21 Vital Ingredients For Excellent Customer Service

It does not matter if you own a business that is a large conglomerate or just a sole-trader, if you do not give excellent customer service, your company will eventually fail. The personal touch promotes a business better than an expensive advertisement campaign.

Common sense should tell you that if a client has received excellent customer service then the customer will give the company valuable advertising by referring other people or companies to your business. People always remember who took care of their personal needs as well as providing them with the goods or services they needed for either personal use or business use.

My personal thoughts are that presentation, pride and the ability to listen to the customer to ascertain whatever goods or services are vital in today's current economic climate.

If you try to go that extra mile by suggesting services that you could provide that would be more beneficial or would complement the goods and services requested by the customer. That the customer could benefit from as well as any special offers that you will have by combining a comprehensive package of goods and services, then they will surely be impressed and will either tell their friends or be back when they need something else.

This will make the customer feel as if you are caring about them and you are providing quality customer service that is personal to their needs and not just going through the motions. This will prove to be winning combinations in helping a business thrive.

For those vital ingredients for customer service, check these suggestions out. 

1. Think of yourself as a client in whatever goods or service the client receives. How would you like to be treated?

2. Would you like to have someone friendly and professional on the other end of the phone?

3. This sounds a little crazy but it works for me, the business course I attended at college, I advised by my tutor to always smile when answering the phone, because as you smile your mood changes and it reflects in the conversation you are having. There is nothing worse than a person who is half-interested in listening to what you have to say.

4. Don't interrupt the client when they are requesting the goods or services they require. If you make a suggestion try waiting at the end of the customer’s request and then show them an alternative.

5. Make a note of the customer's name, the company they represent, contact details and details of the customer's order, date and time of the conversation and check by repeating the information that you received back to the customer to make sure you have the details right about what the customer needs. In addition, don't rush the customer, and make them feel as if they are important.

6. Never, use the client's first name unless they give you permission to do so, as it is very unprofessional and considered bad manners.

7. It is very important not to make promises you cannot keep. Always remember honesty is the best policy. Clients remember when people have a fundamental flaw; they remember when people break promises. Customers rather know the proper timescale in receiving the goods they require.

8. Everyone talks in business and they do tell others about individuals or companies who let them down by poor customer service as well as those who did give them that vital ingredient customer service that does an impact on the number of people who are willing to take a chance on your company. So it is essential you listen and get things right.

9. Unavoidable delays that do occur where you cannot supply the goods or services contact the client immediately. Again, be honest about the timescale in that you can deliver what you have promised in the beginning. When you can provide the service and it has gone wrong, you could even give a little discount for the inconvenience that may smooth things over.

10. If you require something from the client, always use the words please and do not ever demand or try to bully. Remember everyone has problems from time to time, so try to accommodate the customer as much as possible. In addition don't forget to thank them.

11. From time to time, things do go wrong, goods can become faulty, or there maybe misunderstandings as to what service a customer requires. Try to be patient, listen, and then try to offer solutions to the problem.

12. If they are no solutions, try offer a full refund right away and then give them a name and address of an alternative company who could help them so that it will have less impact on your company.

13. Manners and presentation are everything. Please and thank you do not cost anything and they can be very effective in persuading employees and colleagues to help fulfill the client's request.

14. No one likes anyone who demands or bullies in order to get what they want, if you treat your customers, employees or colleges with respect, in return respect maybe given back to you. If you are pleasant and treat people nicely, they tend to try to help as much as they can. However, if you are rude and demanding people tend to think less of you and make you wait longer or do their best not to fulfill your need to fulfill your customer's request.

15. Be fair with your employee's or colleagues, if they do need time off for personal reasons, try to do your best to fulfill their request and if you cannot make sure, you show them the reason why if they take that time off. Otherwise, the employee may think you are being cruel. Then when you may need your employee or colleague help by them working overtime, they may refuse and this could affect a very important order in the future.

16. When colleagues or employees do good work, try to praise them about the work that they have done so that they can feel good about themselves.

