| |
| |
|
Customer Service Information |
|
|
|
Customer Service, Italian Style
Nowadays, we complain nearly all of the time about how few businesses remember how to provide quality service to their customers. But a recent trip to Italy not only reminded me that the art of service is not dead, but that providing outstanding service is the key to almost any successful business. Here are a few well-worn but important principles that I was reminded of during that trip: The Customer Always Comes First: When you patronize a retail store or restaurant in Italy, it is almost always the owner of the business that takes care of you. It's not that there aren't other employees; other staff members are usually busy straightening inventory or dealing with deliveries. But dealing with customers is simply too important a task to be delegated. Product Knowledge Is King: Remember your last retail shopping experience, where you had to ask three different sales people to get an answer to a simple question about a product? Not in Italy. Every salesperson we dealt with was a product expert, whether it was about the kind of material used in a garment, the amount of warmth that various types of glove leather would provide, or how a piece of gold jewelry was crafted. Be Proud Of What You Offer: Retail specialty stores in Italy typically offer goods in a wide range of prices to suit every budget. But you'll never catch a shop owner steering you toward their expensive wares by denigrating the quality of their less expensive merchandise. If it's good enough for them to sell, it's good enough for you to buy. No Job Is Too Small Or Unimportant: Every morning, the streets of Florence were filled with shopkeepers sweeping their sidewalks, or polishing their doorways or cleaning their display windows. And, when there aren't customers to serve, there are shelves to be organized, merchandise to be tidied and stock to be added. These are important tasks that, no matter how menial they appear, help to create a positive business image with the customer. Competitors Are Not Your Enemies: More than once, we were referred to another shop when the one that we were visiting did not have what we were looking for. More interested in building a long-term relationship than in making a quick sale, shopkeepers in Italy readily refer customers to competitors who can better meet an immediate need, knowing that the best customers will remember who referred them. Running A Business Should Be A Joy, Not A Job: Retailers in Italy work hours comparable to their U.S. counterparts. However, we never once met a tired or grumpy shopkeeper who didn't have the time to give us as much attention as the first customer of the day, and who didn't go out of their way to make us feel welcome in their shop and in their city. William von Achen is president of Strategic Management Resources, an executive coaching and management consulting firm offering advice and counsel to business owners and senior executives. For more information visit our web site at http://www.smrweb.com
MORE RESOURCES:
customer service - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
From Scowl to Smile: 5 Practical Steps to Instill Exceptional Customer Service Whether in a restaurant, a retail establishment, or the local post office, we have all experienced a decline in customer service. Rarely do smiling, happy employees interact with us anymore. Customer Service: Why Bears Make Bad Customers Every business owner should have a picture of his or her ideal customer. When I picture my ideal customer, I see a business owner struggling to find time for all that needs to be done, someone passionate about what they do, someone striving to find answers to make their business run better. Aint We Wonderful! It may come as a surprise to you to discover that customers don't buy your products or services because they feel that you have a right to make a profit. In other words, their motive for doing business with you is not to help you buy the latest Jaguar or put your children through college. How To Kick Your Customer Service Up A Notch! Welcome to the inaugural issue of Human Tech Tips -- Tip #1. How do we take your customer service and kick it up a notch?This is a big question so where do we begin?As an overview, it's a given that the answer is three-fold: People, Process, and Technology. First Contact: The Source of Customer Loyalty With customers being smarter, more cost conscious, more product knowledgeable and more demanding, improving customer service has become a major focus within many businesses. In Customer Satisfaction is Worthless; Customer Loyalty is Priceless, author Jeffrey Gitomer contends the real solution is shifting the paradigm away from customer service to customer loyalty. Communicating for Profit and Customer Satisfaction The President of a 200+ store division of a major retailer learned of a serious communication problem and commented that 'this was to be expected in large organizations'. Well, that clears everything up. How To Boost Your Bottom Line With Two Little Words I hate to sound like one of those cheesy get-rich-quick commercials, but this week I am going to let you in on a little secret that is so powerful that it will immediately change the way you do business.In fact, this little secret is so powerful that you will be amazed at its immediate effect on you, your employees, and your bottom line. Become a Customer Enthusiasm-Guru! One thing all successful small business owners have in common is the knowledge that their business is based on enthusiastic customers. Despite their multi-tasking titles of bookkeeper, service provider and sales-manager, their most important title is Customer-Enthusiasm Guru. Customer Service - Winning Customer Experiences Winning Customer ExperiencesMuch research has been done on what the makes a winning customer experience. What is it that makes customers come back to your business instead of going to someone else's? If your repeat business is low, what is it that you are doing to drive your customers away? There is a consistent theme that emerges across the research - winning customer experiences are built on consistency. Outsourcing: The Unspoken Costs Outsourcing seems to be the new-new thing and approximately 50% of our major corporations are doing it. What are the costs? The benefits? And what skills need to be managed in order to make it work optimally?Let's get a clear understanding of what we mean by outsourcing: it's the shifting of easily codified jobs - such as help desk support, call centers, system maintenance, and programming jobs - to countries that can manage them more cheaply. Post Office, Incredible Lady Postmaster There are two Post Offices that I routinely visit. One is the office that delivers my mail and the other is frequently on the path of some daily errands. Quality vs. Quantity There is a battle in Call Centers. The teams are Quality vs. Find Out Where Your Firm Stands in Today's Customer Looking For Ways to Improve Sales and Customer Relationships?Find Out Where Your Firm Stands in Today's Customer Touchpoint Management (CTM) Revolution by Taking the CTM Quiz(San Rafael, CA) What could be more important than improving sales and your customer relationships? Today, there is a fast growing movement, a revolution, among organizations interested in improving their customer-centricity through a better understanding of customer interactions, or "touchpoints." Called "Customer Touchpoint Management" (CTM), the goal of this new movement is to improve customer experiences, and as a result, improve customer relationships. Creating the Right 'Viral Reputation' Unless you are brand new to business, or have been under a rock for quite some time - one key marketing technique (which isn't new) - is called 'Viral'.Based on the word 'virus' - viral marketing or viral business simply means it 'spreads' like a virus. Cheap To Keep You've heard it all before when it comes to stats about customer retention. Acquiring a customer costs five to 10 times more than retaining one. Why Cant Microsoft Make Soft Packaging? Why is it that Microsoft wants you to buy its product but does not want you to open the plastic case that is welded around the cardboard box? I believe that such packaging along with cockroaches will survive atomic disasters!Good luck finding any clue as to an easy way to open this fused bit of skin-tearing packaging. I split my scissors trying to pry open the ends. Top 10 customer service tips 1. Hire people who have a service attitude. Are You A Coward? I Was Over the last month, I have come to hate emails and answerphones; not because I get 100 emails every day but because emails and answerphones are fast becoming the tool of the coward. At Beyond Philosophy we worked with a client a while ago whose account managers and sales teams never used to speak to anyone! They just used to send emails. How to Transform Your Voicemail into an Effective Medium of Communication "Hi this is Randy. Leave me a message after the beep and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Handling Angry Clients What do you do when your client gets mad at you? How do you handle this? An angry client can be one of the biggest time and energy drains on a sales person. What you should specifically do will obviously depend on what the client is angry about.
|
| Article List | Index | Site Map |
|
All logos, trademarks and articles on this site are property and copyright of their respective owner(s).
The comments are property of their posters, all the rest is Copyright © 2006 CanadaSEEK.com - All Rights Reserved. |