. But it didn’t seem this way.
He was much more personal, asked important questions, spent more time with me, and did a more thorough job.
That experience opened my eyes to the quality differences with my current dentist.
I had come to expect quality and service that was very good. But the new dentist provided something even better.
Now every time I am in need of standard dentist action, such as an annual checkup, etc., I plan my appointments for our time in Florida. The Florida doctor has won my standard business.
The business lesson here?
If you are any type of service provider, never become complacent. Don’t provide a standard, average or just good enough service.
Always look for ways to continuously improve your service and do things better.
Because the day someone provides better results, service, or quality than you do, is the day your customers’ loyalty will dry up.
Left unchanged and not corrected so too may your business.
Customer support services … case 2 Disney World
Ever been to Disney World? With most of our family living 50 miles away, we often felt like tour guides. Not a bad thing though.
Lots of any business can learn from Disney’s customer experience design and operations. A real difference maker.
Disney puts a tremendous amount of attention to its parks’ customer immersion and customer experience; in fact, one could say the Disney theme park mystique is 100% about immersing the customer in the culture of Disney movies and character history.
Over 150,000 employees are employed ‘on stage’ each day at Disney parks to help create this customer experience immersion.
What are the ways Disney uses its park designs and ‘on stage’ employees to create the best possible customer experience?
Consider Disney’s explicit operations and design principles:
Care for customers
In front of nearly every ride was stroller parking and in the Magic Kingdom, there were plenty of strollers because nearly every group had some small children.
There were areas set aside for stroller parking, and clear instructions for where to park your stroller.
Guess what? Customers still managed to ignore them.
In most places, this might create chaos. Not at Disney, where they have a ‘stroller guy’ whose entire job it was to pick up after lazy customers.
We have seen them organize strollers into lines, put errant Sippy cups back into cup holders, and keep his little area of the park neat and organized.
All customer-facing employees are responsible for ensuring parks remain clean, friendly, organized, and most of all, fun.
Immerse customers in the brand
At Disney, you can’t look in any direction without seeing the Disney branding all around.
In the park, it works to surround you with the Disney experience at every moment, even when some parts of the park are under construction.
Not to mention the side benefit of Disney likely negotiating some discount on the construction work from businesses in exchange for allowing them to put their brand on the signage seen by millions of park customers.
Related post: The Story of How JetBlue Turns Customers into Advocates
Lots of help and directions
All stage employees are encouraged to be ‘assertively friendly’. They are to seek out those who look like they need help, before they come looking for help.
The parks at Disney are very large and directions can be confusing. The last thing customers need is to not be able to find what they are looking for.
As a result, signs have to be super easy to navigate and offer simple ways to get from one place to another. Disney does a great job keeping their signs easy to understand.
They also have logical layouts for parks and plenty of places to pick up copies of maps as you’re walking around their parks.
Random acts of kindness
Each employee is encouraged to offer random acts of kindness often.
The Fast Pass system at Disney is a work of analytical art that is designed to keep people moving through attractions faster and in a more optimized way.
To use it, you just insert your own park ticket and the Fast Pass will give you a specific time to return to a ride in order to board it without a wait.
Only one active at any one time however. At several, you also got the unexpected surprise of a bonus ticket to a nearby (and usually less popular) ride.
Thanks to this bonus ticket, you had the chance to ride an extra ride in the same time and feel just a little better about your experience all day.
A random act of kindness that costs nothing.
Be flexible with rules
Many of the rides take photos of you while you are on board. Those photos are sold to riders after the ride, a classic amusement park upselling technique.
At Disney, they show you the images and put a person below those images just standing by to answer questions.
Of course, some people will just take a cell phone photo of their image instead of buying one. Many places would put up big signs preventing that.
Disney, instead, puts a person there working under the photos to make it a little more socially awkward to take a photo of your photo, but they don’t outlaw it.
The result is that they probably still get a high percentage of people buying the photo who really want it.
They don’t need to have the typical rule outlawing the inevitable group of people who are happy with a lower quality photo they take themselves.
Educating while entertaining
Many places in all the parks Disney provides educational material on signs around the parks.
This is particularly true in EPCOT and the Animal Kingdom, and special events like the annual garden show at EPCOT.
Can’t be too much of this in our opinion.
