Customer Service

Is your business remarkable? But what does that actually mean? What makes a business remarkable? In simple terms, you could say it's anything that gets people talking about it. And that means being dramatically and demonstrably different from your competitors.

In truly customer-focused organisations, 'customer delight' is an integral part of the culture. It's just the way things are done. And whatever your industry or sector, there are some common ingredients that can help you achieve it.

Cash-strapped consumers are becoming increasingly discerning where and with whom they spend their money, with more than a third saying that they would walk away from a brand for good if it failed to deliver a good customer experience first time, every time.

For too long, customers have taken a back seat to investors. But are they now making their voices heard? Three recent news stories suggest to me that they are.

Training in customer service doesn't require much money. It's mostly about instilling a service mindset throughout the organization. Such a mindset reaps great rewards, yet time and again we see companies do badly and even fail because of poor customer service.

If you want to deliver a great customer experience you must first create an engaging employee experience. And what what motivates employees is feeling connected to the brand promise.

In real customer-focused businesses, 'culture' is integral to competitive advantage becuase it is the thing that gives customers a reason to come back and to tell others.

It's simply not true that an organization has to be customer-centric to be successful. In fact, many companies are successful with a minimal amount of customer focus and customer engagement.

If you want to learn a new language you have to work at it. The same is true if you want to create consistently great customer experiences. Those who work hard and practise consistently are the ones that become fluent in it.

The mantra that 'the customer is King' is mouthed by senior managers in every industry. True in theory, it is an ignoble lie in most companies, because executives prefer their ivory towers to the store floor.

One sign of good customer service is how an organisation deals with customer disappointment. In fact, successful companies go out and look for complaints because they know that the easier they are to complain to, the more customer-focussed they are likely to be.

Companies in Asia are not putting sufficient emphasis on customer service, according to a new report, with a growing divide opening between what consumers expect and what firms are prepared to provide.

Lots of organisations invest a lot of time and money in getting customer feedback. But much of this time and money is wasted because they either ask the wrong questions or ignore the answers. So here are 10 questions that can't be ignored.

Dan Bobinski argues that the reason USPS is losing so much money is that it's an organization in which micromanagement to enforce inefficient procedures has run riot and finding ways to operate more efficiently is actually punished.

Planned spontaneity is a great way for any organisation to enhance the customer experience. Not just that, it's also a great way of engaging your people in helping demonstrate to your customers that you do actually care.

When was the last time you approached your business as if you were a brand new customer? What would your customers say about how you greet them, how you treat them, and how you talk about/treat your co-workers?

Traditional marketing theory has for years been based on a fundamental principle known as the 4Ps. But it's time to forget about them. The original 4 Ps are Passe, Past it, kaPut and Pointless. Instead, I offer you a new set of P's for the age of customer control.

What could you give your customers or colleagues this Christmas? I'm not talking about discounts or donations, but things that won't cost you anything but still add real value to others.

Over the past two decades we've had wave after wave of introductions of mediaeval management practices under the guise of modernisation. By far the most corrosive of these is the rise of the call centre, a model that seems to be designed to protect the people with accountability from any direct contact with their customers.

The real distinction between companies isn't ownership, its whether there is an 'It's not my job' mentality or a 'Let's get it done' mentality.

Poor customer service is costing UK businesses an astonishing £15.3 billion a year. So what does "poor service" mean in practise? And what can orgainsations do to provide better service?

You can try whatever gimmicks you like to try to get staff to provide excellent customer service. But good service starts with good management. Unless managers treat their staff the way they want their staff to treat their customers, they'll never get good service results.

The great economic disaster rumbles on, but the 21st century economy will continue to thrive and grow in the astonishing environment of the Digital Revolution.

Marc Silvester and Mohi Ahmed of Fujitsu map talk about a new approach to service which they anticipate as being as powerful in the service world as Toyota's has been in manufacturing.

Management is out of date. Managers are failing to take advantage of a unique moment in history where the gathering pace of change opens the door to revolution and new types of organisation.

It may well be the last thing you want to hear as you're thinking about your holiday, but firms that respond to customers 24/7 are more likely to win business than those that don't.

When I'm asked how organisations can create devoted customers, I reply "just keep doing great things to them". It seesm obvious, but creating 'devoted' customers is about consistently doing things that make customers feel valued.

How could a project as high-profile and important as the opening of Heathrow airport's new Terminal Five have gone so disastrously awry at such a sensitive moment? Robert Heller dissects the fiasco.

Knowing who its customers are is the foundation for any successful organisation. And as the US Federal Aviation Administration has demonstrated, getting this wrong can be disastrous.

With British Airways reeling from one of the biggest corporate PR disasters in history, it's worth mentioning just how much impact social media had on the Terminal 5 catastrophe.

