Surface Ripples

Win And Maintain Business - Effective Customer Interaction

We’re all busy / shorthanded / up against it these days in our efforts to increase (or even just maintain) business flows. These depend on the ability to satisfy customers and respond to enquiries.

Customers don’t remember what you say, but they always remember how you make them feel. They need to feel important and valued. They have a huge choice now in terms of providers and information available through the internet.

How we handle enquiries makes the difference between building and destroying business. Enquiries come in by phone, by email or may be face-to-face and many businesses really don’t understand how to deal with them effectively. Here are a few simple guidelines that can make a huge difference:

Phone:

The way you answer the phone says a lot about your business. Do you sound happy, energetic and eager to help? Or do you sound bored and as though you couldn’t care less?

• Greet customers cheerfully. I’ve had people simply start with “Name?” or “Account number?” as though the validity of my enquiry and existence hangs on these. Why’s it so hard to say a cheerful “Good Morning, [your name] speaking, how can I help you”? This earned me compliments when I used it.

• Stand up (if you can); it makes you feel and sound more energetic.

• Smile; it makes you sound pleased to be speaking to the caller (avoid this if they’re calling to complain!).

• Look up. This imparts a positive and forward-looking mood.

• Use the customer’s name as much as possible – it gives the impression that they mean something to you and aren’t just another interruption of your day. Ask them to repeat their name and even spell it if you didn’t catch it the first time.


Email:

• Send a polite response to all enquiries - a holding reply works if you can’t answer immediately. If you receive large volumes of email enquiries, use a system-generated holding response, but choose your wording carefully. Make sure it’s personal enough and that you get round to a full response quickly (say within 1 working day).

• Provide a contact name and telephone number on all system-generated responses.


Face-to-Face:

Unlike phone or email, the customer is in front of you and can see what you look like, how you carry yourself, how well-groomed you are and how you react. The flip side is that you can see this in the customer as well.

• Well-groomed, neatly-dressed staff have an advantage over those who look scruffy. Like it or not, customers do judge people’s professionalism by how they look.

• Look attentive – listen with eyes and ears. Only 10% of communication is verbal – the rest is all in the body language.


General:

• Summarise what the customer is looking for. If it’s not correct, they’ll tell you and you’ll avoid costly mistakes.

• Don’t sound like you’re reading a prepared text (not easy). People can tell if you’re not being spontaneous.

• If you can, offer alternatives. You may not have exactly what the customer is looking for, but do you have something that might work? The fact that you can generate alternatives will impress and may win business that might otherwise have gone elsewhere.

• Keep your promises. If you promise to call back within (say) 30 minutes, call back. One of my friends had this happen to him and after waiting one whole day for the call back, he posted his experience on Facebook, naming the company concerned. He has 150 friends on Facebook, all of whom saw his comments. That’s 150 people who know that the company he dealt with doesn’t keep its promises…

• Don’t make promises that you can’t keep, or that rely on someone else keeping them for you.

• Ignoring something because it doesn’t look promising may be disastrous.

• Don’t use phrases like “Company policy is…” Customers don’t care about policy, they care about solutions.

Many businesses feel that being “no worse than anyone else” is good enough. Unless your product or service is truly unique, there’s always someone else who will look after your customers better.

Whether times are hard or good, people will always remember how you treat them.

I have spent more than half my life working in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy and work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.

Labels: Customer Care, Productivity, Selling, Strategy

posted by William Martin @ 16:54