Customer Service

Good Customer Service will Grow Your Business

These are hard times for most businesses. Customers are counting the pennies and looking for better value for money.

But better doesn't necessarily mean cheaper. For many it means reliable, cost effective, well supported. In fact when times are tough we all look either for cheap, or good quality.

Exceptional customer service is a large part of that good quality that we are willing to pay for even during hard times.

If you want to read a definitive article on how good customer service will grow your business then click:

Good Customer Service will grow your business.
"Promise only what you can deliver. Always deliver what you promise."

Does your organisation have an inspirational and insightful Customer Service ethos?

What we offer is Excellent Customer Service Training

Attend a one day Open Customer Service Skills Courses for people who are on the front line of customer service, whether face to face or over the phone.

Our Customer Service Training can be tailored as an in-house programme to address specific issues within your company. Read more on Customer Service Training.

We are happy to talk to you about any Customer Service issue small or large. Just give us a call on 0207 226 1877 or use our Get in Touch form.

In the Line of Fire

The idea of spending all day fending off angry customers doesn't sound particularly appealing. However, any firm that values its reputation needs decent complaint handling. For organisations such as local authorities, it is a statutory duty. So why do they do it, asks Phil Chamberlain? Read an article on Customer Service Complaint Handling.

Read The Guardian article by Phil Chamberlain, published Saturday 16 May 2009

Keeping your existing customers

Keeping your existing customers is far more cost effective than acquiring new ones. Acquiring new customers can cost five (5) times more that satisfying and keeping your existing customers.

All companies lose customers; the average is 10% per year.

If you can reduce the number of customers who leave to buy your product from someone else, you can save significantly on the money it costs to acquire replacement customers.

Doesn't it make sense to invest in keeping the customers you already have?

If you need more persuading, think on this.

If you can satisfy your current clients, then you have a good customer base to sell more services to. It's nowhere near as expensive to sell more services to your existing customer base as it is to find new, first time customers.

Good customer Service is reflected in your brand image

Think of it this way. The selling process is not the end; it is not even the beginning of the end; it is more like the end of the beginning (apologies to Winston Churchill).

The process should never end. Your relationship with your customer should continue to grow until you become like an old friend to them.

Once they know you and trust you they will come back again and again, all the while recommending your company to others they know with glowing references.

If that doesn't convince you, think about the cost of upsetting a present customer.

It used to be that a dissatisfied customer could tell all their friends, relations and colleagues what a rotten company yours was.

What maybe 50 people?

Now, with the internet, we have blogs, social networking sites;
Bebo, LinkedIn, Slashdot, StumbleUpon, Digg, Facebook, myAOL, Twitter, MySpace
and many more specialist sites you and I have not even heard of yet.

Have a look at these sites and see if there are user reviews on your company;
The Shopping Experts Network, Epinions, Kelkoo

Or you could just Google your company's name and the words customer service and see what appears on the World Wide Web!

So, guess what, someone who you really upset by your bad customer service can tell all of that lot. That's what? 500,000 people?

The 80/20 Customer Service Rule

There is an interesting 80/20 marketing principle that says two things:

1) That you should provide outstanding customer service for the 20% of existing products that generate 80% of your profits.
2) It also says that you should go to extraordinary lengths to keep the 20% of customers who provide 80% of your profits.

Want to know more about how the 80/20 marketing principle can help your business then download this 10 minute quick PDF Guide from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM):

How to Analyse Your Business Sales - 80/20 Rule

Customer Service

Ever get the feeling from your... bank, supermarket, garage, local council, hospital... that they'd be much happier if they didn't actually have customers?

That you're a nuisance rather than an asset?

If you want to read a short article on our perspective of Customer Service, then read our Sound Snack on Customer Service.

Always give Excellent Customer Service - You know it makes sense.

For groups we offer Tailored and In-House Customer Service Training

Our Customer Service Training can be tailored as an in-house programme to address specific issues within your company. Read more on Customer Service Training.

For individuals we offer 1 day Customer Service Open Courses

This one day Public Customer Service Training Course is for people on the front line of customer service, whether face to face or over the phone. Attend one of our Public Customer Service Skills Courses.

Have you got an outstanding customer service story? Or, a good, bad and an ugly story? Read our SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE new dedicated page and we may publish your story!

Customer Service: What we Offer

Front Line Staff, Call Centres, Help Desks, Customer Complaints Departments

Impact Factory provides just about any kind of customer service training you might need.

Here's a range of the programmes we run in addition to the Customer Service Open Course which is part of our regularly scheduled programme of workshops.

Front line training for those dealing with customers face to face.

Tailored courses for face to face training have been run for organisations as diverse as department stores, supermarkets, financial institutions, casinos, local authorities, central government, banks, bingo halls, karaoke clubs, TV companies and insurance companies, among many, many others.

Phone training for those working at call centres or for whom most, if not all their communication with customers is done on the phone. We have worked with a variety of clients on phone protocols including building a call centre from scratch for a local authority, debt handling call centres, customer complaints departments, help desks.

Communication training for those who correspond with customers via email or other written forms of communication.

All the above programmes have been run for those dealing with internal as well as external customers. We work with:

Small groups of up to eight delegates on a day's hands-on, in-depth training.
Large groups, seminar style.
Very large groups using Forum Theatre or other Drama Based Solutions.
Front line staff, team leaders, support (or back-room) staff, line-managers and senior leaders.
Volunteers who have to learn good customer service to match their enthusiasm for being volunteers.

Creating excellent customer service is far easier than you might think, and we have a superb track record of not only providing excellent customer service training for our clients, but also of providing it ourselves.

If you would like to chat with us about our customer Service training options ring us on 020 7226 1877 or email: enquiries@impactfactory.com

   

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