17. However, should a colleague or employee make a mistake, do not shout at the person in public, and humiliate them, so that everyone can listen. Instead, take the colleague or the employee to one side, explain that you feel that they have made a mistake, listen to them, and see if you show them the correct way of dealing with the situation. That way the person will not feel humiliated and feel that they would like payback for the way in which they were treated.

18. It might be after you speaking to your colleague or employee, that you have made a mistake, own up to the mistake and apologise immediately, people do respect other people who are willing to admit they are wrong from time to time.

19. Above all, put the needs of the customer, employee's or clients before your own. However, you do have to be careful not to take on too much otherwise you will burn out very easy and become very resentful because you are very tired.

20. Don't try to overcharge, have a good look around, and find out how much the item or service is going around the market place, and then make a reasonable offer, customers hate the feeling of being ripped off for a service that they could have got for half the price elsewhere and up to the same quality standards.

21. If you have a bad experience with a difficult customer, do not pick up the phone in a bad mood. If possible get someone else to take the call and take a little break by having a coffee and chill out for a couple of minutes if you can, and allow your staff to do the same before dealing with other customers.

How to set up public forum meeting

The purpose of the public forum meeting to bring a community of people together to share thoughts, ideas, and information, in order in order to help individuals of their communities.

The steps for setting up the public forum

1. First, you have to consider the purpose of the public forum and the goals you wish to achieve.
2. Decide on a name, something easy that will make it easy for people to understand the public forum's goals.
3. Consider the layout of the meeting. You can either design the chair layout will be like an audience, or in a semi-circle, with a chairperson, treasurer, and secretary who oversee the public forum or will the meeting can be held around a table where everyone takes notes depending on how many people are attending.
4. Once you have decided the goal and design decided. The next step is to set the first agenda and the promotion. Therefore, you need put together a list of the things you wish to discuss that is an agenda of how you would like the meeting to go.
5. Consider the budget for the forum. For example, how much money do you have to hire a room, how big do you need the room, refreshments for the people attending the meeting, etc?
6. Organise the date and venue, remembering the type of audience you want to reach. For example, it is no good organising the meeting for workers, during working hours, as everyone is busy at work and will not be able to attend during the day.
7. Another point to consider is childcare, and other responsibilities that your community has. You have to think what time would be the best time to have the public forum to reach the people who you wish to attend.
8. One last point you need to consider, do any of the people attending have any special needs for instance are they disabled as it is no good finding a venue where there are steps leading up to where the meeting is being held.
9. Write a leaflet describing the public forum, and the purpose and the goals you wish to achieve, making sure you have all the details of when and where the meeting taking place or use social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, email, newsletters, blog entries, etc.
10. The next step is to promotion and design posters, and type up informational leaflets to distribute.
11. See if local shops, newspaper, council, library, local radio will help with the promotion, or you could go door-to-door leaflet distribution to reach local residents (maybe if you contact the local newsagent, you ask the owner if the newspaper persons could post the leaflets at the same time as they post the newspapers).
12. Ask as many people as possible to contact you to let you know if they are interested in attending the public forum, so that you can have a rough estimate of how many people are going to turn up.
13. Book the venue, remember do not overboard with the venue, in the beginning because you do not know how many people are going to be interested in attending, it is better to start small and build up the membership of the public forum.
14. Organise refreshments for the attendees.
15. Organise your helpers on the day. Make sure people know what they are supposed to do on the day to make the day run smoothly and remember to thank them afterwards, as you might need them again to help.
16. Welcome your guests to the venue. Give people at least half an hour to turn up and offer refreshments, and let the attendees socialise a little. The best way to do this is as you welcome your guests, just direct them to the table where the refreshments are, so that they can help themselves.

