So I'm thinking Rebranding

Over a month ago I wrote an article about Branding and about how I love brands. This is not going to be a repeat blog nor is this going to be super specific about the concept of rebranding. In fact, this is about how I will be making changes to this blog this next year.

I have been writing much more frequently and especially since I wrote a series, I decided that I needed to make a bigger commitment to this blog, plus I felt like writing more and with saying the next post I would do would be related to this series I felt a little stuck. Because I of this stuck feeling I decided to evaluate this blog. I have been spending the last month deciding how I am changing the image of this blog, well maybe not image, but having more consistent content.

What I’m saying is I will be blogging more and have specific topics for each day. I have evaluated what type of posts I enjoy writing the most and what have been the most read and I tailored made them into that.

In 2014 Speaking Inferno will consistent of 3 different types of blog posts:

·       Monday

o   Quoting Monday

·       Wednesday

o   Let’s Get Down to Business Wednesday

·       Friday

o   Random Thought Friday

These posts will not be exactly named after that, but I like the names and it just easier to put them into categories. I have been working hard on this change and been writing ahead to make sure that I will consistently get content out on time.

I am very excited for this change and what this will turn into in this next year. But until my new blog topics come out (the change will officially be taking effect January 6,2014).

I will be posting a blog next week, but it will not be on business , but it will just be a review on the year.

But until January 6,2014:

Have a Merry Christmas!

My Customer Service Experience

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The final part of my Customer Service series is finally here! We’ve covered the definition, the importance and how it must come from the top to have any effect on any lower level of business. Now comes the section where my personal experience can come into play.

I have worked in retail for over three years and have been tested during my undergrad about customer service. I have been forced to understand that the customer comes first, giving customers that “WOW” experience each time they come in, making sure I am having that happy face all the time, leaving anything I am dealing with at the door and being able to correlate that with the information that I learned in some of my business courses. So what I’m saying is that I get customer service on a certain level.

I think customer service is exceedingly important, even though it may be exceedingly difficult to give it. Being on the side of a sales associate I can admit that sometimes you get annoyed with customers and the behavior that they may treat you with, but that is where you can tell whether someone gets the idea of customer service. I can also say that you can tell whether a person gets customer service if their managers get it, you know, that whole funnel effect.

As easy as it would be for me to talk about the ways I have given customer service in different situations, I’m not going to do that. In fact, I’m going to more so discuss some of the times I have experienced excellent customer service.

One of the places that I go constantly is Starbucks. I go to the same Starbucks a couple times a week and I just love the work I get done, in fact I’m there writing this post.  The reason I go to this Starbucks is because of the service they provide. They recognize me and are just an overall good staff. They are very inviting and there are some of the employees who I chat with each time I’m in.

Another example of great customer service was in what I thought was an odd situation. I had a job interview a while back and the guy who interviewed me gave me some of the best customer service I have ever seen. I had arrived there a few minutes early, like I typically do, and was waiting in the designated area. The receptionist called him and she said to me that he was still in a meeting and was running behind. I honestly didn't mind since he was doing his job, but a minute later he was out of the meeting greeting me. He took me to their break area and got me a cup of coffee. He wanted me to be comfortable while I was waiting for him and gave me a rough estimate of how much longer the meeting will be. I thought that was a perfect example of customer service and just me such a positive image of him as a leader. I met a couple of the associates and they acted like that as well, talk about a perfect example of that Funnel Effect.

I have said it before in this series and I’ll say it again, customer service is key in retail or any business for that matter, but that’s not the only place for customer service. I have worked for the past seven months as an interim youth pastor with two others and talk about an important place to have good customer service. We have to not only provide something for our youth group kids to keep coming back, but also to be able to appeal to parents.

What I’m saying is that anything or any place where you deal with people, there is going to be a need of some type of customer service. People want to be treated well, respected and are valued. At the end of the day, that is what customer service is. It is making the customer feel valued and taken care of. The whole mantra of “the customer is always right” may be a pain to deal with, but they are the ones who purchase products/services and if they don’t like how you treat them, then they aren’t coming back.

Customer Service Funnel Effect: Part III

The first two parts of this series are the basic foundation. Having a formal definition and a basic description of the significance of customer service is great, sound bit like a textbook at times, but foundations are needed.