Customer service cases … offer reassurance
Everyone ‘on the stage’ has a cast role, and as such, is responsible to contribute to the positive customer experience by being as helpful and assuring as possible.
When we traveled to Australia, we frequently ran into the expression of a ‘nervous nelly’ used to represent a timid or always apprehensive person.
We all know people like that. They check a map constantly even when they are going the right way, and usually find a reason to worry about something.
Disney does a great job of making sure those people feel at ease, with plenty of places and people to answer questions.
Show ready
Each customer facing employee is expected to be ‘show ready’ whenever they are on stage. Everyone has a part to play as a component of the show.
On stage, the show is on and everyone follows costume and customer interface guidelines.
Breaks and relaxing are ONLY allowed in areas unavailable to guests.
Disney certainly knows all there is to know about customer immersion and customer experience, don’t they?
It’s a culture handed down by Walt himself.
Companies that are proactively managing all elements of their customer experiences are most successful in achieving customer loyalty.
It is awesome marketing isn’t it.
Customer service cases … case 3 Marriott Courtyard
I stayed in a new Marriott Courtyard hotel a while back. The situation was that it was recently opened and should not have been opened until the problems were worked out and management was ready.
There were many problems, believe me, and it started as a significant customer failure.
But not only did the staff take care of the issues for me, the manager, once he got me back to ‘even’, continued to build the relationship with me.
His techniques included exceptional, personalized service, using my name in face-to-face greetings, and continued follow-up and attention to detail.
He actually made me believe I was the best customer he had ever had. Not only did I forget about the earlier problems, but I was feeling great about the entire three-day experience.
Customer support.
Service recovery requires remaining with your customer, through follow-up, and through unexpected contact well after the issue.
All customers deserve our best service, but the ones that have a negative experience represent an opportunity to define a business.
Such an opportunity represents an opportunity to turn customers into enthusiasts and maybe even advocates. And that requires going beyond the ‘break-even’ point for that customer.
Research has shown time and time again that customers who reported a problem and were delighted with the outcome have higher satisfaction with the business than the ones who never experienced a problem.
So these results show the importance of turning customer failure into full customer recovery.
Why should any company not want to seize such a great marketing opportunity?
Try it … the next time you have a customer who has had a back experience with your business. You will be amazed at the results.
Need some help in building better customer insights from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer base?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job of growing customer insights and pay for results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new insights that you have learned.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
Check out these additional articles on customer service insights from our library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
K. Chesterton once said: It’s not that they can’t find the solution, they can’t find the problem. Does your business focus on customer complaints and the problems behind them? Customer complaints are an incredibly important part of remarkable customer insights. And therefore the overall service experience you deliver.
Here we will discuss ways to take full advantage of the information in customer complaints. But first, an important question for you:
Have you ever turned a customer complaint into a future opportunity, or better yet, a customer advocate? It can be really rewarding, yes? Often, a negative experience that a customer has with your business can be salvaged and turned into an opportunity to win them over for life. But handled poorly, and you could lose customers for life.
This is such an important element of customer service that we use it a critical element of our customer service workshops.We use it to show the power we all have to give our customers a memorable experience.
Here are some simple recommendations I use in the workshop to help people handle customer complaints. If you and your staff follow these rules, you can turn unhappy customers into loyal cheerleaders for your business.
Listen completely
Give them your complete attention. Don’t multi-task. Don’t half- listen. Write down what they are telling you and get specifics from them. Then confirm that you understand. Focus only on them.
Deal directly and don’t hand them off
Please hold while we transfer you. Your call is very important to us.
Don’t you hate this response? While you’ll experience less of this problem when handling support via email, it’s still important to get people to the right employee quickly.
Never miss an opportunity to briefly explain to a customer why this transfer will be to their benefit. It’s hard to get any customer happy or excited about being transferred, but consider the two choices you have:
You are getting transferred. “Well, this stinks!”
You will be transferred to our ____ specialist who can better answer your question. “Well … okay, then!”
Without this relevant insertion, customers won’t know that you are trying to do the right thing.
Don’t be formal
Customers want to be treated with respect, but if you stop treating customers like regular people and start talking like a corporate stiff, then they won’t interpret the interaction as genuine.
Research suggests that personalization is powerful when interacting with anyone, but especially with your customers.
