Momentary Lapse of Reasoning

Entries tagged as ‘customer service’

“Quality Customer Service”

January 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Asakusa

It doesn’t mean anything if you have a pin in your shirt that says “Quality customer service” if you look like you have eaten a flock of lemons.

Customer service isn’t mechanically repeating “Thanks”, “The price is…” and “Please” in the right time, but the attitude behind the words is what counts. Toss even a smile on top of everything! How hard is that?

I made the ultimate mistake in visiting Japan. There the customer feels that his or her visit [and money] is appreciated.

When you walk in to a store, there’s always someone welcoming you in with a “Irasshaimase!”, always. I cannot understand how hard is it in Finland to at least say hello and smile. I’ve seen many times how the sales people turn their heads away when there’s a customer entering the store. And this cannot be because of too many customers, because I can say that there are a lot more shoppers in Japan than there are in Finland.

This type of behavior has an effect on how people buy. I’ve come to notice that at least I spend money more easily when the atmosphere is right.

I know I’ve been writing about this issue before, but I just can’t stop til the end of time or until the situation turns to better.

Categories: Customer Relations
Tagged: ,

Thank You For Calling – DumbAss!

October 30, 2009 · 4 Comments

I wanted to have an Internet connection for my company and after seeing a pretty decent kind of offer, I thought I would buy it from this unnamed lighthouse company. I was so wrong.

It seems that this package offer was something that they won’t even sell to companies in the first place, but somehow they sold it to mine! This I found out this morning when talking with the customer service guy because of not getting my cable modem. And the new connection should open soon.

And from the sound of the customer service person it seemed that I had been the dumb one in this situation not knowing this fact, and I should call them back because the guy in charge of these things won’t be at work before 9 o’clock.

I SHOULD CALL THEM BACK?! Why the hell should I pay those calls because they have made a mistake? Maybe they should ask me when is a good time for this aforementioned guy to call ME back, not the other way around!

I have just one thing to say to this company: You lost a client. I’m getting my connection from elsewhere. If this is how you treat your customers when they have problems, I don’t want to be among them. Thank you, bye!

Categories: Customer Relations
Tagged:

What I Learned About Customer Target Groups After Visiting Two Shoemakers

October 29, 2009 · Leave a Comment

154077776_3bff47b48c
Image by Matthew McVickar

I was taking shoes to a shoemaker [people still do that, you know] and this is what happened.

The first store took a look at my shoes and said “Actually, I don’t want to do these. We are beginning to do equipment related only to horse riding.”

OK, this made me a bit upset. I asked the not-so-nice-lady that “I thought that there was a clear sign outside that you do shoes?” Her reply: “Yes, but we are changing it soon to cover only things related to riding. There’s another shoemaker around the corner, you could take these there.”

Well, I was a bit amazed, took my shoes, shook my head and left with a “You are probably having too much customers because I didn’t qualify, aren’t ya?” thought in my mind.

I went to the other place she had directed me and guess what? The service was great, prices decent and the sales person was outgoing and nice.

So what’s the teaching in this then? This situation was the “important rule of targeting your audience”, in the flesh. Simply put:

Decide who are your customers, what you want to do and if somebody else comes knocking at your door, point them gently to try another place.

And I say, the place I left my shoes, the business was clearly blooming. They were having a lot of customers and probably many of them were there because of having same kind of directions that I had.

The point is that the first store I visited, were loosing some customers. But when targeting their customers, they could now offer service they wanted to and develop themselves further in it all the time.

So, do you want to be an overall handyman or to focus in something specific? Neither one is the right decision. Perhaps the importance lies in making one.

Categories: Business · Entrepreneurship
Tagged: , ,

Teachings of a stand up comedy night: make them lol

April 24, 2009 · Leave a Comment

make_em_smile

Image by CharlieGentle (Licence)

Last night my friend [his earthly&nerdly blog can be found here – sorry again to those non English speakers, it's in Finnish] had his first stand up performance at Tampere Teerenpeli. This was his second in a row; the first one was at Helsinki On the Rocks the night before. He pulled his thing off nicely and the jokes were even funny [yes, it was a relief that I didn't have to fake the laughter and afterwards praise him when thinking in my head 'Don't go quitting your day job']. He even had planted a name ‘Marko’ to one of his sketches so could it be more perfect for me?

But of course as I’m mostly writing about dull things like advertising and marketing, I had to find something to say about them from yesterday’s situation too. Well, what I was thinking afterwards was that the standard stand up crowd consists of many different kind people; you have the suit guys [who got most of the targeted jokes on them – surprise surprise], the basic working class people, the artsy fartsy people [where I slightly consider myself in, very slightly], and so on.

