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The most basic rule of advertising is this: More pieces out equals more responses back.

If you outflow (send out) flyers, coupons, newspaper or magazine ads, letters, etc. you will get more people coming in (inflow). More outflow equals more inflow. This basic principle applies to many areas of life. The more times you send out your resume the quicker you tend to find a good job. Networking is another great example of this principle. The more you get out and meet people and make friends the better your business goes. In an even more general sense the amount of kindness one sends out is directly proportional to the amount of kindness one receives.

But back to advertising! How do you know if it is working? Well, many businesses ask callers or new customers the question “how did you hear about us?” This is a good thing to do and you should definitely do it. But are the answers you get accurate? Very often they are not.

First, look at how advertising works. Each advertisement is a message. The message reaches the ears or eyes of the potential customer and can be ignored or accepted. How many messages does it take to get a response? How many times do you need to hear about a business or product before you go to take it for a test drive, or go in for a visit?

Timing is important. One reason the message needs to be repeated is that the message needs to hit the customer at the right time for it to be accepted. You may hear or see an advertisement for a place to get your oil changed many times and never notice it and then one day you hear or see the ad when you are actually in need of an oil change and it’s on your mind. Bingo! Now the ad registers and is accepted.

Most potential customers need to get your message repeatedly before deciding to try your product or service. So when you ask the client “how did you hear about us?” they usually give you the first thing that comes to their mind. “I saw your yellow page ad”, or “I received your Val-Pak coupon”, or “a friend told me about you”. But realistically they probably have heard or seen your message many times before actually arriving for service.

Well, if this is true, how does one ever know if their marketing is working? Simply by looking at the raw statistics of how many people come in for service.

Remember the basic law above. If you send out your message, whether its via Val-Pak coupons, letters, postcards, email, your web site, newspaper ads, TV, radio, networking groups, billboards or word of mouth your should expect a response. So, the more you send out your message the more numbers of customers you should be getting in. This does not always mean that you will get in more new customers, just more customers.

Just remember that the response you get may not be what you expected. You may devise an advertisement with the intention of attracting new clients, and instead you may get a lot of former clients coming back in for something. They see or hear your message and it reminds them that they need to come back in to see you!

As you probably know advertising does not always work immediately. Sometimes you need to send out your message repeatedly for some time to start to see noticeable responses. So the message here is: be Patient!

There is one more VERY important thing to mention related to advertising and response. The quality of your service or product and the level of customer service you provide. Actually these are two things, not one. You can have a great product or service and lousy customer service. An example would be a dentist who is wonderful, friendly, and a great technical dentist, but the front desk employees are hurried and uninterested. The opposite is possible as well; you can have an auto repair business with great front desk staff who the customers love and lousy technicians who can’t fix a lawn mower much less an Audi. Of course (heaven forbid) it’s possible that both of these situations exist.    

So let’s look at what happens if one of these variants exists: you, the owner invest money and advertise your business. Customers show up for service. The product or service is in some way not up to par. Those customers may come back, maybe not. They for sure are not loyal customers, and they will

probably not be referring other people to you. These customers will most likely be looking for something better and when they find it, goodbye to you! So of course to attract more new customers this owner may need to spend more money to advertise.

You can see where this is heading. More and more money spent for advertising and less response and less customers coming in. If this is happening you MUST immediately do what ever is needed to handle it now. More staff training, better equipment, or even new equipment and new staff! Poor product or less than wonderful customer service is like having an open artery pumping your blood onto the sand. You (or your business) will soon die! 

What should be happening is this: you advertise, new customers come in, they get great product and service, become loyal customers and refer new customers to via word of mouth. You business expands and grows. This should be what is happening.  

Yes, if you are spending your hard earned cash on advertising you should expect to see a result. If the results are not there it could be that you are sending the marketing pieces to the wrong groups of people. Like sending oil change coupons to people aged 70 and older who live in a retirement community. Maybe you need to survey customers better or redesign your ad. Maybe your vehicle used for advertising (say, advertising in the local newspaper) is not getting responses anymore.

And lastly, but NOT leastly, my advice would be to take a complete, detailed look at your quality of product and your level of customer service. Improving them can be the difference between an advertising campaign that drives in boatloads of customers and one where you get few or no responses and your hard earned cash is wasted.