The public forum meeting

1. Call the meeting to order by raising your voice by letting your attendees know that you are ready to start.
2. Introduce the people who are helping, for instance the secretary who is taking the minutes, etc
3. Start to go down the agenda, and discuss issues that interest the group.
4. Have a break after an hour, as people get bored easily, and let people have a walk about by letting them have more refreshments, and bathroom break, which is very good way of people sharing ideas that could help the forum develop.
5. Try not to take completely over the meeting, let people develop their ideas if possible, so that they can forge their relationships with one another and that will bring the community closer together. In addition, don’t let anyone else take over the meeting, to the point others feel intimidated in contributing to the discussion.
6. Ask what the members they like to see happen. Remember that a public forum is like an animal, which is unpredictable. It may start with one idea, but as the community is established, it can grow into something else. As long as the people happy, the information, and the goals you set out are getting across to help the people that you wish to connect with there is not really a problem.
7. Try to give enough time at the end to ask what date would be suitable for everyone to come together again, and ask the people what they would like to see on the next agenda and what tasks done before you meet again.
8. Make sure that you leave the room that you had your meeting is left in a reasonable state, afterwards by picking up any coffee cups left behind and tidy the chairs up. That way you will be able to use that venue again.
9. The day after the meeting, look towards finding the information that the members wanted to add to notes taken from the meeting and make sure that both the information and minutes are type up for the next public forum meeting.
10. Don’t forget to thank people for attending the meeting and remember to make sure you get people’s contact information, especially those who have volunteered to help you in your quest.
11. In addition, you can use social media, and video conferencing to help those who cannot attend personally, however their views may just be as important as those attending in person.

Advantages of public forums

1. A public forum helps people who have common interests to come together to help form contacts with people with similar ideas or problems and can become self-support groups
2. Attendees may come up with valid points that you have not thought of before and maybe you might need a little more time to research those points before proceeding on an action that would affect other peoples' lives. Feedback positive or negative is very important for everyone concerned.
3. It is easier to communicate in person to the very people who you wish to talk to on issues that are important to you and receive good feedback from people whom have had similar experiences.
4. It helps clear the air of any problems that have arisen over time and plan strategies to combat problems and make plans so that the problem do not arrive again.
5. People do not need to be computer literate or have access to the internet, to attend.

Disadvantages of real-life public forums

1. Interested parties may not be able to attend due to family, disability, carer responsibilities, and work commitments. Therefore, their views will not be included in the decisions that may affect their daily life.
2. Cost of venue, refreshments can become an issue as well as the cost of promoting the forum.
3. Disabled people may be too embarrassed about their problems to share their views when people watch them talk.
4. You may find one or two people try to take over the meeting and other people left out of the conversation, because they are too shy to speak.
5. People tend to think of good ideas once they have left the meeting and that means they cannot add that idea until the next meeting when it could be too late to implement.
6. People may get lost on the way to the meeting and after a while, they give up trying to find the place.
7. You end up with all the responsibility afterwards trying to reach the ultimate goal.
8. You may have to prepare visual aids so that the attendees will not get bored.
9. Remember some people will promise you the help you require; only to let you down at a later date, it is a good idea not to totally rely on one person to get a job done.
10. The number of people who do actually attend the face to face meeting, may not be fully representative of the people who you are trying to reach, therefore you may just making decisions based on their views and votes, when really the issue needs to be looked at by a wider audience.
11. There are those who do like to have meetings for the sake of having meetings that could drive people crazy especially if there is not really a good reason for them to be at the meeting. Therefore when you are putting your list together who should attend, you have to be kind and consider if these people do actually need to be there?
Here is an article I found on how to avoid pointless meetings -

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/meeting-tips/

Conclusion

People getting together, can be a very good way of reaching the goals that needed for your community. However, I also feel that it is a very good plan to use social media to engage and connected with the audience you are trying to reach too. Remember to use as many avenues you can in order to reach people because not one size fits all. With all that in mind, I will say good luck to your next meeting.

A Few Money Saving Tips – When Buying New Technology

A Few Money Saving Tips – When Buying New Technology

Before you rush off to buy the latest computers and gadgets, why do you not save for 12 months or more and have the money gain interest in your bank?

Then you can find out if there are drawbacks to the latest gadgets, you crave for within the shops. There could be an added bonus; you may have the cheaper option of paying cash instead of throwing money at your bank loan, credit card or finance.

