Customer Service Training, Tips, Articles & Videos with Myra Golden
My Keynote at the 2012 Contact Center Association Conference
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For Zappos it’s all about delivering WOW. This presentation delivers powerful insights into the unique ways Zappos approaches screening and hiring, quality monitoring, social customer service, and making emotional connections with customers – all with the single goal of consistently delivering a WOW customer experience.
In this keynote I share the 5 keys Contact Center Managers and frontline employees can adopt and apply to create an engaging and unforgettable customer experience. (Live and Deliver WOW, Customer Experience as the #1 Priority, Make Emotional Connections with Customers, the Speed of Light, Treat Employees Very Well). Plus, discover how Zappos is able to WOW customers with no call scripts and no talk time targets and learn why Zappos pays employees $2,000 to quit. Enjoy!
Tags: Contact Center Agent Training, Contact Center Association Conference, customer experience keynote speaker, Customer Loyalty Speaker, Customer Service Keynote Speaker, Myra Golden, Myra Golden Keynote, Myra Golden Zappos Keynote, Zappos Customer Experience
If you’re not into customers, why are you even working here?
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I just wrapped up a meeting with a brilliant CEO. I’m on retainer to manage the client experience at his company and today we were reviewing gaps in service. My client is big on “feeling.” He explained to me that he never loses a customer because of price. “When we lose a customer, it’s because they didn’t feel taken care of. If we were taking care of them, they wouldn’t even entertain a quote from a competitor. It’s all about how we make them feel.” And he’s absolutely right.
For most organizations, service is really all they have. Most companies are in business to serve customers. Employees are paid to serve customers. The CEO and I spoke at length about this today. My charge for this client is to ensure that the employees get it. They must get the fact that they have to serve customers with enthusiasm. They must work to ensure customers hang up happy. It is their job to give customers an experience that leaves them saying, “Wow…that was really refreshing.”
At one point in the conversation, the CEO said to me, “If you’re not into customers, why are you even working here?” You know, I have asked that question many times…of fast food employees, when I hang up the phone after speaking with a customer service rep and after countless experiences in retail. If you don’t feel up to taking care of customers, why are you working at a company that has customers as its lifeblood?
I don’t believe in having anyone work for me that doesn’t “feel” customer service. My philosophy is very much like the Netflix organization:
Keep the star employees and give everyone else a generous severance package.
{A few months ago I wrote a blog post on Netflix’s practice of keeping their stars and offering the others generous severance packages so roles can be opened up for other stars. Read my Netflix blog post here.}
The bottom line: It’s time to take the customer experience seriously. Get rid of people who aren’t “into” serving customers. Ask yourself, “Why are they working here if they aren’t taking care of our customers?” Give them a generous severance package and find a customer service rock star to replace them.
Work with me on your customer experience.
Customer WinBack
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How to recover revenue by recapturing lost customers
Profitability and growth are dependent on a firm’s ability to successfully acquire and retain customers. And if a high net-worth customer defects, the firm needs a proven process for winning the customer back.
Customer winback is the strategic process of going after defected customers with the goal of winning them back. This process enables companies to recover revenue and recapture market share. Studies show that companies can successfully win back 20% – 40% of lost customers when they try. (Griffin & Lowenstein, 2001)
Any customer retention strategy needs to include a fiercely focused plan for winning back customers who have defected to the competition. Following is a simple 6-step customer winback strategy designed to help firms recover profits by recapturing defected customers.
1. Track customers who leave.
Research by CustomerSat shows that 41% of companies do not know how many customers they lose per year. The first step of a win back program is to know how many customers you are losing. Begin tracking customer defection on an annual basis.
2. Develop an at-risk profile.
Once you begin tracking customer defection, the next step is to analyze lost customers and look for common denominators, patterns and trends among the defected group. For example, one bank found that more than 20% of its lost customers were over 55, had been with the bank for more than 10 years and had held multiple accounts. This valuable information must then be disseminated to the group responsible for customer retention so loyalty-marketing efforts can focus on communicating with current customers who match the profile of high defectors so those (at-risk) customers can be protected from defection.
3. Identify early warning signs of defection.
In many industries, customers on the brink of defection can be detected by one or more factors. For example, a banking customer who has stopped her automatic drafts and direct deposits and whose average monthly balance drops significantly might be tying up loose ends and heading to a competitor. Discover what factors suggest your customers are on their way out so you can proactively communicate with them and entice them to stay.
