10 Commandments of Great Customer Service

By Susan Friedmann, About.com Marketing

1. Know who is boss. You are in business to service customer needs, and you can only do that if you know what it is your customers want. When you truly listen to your customers, they let you know what they want and how you can provide good service. Never forget that the customer pays our salary and makes your job possible.  
2.  Be a good listener. Take the time to identify customer needs by asking questions and concentrating on what the customer is really saying. Listen to their words, tone of voice, body language, and most importantly, how they feel. Beware of making assumptions - thinking you intuitively know what the customer wants. Do you know what three things are most important to your customer? Effective listening and undivided attention are particularly important on the show floor where there is a great danger of preoccupation - looking around to see to whom else we could be selling to.
3. Identify and anticipate needs. Customers don't buy products or services. They buy good feelings and solutions to problems. Most customer needs are emotional rather than logical. The more you know your customers, the better you become at anticipating their needs. Communicate regularly so that you are aware of problems or upcoming needs.
4. Make customers feel important and appreciated. Treat them as individuals. Always use their name and find ways to compliment them, but be sincere. People value sincerity. It creates good feeling and trust. Think about ways to generate good feelings about doing business with you. Customers are very sensitive and know whether or not you really care about them. Thank them every time you get a chance. On the show floor be sure that your body language conveys sincerity. Your words and actions should be congruent.
5. Help customers understand your systems. Your organization may have the world's best systems for getting things done, but if customers don't understand them, they can get confused, impatient and angry. Take time to explain how your systems work and how they simplify transactions. Be careful that your systems don't reduce the human element of your organization. 
6. Appreciate the power of "Yes". Always look for ways to help your customers. When they have a request (as long as it is reasonable) tell them that you can do it. Figure out how afterwards. Look for ways to make doing business with you easy. Always do what you say you are going to do.
7. Know how to apologize. When something goes wrong, apologize. It's easy and customers like it. The customer may not always be right, but the customer must always win. Deal with problems immediately and let customers know what you have done. Make it simple for customers to complain. Value their complaints. As much as we dislike it, it gives us an opportunity to improve. Even if customers are having a bad day, go out of your way to make them feel comfortable.
8. Give more than expected. Since the future of all companies lies in keeping customers happy, think of ways to elevate yourself above the competition. Consider the following:
   
   • What can you give customers that they cannot get elsewhere?
   • What can you do to follow-up and thank people even when they don't buy?
   • What can you give customers that is totally unexpected?
9. Get regular feedback. Encourage and welcome suggestions about how you could improve. There are several ways in which you can find out what customers think and feel about your services.
   
   • Listen carefully to what they say.
   • Check back regularly to see how things are going.
   • Provide a method that invites constructive criticism, comments and suggestions.
10. Treat employees well. Employees are your internal customers and need a regular dose of appreciation. Thank them and find ways to let them know how important they are. Treat your employees with respect and chances are they will have a higher regard for customers. Appreciation stems from the top. Treating customers and employees well is equally important.

8 Rules to Good Customer Service, Pt. 2

by Susan Ward About.com Guide

1) Answer your phone.

Get call forwarding. Or an answering service. Hire staff if you need to. But make sure that someone is picking up the phone when someone calls your business. (Notice I say "someone". People who call want to talk to a live person, not a fake "recorded robot".) 

2) Don't make promises unless you will keep them.

Not plan to keep them. Will keep them. Reliability is one of the keys to any good relationship, and good customer service is no exception. If you say, “Your new bedroom furniture will be delivered on Tuesday”, make sure it is delivered on Tuesday. Otherwise, don't say it. The same rule applies to client appointments, deadlines, etc.. Think before you give any promise - because nothing annoys customers more than a broken one.

3) Listen to your customers.

Is there anything more exasperating than telling someone what you want or what your problem is and then discovering that that person hasn't been paying attention and needs to have it explained again? From a customer's point of view, I doubt it. Can the sales pitches and the product babble. Let your customer talk and show him that you are listening by making the appropriate responses, such as suggesting how to solve the problem.

 4) Deal with complaints.

No one likes hearing complaints, and many of us have developed a reflex shrug, saying, "You can't please all the people all the time". Maybe not, but if you give the complaint your attention, you may be able to please this one person this one time - and position your business to reap the benefits of good customer service.

5) Be helpful - even if there's no immediate profit in it.

