Here is some information to help you stay proactive - to be in control of yourself and your emotions.
1. Have a safety valve for your emotions. If you suppress your anger and emotions all the time, you are likely to blow up at the wrong time at the wrong person. Express your anger, frustrations, and emotions to your safety valve - friends and family you trust.
2. Get plenty of rest. Do not deprive yourself of sleep. If you are overly tired, you are more likely to say and do irrational things. Know how much sleep you need each night. Most people need between six and eight hours of sleep each night.
3. Learn how to relax. Relaxing requires practice. Learn to relax your body and your mind. Put worry thoughts out of your mind. Replace them with pleasant thoughts. Only about two percent of what we worry about ever comes to pass. Heed the words of Mark Twain: I have experienced many terrible things in my life, a few of which have actually happened.
4. Exercise. It is one of the greatest tension relievers. Continuous exercise that is at least 15 to 20 minutes in duration, at least three times a week, is so valuable. Something as simple as a brisk thirty-minute daily walk can help you cope with lifes tensions.
5. Prioritize your work and do only one thing at a time. People have a tendency to get very stressful when their minds are cluttered and they perceive they have too much to do in too short a period of time. If this happens to you, you may indirectly voice your frustrations in your tone of voice. If you prioritize, you will learn to work on only one thing at a time and keep your work in perspective. It is also very important to remember that so called customer interruptions are not aggravations - they are part of your job!
6. Keep a sense of humor. Laughter is another great tension reliever. See the humor in lifes situations. Learn to laugh at yourself a little. Do not take yourself or your situations too seriously. Spend time with friends who like to laugh and joke. It will help to keep difficult situations in perspective.
7. Develop hobbies. Have outlets that get your mind off work. They help you to be a well-rounded individual. Hobbies help you to relax and to focus on other aspects of your life.
8. Eat right. If you eat junk food and load up on caffeine throughout the day, you are likely to experience emotional highs and lows throughout the day. The sugar high and caffeine can make you hyper. Then when the high wears off, you may feel tired. Also, different types of foods affect people in different ways. For instance, some foods make people feed sluggish or stuffy. Listen to the signals of your body. Give it fuel that keeps it energized and emotionally sharp.
9. Give yourself quiet time each day. Have a hermit spot where you can go to be completely alone, even if it is for only ten minutes a day. You need time to yourself - to melt your tensions away.
10. Create a mental focus. Create specific goals to focus on and strive for. People who know what they want in life feel more in control of their lives. Thus, they are usually less stressful.
Great Customer Service -
The essence of excellent customer service is going beyond the expected. Anticipating a customers needs so thoroughly that you fulfill the desire before it has even been expressed. Understanding what the customer expects, then exceeding those expectations. Take the initiative. Be memorable. Bring a sense of mission and artfulness to all your interactions. The customer that leaves feeling just satisfied has not been truly served - for satisfaction is only the starting point.
Pj Germain
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Have you heard people say that if not for customers, work will be a lot smoother? They ask questions for which the answers are so obvious. Or they can find the answers if they will just read the instructions that are provided with the product. They just have to call and ask all kinds of questions and sometimes you are not even the person who is supposed to handle such questions. Are you looking for good reasons that will help you feel better about this?
First thing is if there are no customers, then there is no business. If there is no business then you do not have a job. It does not even matter if yours is not a customer-facing job. Customers are needed. Question now is how you can look at the situation differently so that providing good service to the customers is something that you can be happy doing.
Basic reason, of course, is that you get paid to do the job and providing good customer service is part and parcel of the job. It does help to remind yourself that the organization promptly pays you and it is only fair to deliver your responsibility.
Next reason is that good customer service is the best pre-sales effort for the next purchase by the customer. People go all the way out to run promotions and write great copy to entice customers to buy their products. Nothing though can beat good customer service. There are customers who will repeatedly buy from the same company because they are happy with the service provided.
Good customer service is not about falling over yourself providing everything the customer asks for, but it is providing the customer what they rightfully should get for having bought a product from your company.