4. Choose win back candidates.
Determine which defected (or on the brink of defection) customers the company wants to win back. You won’t want to attempt to win back all lost customers. There are some customers you’re not positioned to create superior value for. By selectively choosing win back targets, you can focus and maximize your efforts by going after only your best-fit customers.
5. Go get ‘em!
Develop and hold regular customer win back “campaigns” in order to win back customers and learn why customers are leaving. Put together a team to personally call your best customers who have left and survey those customers. (What’s prompted you to leave us? Where are you going? What attracts you to___?) Next, invite the customers to come back. Overcome objections they give you and assure customers that you can and will deliver the level of service they expect and deserve.
6. Follow-up with all win back candidates.
When you win customers back, follow-up 30, 60, and 90 days after reuniting to ensure you are delivering the level of service they expect – service that will keep them for life. For the customers you don’t win back, follow-up and thank them for their past business and for the information they provided you via survey after leaving.
Research by CustomerSat recently found that 62% of companies that fired a key supplier reported choosing a replacement supplier that offered basically the same product or service. This tells us that customer’s needs remain the same when they defect and these needs could easily still be met by the original firm. This is a golden opportunity for companies to work to win back the defected customer.
When companies combine acquisition efforts with strong recovery and win-back strategies, they can literally lead their companies to a position of market dominance based on the strength of their service strategy.
When your team is fiercely focused on delighting and keeping customers, your company will retain more customers and increase profits
Myra Golden Media helps organizations retain more customers and improve corporate reputations in the eyes of consumers. Our clients include corporate giants such as McDonald’s, Frito-Lay, Michelin Tires and Coca-Cola, major nonprofits such as American Medical Association and National Association of Division Order Analysts, and specialized firms such as Ihloff Salon & Day Spa, Mullin Plumbing, and Discount Debt. Learn more about Myra Golden’s consulting and training services: http://www.myragolden.com/
Sources cited.
CustomerSat (www.CustomerSat.com)
Griffin, Jill, Lowenstein, Michael W., Customer Winback, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco
The Top 3 Things Most Companies Miss When It Comes to Creating a Customer-Focused Culture
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Many organizations talk about creating a customer-focused culture, but few companies actually create and sustain a true customer-focused culture. Culture is about more than exciting customer service training, employee empowerment, buttons and mugs, and advertising. A real and sustained customer culture begins with clarity of purpose, customer-friendly policies, and the right people. Organizations often miss 3 critical aspects of customer culture. Let’s take a look at the 3 critical areas of a customer focused culture and learn how to adopt and master each of them.
1. Be very clear about the behaviors employees are expected to deliver. Oftentimes employees don’t take care of customers because they fear they’ll do too much or they just don’t know that the company wants them to do whatever it takes to please a customer. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel is crystal clear in its message to employees. Every Ritz-Carlton employee is empowered to spend up to $2,000 per guest, per day to resolve issues and ensure guest satisfaction.
One of my clients clarifies expectations of employees this way: “Do what’s right for the customer and you will have done what’s right for the organization.” My client further tells employees that they will never be reprimanded for taking care of a customer.
Be crystal clear on what you expect of employees and it will be much easier for them to reach your customer-focused targets.
2. Develop customer-friendly policies. Were your policies written to create the best possible experience for your customer or were they written to settle disputes and protect profits? Most corporate policies look something like this:
“ABC Company will offer you an exchange or refund provided that you return the item within 28 day of purchase and you produce your original ABC register receipt at the time you return the item.”
Creating and sustaining a true customer service culture isn’t possible without having customer policies that help customers have the best possible experience. Every year a popular home shopping network extends its normal 30-day return policy during the holidays so that customers can buy gifts with confidence. At this company, all purchases from November 1st through December 23rd can be returned for any reason until January 31. Customers can buy gifts for friends and family confidently knowing that those gifts can be returned well after the holiday season.
Take a look at your policies and ensure they support the best possible experience for your customers.
3. If employees aren’t completely customer focused, replace them.
The world’s largest online shoe retailer, legendary for customer service excellence, pays employees to quit. All new employees go through an intensive 5-week customer service training. After two weeks in the immersive customer service and culture training, employees are given “The offer.” “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $2,000 bonus.”
The company has found that the people willing to take the offer don’t have the sense of commitment to excellence they are looking for. The company only wants people that fit in with their customer-centric culture.
A customer culture will only happen when all employees have bought into the culture and support it fiercely. Strategically move or remove the wrong people so you can truly focus on delivering the best possible customer experience.