I received a handwritten postcard recently from a supplier of mine last week. It had a real impact on me and reminded me that sometime, doing things the old way is a great way to stand out from the crowd.

January is traditionally the time for New Year Resolutions. But instead, here are 10 ideas for New Year Revolutions - simple things that can help revolutionize your approach to your customers in 2008.

Many organisations are quick to act when things go wrong. But what about when things go well? Given the importance to staff of praise and recognition, why is customer praise not handled with the same energy as customer complaints?

Mike's job in a financial institution is to handle complaints about miss-selling – and he's worried by the number of unhappy customers who contact him every day. But his bosses won't face up to the problem. Andy Hanselman offers some advice.

If you're looking for that ground breaking, market changing new idea, you need to think big, right? Well, not necessarily. The biggest advances often come from focusing on the smallest things.

When a customer brings a complaint to our attention we have a choice. We can be arrogant and pigheaded, or we can listen carefully - and, if necessary, apologize and make it right.

The customer may always be right, but the increasingly demanding nature of many customers is creating real headaches for managers.

Tying customers into your business has huge benefits, but only if it's their choice. The best businesses aren't just easy to buy from, they ought to be easy to walk away from, too. In the long run, keeping customers locked in against their will is no good for anybody.

Have you ever been blindsided by changes in your customers' behavior? These shifts may happen gradually or literally overnight. Either way, they can destroy a business unless you take steps to ensure that they don't.

The attitude of many businesses towards customers is all about consistency. Consistent mediocrity, that is. It's "aim low, reach your goals, avoid disappointment". And by focusing on minimum standards, they become the norm. The only way to break this habit is to break the rules.

In my recent column on this site, I blasted a rather large software company for providing crappy customer service via their "email only" policy. So it only seems fair that I should priase ones that get it right.

I'm up to my eyeballs with frustration at the direction many companies are taking with "e-mail only" customer service. It has reached the point where I will no longer do business with companies that won't talk with their paying customers.

Thanks to the Internet, customers are demanding more, questioning more and talking more. This word of mouse is great news for organisations that deliver, but very bad news for those that do not.

British Airways' decision to charge many of its customers as much as £240 extra for checking in two or more bags makes it increasingly hard to escape the conclusion that the company is hellbent on committing corporate suicide.

It's a long-standing axiom that the customer is always right. But is it true? No. But since customers make the purchase decisions, they'll always have the last word.

New reesarch has confirmed that customer service work can be bad for psychological health, regardless of whether it is face-to face or over the phone.

December is when many retailers make a huge chunk of their annual sales. But with this month-long surge in customers overtaxing even the best employees, what can be done to make the shopping season more enjoyable for all?

With Christmas on the horizon and the retail rush beginning, U.S. researchers have warned that a customer service meltdown is on the horizon as the generational gap between shoppers and retail staff widens.

Creating competitive advantage by providing extra services that customers actually value rather than trying to extract every penny from them seems a simple strategy. It's amazing so many organisations don't get it.

Public trust in institutions and companies is declining - and no wonder. Yet far too many companies still don't understand that if they want to attract and keep their customers, building trust is vital.

Resolving complaints is easy when trust exists. Yet many efforts at resolving complaints fail for one primary reason, namely fear. When our natural fear of losing something or not getting something we want takes over our brain, our ability to understand another person's perspective usually goes out the window.

The battle between sales and marketing reflects a grave failure to manage effectively. Because if the two don't pull together for successful business development, the bottom line will be destroyed by the errors at the top.

Far too many organisations take the attitude with their customers: "when things go well please tell us; when they don't, then don't bother".

As Simon Caulkin quite rightly points out in a great piece in the Observer last Sunday, the reason that organisations continue to treat their customers with contempt is largely because customer value is a wasting asset.

It's all very well aiming to delight your customers by exceeding their expectations, but what if their expectations were low in the first place? It might be better, then, to focus on their experience rather than their expectations.

Pension firms and investment managers have overtaken estate agents, politicians and even traffic wardens to earn the ignominious accolade as the least trusted profession in Britain, according to new consumer research.

Any business that encourages (or even allows) customer service reps to do nothing more than read from a prepared script is demonstrating little more than contempt for their customers.

When our shopping experience is negative, statistics show it takes only two such incidents and we're likely to shop elsewhere. That's not a lot of wiggle room. Think of it as "two strikes and you're out."

The next 15 years will see knowledge workers become organisations most valuable source of competitive advantage as an ageing population and the eastwards shift of economic power bring profound changes to the global economy.

If 100 people have a bad shopping experience, a retailer stands to lose between 32 and 36 current or potential customers, according to the Retail Customer Dissatisfaction Study 2006.