There is also a completely personal angle that you can look at where service is concerned. Most people nowadays are conscious of their social responsibilities and like to donate or make contributions to worthy causes. Why not make good customer service as such a contribution? In this case, you also get paid for it. In the words of N. Eldon Tanner, “Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth”. The moment you can start thinking that service is something that you want to do, then every customer request will be much easier to respond to.
Is it going to be easy? Not all the time. There will be difficult situations but there will also be customers who will be very appreciative of the service that you provide. For those difficult situations, say to yourself that this is why you are paid a salary and just do it. The moment you stop fighting it, handling the situation gets less difficult.
Now, how do you handle difficult situations so that they do not upset you? The best way to handle this is to calmly listen to the customer. Many a time service representatives have a solution even before the problem has been described. Stop to listen first. Then ask clarification questions if necessary before providing the resolution.
Theodore Roosevelt said, “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”. It will do well to remember these words. If you can listen with a sincere desire to help and be happy to help the customer, you will feel good providing service. Some people even enjoy it. In addition, your whole attitude and listening with care will come through and even the customer’s demeanour will change.
Good customer service is not about having a good customer service week once a year. It is about providing good service every day. As you start work daily, if you can accept that your purpose for being there is to respond to customer needs with concern and a desire to help, it will be a lot easier to get through work. You can even start enjoying it.
Remember at a minimum you are getting paid to respond to customer requests. You are also helping to drive more sales from customers because of the excellent service you help provide. Besides this, from a purely personal perspective, you get an opportunity to be of service even without getting out of your normal routine.
Start having a different outlook to providing good customer service. It will make a great difference to how you support your customers and importantly to how good you feel deep inside you.
Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of besuccessfulnews.com, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business.
Imagine the following scenario: six months ago you paid someone to come and do your gardening. You’d like to use them again but you can’t remember their name and have lost their business card. You end up going to another gardener, which means that the first gardener has probably lost a customer for life.
How easy would it have been for that gardener to stay in touch with you by sending you a newsletter with gardening tips and product recommendations? If you’re running your own business, you can’t afford not to have a newsletter. Sure, it seems that every business sends out one nowadays but that is no reason to avoid using this invaluable marketing tool. It’s an excellent way to build ongoing customer relationships, establish trust and build credibility.
The most cost effective way to send out a newsletter is by email. That way you avoid printing and mailing costs, and it’s so much more immediate.
Here are 5 tips to using email newsletters as a way of staying in touch with your customer base:
1. Use the 80% 20% Rule
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is talking only about themselves in their newsletters. Think about the newsletters that you delete and the ones that you make the effort to read. Usually the most interesting ones contain solid information and tips that benefit you in some way. Think about what would really interest and help your readers and write articles on those topics accordingly. 80% of your newsletter content should directly benefit your reader. Only allow 20% of your content to promote your business.
2. Choose a schedule and stick to it
Consistency is the key when sending out newsletters. Whether you decide on a monthly or fortnightly newsletter, make a commitment to yourself to keep to this schedule. If your newsletter is good, your customers will start to look forward to hearing from you and you don’t want to disappoint them, do you?
3. Pick a quality newsletter provider
A service like Aweber will provide you with the best in service at a very reasonable price. As part of signing up, you get free templates to use. Customize these with your logo and photo to add that personal touch. Aweber also manages people wanting to unsubscribe from your list automatically, which is a great time saver.
4. Plan your content
Instead of inwardly groaning when suddenly it’s time to send out your newsletter again, why not brainstorm and work on some article ideas in advance? Think of your newsletter as an ongoing, fun project and it will be.
5. Put your sign-up box on your website
Make it easy for people to sign up for your newsletter by putting a sign-up box prominently on your website. Also invite people to sign up by putting a sentence at the end of your email signature, saying something like ‘Sign up for my newsletter with the latest articles, news, tips and stories at ‘
The time and effort that you put into your newsletter will pay off dividends by increasing repeat business, and bringing in new business.
Kevin is the publisher and editor of besuccessfulnews.com, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business.
Providing good customer service to a difficult customer or client can feel like walking a diplomatic tightrope. But if you handle a customer’s complaint the right way, you can turn the situation around and even turn that person into a loyal customer. Here are some tips to help you when faced with a difficult customer.