If you rush off to buy immediately, not only would you be paying over the odds in interest, you could also have a gadget that will not work properly. There could be glitches in the software, codes or console itself. It is just plain stupid to pay over the odds to be the first person to get gadget only to find it doesn’t work properly and the company knew all along that there were technical issues with the product.

You should also look at honest reviews from people who have bought the product and not the company's advertising hype. For example, do you remember Sony with their PlayStation 3 console hype? Now look at the problems people were facing with the console that have the 'red screen of death' problem and how long it took Sony to accept there was a problem that needed to be fixed.

Then people came up with tips of how to fix it –

http://ps3allfixingguide.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/ps3-red-screen-of-death-u0026quot-fix-4-tips-to-fix-the-ps3/

Nearly all of us all look out for the latest computer or tablet that can do hand stands as well as all the tasks and you have a heavy sigh as the sales people will tell you that new computer or tablet or phone you are craving will be out dated even before the manufacturer has put the last screw in.

You may want to update your old computer with latest Blu-ray drive however are you sure that the drive? Some people will fit the device without thinking about whether the blue ray could affect the computer by making it over heat could in fact potentially damage the computer and maybe the Blu-ray to go with it, Only so that they can brag to their mates that they have the most up to date gadgets and software on their computer. Now if you are eager to match that person you make that fatal mistake it could be curtains for your old faithful computer.

Instead of signing up to the expensive technical support that comes with your computer or gadget which also costs you a fortune to phone up as they are always on premium rate numbers. Why don’t you look towards online support solutions, use social media, to find other customers who may have bought the item you are looking for?

Why don't you use your computer and type what gadget into Google search window to find your dream product, before you buy the item. You could also sign up to technical review RSS feeds/newsletters or just sign up to technical websites or review forums and sign up to  their newsletters on the latest news, they maybe are talking about the gadgets and computers you want.

These sources of information, also help you steer away from those nightmare purchases that are causing everyone else problems. Not only will you be amazed within the twelve months of how much money, you will have a well informed choice of the gadget or computer you want. If you had a good idea and the product is a good item, you will know it before you buy it.

For me it is an easy choice, I would rather save and listen to others about their experiences with the gadgets and computers, which save me a lot of heartache and hardship by letting other people make the mistakes before me.

Avoiding the added interest that the banks and credit cards will charge me not only for the products I would have required the technical support for the flaws the manufacturer didn't had time to fix before their launch date. There is an added bonus too, that the item will be cheaper in 12 months’ time when people will be after next big thing. Why pay over the odds, for something that will be cheaper in 12 months’ time? I find patience is a virtue when dealing with technology.

The question I do ask myself when I am purchasing a new item is it a latest fad or will it give a return on my investment. Then I end saving myself a lot of money for the gadgets and computers I want and saving myself all the heartache of having to deal with a flawed product at the same time because I taken my time, save up and do my research and wait for the stampede to subside before I make my purchase.

Thank you for listening.

A Company's Online Demise.

The Internet is the great causeway of the world these days and everyone wants a vibrant successful business or a community buzzing with ideas. If you think about it for a moment, the many that become successful there will be thousands falling by the wayside.  So what makes a successful website or forum or online business?

Glossy pictures as bold as they can be winking a hint of temptation,  and then there is the neatly typed out words dancing off the page eager for you to read them,  however is there any substance behind the shop window to the world. 

All graphics are in place and the topics that are allowed to be discussed are drawn up like soldiers on a battlefield ready for action. All of a sudden it dawns on someone that they may need to tell the world and there mates that the website is there waiting for those all-important visitors. 

So all of a sudden there is a gasp, and someone has realised they didn’t send out those all-important newsletters,  so there is a big rush to get out over 2000 emails out,  but no one has thought that there was an application for that so some  poor person is burning the midnight oil. Then person is on the winning stretch and they have finished the emails from the database that was sent them, if only they knew about mail merge or did they think about Mail Chimp?

Another week goes by everyone keeps peeking at the website, and they look at the counter of visitors, and you know over 50 people have turned up.  They don’t realise that when they visit the site, it is counted by Alexia or another site counter. However those 50 people who did turn up were themselves or employees or friends, but there were no prospective customers, because no one could find the website.