So what is the unifying element they all have; why are they there? No matter what other things they like or prefer to do, they all like laughing. People usually [even in Finland] like to laugh and feel themselves amused. I believe this is one of the most biggest things, a business benefit at the customer care business, one should understand and take under consideration.

For example, do you want your presentation to have a feel similar to a funeral, or a feel-good thing where all are getting the most out of the situation? How you create this good meeting, is in your own hands and it starts from you being a natural funny easy going person you are [like we all basically are, right?]. And not either suck up and bend in front of every little request the customer is making, and in the other end, not being this ‘highly creative artsy bastard’ either. Stop taking everything so seriously and relax.

Now someone there is thinking, ‘Well, but often the customer can be a real arse who thinks he knows my job better than I do, and they’re the ones that are often grim and boring’ [this isn't my thinking at all, I just somehow invented this. Hello to all our customer who might be watching. :D ]. So what, I say? You cannot control how other people act, but you can at least try to slightly and quietly direct the feel of the encounter to somewhere ‘nice’, with your actions and reactions.

As many spiritual men, for example like Gandhi and Dalai Lama have often pointed out: one cannot stay in hatred if the other is always reacting with kindness, understanding and calm. This is a BIG statement from guys being kicked in the head for few times in their lives. And they still keep [Gandhi of course in past tense, rest his soul] calm.

And yes I know it’s hard. It’s sometimes hard to suck up that sense of professional pride of yours and say ‘I don’t know about this’ or ‘I have to find out’, or even ‘I think you may be right’. When interacting with a customer that is.

And yes, there are times when they bombard you with their ‘evil email’, asking you questions that may sound stupid and you aren’t that eager to once again spend that precious time of yours to answer the same ones you thought you already had clearly answered.

Well, that’s called customer care. I’m not saying the customer is always right, he isn’t [yes, I dare to state that publicly] and the attention they desire isn’t always reasonable. Like my friend starting his stand up career has stated: ‘I’m the guy you’re always calling to when your printer screws up, and that sometimes pisses me off. Do you think I’m some kind of a clairvoyant or something!’.

But still, the only real way for us to succeed in this godforsaken rock is to try to get along, in every situation. And the following thought I’ve stated before, could help: Everyone is a customer in some point and everyone is in a customer care in some point; it is only a matter of time and situation. Oh, behave!

Categories: Customer Relations · Self-development · Them Reasonings
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5 small lessons from a market hall

March 31, 2009 · 2 Comments

tampere_marketplace
Image by martinbetz (Licence)

We have this old traditional market hall at Tampere where people sell different kinds of delicious goods, like cheese, sausages, breads, cakes etc. Maybe you still remember a place like that? Altogether, it’s a place where you can still bump into some rarities, for example to customer service.

I found this odd culture, still not yet extinct and would like to represent some of the lessons we all working in sales or doing some kind of customer service work should learn from them.

I agree these next couple of points about their style of service, made after careful empirical studies, can be hard to comprehend:

  1. They tend to look at you when you come to their counter. They are ‘there’.
  2. Often they say odd things like ‘Good day’ or ‘Can I be of any assistance’ before you stood there 5 minutes and looked stupid because no one’s even noticing you.
  3. They tend to small talk.
  4. They know their products and can tell you about them. Even without you asking.
  5. Overall, they make the event of commerce pleasant.

So my point being? In these times when every brand and company is trying to stand out from another: aren’t previous still the things that really matter and howcome many still manage to overlook them?

Shouldn’t we already forget repeating the empty phrases like ‘We are customer oriented company/brand/etc’ or ‘Our strenght is service’ [even if it's not], and just start acting as our brand promise says? It can’t be that hard, can it?

Categories: Advertising and Marketing · Customer Relations
Tagged: , , ,

Clear communication as your business benefit

March 16, 2009 · Leave a Comment

two_way_street

Image by  ﴾͡๏̯͡๏﴿ /streetart#+_♥.tk www.ALT3.tk (Licence)

Who is responsible of your customer understanding what he or she is buying? You are. What if delivering the message fails and the customer feels she didn’t get what she came for? You better hope it’s not your fault and try to relieve your customer’s disappointment, because there’s no worse customer than a one who is shouting ‘They won’t deliver what they offer!’.

It’s sometimes hard to buy things you don’t really understand; for example, you may sometimes need help in choosing which computer suits best for your needs, what’s the best marketing plan for your company or what CMS to use when putting up a new website. These are united by the fact that they are often things when you need someone professional to help you with the facts you need to decide what you are eventually buying.

You, as a professional or as a sales person [who should know what he or she is selling], have a huge responsibility, but also a potential business benefit. You have to do everything in your powers, so that the client truly understands what is that you are offering; what is your product and what it is not.