Remember that you’re not speaking to the Queen of England, so refer to your “chat” with a customer rather than your “correspondence” with them. Remember to speak as if you were talking with an acquaintance. A little familiarity can go a long way toward getting customers on your side.
Let them vent.
Let them vent
Don’t interrupt. Don’t explain, defend or justify. They don’t care why the problem occurred, and they don’t want your side of the story. They are angry, and they want to vent, so let them.
Remarkable customer insights … apologize and mean it
This is often hard, especially if you did not cause the problem. When you apologize for this situation, you are not necessarily taking the blame for causing the problem. You are apologizing to the customer having a bad experience. Put yourself in their shoes. Be sincere.
Complete your complaint understanding
There is a fine line between simply following up after handling a complaint and inadvertently inviting customers to complain even more.
Let’s look at the following two responses:
“Is there anything else wrong?”
“How else can I help you today?”
Asking a customer who just complained a leading, negative question such as #1 would lead to compounding the complaint and a mistake to avoid.
Conversely, inquiring about how you may be able to assist further a customer lets them know that you are willing to stick it out if they have any other issues to address.
Be quick in response
Always be quick in response,
We often discuss some pretty strong cases for spending more time with your customers, but you saw the data above … complaints are a slightly different beast that greatly degrades when slowly responded to. Work to close issues as quickly as possible. Benefits increase from complaints being resolved quickly.
A customer leaving a feature request won’t sweat the fact that it took you a day to get back to them. However, unhappy customers wanted resolution yesterday, so you need to make responding to them a priority.
In almost every other instance I would encourage you to slow down your service, but in this case, you need to make moves to right the wrong as soon as possible!
Ask them how you can make things right. Then do more.
To illustrate how this happens, we like to use the following example. We occasionally visit Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch until a disappointment with a KFC takeout order of soggy, unappetizing chicken and fries. We called the restaurant chain’s toll-free number to complain but was told that complaints should be directed to the specific location’s manager. One call is worth the effort for us, but not two … especially if the company shows a lack of interest in the first call. We find it easier, given these two incidents, to find a new place for lunch.
KFC lost a customer without even knowing it had happened. You can bet your customers make “silent” decisions like this on a regular basis …so make it easy for them to complain. Don’t rely on feedback forms. Ask customers for direct, face-to-face opinions. Do it regularly and have them know whom they can complain to if anything goes wrong. The image above is real and a great way to let customers know you are paying attention and care.
Too many employees either have no response to complaints or a generic, stock response, like taking money off the bill. But that risks making the customer even more angry if that’s not what they want to be done. In fact, you might even offend someone by offering them a discount.
Related: How Marriott Courtyard Turned Customer Failure into Service Recovery
A better strategy is to ask them what they want. Most people don’t want much. They usually just want you to listen. But whatever they say, always do it and more. For example, if they ask for their meal free your response might be:
“Mr. Smith, of course, your meal tonight is in the house. But I’d also like to buy you and your family dinner the next time you join us. Would that be okay?”
Assure them you’ll fix the problem.
Because you listened and you confirmed their complaint, you know why they are upset. Take the next step and assure them you will take action to make sure it does not happen again. Otherwise, why would they come back? (You need to fix the problem too.)
Thank them.
Without direct customer feedback, we have no idea if we are delivering the experience our customers want. When they tell us we have failed, they are offering priceless information on how we can improve our business. They are telling us what we need to do to keep customers coming back. So thank them for their help. It’s a rare customer who will take the time and effort to offer feedback. Thanking them will go a long way toward winning them back.
If your employees handle every customer complaint using these steps, you’ll keep 99% of them coming back. You’ll have a healthier business because it keeps getting better. And we all know happy, loyal customers are the foundation of a healthy, sustainable business.
The bottom line
Winning customers back with exceptional service is an important aspect of your business that you should focus on, but when customers already have one foot out the door let the parting be as frictionless as possible.
Customers aren’t necessarily done with you for good just because they cancel their account once, so don’t hassle them as they exit. Remind them what they’ll be missing by simply being sincerely helpful.
Turn complaining customers into fans by communicating with them and fixing the problem.
Need some help in building better customer service for your customers? Have you noticed the growing importance of the service you provide? Creative ideas to help enhance your word of mouth marketing?
