This is so true with quick service retailing.

We have all experienced the customer service representative that ignores us in favor of their computer or POS screen. Trying to make eye contact or just get a response from someone absorbed in data entry can be annoying.

But here’s the thing most retailers don’t realise.

Even if a customer doesn’t remember being ignored, they may (subconsciously) associate your business with an (unknown, but felt) sense of frustration, distance or lack of ‘connection’. Those feelings will build up unbeknownst to the client and they may eventually take their patronage elsewhere.

Customer Service With A Smile

The sad part of all of this is it all happens without conscious knowledge or intent. The client simply has no compelling reason to want or desire to return so he or she simply doesn’t.

That’s a killer for a retailer.

So what can you do to optimise the necessary POS data entry while offering outstanding customer service?

POS Customer service Tip #1:

Explain what you’re doing to the customer while you so it. That means as you’re typing, you say “I’m pulling up your account file to make sure our records are up-to-date” By doing that, the customer is INVOLVED in the process. Engaging the customer in the task CONNECTS you to him/her. As the information comes up, you can mention something like “Just to make sure, you’re still at 123 Main Street right?” You can then add a personal anecdote “I used to live near there, the dog park was great when I had my golden retriever…” Adding a personal anecdote builds rapport within the process that otherwise alienates the customer. Of course, if you’re really systemised, you’ll start to input your customer’s tastes and predispositions such as “ dog or cat owner, single, has children, tennis player, classic car enthusiast, etc. That will help you become more specific in your marketing campaigns.

POS Customer service Tip #2:

This customer service tip is obvious, but needs to be repeated – look up from the screen and make frequent eye contact with your customer. It may slow down your typing, but this is a key component to establishing rapport and a personal connection.

POS Customer service Tip #3:

A savvy customer service person will use the time the computer takes to load or perform a transaction to chat with the customer. This needs to be systemised within your sales process. The more natural it is, the better the outcome, but it does need to be part of the process as much as getting a credit card slip signature.

So there you have it, 3 simple customer service tips that can help you make a difference to your retail sales – especially the valuable repeat sales that are a must for any retailer to build a profitable business foundation for the future.

Your Customers Are Made of Money

I HAVE to break this to you, businesses cannot survive without customers. A business without customers is like a well without out water. Good customer service is the ground water that fills up your well. You’re high and dry without a reputation for taking care of your customers. Plus, the longer you keep customers, the wetter your well, because long term customers are more profitable. A 5% increase in customer retention can boost profit by 25% to 125%

Not digging the well analogy? Here is another way to think about it; your customers are money, gold to be exact, because they appreciate in value as time goes on. You may not think of customers as goods that can be bought or traded, but they’re assets to your company, just like stock investments or an office computer. They are them most vital part of your business’s economic machinery.

You pay hard-earned business capital to market to your customers, you essentially buy their patronage, one person at a time. Once bought, a customer will continue to generate your income, without much further advertising effort. On the flip side, customers who leave take with them every cent that you invested in marketing to them.

Customer retention is FREE MONEY! If you go the extra mile to keep customers, your marketing budget will go down, and your profits will go through the roof. You’ll have to ‘buy’ less new customers, and loyal customers generate some powerful word-of-mouth patronage.

Losing customers has the opposite effect, and can be truly devastating. And, you have no excuse for customers walking away from your business because of poor service, it’s the most controllable factor of your business. Technology can fail, accounts can pay late, but there is no reason to be rude or inattentive to a customer.

One way to gear up for fantastic customer service it to train employees to see each customer for how much they’re really worth. They may treat customers a bit differently if they imagined them as giant stacks of money or piles of gold. Each retained customer is (literally) money in the bank.

This question is almost impossible to answer, because technology is changing at such a rapid pace and the bad news for you if you were planning to predict the future trends; the velocity is increasing at an exponential rate.

Terms such as “Social media”, “Facebook”, “Blogging”, “iPhone Applications”, “Convergence technology” which didn’t exist 5 years ago are now commonplace. A bevy of so called “Social media experts” are only a click away should your business need assistance and/or advice in this realm.