The other day I popped into a local watch shop because I had lost the small piece that clips the pieces of my watch band together. When I explained the problem, the proprietor said that he thought he might have one lying around. He found it, attached it to my watch band – and charged me nothing! Where do you think I'll go when I need a new watch band or even a new watch? And how many people do you think I've told this story to?

6) Train your staff (if you have any) to be always helpful, courteous, and knowledgeable.

Do it yourself or hire someone to train them. Talk to them about good customer service and what it is (and isn't) regularly. Most importantly, give every member of your staff enough information and power to make those small customer-pleasing decisions, so he never has to say, "I don't know, but so-and-so will be back at..."

7) Take the extra step.

For instance, if someone walks into your store and asks you to help them find something, don't just say, "It's in Aisle 3". Lead the customer to the item. Better yet, wait and see if he has questions about it, or further needs. Whatever the extra step may be, if you want to provide good customer service, take it. They may not say so to you, but people notice when people make an extra effort and will tell other people.

8) Throw in something extra.

Whether it's a coupon for a future discount, additional information on how to use the product, or a genuine smile, people love to get more than they thought they were getting. And don’t think that a gesture has to be large to be effective. The local art framer that we use attaches a package of picture hangers to every picture he frames. A small thing, but so appreciated.

If you apply these eight simple rules consistently, your business will become known for its good customer service. And the best part? The irony of good customer service is that over time it will bring in more new customers than promotions and price slashing ever did!

8 Rules to Good Customer Services, Pt. 1

By Susan Ward , About.com Guide

Good customer service is the lifeblood of any business. You can offer promotions and slash prices to bring in as many new customers as you want, but unless you can get some of those customers to come back, your business won't be profitable for long.

Good customer service is all about bringing customers back. And about sending them away happy - happy enough to pass positive feedback about your business along to others, who may then try the product or service you offer for themselves and in their turn become repeat customers.

If you're a good salesperson, you can sell anything to anyone once. But it will be your approach to customer service that determines whether or not you’ll ever be able to sell that person anything else. The essence of good customer service is forming a relationship with customers – a relationship that that individual customer feels that he would like to pursue.

How do you go about forming such a relationship? By remembering the one true secret of good customer service and acting accordingly; "You will be judged by what you do, not what you say."

I know this verges on the kind of statement that's often seen on a sampler, but providing good customer service IS a simple thing. If you truly want to have good customer service, all you have to do is ensure that your business consistently does these things:

Customer Service Strategies

What is the "Tipping Point" for Your Business?

In today’s economic climate, relationship marketing is extremely important and very necessary. Business owners today, are asked to do a lot with a little. This causes us to continually juggle and multi-task. When a small business owner / entrepreneur / sales person joins a networking group, their expectations may not always be reasonable or realistic. I have found through my years of networking and training of thousands of workshop attendees, that if people get very honest with themselves they realize that their expectation was to receive a significant return with a minimal investment. What do you want to get out of your networking efforts? What do you expect your return on investment (ROI) to be?

Each industry / business category has its own “tipping point”. A tipping point is the event of a previously rare phenomenon becoming rapidly and dramatically more common. Do you know what yours is? I will share with you a few examples to help set the bar and get an idea of your “networking tipping point”, to help you get the most out of your TEAM membership. If you were to represent Mary Kay (or equivalent) and you joined a chapter today, it is very safe to say you could potentially start receiving referrals and transactional business within a few weeks, if not sooner. Let’s look at the opposite end of the spectrum now. If you are in financial services, this is a much more personal and sensitive category. Your investment needs to be much greater before you start receiving a return. It is very realistic to say that you would be looking at 9 – 18 months before you truly start seeing something or possibly anything. Is it worth it? Absolutely it is! You just have to understand the concept and philosophy to this type of environment.

