| Everyone
in your organization must know how vitally important customer service is
in your business. Good customer service starts with good training of your
employees. Here are a few suggestions to help your organization keep your
customers beaming and eager to come back for more.
1.
Sell your company to your employees.
If
you have brochures explaining your products or services, make sure everybody
in your organization reads them. Print them in as many languages as necessary
to ensure that everyone gets the message.
If
you have a mission statement or company philosophy, post it everywhere.
Be creative in communicating what's expected. Consider audio or video tapes
depicting your mission or cartoon strips or photo series illustrating how
employees share in achieving the company's mission. Then be sure that you
really live your mission statement. Lip service only will produce cynical
and hostile employees.
2.
Recognize effort.
Regularly
salute employees who have gone the extra mile in serving your customers.
Write up the incident for your company newsletter. If you have no newsletter,
post the report in a special place of honor along with a photo of the employee.
3.
Trade places.
Why
not give your executive and administrative staff an opportunity for hands-on
experience with customer service? Every few weeks have each of them spend
a day working on the front lines serving your customers.
4.
Talk to the front-line troops.
Hold
regular meetings for employees who have the most contact with your customers
and ask them, "What questions do our customers ask most often about our
product or service?" "What complaint do you hear most often?" "What do
customers find most beneficial about our product or service?"
Patricia
Fripp
Patricia
Fripp CSP, CPAE is a San Francisco-based professional
speaker on Change, Teamwork, Customer Service, Promoting
Business, and Communication Skills. To learn more about Patricia, as
well as save 20% when you order her audio/video programs
Million Dollar Words: Speaking for Results, Preparing
and Presenting Powerful Programs and/or Confessions
of an Unashamed, Relentless Self-Promoter, go to YourSuccessStore.com. |