          Yes. Without question Word of Mouth IS the best form of advertising. This fact is widely known and accepted. The big question is: How do I capitalize on this fact and use it to expand my business?  

          Just knowing that Word of Mouth is important or telling all of your employees how vital good word of mouth really is to the business will never be enough to create the level of service necessary to WOW your customers.

The purpose of this article is to expand understanding of the basic factors making up great word of mouth and excite you, the business owner, so that your creative juices flow and ideas pop like a huge 4^th of July fireworks display and you get all excited about what can be done in your company to expand through word of mouth!!!

A few basic facts…

          If a business is providing adequate, normal, regular run-of-the-mill service they will get SOME word of mouth referrals. The way this works is that if, for instance, someone asks you where to go for dry cleaning or computer repair you will most likely want to give some recommendation. People generally want to be helpful and we all like to give advice, so we will give some answer, we will often refer someone to a place where we received simply mediocre service. The point is that if you are providing what is considered to be good, or acceptable service you can only expect a few referrals.  

          Really great word of mouth comes from a remarkable or memorable experience. Lets say that you have been in to your local veterinary hospital, or Thai restaurant and the experience was memorable you very possibly will not wait until some asks you for a good vet clinic or Thai place before you tell people about it. Your word of mouth becomes unsolicited. Have you ever done this or seen it done? I have seen people talking up their hair stylist or espresso stand to people who are bald or don’t even like coffee!

          Let there be no mistake, unsolicited word of mouth is what will really drive in more new customers. This is (or should be) the goal of any company. 

          On the other hand, unsolicited word of mouth DEFINITELY applies for bad service as well! Customers who are irate with a business will sometimes tell as many as 20, 30, maybe up to 50 people about their bad experience, with out ever being asked directly about the business.   

          So, when we are speaking about word of mouth, we must understand that what, exactly, we are going for is unsolicited, positive, word of mouth about your business.

Why IS word of mouth the most effective form of advertising?

          Well, the first answer is that word of mouth means that someone, probably someone who you know, is telling you that Olympic Pizza has the best pizza, or that Fred’s Auto Repair does fantastic and reasonable work. You’re hearing it from a person, someone that you know and (probably!) trust.

          Compare this with normal advertising: TV, Radio, news papers, magazines, web, direct mail, etc. Let me ask you this, as a consumer, do you BELIEVE what you see advertised? I mean really, if you get a flyer in the mail offering you a “low cost mortgage”, do you believe it? If you see an ad for a cheap airline ticket toFlorida, are you suspicious that it may be a scam? Do you wonder if the quoted price for the ticket actually includes things like airport fees, taxes and that your baggage actually gets to go with you?

          By far the majority of consumers, when they hear any advertisement, wonder: “What’s the catch?” We look for the fine print. We think, “If it sounds too good to be true, then it is!” We have all heard the pat phrase, “new and improved” so many times that the words don’t have meaning to us. The point is the very few people completely believe ANY regular advertisement. We know that ads all too often contain exaggerations, half truths, gimmicks and sometimes even complete fabrications. In case you haven’t noticed, this trend is getting worse, not better.

          But if someone you know, or better, someone you like, or even better, someone whose taste or opinion you respect, tells you that the Mocha’s Espresso stand on 4^th and Main is awesome, or that theNorthCascadeVeterinaryHospital is the best around you will listen. If you have a connection with the person telling you about a business it becomes much more believable. Another reason for this believability is that the person has no reason to mislead you. The person telling you about the fantastic service atNorthCascadeVeterinaryHospital probably doesn’t work there, or get commissions from them, so we reason that they don’t have any reason to mislead us.

          There is also a common statement that not only is word of mouth the best form of advertising, but it’s the cheapest. This brings up the question of how to determine how much it costs to attract a new customer, client or patient. Most businesses I see are sorely lacking in any effective method to track where their new customers come from, but at least they can say how many new clients they had in a month. Calculating the “cost of each new customer” is not too difficult, simply add up your entire expenses for advertising and marketing for a month and divide this by the number of new customers, and there you have it, you can now see how much you “paid” for each new customer. This is a great exercise, by the way and I highly recommend not only doing the calculations but sharing the results withALLof your staff.