Don’t Take It Personally
How you handle the first contact with a dissatisfied customer is critical to diffusing the situation. If a customer or client approaches you with an adversarial attitude, voice raised, he isn’t seeing you as an individual at that moment - only as a representative of your company. Try to remain objective, and don’t take it personally. If your first reaction is to become defensive, you’re already well on your way to losing control of the situation. Let him do most of the talking initially, and just listen.
Try Honestly To See Things From Your Customer’s Point Of View
Show respect for your customer’s opinions. Whether he’s justified or not in being upset, it’s important to put yourself in your customer’s shoes for a moment. Use phrases like, “I can certainly understand why you’d feel that way.” Draw on your own experiences as a dissatisfied customer. You may have been more diplomatic in the way you asked to have your complaint resolved, but you did expect to be treated with respect and taken seriously. If you can do this for your difficult customer, in most cases he’ll begin to calm down at this point.
Call Attention To A Customer’s Mistake Indirectly
It’s seldom a good idea to directly tell anyone that they’re wrong. Such a direct accusation causes embarrassment, builds resentment and hardens someone’s attitude, and makes it less likely that the person you’re talking to will want to listen to what you have to say.
If you think that your customer or client has made a mistake, begin by using phrases like, “Well, I thought otherwise but I might be wrong. Let’s look at this together.” Being willing to admit that you could be wrong will make it easier for your customer to admit that he might be wrong, too. Even if you know for a certainty that he’s wrong, begin by using diplomacy so that your customer can ’save face’ if he’s proven wrong. If he feels humiliated, you’ve probably lost any chance for future business with him.
If You’re Wrong, Admit It
If you or someone at your company has made a mistake, admit it and apologize, sincerely and in no uncertain terms. If you’ve missed a deadline, mixed up an order or delivered a product or service below your usual standards, there really is no acceptable excuse to a customer who was depending on you.
If you agree that your client has a right to be upset, you’ve effectively removed any grounds for argument and you can begin to negotiate a resolution. When a customer complains, sometimes what they’re really saying is, “How are you going to make this right?” In effect, they’re giving you another chance. The customer you’ve truly lost is the one who doesn’t complain, but simply never returns.
Decide If You Really Need The Business
The only way to win an argument is to avoid it. But there will times when, despite your best efforts, you will have to decide if the difficult customer’s business is worth the time and emotional strain it costs you. Fortunately, these situations are the exception.
Handling difficult customers can be challenging, but it’s well worth mastering the negotiation skills required to win their loyalty. When they’re satisfied with the way you handle their complaints, they can also be among your biggest sources of referrals. And since customers are the lifeblood of any business, the more you can rely on regular customers and referrals then the less time and money you’ll have to spend to get new business.
Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of besuccessfulnews.com, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business.
Voice of the Customer
The ‘Voice of the customer’ is a tool or process of gathering customer input about the proposed or existing services or products depending on the situation. If a company’s success depends on knowing what the customer wants, then it should develop products and services based on customer feedback, and this should be done sooner rather than later.
Focus Groups
The focus groups may be thought of as special purpose vehicles or mechanisms to facilitate understand the voice of customer better, organize the gathered data, evaluate the evolved feedbacks and channelize them in concise fashion to the developers for deliberation and further action. In a way, focus groups can serve as live links between the customer and the development department.
Going a step further, we understand that there is a need for two focus groups with different missions. The first one focuses on exploring the collective needs of customers, develop and evaluate concepts for new product development as sensed or demanded by the voice of the customer. This group is generally called an explorative focus group. The other one is an experiential focus group, used to observe the usage of products in the market and study what the customers feel and experience about the products, learning their reasons and motivations to use the product.
How Do Focus Groups Conduct Voice Of the Customer Sessions?
The voice of customer sessions are conducted for long periods of 1 to 3 hours with typically 8 to 10 participants from the customer side. The objectives of the session are defined and clear in the minds of the participants. To begin with, it requires an experienced facilitator to organize the session from initiating to inviting everyone who is designated to participate.
The customers are identified from the group which has expressed interest and been invited. The agenda, presentation and procedures for the session are developed and honed by the facilitator as a precursor. The facilitator may decide to do a rehearsal of the session
beforehand, in order to fine-tune the actual session.
