idea for your business

Archive for April, 2010

Quite a few organizations hire employees in internal positions such as human resources, marketing, sales, facilities, cafeteria, accounting or security without adequate training in customer service skills. Generally, unless a customer complains or compliments an employee their supervisor typically assumes that everything is being done well and provides positive feedback on their performance review.

Customer Services includes small and large details such as understanding the needs and purchasing habits of the customers, responding to all e-mail and phone inquiries, human contact and conversation, taking responsibility, to celebrate little triumphs with them, commiserate in their complaints and even get to know them. These customers once made will remain loyal customers forever.

By itself customer service is too vast to handle unless you are a large business with well defined sections in your office. Outsourcing customer service can allow a small or medium business to take care of its core competencies, while the customers are professionally and satisfactorily dealt with.

Online customer service is handled by quite a lot of call centers. The need for such service arises on two accounts.

First an online business is a 24*7 business. Your customers belong to the world and there are several time zones out there! Their hours and holidays are different from yours. Remember you lose a customer to your competitor if you do not respond to their calls.

Secondly, call response needs training and expertise handling. You cannot personally attend each call. So you need to hire employees. Each employee will need to be trained in your products, their handling and customer responses. So you will need to setup an entire process. The entire procedure is very time centric. If time is at premium (as it is for most of us) outsource it to the experts. Call center employees are trained in such procedures, responses come easier to them and they are trained to present a human face to the prospect.

Outsourcing customer service may have its pitfalls if the call center and business do not work closely in tandem with each other. The outsourcing company should work with the call center hand in hand to get customer feedback. The script flow must be based on previous experience of the company. The concept of personal attention to the customer is very important for closing a call. There some guidelines to be followed for ideal customer service assistance. Some of them are discussed here.

The customer must be put first as a person. The customer should be helped to make a decision and not pushed to buy. Respect him and he will respect you in turn and come back to you.

Listen to what the customer has to say. Clarify their doubts and answer the questions. The customer service employee should always have in-depth knowledge about the product or services. If unable to respond to a query immediately take the customers contact id and respond soon. Customers always have a tendency to look for a problem solver rather than an order taker

Learn about the customer in a casual way not as a marketing survey sort of thing. The easiest way to do this is to ask for them for feedback about their experience with the company or organization.

Respect the customers time. If a customer is in hurry be fast and friendly whatever the medium. In companies where the customer profile has senior citizens may want to talk a while. Give into them. They’ll come back to you for sure. It is also important to be fast and friendly.

If promises are made, should always be kept with the customers. If not, they should be compensated.

Lastly, review and feedback go a way in improving customer service. The staff can be asked about unusual requests or difficult situations. Reviews teach many important lessons.

In addition to the above points some do nots have to be kept in mind. Pitfalls such as incompetence, disorganization, unprofessional manners, lack of standard policy, delays and unreliability lose customers. It’s said that happy customers are the best and most effective way to find new customers. Let your prospects and leads rave about your customer services.

What is customer service? Have you ever stopped to really think about this question? We have trained literally thousands of people and hundreds of organisations in customer service. No matter who the person or what the organisation, the answer to this question is always generic. They will say: “Customer service is about giving customers what they want” or perhaps “it’s about satisfying customers” some times they will say that it is about “making customers happy.”

While at first glance these answers may sound correct, nothing could be further from the truth. Say for example that you ran a restaurant. If a customer were to enter your restaurant and ask for some office supplies would you be able to give the customer what they want? Would you be able to satisfy a customer who was looking for some jewellery if you worked in a hardware store? No, it would be impossible. The best that you could do would be to politely tell the customer where they can go and get Jewry. Obviously, customer service is not about giving customers what they want, or even satisfying customers.

The same is true for the way we give customer service. When we ask the question: what is the most important thing for good customer service, almost everyone we ask will answer: smile. While this may be good in some cases it is not appropriate in all cases. Just imagine if a distressed mother came up to you and told you that she had lost her 2 year old child in your store. Imagine how she would respond if you were to smile at her? Or imagine if a customer told you that he/she slipped while climbing the stairs or escalator in your store and as they explained their excruciating injuries you smiled back at them.

The truth is that customer service is not about practicalities, it’s about principles. The practicalities may change but the principles stay the same. Staff are not meant to smile all the time, to give customers everything they want, or to satisfy all their needs. Staff are meant to promote the organisation and its values. If you want to increase the impact of your customer service teach staff to represent your organisation and its unique traits.

When we teach customer service training modules we first focus on what the organisation values, what it’s all about and what does it want customers to see. Once we have done this, we move on to how to serve in light of these values. This is a very easy way of getting staff to change the way they serve, it produces better results and is a lot more fun to teach.

Here is something you can do to help your staff engage in effective customer service. Take a black/white board and draw a very basic house. Ask staff to take a piece of chalk or the white board marker and to take turns to turn this basic house into your organisation/company. They may add pictures or words to the basic drawing. Some will add words like: quality, professionalism, friendliness, service, money, speed, or simplicity while others may draw things like customers and staff.

Now ask staff this simple question: in light of this picture, what does a good customer service representative do? The participants will now find it easy to see what customer service is really about in your organisation. They may say for example, in light of us being a friendly company we should smile. Or perhaps they will highlight the organisation’s professionalism and explain that it’s professional to stand up straight and to dress appropriately.

Instead of teaching staff practicalities teach them principles and the practicalities will follow naturally.

Are you looking to start your own home business, and work from home? Luckily it will not require a business loan, and can easily be started with almost the smallest investment capital. The good point is that the money investment is small, and you can test to see if it will work for you. In this article, I will go into the greatest home business ideas.