Let me share a story with you to put this into perspective. I have a student of my program, who has since become a friend, who is a Financial Advisor. She went through my course in February 2011 and when she did, she told me she would do everything I told her to do because it wasn’t a matter of wanting to make this work, she had to make this work. No pressure right?! I told her, due to the nature of her industry and the sensitivity of dealing with people’s money and the trust that had to be evoked, it would require her to invest 9 – 18 months of playing “full out” and participating in networking continually. She assured me she got it. She understood and she was fully on board. By October she shared with me her frustration. “I have done everything you told me to do and I have become a great referral source. People have gotten a lot of business from me, but I haven’t received anything in return. This isn’t working, I’m not sure if I can keep doing this. I’m just not getting the value.” Her boss even called me. He said, “ I really need you to intervene, she believes in everything you tell her. She must be doing something wrong, because she isn’t seeing anything. Will you see if she is closing right?” I assured him that she was fine and would start receiving a return on her investment, she just had to reach her “tipping point”. I received a call shortly after Thanksgiving, “I got my first referral, and wrote my first piece of business from networking.” Then a couple weeks later, I received another call, “I got another referral and wrote another plan.” Guess what? Between then and now she has signed up 10 new clients. Just on the verge of her “tipping point”, she was at her ropes end. She had almost given up. She is very glad she didn’t.

Each industry has a different investment level before you will see a return. Now that doesn’t mean that you might not luck out and get something before then. It just means that you won’t see the “mother lode” until you have made your investment. Now to get clear, “investment” is not just showing up to your weekly TEAM meeting. Investment means, SHOWING UP to your TEAM meeting. Playing full out. Engaging in relationships, adding value. Investment means, having a networking plan, creating a commercial strategy, participating in your chapter, doing your coaching sessions and adding value to your TEAM members. Remember, how you do some things is how you do everything! How you do the little things is how you do the big things!

The last tip I would like to share with you to help ensure you get the biggest bang for your investment is track your ROI. Put a dollar amount on your time, track what you spend on networking, get really organized and track the referrals you receive, 1^st generation, 2^nd generation and 3^rd generation etc.. referrals. By understanding your “tipping point”, making a real and honest investment and then tracking your ROI you will be very surprised on your true networking results. If you have any questions or would like any help, please feel free to contact me.

Stacey O’Byrne – Pivot Point Advantage, www.pivotpointadvantage.com

11 Tips to Time Management

by: Susan Ward

Do you feel the need to be more organized and/or more productive? Do you spend your day in a frenzy of activity and then wonder why you haven't accomplished much?

Time management skills are especially important for small business people, who often find themselves performing many different jobs during the course of a single day. These time management tips will help you increase your productivity and stay cool and collected.

Time Management Tips

1) Realize that time management is a myth.

No matter how organized we are, there are always only 24 hours in a day. Time doesn't change. All we can actually manage is ourselves and what we do with the time that we have.

2) Find out where you're wasting time.

Many of us are prey to time-wasters that steal time we could be using much more productively. What are your time-bandits? Do you spend too much time 'Net surfing, reading email, or making personal calls? Tracking Daily Activities explains how to track your activities so you can form a accurate picture of what you actually do, the first step to effective time management.

3) Create time management goals.

Remember, the focus of time management is actually changing your behaviors, not changing time. A good place to start is by eliminating your personal time-wasters. For one week, for example, set a goal that you're not going to take personal phone calls while you're working. For a fun look at behaviors that can interfere with successful time management.

4) Implement a time management plan.

Think of this as an extension of time management tip # 3. The objective is to change your behaviors over time to achieve whatever general goal you've set for yourself, such as increasing your productivity or decreasing your stress. So you need to not only set your specific goals, but track them over time to see whether or not you're accomplishing them.

5) Use time management tools.

Whether it's a Day-Timer or a software program, the first step to physically managing your time is to know where it's going now and planning how you're going to spend your time in the future. A software program such as Outlook, for instance, lets you schedule events easily and can be set to remind you of events in advance, making your time management easier.

6) Prioritize ruthlessly.

You should start each day with a time management session prioritizing the tasks for that day and setting your performance benchmark. If you have 20 tasks for a given day, how many of them do you truly need to accomplish? For more on daily planning and prioritizing daily tasks, see Start The Day Right With Daily Planning.

7) Learn to delegate and/or outsource.

No matter how small your business is, there's no need for you to be a one-person show. For effective time management, you need to let other people carry some of the load. Determining Your Personal ROI explains two ways to pinpoint which tasks you'd be better off delegating or outsourcing, while Decide To Delegate provides tips for actually getting on with the job of delegating.

8) Establish routines and stick to them as much as possible.

While crises will arise, you'll be much more productive if you can follow routines most of the time.

9) Get in the habit of setting time limits for tasks.

For instance, reading and answering email can consume your whole day if you let it. Instead, set a limit of one hour a day for this task and stick to it.