This ultimately affects how the customer sees the end product and how satisfied he is. If he feels he got the thing he originally was buying, it raises the customer satisfaction level. But if he feels you didn’t deliver what was offered in the first place, it all may end up in a feeling where he thinks he has been betrayed. Even if there’s nothing wrong with the end product, merely he understood differently what you were presenting.

So here’s a couple of pointers trying to emphasize the importance of crystal clear communication in a situation where you are explaining what is that you are offering [well wasn't this a crystal clear sentence]:

  • Make sure that YOU understand your product. Talk with your granny about it. If she understands it as you explained it to her in five minutes, you just may understand what you are talking about. Remember; if the communication can fail, it probably will. -Yes, a cliche, but also a cold fact.
  • Determine what you speak about the product. No need to go so deep. Customer needs to know the overall picture, not how your cool XML works with the API and reduces the download speed 143 kB [or something]. Of course if the customer is someone who needs to know that, you can tell this. Otherwise: deliver a message suited for the need and the context of the client.
  • Show some real life examples, they tell more than just words. Show how your product has relieved the life of others, what is does and how it will eventually look like.
  • Ask if they understood. Most times people have questions in their head, but won’t ask them. You take the initiative. Make them talk.
  • Summarize the concept/the product/the deal [in written] and set clear guidelines what it includes and also if possible, what it doesn’t. It is a painful situation if your client suddenly starts asking more features than you originally sold him, and you have to do them overtime and free. This may end up in many more hours that your originally designed for, just because you weren’t paying attention and didn’t take the time to write things up.
  • Always try to better and invent new ways of crystallizing your message and getting it through with an increasing rate.
  • Ask for feedback on how you and/or your team worked. Process it. Learn from it.

Overall, one should always remember: Communication is a two [or more] way thing. You deliver something and you get response to it. Many times the lack of understanding occurs because of people presuming too much. Don’t presume, better to know for sure.

Categories: Business · Customer Relations · Interaction & UI · Project management
Tagged: , ,

The definition of ‘meeting’

March 11, 2009 · Leave a Comment

business_meeting

Image by  llawliet (Licence)

What I’ve noticed is that it doesn’t matter how much you try to hide that you think something sucks, people can sense it. If you feel like that, ask yourself: why am I doing this job? This post is basically some random thoughts about customer relations, but, in depth, about unselfishness and about confronting people the right way.

Next time when you are in a meeting and you notice that instead of trying to solve your clients problems you are dreaming about the beautiful sunsets of Rio, ask yourself why am I here? Why am I not interested? And why is this customer paying me?

We all have times when we are tired or a bit down, but mostly that is a question of attitude. If you are working with someone and doing work for them, you most likely should be actively there.

So what if it’s hard? The customer is bitching [yeah, using the word 'bitching'] about the last campaign being boring, or the great fair department you designed [you thought was soo cool] was stated ‘Really awful’? How can you ever work with people like that?

Well, sometimes it can be like that but think about this; would you rather fight or be pleasant?

What else, than just small time satisfaction, you get out of fighting or whining? In the worst case the client leaves and tells everyone he or she meets that you are a very hard person to work with.

Some may want to have a reputation like that, but then you have to be a top notch designer, and most likely there’s no use to be an asshole then either.

So what to do if you want to be a greater person to meet? One simple exercise can be this:

Act as if meeting new people and clients, and the old ones too, were a game. A game where you, no matter what happens, cannot loose your good feeling or thoughts or the control of the situation. No matter what. And in addition: you have to keep smiling the whole time.

As in many other play based learning styles, you will eventually turn from ‘acting’ to ‘being’, and you may end up liking what you used to hate. One of the biggest reasons people state so eagerly “I hate to do thing X” is that they are afraid. So, dare to jump and see what happens.

And also, if you are in the advertising/creative/whatever business, it’s easy to give something more to the client than he or she expects. Actually, a lot more. You have a room of possibilities, because you are “from the ad agency”. Even something strange isn’t that strange from you, because you are “creative”.

It doesn’t have to be anything that special or over the top. Usually the small things matter. You don’t have to take your pet wolf to a meeting or dress as Elvis, but you can, and most likely they won’t change the agency. If an accountant would do that, he would be kicked to the kingdom come. But not Mr. or Ms. Ad Person.

But back to the point. Friendliness, open mindedness and being interested can most likely be enough. Unfortunately, they aren’t that common anymore, and people who can be like that, will prevail.

In order to dive deep into your clients world, you have to be interested about your client and what they are doing. They aren’t just an account nor those who just bring the money to the house.

Also, offer them more. If you have fallen to the awful ravine of just executing tasks, stop! They will see it in your work and in the meetings. If they come up with the ideas, and you just implement them, they can get someone else to do it cheaper. So, be a step ahead.