          Of course if you are really on the ball and can track not only how many new clients you got in a month but HOW each new client heard of you, it is possible to calculate the cost-effectiveness of each form of marketing you use. (Look for a new blog entry coming soon on tracking new clients.) For example you can see how much your yellow page ad cost, and how many new clients it brought you and do the math. This is a very enlightening exercise and the most intelligent way to make decisions about where you spend your advertising dollars. 

          In either case I bet you will be surprised to see how much one new client “costs”.

          Word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing because it is more believable and the less expensive than any other form of advertising. 

Great word of mouth about your company makes all of your other marketing efforts much more effective.

          The above statement should be in huge bold CAPS. This is one of most important and grossly overlooked laws in all of advertising and marketing.

Let’s say that you have a spa. You are sending out all sorts of marketing messages; yellow page ads, a web site with search engine marketing, you’re in lots of travel guides, you attend chamber meetings, maybe you use billboards, you are using a whole host of avenues to get your name out there.

          Now let’s look at this from two possibilities, let’s say first that the overall word of mouth about your spa is awesome. If someone has already heard from a friend that the spa is great and then they see one of your ads, or maybe a special offer you are currently running, they are much more likely to respond. Positive word of mouth makes your other marketing more believable, more effective, more productive. A business will get a MUCH bigger bang for their advertising buck when they have great word of mouth.

          Once in a while I have heard people talking positively about an ad they saw or heard for a business or product. Your friend tells you about the great experience she had at a clothing store recently. A little later your with a different friend and you see or hear an advertisement for that same store, and you say: “Hey, isn’t that’s the place Sally went last week where she bought those cute new dresses?!”

The effect of great word of mouth on your other marketing efforts cannot be overstated! 

          A person may hear some good word of mouth about a company and at that time not need the service or product, but later when the need arises and they are searching or when they get exposure to an ad, they willTRYto remember what they heard and will respond.

          On the other hand, if the word of mouth about your spa is poor, then the money you spend on marketing will get LESS response. If a potential new customer has already heard some negative feedback from someone about the Bayside Spa and then they see an ad somewhere promoting the Spa, their tendency will be to discount it, or ignore it. They won’t listen to your message, their mind is already turned away from the business.

          Have you ever experienced this? If you have heard bad word of mouth about a company and THEN hear an advertisement for the company, what’s the first thing that flashes in your mind? The negative story you heard before, that’s what!

          How about this example, lets say you yourself had a very bad experience with a company (think telephone service provider, or maybe bank…). Now you’re sitting with a friend watching TV and an ad comes on for the company that you feel wronged you. What happens? In many cases just seeing the ad will elicit a negative comment from you to your friend! “That’s the bank that ripped me off!” “I used to have that cell phone service and I’ll NEVER go back to them!!!” Have you ever seen this, or done this yourself?

What can be done to improve your word of mouth?

          Here are two of the most effective (and rarely done!) things to do:

Follow up.

          Calling a client, customer, patient, back to see how they are doing is an AWESOME way to improve word of mouth. Has your doctor ever called you back to see how you were feeling? If they did, did it impress you? Have you ever been to a restaurant where the chef (or cook) came out into the dining area and asked the customers how they liked the food? This can be done in auto repair, chiropractic clinics, schools, nail salons, cleaning companies; really, the list of businesses that can make use of follow up contacts is endless. It does take some basic communication skills so that your follow up doesn’t make the customer angry, but it’s pretty simple. And the higher up the person doing the follow ups is, the more wow factor it imparts. Anyone who is doing follow up calls MUST be interested in what ever the customer has to say, positive or negative. I think that one reason that follow up calls are NOT done is because there is trepidation that the response will be less than positive. Who ever makes the calls has to be equally happy to receive positive or negative response, and be prepared with what to say and do if the response is negative. 

• “Did your shipment arrive on time, did you receive what you expected?”
• “How was your adjustment with the doctor last night? How is your neck feeling today?”
• “How was your chicken cordon bleu? Did you like the green beans?”
• “I know that yesterday was your first visit to see us, did things so as smoothly as you hoped?”

There’s an infinity of questions that you can ask.