10) Be sure your systems are organized.

Are you wasting a lot of time looking for files on your computer? Take the time to organize a file management system. Is your filing system slowing you down? Redo it, so it's organized to the point that you can quickly lay your hands on what you need.

11) Don't waste time waiting.

From client meetings to dentist appointments, it's impossible to avoid waiting for someone or something. But you don't need to just sit there and twiddle your thumbs. Always take something to do with you, such as a report you need to read, a checkbook that needs to be balanced, or just a blank pad of paper that you can use to plan your next marketing campaign. Technology makes it easy to work wherever you are; your PDA and/or cell phone will help you stay connected.

You can be in control and accomplish what you want to accomplish - once you've come to grips with the time management myth and taken control of your time.

Time Management: Tip to Reduce Stress and Increase Productivity

by Mayo Clinic Staff

Do you find yourself overwhelmed by the number and complexity of projects you have that need to be completed at work each day? Do you often feel the day flies by without your devoting the necessary attention to each assignment because other tasks keep landing on your desk, co-workers interrupt you with questions or you can't get it all organized?

You probably know that effective time management will help you get more done each day. It has important health benefits, too. By managing your time more wisely, you can minimize stress and improve your quality of life.

But how do you get back on track when organizational skills don't come naturally? To get started, choose one of these strategies, try it for two to four weeks and see if it helps. If it does, consider adding another one. If not, try a different one.

• Plan each day. Planning your day can help you accomplish more and feel more in control of your life. Write a to-do list, putting the most important tasks at the top. Keep a schedule of your daily activities to minimize conflicts and last-minute rushes.
• Prioritize your tasks. Time-consuming but relatively unimportant tasks can consume a lot of your day. Prioritizing tasks will ensure that you spend your time and energy on those that are truly important to you.
• Say no to nonessential tasks. Consider your goals and schedule before agreeing to take on additional work.
• Delegate. Take a look at your to-do list and consider what you can pass on to someone else.
• Take the time you need to do a quality job. Doing work right the first time may take more time upfront, but errors usually result in time spent making corrections, which takes more time overall.
• Break large, time-consuming tasks into smaller tasks. Work on them a few minutes at a time until you get them all done.
• Practice the 10-minute rule. Work on a dreaded task for 10 minutes each day. Once you get started, you may find you can finish it.
• Evaluate how you're spending your time. Keep a diary of everything you do for three days to determine how you're spending your time. Look for time that can be used more wisely. For example, could you take a bus or train to work and use the commute to catch up on reading? If so, you could free up some time to exercise or spend with family or friends.
• Limit distractions. Block out time on your calendar for big projects. During that time, close your door and turn off your phone, pager and e-mail.
• Get plenty of sleep, have a healthy diet and exercise regularly. A healthy lifestyle can improve your focus and concentration, which will help improve your efficiency so that you can complete your work in less time.
• Take a time management course. If your employer offers continuing education, take a time management class. If your workplace doesn't have one, find out if a local community college, university or community education program does.
• Take a break when needed. Too much stress can derail your attempts at getting organized. When you need a break, take one. Take a walk. Do some quick stretches at your workstation. Take a day of vacation to rest and re-energize.

Are You Working on Clock Time or Real Time?

by Joe Matthews, Don Debolt & Deb Percival

Chances are good that, at some time in your life, you've taken a time management class, read about it in books, and tried to use an electronic or paper-based day planner to organize, prioritize and schedule your day. "Why, with this knowledge and these gadgets," you may ask, "do I still feel like I can't get everything done I need to?"

The answer is simple. Everything you ever learned about managing time is a complete waste of time because it doesn't work.

Before you can even begin to manage time, you must learn what time is. A dictionary defines time as "the point or period at which things occur." Put simply, time is when stuff happens.

There are two types of time: clock time and real time. In clock time, there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year. All time passes equally. When someone turns 50, they are exactly 50 years old, no more or no less.

In real time, all time is relative. Time flies or drags depending on what you're doing. Two hours at the department of motor vehicles can feel like 12 years. And yet our 12-year-old children seem to have grown up in only two hours.

Which time describes the world in which you really live, real time or clock time?

The reason time management gadgets and systems don't work is that these systems are designed to manage clock time. Clock time is irrelevant. You don't live in or even have access to clock time. You live in real time, a world in which all time flies when you are having fun or drags when you are doing your taxes.

