Customer Service Back In The Day

I was at a gas station the other day and noticed something that caused me to look twice. At first, it appeared to be a normal occurrence, a man pumping gas and then cleaning his windshield. Thinking nothing of this, I continued with my gas purchase. When I again looked at the other vehicle, I saw a man walking to the rear of the same car, yet there was someone else continuing to clean his windshield. To my surprise, the person cleaning his windshield and tending to this gas was the gas station attendant, not the...

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The Changing Face of Customer Service

It was 10 years ago that I sat in a hotel room with my laptop plugged into the phone cord, fighting with my first version of a pda (a palmpilot), trying to make sense of an assignment in an ever-evolving industry — customer service. Just as foreign as the acrid air and constant motor noise of India were the changing ideas of what it meant to be a customer service expert. While the times have changed and business has become more efficient and...

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How to Hire the Best Customer Service People

Through many years of hiring Customer Service staff, I've found that competency based assessment is by far the most effective and accurate way. That is not to say that technical abilities should not be checked, rather that this in itself is insufficient to ensure success. Indeed it's very important to study the delegates' CVs, to check their relevant experience and qualifications, to ask questions of clarification...

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Become a Customer Service Raving Fan!

It seems to me that the way to get your customers to be raving fans of your business is to become raving fans of your customers. "Get Into Their Lives" This is the mantra at Marquis Jet, a company that sells "flight time" on a private jet in the form of calling cards, starting at $110,000.00 for 25 hours. Their client list is a who's who of Hollywood, including Matt Damon, Christina Agulera and J. Lo. When...

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Customer Service Metrics to Measure Client Satisfaction

When it comes to measuring the success of your customer service operation choosing the right set of metrics is essential. By creating a Balanced Scorecard made up of your most important deliverables you will be able to track your clients' satisfaction and report stakeholders’ key success factors.  The Balanced Scorecard was created by Harvard Business School Professor Robert Kaplan and Renaissance Solutions President David Norton and includes financial and non-financial indicators. Continue Reading.....

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Most Popular Outsourced Jobs

Outsourcing occurs when a company contracts out a portion of its business to another company; these jobs would have traditionally been done by in-house employees. It's important to make a distinction between outsourcing and offshoring. Jobs can be outsourced to local companies that specialize in that particular area. Offshoring, though still a form of outsourcing, is when a company outsources portions of its work to be done overseas. This is a growing trend as companies find that outsourcing and offshoring lead to greater efficiency and cost savings...

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Customer Service Outsourcing

There has been a lot of emphasis in recent years about customer service outsourcing as a way for companies to save money and reduce the need for a full customer support staff. Unfortunately, many people aren’t exactly sure what it means when a company decides to outsource their customer care and this can lead to a number of assumptions which just are not true. Outsourcing a call center is simply a means to reduce the cost of customer support, not a sign that companies don’t care about their customers like some people would like to believe. Customer...

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How to Maintain Traditional Customer Service in the Social Media Age

You’ve been monitoring your Facebook wall and Twitter pages, responding to customer inquiries. But what are the next steps you should take to stay abreast of the latest trends in social service?  The emergence of social media communities requires you to track a new set of customer service metrics. Fortunately, you’ll have a better understanding of who your customers are and their service expectations. In some cases, it might even mean the end of traditional service level agreements (SLAs). Continue Readin...

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