What did we do without this technology, and do we really need it? Is it an indulgence?

Take the Domino’s Pizza iPhone Application for example:

It’s a Pizza store in your pocket!

Ordering pizza pastas desserts and sides for pick up or delivery has never been easier, and most of all it’s fun. Order it anywhere anytime. It’s that simple. No registering online first, just download the app and you’re ready to go. Whether you are using it for the first time or the hundredth time placing an order is easy.

It’s your choice. Hot pizzas, pastas and salads or extras such as drinks and desserts. Fancy a pizza? View your pizza selection easily with the turnstile function. Found one you like? Tap the pizza to choose. A different screen will show you more details about the pizza.

In this screen you have the choice to select the number of pizzas you want, as well as the options to change the pizza base sauce, crusts or toppings, don’t want tomato but would like olives instead, no problem!

Finished customizing tap add to order and you will be taken back to the main menu to continuing ordering or complete your order. Your order details will update at the bottom of the screen in the ‘my order’ icon and will show how many item’s you’ve ordered and what the price is so far.

Finished, did you get everything?

Once you’ve finished, placing your order is easy. Select place your order and you’ll be taken to the payment page. Will it be cash or credit? Once you’ve selected place your order now your order will be sent to store and an order confirmation page will appear.

Once your order’s been placed with the store, you can track your order using the pizza tracker. See exactly when your order is being made when it’s cooking when it’s ready for pick-up is or when it’s on its way to your door. Keep your iPhone handy, track it and enjoy it.

What’s next, and will you and your business be at the forefront of technology or scratching your head wondering what the phone number for your local pizza shop is?

This app is only available at Domino’s Pizza thru iTunes.
For more information visit www.dominos.com.au

Customer Service Case Study #1: One Delay Turns Into 5,000 Reasons To Come Back

This case study is about American Airlines.^[i] The author of the original article was on his way from a business conference in Denver to his home in Chicago. Shortly before arriving at the airport he received a text message from American Airlines stating that his flight was to be delayed by thirty minutes. While waiting in the airport he received several more text messages, each subsequently stating that his flight was to be delayed for even longer. It turns out there was a mechanical problem with the plane and he ended up leaving five hours after his original departure time.

The author, like many disgruntled customers, did not complain to American Airlines. However, American Airlines recognized their mistake, sent the author an unsolicited apology letter, and offered him 5,000 free frequent flier miles for his trouble. American Airlines preemptive good service gave the company another loyal customer.

Customer Service Case Study #2: A Bad Process Is Reversed

This story concerns Best Buy, a consumer electronics store.^[ii] The author of this article and his wife were browsing the laptop section when they spotted a laptop on sale for $699. A service representative asked if they needed help, and they declined because they were unsure about the purchase. They left the store, discussed the purchase, and returned a few hours later with the intent to purchase the laptop.

The author sought out the customer service representative who had previous asked him if he needed help. The representative was rude to him when he asked with help purchasing the laptop. Then the representative asked him to fill out a form before discussing the service. After the author filled out the form he was informed that the store was out of the sale item. He was told he could not order another because the sale ended the next day. The author asked the representative to put one on hold for him in neighboring city, to make sure that it was still there after a drive. He was told that was not possible.

The author and his wife got ready to leave, angry that they were unable to buy the laptop. On their way out they were approached by one of bust buys “Customer Experience Managers”. The manager went out his way to make sure that the author was able to purchase the laptop. He helped the author use the company website to order the laptop from a Best Buy in a city nearby, ensure that the author and his wife would have a sale priced laptop waiting for them. It took some ‘out of the box’ thinking and true dedication to the customer to save the author’s patronage.

Customer Service Case Study #3: Great Service Has No Linguistic Boundaries

This last story concerns an unnamed hotel in South Korea. ^[iii] This is an important story because, were it not for excellent customer service, the author of this article would have been in dire straights. The author had to attend a business meeting in Southern Korea, he didn’t know the area or the language. He took a two hour taxi ride away from his airport, bound for a hotel in a remote region of the country.