This week’s blog is not necessarily a new concept or theory; I have not personally seen any graph/chart on this topic. Any way, I have decided to at least take a jump in trying to come up with an idea to describe Customer Service in an effect form by creating the Customer Service Funnel Effect.

Side Note: This is just my personal opinion of what creates a good customer service environment in a hierarchal form. I have never worked in a corporate environment, at least not yet, but this is just the view of someone who has worked on the lowest end of this funnel.

The Customer Service Funnel Effect

In part 1 of the series, I reiterated the definition of customer service in different ways, but one of the ways was the preference to this post.

Each of these definitions builds upon each other, which makes sense. The first definition deals more with corporate, the next one deals with production and the seller, and the last deals with retail or an ending point of a supply chain when the consumer has access to the final product.

With the visual in place, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty details.

The top of the funnel represents where everything comes from and the basis of everything. In the relations of this to Customer Service, this is where the idea is formed. If looking back at the first blog where I have listed the definitions of customer service, it deals with corporate philosophy, which means there has to be something about customer service at the top for it to come down to an ending point.

So it makes sense that if a company positions themselves as a company that delivers great customer service, it must be in the DNA of the company. For example, in the textbook Crafting and Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage: Concepts and Cases there is a case study that focuses right on this point. Southwest Airlines is a company known for their customer service, but that goes much deeper than on the customer end, but comes from the top with a decision that they made as a corporate entity. Later I will go on to how this will affect the people on the ending point.

The Production/seller aspect of this model is a bit more abstract, but customer service is still important. This middle section is that middle of the supply chain where getting the product to a warehouse. One can easily assume that customer service does not play an important role in this area, but I beg to differ. If a warehouse is not delivering products on schedule or making the right shipments to stores, then they themselves are not providing good customer service. If they are unable to do the job before them, then corporate is not keeping their customer service promise and the ending point has to provide service in a different way.

The ending point or retail, the area where I have the most experience in, is where most people think about customer service. People assume that if you are in retail/store, restaurant, or service industry then that is the main area of where customer service can be found. It’s that make it or break it point on whether people think a company as a whole has a good customer service policy. What most consumers realize though is how the corporate decisions really do affect these employees. I mentioned earlier, the case study that focuses on Southwest Airlines states that:

Employees were provided the following policy guidance regarding how far to go in trying to please customers:

No Employee will ever be punished for using good judgment and good old common sense when trying to accommodate a Customer—no matter what our rules are.

When you empower People to make a positive difference every day, you allow them to decide. Most guidelines are written to be broken as long as Employee is leaning toward the Customer. We follow the Golden Rule and try to do the right thing and think about our Customer (1).

They are giving their employees a chance to make a decision within parameters. If your choice is in the customer’s favor then that is your guidelines, if it is not, then you are not necessarily giving great customer service.

I have personally experienced situations exactly like this where managers trust your judgment on circumstances involving customers that are within reason. I won’t go to much detail on my personal experience yet, because that is for next week’s blog.

The overall point is that for customer service to be consistent in a company is that it MUST funnel down from the top. If there is no basis of customer service at the top of the funnel, then that mentality cannot shuffle down into the management in charge of the stores or areas of distribution to the public. Customer Service must be at all levels for it to embody a company.

Next week I will be finishing up this series with my personal experience with customer service. I will not be viewing this only in the eyes of a retail employee, but at different places where I have witnessed and experienced good/great customer service at different levels.

1. Thompson, Arthur A., and Arthur A. Thompson. Crafting and Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage : Concepts and Cases. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2012. Print.

Customer Service is Important:Part II

Customer Service is Important. No one can disagree with that statement. That’s it. Customer Service is important and if a company does not have it, then they will not be in business for long.

I could easily leave the post just to contain that, but leaving it at that is not getting to the heart of the issue. See, everyone understands that Customer Service is important, but the real question is not whether it is important or not, but why is it important.

To give a quick recap of last week, Customer Service is:

• Customer-oriented philosophy that is to help integrate and manage
• It is identifiable, but intangible
• It is to increase value

In this post I will be focusing more on the last two points

Why is Customer Service Important?