Call today for aFREEconsultation or aFREEquote. Learn about some options to scope your customer service improvement and pay for results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas for your service to customers.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
Check out these additional articles on customer service insights from our library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Software is one of the fastest-growing industries. Every business didn’t stop at just getting one software. They need the best and most updated version to enhance the productivity of their work. Many people go for freelance developers which may not always be a good choice. They might be very skilled, but there are many departments where they lack. A software house works according to a well defined standard operating procedure of their firm to ensure they always deliver nothing less than the best application. Here’s how they do it.
They Hire Only the Best
To provide the best work, you need the best professionals to do it. Reputed IT firms like GK Group HC only hire the best developers to ensure the quality of their backend programming services.
Every candidate is scrutinized through a strict screening process and multiple interviews are conducted to understand their full potential. It is because of these most skilled professionals that an IT firm is able to deliver the best performance.
Business Analyst to Understand the Requirements
Developers can do their job with perfection, but software development requires a lot more skills than just programming. Successful software houses have business analysts to conduct meetings with the clients to understand their requirements.
Their business analysts are experienced developers who have spent nearly or over a decade in the profession. This experience enables them to understand precisely what the client wants and the best way to develop it.
They Follow a Proper Procedure
After all the requirements are understood, comes the phase where they start to divide the work according to specific development models. They specify an in-depth requirement of each functionality and its relation with other parts of the projects. It is in this phase, that practical implementation of the project and coding is started. This well-defined set of standards make the development foolproof and more efficient.
Teamwork is Uncanny
A successful IT house like GK Group HC understands the importance of teamwork and pay special
attention to it. In many firms, specific sports and games are organized to
enhance productivity. Though most programmers prefer to work alone, software
houses create an environment where teamwork is mandatory. The teamwork isn’t
about increasing the speed of the project but enhancing its efficiency.
A Quality Assurance Department on the Job
Every good software house has a quality assurance department. The sole job of this department is to ensure no bug or low quality work goes to the client. They are professionals who use purpose-built tools, resources, and techniques to test the application in every way possible.
They have several environments and the application has to pass through each one before it is cleared for delivery. These professionals understand everything about the development and have expertise specific to finding bugs and mistakes in a software system.
After Sales Services
IT houses also have to provide after-sales services to make
sure the client keeps returning. That’s why they build the application in a way
which can later be optimized or modified as per his requirements.
Products and services that are remarkable get talked about. A famous quote fromSeth Godin. And Seth, products, and services that are below par get talked about even more. Guarantees of poor customer service? They are everywhere you look. Like fireflies on a hot summer night.
Many businesses spend considerable time trying to create great customer service and customer experiences. Problem is they start their work on the complex side of the equation
Examples: Stunning Customer Service Lessons and Their Examples
And another important perspective from Seth:
People don’t believe what you tell them.
They rarely believe what you show them.
They often believe what their friends tell them.
They always believe what they tell themselves.
Seth Godin
“Your call is very important to us,” is not a true statement because it’s a promise not meant to be kept. The truth is self-evident. You’ll often say what you need to make customers go away.
“I promise I’ll tell my manager about this,” is of course not a real promise either. It might be uttered with good intent, or might be designed to get an annoying customer to go away, but still…
You can already guess the problem with little lies. They allow you to blur and then ultimately get you to cross the line, and they lead to bigger and bigger lies. The worst kind of little lies are the ones you make to yourself. Once you’re willing to lie to yourself, it’s all downhill.
So here are some great examples of poor customer service. The easy stuff, so to speak. The stuff your business needs to start with … to make sure no issues here. But while your business is working to build the great customer service … the little things are killing you.
We’ve all seen and heard these before:
Poor customer service
Lack of empathy
Many employees are not engaged. And they don’t care.
Employees not empowered
Employees can’t act on their own to solve your problems.
Broken promises
Broken promises and no follow-up. No closure on what they tell you. Little lies that start to grow.
You answer questions
Customers get handed off and have to repeat the answers. Sometimes 3 or more times. Really annoying.
No menu option
Companies don’t have a menu option to talk with a real person. Until you have been through the wringer 3 times or more.
Eliminate long waits.
Long waits
Long waits on hold with a repeating recording telling you that the business will be with you momentarily.