The good news is that real time is mental. It exists between your ears. You create it. Anything you create, you can manage. It's time to remove any self-sabotage or self-limitation you have around "not having enough time," or today not being "the right time" to start a business or manage your current business properly.

There are only three ways to spend time: thoughts, conversations and actions. Regardless of the type of business you own, your work will be composed of those three items.

As an entrepreneur, you may be frequently interrupted or pulled in different directions. While you cannot eliminate interruptions, you do get a say on how much time you will spend on them and how much time you will spend on the thoughts, conversations and actions that will lead you to success.

Practice the following techniques to become the master of your own time:

1. Carry a schedule and record all your thoughts, conversations and activities for a week. This will help you understand how much you can get done during the course of a day and where your precious moments are going. You'll see how much time is actually spent producing results and how much time is wasted on unproductive thoughts, conversations and actions.
2. Any activity or conversation that's important to your success should have a time assigned to it. To-do lists get longer and longer to the point where they're unworkable. Appointment books work. Schedule appointments with yourself and create time blocks for high-priority thoughts, conversations, and actions. Schedule when they will begin and end. Have the discipline to keep these appointments.
3. Plan to spend at least 50 percent of your time engaged in the thoughts, activities and conversations that produce most of your results.
4. Schedule time for interruptions. Plan time to be pulled away from what you're doing. Take, for instance, the concept of having "office hours." Isn't "office hours" another way of saying "planned interruptions?"
5. Take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don't start your day until you complete your time plan. The most important time of your day is the time you schedule to schedule time.
6. Take five minutes before every call and task to decide what result you want to attain. This will help you know what success looks like before you start. And it will also slow time down. Take five minutes after each call and activity to determine whether your desired result was achieved. If not, what was missing? How do you put what's missing in your next call or activity?
7. Put up a "Do not disturb" sign when you absolutely have to get work done.
8. Practice not answering the phone just because it's ringing and e-mails just because they show up. Disconnect instant messaging. Don't instantly give people your attention unless it's absolutely crucial in your business to offer an immediate human response. Instead, schedule a time to answer email and return phone calls.
9. Block out other distractions like Facebook and other forms of social media unless you use these tools to generate business.
10. Remember that it's impossible to get everything done. Also remember that odds are good that 20 percent of your thoughts, conversations and activities produce 80 percent of your results.

Time Management Personality Types

by Susan Ward

The key to time management is knowing ourselves, as we can't actually "manage" time; all we can manage is our own behavior.

For many of us this is more than enough of a challenge. While we claim that effective time management is a top priority and that we just have to get more organized, our actions don't match our stated desires. I've invented these time management personality "types" to describe patterns of behavior that sabotage many people's attempts at time management.

Which of the following time management "types" are you? While intended as fun, this time management exercise may provide you with some clues for more effective time management.

The Fireman - For you, every event is a crisis. You're so busy putting out fires that you have no time to deal with anything else - especially the boring, mundane things such as time management. Tasks pile up around you while you rush from fire to fire all day.

Typically seen - Running to car.

The Over-Committer - Your problem is you can't say 'No'. All anyone has to do is ask, and you'll chair another committee, take on another project, or organize yet another community event. You're so busy you don't even have time to write down all the things you do!

Typically seen - Hiding in rest room.

The Aquarian - There is such as thing as being too "laid-back" - especially when it starts interfering with your ability to finish tasks or bother to return phone calls. Getting to things when you get to them isn't time management; it's simple task avoidance.

Typically seen - Hanging out with feet on desk.

The Chatty Kathy - Born to socialize, you have astounding oral communication skills and can't resist exercising them at every opportunity. Every interaction becomes a long drawn out conversation - especially if there's an unpleasant task dawning that you'd like to put off.

Typically seen - Talking on cell phone.

The Perfectionist - You have a compulsion to cross all the "t's" and dot all the "i's", preferably with elaborate whorls and curlicues. Exactitude is your watchword, and you feel that no rushed job can be a good job. Finishing tasks to your satisfaction is such a problem you need more time zones, not just more time.

Typically seen - Hunched over latest project.

Hopefully none of these time management personality profiles is a photograph of you! But perhaps these descriptions will provoke some thought about the different ways we manage or mismanage time, and some clues about how we might change our behaviors to make our time management efforts more successful.