There are today many home business opportunities available, so the choice is great. However, before looking at some of these home business ideas, it is best to consider the point, which we all want and that is success in our home business.

Many people believe that to be successful, you need to come up with something which no-one else has thought of. You need to invent a widget or something similar. However, this is not the case. More people failed in such thought than ever achieved. In fact most of those failures happened at the point of the idea. So, no action came about. I am sure you know some people who constantly think they are inventors, but none of those inventions have even been put to paper.

The greatest way to get into business is with an existing idea. And this is what we are going to look at. Choosing one which either appeals to you, you are passionate about or have skills in, will be your greatest key to achievement.

* Home Business Idea #1 – eBay Selling

Starting your own home business is not always an easy task. For most people starting a home business can be a distant dream. Most people think you need thousands of dollars to start a home business, but with thanks to the auction platform, eBay, you can start your own home business for the price of a good meal!

With eBay you can sell almost everything, and is a great way to learn the basics of selling online. It can feel amazing seeing earning money online. And you don’t need big office space. In fact you can work from home and as the business gets bigger, you can expand.

* Home Business Idea #1 – Homemade Jewelry – Creativity – And Craft

If you have an artistic flair and a bit of good craftsmanship, there are plenty of opportunities to create your own jewelry. This does not have to be jewelry that costs thousands of dollars just for the jewels! This home business opportunity can be started with simple products that can be sourced cheaply, and made into key rings, paper craft, and custom pendants. Use your creativity, and you may find a successful home business in your hands.

* Home Business Idea #3 – Freelancing

You have no money, so how are you to start? If you have skills, there are many places that need those skills. Sometimes these skills and abilities, we may not use in our job. So, you can freelance your ability and make more money than in your day job. If you speak another language that you are in fluent in, you could translate for people who need such services.

There are many great opportunities to be found. Unfortunately the limited space does not allow expanding on the other great home business ideas available.

Nothing’s worse than when a situation is more confusing and complicated than it needs to be, especially when it comes to your customer service experience.

Here’s an example: Say you have just purchased a pair of shoes for a sale price. However, when the item is scanned at the counter, the sale price does not come up. The regular price does.

Now, an easy answer to this solution would be for the customer service representative to already know why this is occurring and plug the sales price in without any hassles.

However, in most cases, what happens is another customer service rep is called over the intercom while you wait in line. Ten minutes later, the two customer service reps will question you and often you will be left to return back to the item and find the price tag with the sales price.

By then you are fed up and don’t even want the shoes anymore.

This is not an easy solution and is the perfect example of poor customer service.
Make sure this doesn’t happen to your customers by always providing them with the easiest methods possible.

•    When it comes to your contact informative, ensure that your customers know how and where to contact you. Include your email address, your phone number and your business hours on all websites, emails, directories, business cards, flyers and in the store front.

Make sure your customers know that you are there to help them, no matter what.

•    Opt for a Toll Free Number for your help desk. Toll free numbers do not collect unwanted costs for your customers. Sometimes customers choose not to call simply because there is no toll free number available.

Give you customer the option of calling Toll Free to make their customer service experience as helpful as possible.

•    Offer a Simple Refund Policy. Sometimes a refund is necessary and there is nothing worse than having to jump through hoops in order to return a product.

Ensure this doesn’t happen by providing an efficient refund policy where your customers do not have to prove their purchase with several pieces of documentation.

Instead, keep records of purchases, especially large ones, in a computer system. This will simplify the process for the customers and keep them coming back for more.

•    Answer the phone yourself rather than using a large phone service system. Although they may be convenient to you, often times your customers will disagree.

A confusing phone service will leave your customer frustrated and annoyed at the lack of personal care.

Instead try to answer the phone or hire a cheerful receptionist who can effectively transfer the calls without your customers being subjected to the dreaded automated service.

The most important thing to remember is that with a simple and efficient customer service policy comes a loyal customer base.

Want to learn more? Check out Customer Service Profits for your all-access pass to how to ensure your customers are 100 percent satisfied and guaranteed to return for more.

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As the name suggest, business liability insurance is a kind of commercial insurance policy that protects a business owner and his/her business entity from sudden financial debacles resulting from unwanted financial tussle with clients. The business insurance can be better described as a protective insurance cover that protects business entities against claims and losses made by customers and clients during the course of services provided to them.

Business entities that are engaged in selling products or services should consider taking business insurance. It is because, the possibility of failure of products is high in businesses. A product which is appealing to one client might not provide the same level of satisfaction to another. Therefore, businesses should better prepare themselves to deal with the bad times. However, it is true that such happenings are not regular practices but they can happen at any time. So, taking precautions in advance can prepare businesses to deal with unseen situations. Sometimes, evidences of false claims can arise too. To tackle such events, having an effective liability insurance policy would be essential for every business.

Besides providing cover against claims by clients, business liability covers product insurance that protects you against any claim made against faulty products. Having this insurance cover helps a business to pay for the asked compensation while replacing the faulty product.

How to Get Business Insurance?

Companies looking for Business insurance can get affordable insurance polices from different ways. They can contact insurance companies and ask for their quotations. Some insurance companies offer the facility of online policy application form. Business owners can calculate their premiums by using premium calculators on the website. Once they choose a policy from the list on the website, they can apply directly. After completing their initial processing, a company professional will contact the applicant and process the request further.

If case of any confusion, business owners can get investment guidance from experts employed by the insurance companies. They will help applicants to understand the pros and cons of a particular insurance policy.