Basically, if you for some reasons won’t like meetings or are intimated about them, remember this: Everyone is a client, and almost everyone is a service person. It’s only a matter of place and time, when the roles change. So apply the golden rule and enjoy the both parties.

P.S. Can you ever find a more awful picture than that one up there? Please fellow designers out there, don’t ever ever offer image bank pictures like that. And if your customer forces you to put an image like that, forget what you read in this post and tell him how it is!

Categories: Advertising and Marketing · Business · Customer Relations · Self-development
Tagged: , ,

How much is the customer satisfaction?

January 29, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Lapland ski center
A while ago I visited Lapland with my girlfriend. The weather was absolutely great and we had a terrific holiday. One thing came to my mind while I was posting our holiday pictures to the Flickr photostream. How people ran their business there.

Because I’m not that experienced downhill skier, I don’t have my own equipment [yet]. So I rented them from a local ski shop.

By that time I wasn’t sure how many days I would like to ski downhill. The rent was always cheaper per day if you took the equipment for multiple days. I told the salesperson that I was maybe going to do something else in the days that I wasn’t planning to ski three days a row, so I wasn’t sure if there was any reason me to rent them for that many days straight.

He told me to take the skis and other equipment [because it wasn't sure that I could get them next time], store them in my hotel’s ski storage and bring them back after I had used them. He would only charge me for the days I had used them.

So I could keep them in the storage, even if I was taking one day off, and when returning, I should pay only for the days I had used them.

Sounds too good? Gets even better.

I took the equipment back after four days and told that I had gone skiing only for three days – that’s because of a nice reindeer/snow mobile safari in the middle. He told me OK, looked his papers how much it would’ve cost for three days, and even rounded the numbers downwards to the previous ten.

And this was on the peak season. You could say I was amazed.

So, the lesson in this? See carefully is it really necessary to charge from everything by the books like you had planned. Can you raise the customer satisfaction by this and get him come back to you the next time. Sometimes it may even bring you more money in the future if you charge differently this time.

I understand how business works and am not saying that everything should be free. I’m just advising to balance things and thinking more further.

I know, that in the future if I go back to that same ski center, I surely get those skis from that particular rental shop. And above all, the service was great. They even smiled.

Categories: Advertising and Marketing · Customer Relations
Tagged: ,

How to smear a good customer service concept with bad management

December 11, 2008 · 1 Comment

Which way?
Image by Tom Olliver (Licence)

I’m renovating a couple of rooms in our home and because I’m not that experienced, I need some help with it. How delighted I was when I noticed that one hardware store offered service where they help you to choose the best tools and materials for your renovation and even tell you the best methods for the job. How happy I was, but am not anymore.

I accidentally found the service buried in the dungeons of the store’s web site. There was a list of sales persons with their contact information (email, tel. etc.), you may contact them and settle for an appointment. Then you’re supposed to meet and the sales person should help you with your renovation problems. Sounds sweet, right? Wrong.

It happened so that I called there trying to get touch with one of the sales persons that looked like a nice person., After a loooooong waiting period a dull woman’s voice answered. What’s this, I thought?

I asked her if this was in this hardware store and said that I was calling for the service they offered. She unghed and after a while of silence said this was indeed in the store I was trying to call. She didn’t know much of their service, but promised to forward me to one of their sales persons. OK, at this part I was already ripe enough to forget the thing, but you should have something to write to your blog, shouldn’t you? So I waited.

I’m sure that she tried everyone in their store before someone answered. OK, the guy who was at the other end sounded really helpful and all, but didn’t really help me with anything.

I had just used almost half an hour to this nonsense and got nothing in return. Now I think I won’t be even buying the materials from them.

Must-haves in your service concept or I won’t be using it:

  1. If you have created a service which should provide more value to your customers and even bring new ones, make sure it can be found and the concept idea is consistent. Make sure you have a crystal clear outline and structure.
  2. Publish it with a bang, show it everywhere, make people find it from your web site. Test it and polish it, so anyone can understand what you are offering.
  3. Make your personnel familiar with the concept. They have to understand it and know what to tell people about it.
  4. If nothing else, at least teach them to answer the phone with a smiling voice. Nothing is more humiliating to the customer than feeling they are bothering someone not a bit interested in them.
  5. If you have contact information somewhere, there should be someone to contact. It means, answer the phone, the emails. If this is not delivered, clients will frustrate and won’t try to contact you twice. Do I have to even mention that this means less money for your company?
  6. Make your personnel’s pictures in your website appealing. Mr. Bad Ass with a Bad Insomnia isn’t gonna bring you more customers.
  7. Nothing, I mean, nothing is more frustrating than first finding a great and amazing service, and then noticing it won’t work the way it has been said it would. OK, perhaps maybe noticing how someone has taken a piece of your precious time and has delivered nothing.

Categories: Advertising and Marketing · Customer Relations
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