To best get an idea on why it is so important, I picked up some of my old textbooks and read a number of articles on the issue. As I read through these sources, specifically my textbooks, I was able to gain a better grasp of the significance Customer Service plays in business.

Customer Service can lead to Customer Satisfaction

I will be the first to admit that this sounds great! You give good customer service and then the customer is satisfied and comes back to your business.  Sounds basic, but as all things that sound too good to be true, it is not that simple. Gauging customer satisfaction with customer service is exceedingly difficult and not because gathering data is difficult, but it is clearly something of perception.

Gathering data is easy, but it is making sure your customer satisfaction survey is asking the right questions.

Marketers can use such data to retain customers, sell more products and services, improve the quality and value of their offerings, and operate more effectively and efficiently (1).

Data is easy, but it is using data to help better customer service can prove difficult because there are certain items that a business can't change. One of those areas is a company policy.

For example, if a company’s policy says that you can have a no-hassle return and that associate is not making it easy for the customer, then you can speak with that associate for next time to make the experience better. Now if your company has a 90-day return policy and a customer comes in and it has been past the 90-day period, then the customer is going to be dissatisfied. With a policy set in place, it is difficult to appease certain customers, but these policies are set in place for a reason.

Customer satisfaction is needed for consumers to return to your business and by sustaining this high standard of customer service, a company is positioning themselves with a key strategy.

Customer Service can be a part of a Differentiation Strategy

Think of a store, restaurant or any other service business that has excellent customer service. Any of these places can be substituted with any of their competitors. Some of these places that you thought of may not have the best deals in town or are quite expensive. Now why do you continue going to this business? You like the quality or taste? That does play a role, but would you continue going to that place if they were horrible at customer service?

A typical response for this would be no. You would go some place else.

In a Virginia Libraries article, libraries also are concerned with customer service, stressed the importance of customer service by stating:

In this era of transition, customer service is more important than ever. We need to maintain a positive welcoming image—both to retain the patrons we have had and encourage them to bring others (2).

This differentiation approach is increasing the value of your company, increasing company reputation and potentially bringing more consumers to your door. Your product or service may be excellent, but if your service is unbearable, then consumers can go to one of your competitors. Building a reputation for customer service takes a considerable amount of time, effort and resources. In Grewal and Levy’s textbook entitled Marketing, they state “…once a marketer has earned a good service reputation, it can sustain this advantage for a long time because a competitor is hard pressed to develop a comparable reputation (3).”

An awesome example of a company known for customer service that had a featured case study in Crafting and Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage: Concepts and Cases textbook is Southwest airlines. One of the many ways that Southwest made sure that they excelled in customer service was their 2007 gate makeover. Southwest understood that they have two specific types of customers: families and the businessman. So like any strategic company, they decided to differentiate from their competitors and created a gate that met the needs of their customers.  This makeover “…included adding (1) a business-focused area with padded seats, tables with power outlets, power stations with stools, and a flat-screen TV with news programming, and (2) a family-focused area with smaller tables and chairs, power stations for charging electrical devices, and kid-friendly programming on a flat-screen TV (4).”

People, consumers, whatever you want to call them do remember these positive changes a company makes, especially if it is customer service based.

One of the major lessons I learned consistently during my time in college was how negative news/media spreads quicker than positive. Keeping that consistently excellent customer service can help deflect some of the negative feedback that people have said. If consumers can experience excellent customer service and it does not seem insincere, there is a greater likelihood they will return and potentially lead to a loyal customer base.

Customer Service is important and there are a lot of reasons why that I didn’t even touch in this article because then the article would be way too long. The main point though is that it is IMPORTANT and we all need to evaluate our level of customer service and understand why we are giving this specific type of service.

The next two blogs to come with this series:

3.  The Customer Service Funnel Effect

4.  My Customer Service Experience

Sources

(1) Boles, Patrick F. Pearson Custom Business Resources (Buyer Behavior University of Akron). N.p.: n.p., 2011. N. pag. Print.

(2) Gardner, C. A. "The Importance of Customer Service." Virginia Libraries 51.4 (2005): 2-4. Print.

(3) Grewal, Dhruv, and Michael Levy. Marketing. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2010. Print.

(4) Thompson, Arthur A., and Arthur A. Thompson. Crafting and Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage : Concepts and Cases. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2012. Print.