When he arrived at his hotel he was informed that they had been overbooked and there was not a room for him. The author’s hotel room had been prearranged, an overbooked room left him virtually deserted in a foreign country.

Th hotel manger appeared, and told the author he was sorry about the mistake. The manager went ahead and booked the author a room in another nearby hotel, then gave his taxi driver instructions to the ensure that he made to his room safely. Th hotel manager took the time to understand the situation, and did everything he could to rectify it.

The moral of these customer service stories is simple: Where there is a crisis, there is an opportunity – you just have to make sure the people you hire know HOW to turn a bad experience into a good or great one. We’ll talk about how to do this in future blog posts.

^[ii] http://www.bieberlabs.com/archives/2007/10/28/customer-experience-managers-at-best-buy-a-bad-experience-turns-good/

^[iii] http://www.allbusiness.com/finance/cash-management/3874656-1.html

From previous blog posts, you know that (1) for every poorly served client, you’re handing him/her over to a competitor and (2) the costs of bad customer service can be astronomical.

How ‘herding’ makes a bad situation worse

People prefer individual analysis of a business over advertisements and marketing. Whenever a consumer has uncertain private information, she is likely to be influenced by others because their opinions contain new information^[ii]. In some cases individuals may discard their own private opinions to follow others, this is a marketing phenomenon known as ‘herding’.

Herding is why every instance of bad customer service drives business away at an alarming rate. A typical dissatisfied customer will tell eight to ten people about their problem. One in five will tell twenty. ^[iii] Those told will often choose not do business with the offending company, and often times they will then tell even more people to avoid the business. A single occurrence of bad service is a spark that sets off an uncontrollable word-of-mouth wildfire that has the potential to destroy a business.

How the Internet can take a worse situation and turn it into a disaster.

The herding problem is compounded in the information age, one customer can use the Internet to spread their bad experience to thousands with a click of a mouse.

The internet is riddled with websites where consumers can post about their experiences with companies.

Viewpoints, Rate It All, and Consumer Search are among the top customer driven business reporting and rating sites. Google recently bought out another popular rating site, Deja.com, and now has a massive database of consumer reports.

Hundreds of thousands of people access these sites everyday to receive guidance on businesses and products from all over the world. This can be a serious problem for companies who receive poor ratings because these reports will pop up when a potential customer searches a business.

It is often the 4 percent that do complain that end up posting their bad experience on the web. The number one reason that people post their stories on these consumer complaint web sites is because nobody in the company is willing to resolve the complaint after the error is made. ^[vii] The best way to avoid a bad service wildfire is to train representatives to offer the best service possible, and to resolve all customer issues immediately.

It takes an average of twelve positive service incidents to make up for one negative incident. ^[viii]

There is good news, customers who have superior service experiences are as likely to tell other people as patrons who have had poor experiences.^[ix]

It is the mediocre service representatives that get no mentions. Stellar customer service makes patrons return, tell others about their positive experience, and give the company excellent ratings on consumer web sites. Ideally, the only ratings that pop when a company is searched are positive ones, full of glowing customer service reports.

^[ii] Guodong (Gordon) Gao, University of Maryland, Bin Gu, University of Texas at Austin, Mingfeng Lin, University of Maryland.(2007) THE DYNAMICS OF ONLINE CONSUMER REVIEWS

^[iii] http://www.content4reprint.com/business/management/poor-customer-service-can-kill-your-business.htm

^[vii] http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/tycoon/2008/0725.html

^[viii] http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/1144/business_and_finance/tips_for_curing_bad_customer_service.html

^[ix] Guodong (Gordon) Gao, University of Maryland, Bin Gu, University of Texas at Austin, Mingfeng Lin, University of Maryland.(2007) THE DYNAMICS OF ONLINE CONSUMER REVIEWS

Welcome and stay tuned!