The actual session may be commenced by a moderator who presents the idea, the purpose and the product description and a group of observers oversee the session. The overseers watch the session from a separate room without the knowledge of the participants and record the outcomes on video and audiotapes.
Member Participants Are Not Statistical Representatives of Customers
Owing to the small number of ‘representative customers’ at each session, the outcome of the session (the comments and feedback) can’t be directly taken as the representation of the customers’ voice as a whole. The session must be punctuated by careful selection of participants and increasing the number of sessions conducted does give validity to these sessions.
The results from these sessions can be generalized for acceptance after deliberating over against a comprehensive backdrop. The same theory applies to both explorative as well as experiential focus groups.
Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta
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It’s a competitive market in the twenty-first century and in several instances people offer pretty much the same product or service. Knowing this, attractions are a way to set yourself apart from the competition. Give the customer something to do while they wait or entertain them during the process of serving them. The key is to stand out with quality service and attentive staff, alongside the attraction, which is there to enhance the experience for the customer. Sometimes it will even enhance the employees’ experience.
Internet access is a great way to keep customers occupied while you provide them a service. Samples of this include Internet cafes and Internet coffee shops. The Internet is an essential part of daily life, whether it be browsing the net for entertainment or business, or shooting a quick email to a friend. These are reasons for someone to stop by a place with Internet access, which will stimulate growth within your business.
Many consumers have young children, which they take with them on their daily errands. It is hard for young children to stand in line and wait for their parents without stimulation. A toy bin with toys is a good way to keep a child occupied. It can be as simple as building blocks or dolls. This makes it easier for the parent to do business with you.
Video games are great because they are loved by people of many ages. You can even turn a profit from arcade games. Gambling establishments have figured out that while kids may not be able to join their parents at the gambling table, they can peruse large arcades paid for by their parents’ gambling.
Television can entertain both empoyees and customers. Sports stations and news stations are informative. People can obtain information from these mediums while waiting or even while being served as in the case of restaurants, bars, boutiques, and barber shops.
Many have flyers in the waiting room to inform the consumer about more products or services. Their benefits and what they do.
Music can add atmosphere to a business, especially a restaurant where it can provide a festive atmosphere. Positive and uplifting messages in the lyrics tend to do well regardless of the genre.
Merely having a place to sit down and relax is an invaluable asset that hotels use to their benefit.
Give these attractions a shot and see which works best for you or your customers. You’ll be able to tell by the smiles on their faces as they come back for years to come.
David Gass is President of Business Credit Services, Inc. His company publishes a free weekly e-newsletter on Small Business Consulting at their web site http://www.smallbusinessconsulting.com.
Building sound relationships with your customers is one of the keys to making your business a success. Humans build relationships all their lives, be it with their friends, family, employers, colleagues or peers. As humans, we like to stick to what we know, and this behavior reflects in the choices people make regarding which business organizations to deal with. Building customer relationships is as important to your small business as the price and quality of what you are selling.
A successful customer relationship management program revolves around building a network of loyal customers through a process of rewards, incentives, loyalty, and quality services.
Starting a Customer Relationship Management Program
1. Build Database
Before you start with your customer relationship program, it is important to build a database listing the names, profiles, and other important information regarding your customers.
2. Identify Potential Targets
Identify the customers that are likely to be the most loyal to your company. Then draw up a plan for building customer loyalty, like special offers and incentives.
3. Communicating with Customers
Send your clients emails, newsletters, anniversary cards, gifts, and invitations to special events to build customer relationships. While emails and postcards are fine, there is nothing quite like making a phone call when it comes to building customer relationships.
Fine Tuning the Customer Relationship Management Program
Once you have started the customer relationship management program, you need to streamline the process to boost its efficiency. This can be done in the following ways.
1. Training Employees
Most importantly, you must teach your employees the practical details of customer relationship management. Developing the interpersonal skills of your employees is as important to your business as other job related skills.
2. Better Services
Nothing facilitates customer satisfaction like efficient and cost effective services. The better your service, the more customers you will win, and retain.