Poor customer service by multiple handoffs
With many handoffs, you are beginning to wonder if everyone in the company is brand new. And knows little.
Customer survey requests
Too many multiple requests starting before you have ever had any service.
Very long time to get a response
No quick response either verbally via the phone or online chat.
Nowhere on the website to find information
Very difficult to find the information you assume it should be readily available.
Companies that refuse to break small promises have a much easier time keeping big promises. And they earn a reputation, one that makes their handshake worth more. Simple things are done right.
They make sure the little things are working well before they turn their attention to the more complex elements of service and experience.
Given that expectation and trust are just about all we have left to sell, it seems to us that little lies and small promises are at the very heart of the matter. And they’re a simple choice, nothing requiring an MBA or a spreadsheet. Just common sense.
If your customers know you will always focus on your needs then they will treat you accordingly and often will not trust you. You will not be a high priority for them because they are not a high priority for you.
But if they know you will always do right by them, they will treat you like someone they can trust. And they’ll come back more often.
Remember … the more you engage with customers, the more you can own the moment, the better your understanding of their needs and from these insights the easier it is for you to win new customers. And keep the ones you have happy. This is the most important thing you can do. Making poor service go away.
Do you have a customer service experience to share with this community?
Need some help in building better customer service for your customers? Have you noticed the growing importance from customer service you provide, especially for your marketing? Creative ideas to help enhance your word of mouth marketing?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your customer service improvement and pay for results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas for your service to customers.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on customer service from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
How to Build Trust to Keep Customers Returning
Best Buy Lessons in Customer Service
Like this short blog?Follow Digital Spark Marketing on LinkedIn or add us to your circles for 3-4 short, interesting blogs, stories per week.
I stayed in a new hotel in Ohio a while back. The situation was that it was recently opened and should not have been opened until the problems were worked out and management was ready. There were many problems with customer churn, believe me.
Remember this: How to Build Trust to Keep Customers Returning
But not only did the staff take care of the issues for me, the manager, once he got me back to ‘even’, continued to build the relationship with me. His techniques included exceptional, personalized service – using my name in face-to-face greetings, and continued follow-up and attention to detail. He actually made me believe I was the best customer he had ever had. Not only did I forget about the earlier problems, but I was feeling great about the entire three-day experience.
Service recovery requires remaining with your customer, through follow-up, and through unexpected contact well after the issue. All customers deserve our best service … but the ones that have a negative experience represent an opportunity to define a business.
Such an opportunity represents an opportunity to turn customers into enthusiasts and maybe even advocates. And that requires going beyond the ‘break-even’ point for that customer.
Research has shown time and time again that customers who reported a problem and were delighted with the outcome have higher satisfaction with the business than the ones who never experienced a problem.
Why should any company not want to seize such an opportunity?
Try it … the next time you have a customer who has had a back experience with your business.
Need some help in reducing customer churn and building better customer service for your customers? Have you noticed the growing importance from customer service you provide, especially for your marketing? Creative ideas to help enhance your word of mouth marketing?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your customer service improvement and pay for results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas for your service to customers.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on customer service from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Stunning Customer Service Lessons and Their Examples
10 Guarantees of Poor Customer Service
Best Buy Lessons in Customer Service
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Feelings have a critical role in the way customers are influenced. I’d like to introduce you to Kyle. Kyle is an example of the things that are right at Best Buy’s customer care service.
It’s not that Kyle is the only example of great customer service at Best Buy, but I was so delighted with my new Samsung Galaxy S5 that I didn’t get a picture of Jeff, who signed me up. Suffice it to say he looked like he just started to shave. But the perfect customer focused sales agent who knew all the lessons in customer service.
Watch out: 10 Guarantees of Poor Customer Service
He was very aware how much feelings impact the ways customers are influenced.
Here is how the story goes:
A customer walks into a store
A couple of weeks ago, I walked into my local Best Buy store to shop for a smartphone. What I wanted was to buy an Android phone that was not going to lock me into a particular service plan for two years and a plan that would give me unlimited phone minutes, data, and text for a price that I was happy with.
I certainly got that, but I also came out with an extraordinary impression of Best Buy. I’d been thinking a lot about customer service myself as my agency works with its clients on this subject. Over the first two weeks or so I owned my new phone, Best Buy’s customer service did nothing but reinforce my initial impression.