A person takes the initiative and starts to read up of how to get your website noticed, and then reads an interesting article all about marketing and registering with a directory,  and thinks ‘Oh My God’ I didn’t think I would have to do that?  

What advertise on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+ etc.?  or they start to panic, because the person who has found these social networks suddenly finds themselves with not enough time in the day to sort other things out because they are trying to listen for keywords that could be a link to a prospective sale, they don’t know about Hoot Suite or other programs that can make life easier, that could be a life line in such a situation.  However,  the basic thought should have been how to drive customers to your website, how would anyone know where to look for the services or goods you offer, if no one gave them the path in which to reach them.

A sad tale of the online business forum

There is this forum that was made up of a business man, his family and friends, even his goldfish Percy ended up involved in the business man's sales and promotion department. 

Now the business man was busy making his product and inventing things to sell. He thought everything was under control; he had bought his premises, was hiring his staff, and spending a lot of money trying to get his business off the ground.

However, he trusted his family and friends to help him with his social media, setting up his forum etc. As time went by he was wondering why he wasn't getting clients from his online sources and it wasn't long before he was running out of money.  

One day went to his office and found total chaos. With all his good intentions of trying to involve all his family and friends,  the admin staff and moderators, too numerous to mention were going around in circles, not wanting to make any decisions because no one wanted to upset his Aunty Ivy or Percy ‘the goldfish’, that they hadn’t been chosen for their chosen position in the company.  When someone gently approached Aunty Ivy understood and stepped aside. However, when they tried to approach Percy, "The Goldfish", well he hired the hit man, Dellboy "The Shark".

When the owner gets down to his last penny decides to get his act together and realises he has no staff left because Percy took out contracts for the rest of the staff that disagreed with him.  Percy is now the only fish left in the sea, so he is the admin, moderator and he feels invincible. Percy is just strutting around in his newly furnished goldfish bowl, and any member of staff, client or member of the forum. Now anyone who didn’t give Percy the praise for being such a clever goldfish and how well he was doing things would be history.

Remember the other staff; well he only has to have words with Dellboy who will rip the staff or clients heads off. They just have to line up, because most people forgot Percy ‘The Goldfish’ and how important he was to the company.

The people who narrowly escaped Dellboy, vowed never to go back again, and they told their friends all about the company’s online forum and then everyone started to avoid the website like a plague, and you guess what happened to the business after that, it certainly became history because no one wanted to buy anything from the company in case they ended up dealing with Percy and Dellboy.

So the moral of this story is, make sure you plan your website before you and if you don’t know what you are doing, in regards to social media and online marketing and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) then my advice is to hire an expert or do your homework and do it yourself but whatever you do, try not to give Percy too much power over your business. Keep an eye on your staff to make sure that they are giving your customers the customer service they deserve. Remember a happy customer will always return.

If you are employing staff to run any part or your business or a website, or your social media, never let them get a ‘Godlike complex’ with your staff, forum members or clients, as this will only hurt your reputation and people will not want to come back to you.  Remember your online presence is your new shop window and it is up to you whether you want to make it inviting or drive people away.

Try not to take things personally if things haven’t gone right for a customer, try your best to put it right if you can, remember with most businesses being online these days, it is so easy for your reputation to get hurt.  If you are getting a lot of negative feedback about one individual, try having a look at their methods of treating people around them. Then the alternatives are, give them more training or you show them the door.  

Each year millions of people stake everything they have on that one chance to make it big especially if they are put up their brand new website advertising their business. However, if they don’t take social media seriously and they don’t engage properly with past, present or future customers, then I am afraid that they have wasted both their time and money on a very expensive group of pictures and words. 

A static website, blog or forum are very good tools, but without the tools or the right people looking after your online presence, to give prospective customers a reason to visit your website and browse what they have to offer then I am  afraid in these days, that business is doomed to fail.

One very important moral is to make sure you do your homework regarding your website and online presence; after all it is your money that you are wasting away and ask yourself can you really afford to let your business fail?