3. Recovery Process
The way your business handles complaints, negative comments, and problems related to goods and services provided to customers says a lot about your customer relationship skills, and the recovery process of your organization. When customers complain of a defect in the items they bought from you, do you replace it after verifying their complaint? Or do you refuse to take responsibility for the quality of your service?
Handling customers the correct way goes far in helping your business grow. If you have a small business and wish to know more about managing customer relationships, you can consult a small business consultant. With the right mix of empathy, business acumen and incentives, you can build a long lasting relationship with your customers.
David Gass is President of Business Credit Services, Inc. His company publishes a free weekly e-newsletter on Small Business Consulting at their web site http://www.smallbusinessconsulting.com.
Public relations (PR) agencies represent about half the total public relations budget of most companies. It is important that you hire a public relations firm that understands your financial prudence and has a working knowledge of your business. A public relations firm on the same wavelength as your business needs, with independent thought processes, goes a long way in establishing a positive image for your company. The hiring process essentially involves preparing for the search, short-listing the aspirants, presentation by the firms, and starting the relationship.
Preparing for the Search
Assembling the Team: Assign staff members for handling administration, scheduling, and communication with the agencies. Employ a review team, consisting of staff members, who work closely with the agency, such as, key brand manager, HR-VP, or finance officer. They, along with one or two internal clients, will review the selected firms and choose any of them depending on a required program.
Articulating Communication Objectives: Be clear about the work you want the PR agency to do in order to achieve your goal. This will also help you in evaluating the candidates. You will be clear about those objectives that can be achieved by your staff and those to be handled by the agency.
Credentials: A PR agency should be a true partner and not a vendor. It should help you achieve your objectives in terms of strategic counseling, tactical execution, partnership development, or building a relationship with third party endorsers. Request details about any similar exercise the agency may have been involved in earlier. This will yield a lot of important information about the agency and help your hiring decision.
State your objectives: Identify the audience you want to reach and the locations of your operation. Estimate the duration of assignment, funds budgeted for the agency, and company support for the agency. Do allow leeway for the agency to use their capabilities.
Administrative Issues: Learn about the agency’s account management processes, so that you understand how they do billing for various costs.
Short listing
The agency search should be confined to three to five firms. To identify the firms you may use industry directories. An Internet search is also very effective. Correspond with the firms identified about your requirements and ask for their credentials. It may be necessary to give them details of their competitors, if they so want.
Presentations by the Firms
For maximum utility, the presentation by the PR firm should be in the nature of informal discussions, so that you get an idea of the capabilities of the firm. You will meet people who will play a major role in handling your account. You will get a feel of the more subjective aspects of the agency from the presentation. Once the final decision has been taken, you should communicate the strengths and weaknesses so that these can be worked upon when handling your account.
Starting the Relationship
The contract should be finalized and confidentiality clauses included as required. Background information and documents will have to be handed over. While the agency team is being constituted, the company must arrange a smooth handing over by the earlier agency. This is followed by a meeting with the new account team that leads on to the commencement of the relationship.
Sound planning and careful preparatory work will ensure that the process of hiring a PR firm by your company proceeds without a glitch. It will also form the basis of an enduring and satisfying relationship.
David Gass is President of Business Credit Services, Inc. His company publishes a free weekly e-newsletter on Small Business Consulting at their web site http://www.smallbusinessconsulting.com.
Today, the businesses located in most of the places throughout the world have either turned global in their operations, or are influenced decisively by globalization. In this globalized economy, many advances have been made in technology, due to which businesses have turned extremely sharp toothed. This is to tackle the threat they face from the tough and ever changing landscape of competition. Competition favors customers. This is something that no one can deny. Competition also forces businesses to have a customer focus in all their processes and operations.
Competitiveness In The Business Environment
Due to avenues of information and communication like the internet and mobile phones, customers have access to business information at their fingertips. The internet has been accused of stimulating competition to a very high degree. But the rules of survival for any business, whether or not it has an online presence on the World Wide Web, are the same: satisfy your customers so that they will return. Satisfy your customers so that they will refer more and more people and businesses to become your new customers.
It is not enough now for businesses to focus solely on the quality of their products. Quality should be a major focal point for companies, but they should also concentrate their efforts on customer relations. Businesses should learn how to interact with customers well so that they have a loyal customer following. They can use personalized and intelligent ways to interact with them productively. Customer service is a very important business operation. Without customer service, businesses just cannot survive. Customer service is the key to overcoming competition.