Be crystal clear in your expectations of employee behavior. Ensure your policies really do give customers the best possible experience. And by all means, have only the right people in charge of servicing your customers. When you do these things, you’ll be on your way to creating a true customer focused culture.
For help with creating your company culture, explore customer service consulting and customer service training at http://www.MyraGolden.com.
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Tags: Customer service culture
>>Customer Satisfaction Is Worthless!
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If Customer Satisfaction Is Your Goal, Don’t Ask Me to Help You!
Last month I got a call from a client wanting me to deliver a keynote address on customer satisfaction. I politely explained, “I don’t speak on customer satisfaction.” My client was shocked, as for the past 12 months I’ve been rolling out a strategic plan in her company designed to increase the bottom line by increasing customer retention and by building a customer recovery strategy. I went on to explain 4 reasons why I, as a fierce customer loyalty advocate, don’t speak on customer satisfaction.
1. Customer satisfaction means NOTHING these days. The truth is, today’s customers expect mediocre service. Apathy is expected. Late is expected. Problems are expected. No follow-through is expected. As long as companies don’t g o below these very low expectations, customers are satisfied.
2. Customer satisfaction = “Sufficient or Adequate Service.” When a company achieves “customer satisfaction” what it’s really achieved is
getting customers to feel that the service is adequate or sufficient—that it wasn’t horrible. The customer’s expectations, typically very low expectations, were met. That’s all customer satisfaction means.
3. Customers report being “satisfied” only because their expectations are so low and because no one else is doing any better.
4. Satisfied customers are not your customers. They’re just with you until they find something better.
I concluded that I do speak on and help my clients build customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction is a feeling…a feeling that low expectations have been met. Customer loyalty, on the other hand, is a set of behaviors that produce revenue.
- Loyal customers by definition don’t defect.
- Loyal customers reward the company by buying from you again and again.
- Loyal customers buy other products or services in your line.
- Loyal customers tell people in their network about your company (referrals). – That is, they actually market for you and word-of-mouth advertising is the most persuasive form of advertising.
I urge you to stop striving for high customer satisfaction and focus on delivering truly outstanding service and building a profitable base of loyal customers. Satisfied customers will give you a “good” ranking on a survey today and leave you for the competition tomorrow. Loyal customers return again and again, recommend your company often and significantly add to your bottom line!
Fast Facts about Customer Loyalty
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- 95% of complaining customers will remain loyal if their problems are resolved immediately and to their satisfaction. TARP, Inc. (For help developing a customer recovery strategy designed to restore customer confidence after service failures, visit us here.)
- On average, companies have a 20-40% chance of selling to lost customers, and only a 5 – 20% probability of selling to new prospects. Marketing Metrics.
- It costs 4 – 10 times more to win a customer than it does to keep a customer.
- Long-term customers tend to spend more with a company than new customers (and they are easier to serve than new customers). Bain & Co.
- Unhappy customers will tell approximately 11 people about their experience with a company. TARP, Inc. (In the world of social media, the average disgruntled customer will reach 3000 customers!)
To learn how to retain more customers and earn devoted customer loyalty, please visit Myra Golden here.
Four Compelling Reasons to Keep the Customers You Have
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Keeping the customers you have is as important to your bottom line and the survival of your business as winning new customers. It’s also a tremendous cost savings to keep the customers you have. You’ve probably already heard that it costs 4 – 6 times more to win a customer than to keep a customer. If that fact isn’t enough to convince you that you should focus on keeping the customers you have, take a look at four more compelling reasons.
- Loyal customers are the easiest customers to serve. Over time, you learn the preferences of customers and they become more educated on the scope of your offerings. This knowledge of expectations on both ends leads to decreased transaction time and fewer problems, which saves you money.
- Long-term customers tend to spend more with you than new customers. In a loyalty study of more than 100 companies, an auto-service company found that the expected profit of a fourth year customer is more than triple that of a first year customer. As the business-to-customer relationship grows, profits increase.
- Happy, loyal customers purchase other products or services in the company’s line resulting in, again, increased profits.
- Satisfied, loyal customers recommend the company’s products or services. A recommendation from a friend or colleague can be a decisive influence on purchasing choices.
Keeping the customers you have is not simply a “warm and fuzzy” customer service slogan…it’s downright profitable! This post is an excert from Myra’s book Beyond WOW.
I work with companies that are serious about delighting and keeping customers. My blog includes thoughts, articles, videos, and even rants about customer service. Thanks for stopping by. :)
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