This may surprise you, but receiving actual extraordinary customer service is rare enough in my life that I find it difficult to find examples to learn from. So I thought I’d deconstruct Kyle’s and Best Buy’s customer service for what I could learn.
I gave every Android phone there a thorough working over, asked lots of questions, and Kyle never once treated me as if he was in a hurry to move to a new customer. Instead, he showed patience and understanding that this was a significant purchase that I’d be affected by for months, if not years, to come.
My clients are spending a heck of a lot more money with me than I ever will with Best Buy, for a design that is far more business critical than my cell phone is to me. No matter what other projects I have going, I need to constantly remind myself to take whatever time I need to take to ensure the clients’ designs are the correct ones for them.
Be Classy
When someone is switching to your services from working with another company, often they’ll explain to you what their reasons are for switching. I was pretty clear about what my reasons for switching were when I was buying my phone from Kyle.
While he was always helpful, he never once took my whining as an excuse to pile on the competitor. I’m not sure if this is something trained to Best Buy’s employees or if it is just how Kyle is, but I was impressed with the class he used in handling the situation.
Kyle took a few moments out whenever a new customer came into the department to greet him or her. And it was a genuine, friendly greeting.
I had the feeling that Kyle knew exactly how each person’s kids were doing in the little league. I really appreciated knowing that existing customers were treated so well. And, of course, the implication was not lost on me that if I became a Best Buy customer, that this is how I’d be treated.
Avoid paranoia
One of the things that Kyle said to me as he closed the sale was, “We want you to be with Best Buy because you want to be with Best Buy.” This was in stark contrast to my previous experience. Even though I’d been with them for eight years, they refused to sell me a phone I’d be happy with at a reasonable price without locking me into a 2-year contract.
That particular company exacerbated the problem by associating themselves closely with the manufacturer of their most over-hyped phone, one that claims to deliver wonderful experiences by forcing you to have exactly the experience they want.
Shortly after I went into business, I had several clients not pay me, to the tune of enough money that it pretty well fouled up my credit. So for a while, I was all about ensuring that my clients were locked down about as tight as I could get them. But you know what? If you do that for long enough and don’t ever extend any trust to your clients, sooner or later they’ll start not trusting you. And start counting the days until they are allowed to leave.
I don’t want my clients thinking about me like that.
Customer care service tips … don’t make clients feel bad
As I mentioned before, between having a couple of clients not pay early on and having my property hit by a major hurricane, my credit is not perfect. When Kyle ran my credit, Best Buy already had a plan in place that was perfect for where I am in the credit repair process. Everything went smoothly, and I didn’t have to stammer out any explanations about hurricanes and bad clients.
Once I had my phone, I had an issue where the flash would go on and off while I was trying to use the camera for QR code scanning. I called up the store with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder. I was afraid I’d allowed myself to get stuck with a bum device, despite the fact that they’d explained I could return the phone within 14 days for a full refund.
“If I can’t get this resolved, I’m going to have to return it,” I proclaimed.
“OK,” said the voice on the other end of the phone.
Completely took the wind out of my sails. And when I took the phone into the shop, Kyle competently verified the problem, not remotely implying that I was stupid or insane to even have a problem. Amazingly, she even knew what to do to fix it, though we were both surprised that it worked.
How many times do we as designers feel the need to “prove” that a problem that the customer is having is because they’re doing something wrong? Even if they are, a better way to handle all around is just to tell them what the right procedure is, going to screen sharing if necessary.
If it really is your problem, you haven’t said something nasty to someone you then need to apologize for.
When I left with my new Behold II, I had something else as well–a business card from the Best Buy with Kyle’s personal phone number on it, in case I had questions. I strongly doubt that Best Buy insists its employees do this, but it’s hard to beat having motivated employees who will take it upon themselves to extend this kind of personal touch.
What Have You Learned?
How about you? Do you have stories of people or companies that have completely “wowed” you with their customer service? Please share.
Do you have a lesson about making your customer service better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.
It’s up to you to keep improving your customer attention and focus. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on customer service from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Stunning Customer Service Lessons and Their Examples
10 Guarantees of Poor Customer Service
How to Build Trust to Keep Customers Returning
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