Cost of Customer Acquisition
One should understand that the cost to acquire new customers is much higher than the costs that are incurred to retain customers. Online businesses are no different. Customers can now switch loyalties through a mere click of their mouse and e-businesses know this fact. They need to understand how to interact with their customers and understand their needs.
Customer Satisfaction
The ways for businesses to satisfy their customers are not difficult. The first step is to understand what the customers need and what their preferences are. This can be a tough call for some but it is crucial for any business to operate successfully and profitably. Understanding customer needs will help businesses to tailor their product or service offerings to address exactly those needs and fulfill them.
In order to identify and understand customer needs better, businesses should ask the classical questions, which are asked by anyone who wishes to get information: why, what, how, when and where.
First, businesses need to know why the customers intend to buy what they are buying. Secondly, they should understand what exactly prompts or augments their needs so that they decide to buy what they are buying. Third, it is important to understand how typical customers go about fulfilling their needs. Lastly, businesses should know and understand when and where the customers go to buy things or services that fulfill their needs.
Software Solutions
There are many software packages that are being sold by companies to help businesses understand their customers better. This software is robust and reliable for most business needs. One would do well to consider going in for these solutions.
David Gass is President of Business Credit Services, Inc. His company publishes a free weekly e-newsletter on Small Business Consulting at their web site http://www.smallbusinessconsulting.com.
There are many thousands of new entrepreneurs wanting to give up their full time jobs to explore their personal Internet home business dream.
A logical, potentially successful Internet home based business idea, may be to help them get their online business tasks and needed services done.
What I am suggesting is starting a business support service that helps entrepreneurs take their Internet home based business idea to the next level.
You can offer many services including transcription, desktop publishing, word processing, writing, editing, ghostwriting, designing spreadsheets, database management, accounts payable, bookkeeping, resume services, photocopying and faxing, notarizing.
Web research and Web page design and oversight and many different consulting services are probably the highest in demand. These are skills new web site entrepreneurs are not usually skilled in and need.
Antiquated secretarial services of years past involved typing, answering the phone and taking dictation by shorthand using tools that are almost ready for museums now. As you know today, the services are far more complex.
Business support services have become a top notch Internet home business concept as the complexities and technology involved in serving these growing small businesses lead to fewer and fewer adequately trained full time employees.
Small business employers, especially home based ones, typically do not need or want the headaches of full time employees. Also, they do not want to involve themselves in the complexities of employment law and taxation regulations and taking on another partner in the form of the government with all of this.
Technical business support service is an excellent Internet home based business idea because it is needed and in much demand by these start up business owners. They are just learning their way around the proprietorship and Internet business worlds and need help jumping over these fences to get to the next step in their businesses.
While, amazingly, typing and dictation are still important functions in the working world, other new services have evolved as equally or probably more important ones.
Offering business and technical support as an Internet home based venture should include desktop publishing, Web research and skills with spreadsheet software such as Excel.
While you can, and maybe should, specialize as part of your business support services the greater the proficiency you have in the various office software products and equipment the better chance you will have of landing new and repeat clients.
Knowing how to do jobs like setting up web sites and building them are and always will be needed skills for talented marketers who are lacking in programming skills and in need of them for their businesses.
There are at least two important factors in getting your Internet home based business idea off the ground. The first is to prepare yourself by training in the equipment and applications you will offer.
The second is to find your potential clients. That is good old fashioned marketing skills, especially, target marketing.
Since your business dream is to support others who have their own Internet business ideas your leads might be easy to find. In fact, they may be hanging out at the same places you do.
For example, your local community college business start up classes, the local Small Business Development Center, the Chamber of Commerce meetings and perhaps even Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) seminars or meetings.
There are many opportunities here to subtly let others know you are willing to support their new business start up and kick off your own business as well.
Have some business cards printed up by Vista Print dot com telling exactly what you do and pass them out, trade them and leave them everywhere. This will let your leads seek you out and get you started on the road to a second income.
James M. Lowe writes original articles about home business opportunities.