Friday! The best day of the week because Friday's are for fun. If you look at the two previous posts you will notice that we started having fun on Thursday, I'll blame the snow storm, and Larry's bug. One day soon Larry Cragun will explain the bathtubs and squirrels.
Customer Service
This week I have been thinking about how I can integrate customer service into my business. I don't have a customer service department, which is an essential element of any successful business. I did some research and am beginning to understand what I need to do. Automated phone systems and auto responders for email, appear to be the two most important components of customer service.
If I want to run with the big boys I am going to have to start acting more like them. Currently if someone calls me I answer the phone, if someone sends an email I catch it on my blackberry and respond. My business is lacking that all important customer service that the big companies advertise. If I had customer service I could focus on my core competencies, as I hold my feet to the fire and am accountable, for raising the bar. Wow! Looks like a paradigm shift!
There is no reason to reinvent the wheel, many successful businesses have customer service and care departments that I can model.
Customer service department phone system:
Callers will be prompted to press 1 if they are buyers, 2 if they are sellers, 3 if they have a question about a property, 4 if they want to be put on hold and told how important their call is to me, or want to listen to some music. Music seems to be an important component of any customer service or care program. Current clients will be able to press "0" and talk to one of our operators.
An electronic operator that understands voice commands will ask callers for the last four digits of their social security number, the spelling of their mothers maiden name, and the middle three digits of their drivers license number or state I.D. This will help us better serve you and all calls will be recorded for quality.
It is hard to decide what callers should be asked, it can't be too easy or no one will take my customer service seriously. After looking at how other businesses operate customer service I am considering adding 5 or 6 more questions and I guess if the caller can't answer, the system is supposed to tell them how important their call is to us and that it may be recorded for quality, and then play music, something upbeat maybe.
The information obtained from callers will be used to better serve them. Currently callers don't get any customer service, I just answer their questions and give them information they request. I don't ask them any questions until after I answer their question. Seems like I am doing it backward. How can I serve them if I just answer their question without asking any of my own?
Customer service email:
This one is a no brainer. Instead of answering my email immediately from my blackberry I am going to be setting up some forms and some auto responders. Persons sending email will get an automatic response thanking them for their email and will be told that they will get a response to their inquiry. Other companies promise to respond in 24 to 72 hours. I could maybe improve upon this by promising to respond with in a week, or raise the bar and go for a month. (I hope you are reading this Kim) The bigger the company, the longer the response time, the strategy would make my little business look huge and make me look extremely important.
Thinking big is important, while I enjoy being small I fear that I will never achieve great wealth if I don't change my ways. Great wealth is important. If I were wealthy I would have to pay more taxes but would also get to buy more stuff. Expensive stuff from huge companies that have customer service. Eventually if I make enough money I can pay someone to call customer service departments for me, they can be put on hold for hours freeing me up to make even more money.
Please drive carefully today and this weekend. If your place of business is closed, have fun with your family. I highly recommend music and dancing. Eating works well too, drinking is good, finding a liquor store that is opened this morning may be a challenge.
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I just took another look at the squirrel photos and have no idea what the fuss is all about. I do know, that messing around with Lady Teresa is trouble. This woman could have ruled the Roman Empire with skill and power.
Larry, I think the problem is that your girl squirell has a collection of “nuts,” if you know what I mean?
Teresa, the key to a successful recorded customer service message is to keep the caller on hold long enough to tell them several times how important the call is to you. This way, it really sinks in and they have a better chance of actually getting it. Frequency is a key component to effectively convey a meaningful message.
I don’t think you’re raising the bar high enough. How about three or four levels of nested menu options on the voicemail, and when you finally get to the end, you find out that this is not business hours, which are 10AM Pacific Time to 2PM Eastern Time.
As for hold music, here’s the best:
http://www.noolmusic.com/blogs/YouTube_Music_Videos_80s_90s_-_The_Time_-_Jungle_Love.shtml
Larry – you are off topic, go away.
Norm good point, I want to have the “your call is important to us, but it should be said before every menu option. I’ll get this customer service stuff down eventually.
John – Love the flour or five level nested menu idea. That would be true customer service! Love the music too.
Brilliant ideas. Absolutely guaranteed to rocket your business to the next level…
I think you have some outstanding ideas that will enable you to compete with the big dogs. In Bluffton we still have local a pharmacist who has been in the same old location for years. He is forced to answers my questions in the store or over the phone personally and he has to fill all of my prescriptions himself. I don’t know why he doesn’t add a drive thru, sell holiday ornaments and set up in instant photo lab. At least the old hardware store is gone. Home Depot and Lowes have such a bigger selection and they even have one of those fancy 1-800 phone systems that take you all the way to corporate headquarters. Why mess around with calling to ask someone a question about why my gardenias are wilting at a local level when I can interact with a corporate computer system.
When you get your system up and running let me know. I can then stop borrowing my daughter’s ipod and just call you for all of my musical enjoyment.