          Follow up calls, done correctly; show the customer that you genuinely care about the product or service that was provided, that you care about the customer and that their complete satisfaction is important.

          Follow up calls can give you valuable feed back from your customers that you can use right now to make your product or service better.

          Remember that statistics show that only 1 in 25 unsatisfied customer will ever say anything to you about what they don’t like. (Although they may tell 25 other people what they didn’t like about you!) Asking them in a way that shows that you WANT them to tell what they liked or didn’t like REALLY works.

Compensation when things go wrong.

          Every company has things go wrong with clients from time to time. Customers get shipped the wrong thing, or someone’s steak is cooked wrong, or there is WAY too little chocolate in their mocha. How you handle it when things go wrong is HUGE. If a customer has to wait, or client came in to pick up a product (which you forgot to order for them), or what ever you did wrong, be sure to have on hand some form of compensation ready. I recommend buying $100 worth of $5 coffee cards, and also movie tickets, or restaurant gift cards and have them on hand to give out. I say have three types and values for the various levels of how badly you may have messed up (or how irate the customer is!) 

          Your company should have a set system for compensating irate customers. Create “tiers” of compensation, start with the coffee card, then the movie tickets, then the restaurant gift card. If the client has to wait more than a short time, use the coffee card: “Mr. Thompson, we are very sorry you had to wait so long today, here is a gift card for the “Mochas” espresso stand over on Fir Street,  thanks for hanging in there with us today!”

          You may not think that a $5 coffee card is going to make any impact, but it DOES. Your customers will feel appreciated, acknowledged, validated and recognized.

           I have gone over this idea with many businesses and everyone thinks it a great idea, but implementing it is not always a snap. From my experience the hardest thing is to get the staff to hand them out as much as I would like! Sometimes employees will get a little stingy with them, “Well, she only had to wait half an hour, and it wasn’t our fault she had to wait, so no card for her”. “I don’t want to waste the card on that person, or why give away five dollars…” are some of the things I have heard. Some times you get busy and just forget to hand them out…

          Let’s go back to an earlier article: Why IS word of mouth the most effective form of advertising?

          This was where we discussed the cost of a new customer, and if you did the calculations in that article you probably saw that a new customer may “cost” $50, $80, $100 or possibly a lot more.

          Well, how many people will your customer talk to about you if they receive a coffee card or movie tickets? Do you think that they’ll tell anyone? If you give out a $5 coffee card and the customer tells 7 people about it, how does that work out? You get the idea, giving out a $5 coffee card that results in even one new client is easily the “cheapest” form of advertisement ever! So, give the cards out when there is any even slight problem. 

          Back to our tiered system of compensation, the coffee card is for a small upset or inconvenience, the movie tickets for a bigger screw up on your part, the restaurant gift certificate is used for…you get the idea, figure out your own system and tiers. If you don’t like coffee cards you can use discounts for future services at your business, you can credit money to the clients account, give out free items, the list is endless. The stuff you give out does not need to be expensive to create a powerful effect. 

This is NOT only for irate customers!

          Do you have awesome customers or clients who you love? Give them coffee cards or what ever you decide for “compensation” once in a while! “Julia, I just wanted to say that you are the most awesome customer! Here, have a coffee card (or movie tickets, or what ever).” There doesn’t have to be any set system for this (like giving a gift card on a special holiday, etc), in fact random and unexpected tends to create more of a memorable experience.

Two more short footnotes:

• Employees who are encouraged to liberally compensate customers are happier employees! They feel empowered and will also give your business good word of mouth to THEIR friends.
• The better your word of mouth the higher employee morale will be and the easier it will be to hire great employees and retain them!!!

Word of Mouth Round-up!

          Well, are your creative juices popping like pop corn? Are you excited to implement some of your new ideas about improving your company’s word of mouth?

           I certainly hope so! I am always happy to receive any feed back, so if you have any great ideas on improving word of mouth, please send them in!

          And lastly if after reading this article you are thinking that you would certainly LOVE to implement some of these ideas, but it would be difficult because of a lack of time, or that some (or all!) of your employees may not embrace your enthusiasm, then with out question you are in need of a little help!

            If you call me directly I may be able to assist you in handling these barriers. There is no charge for calling, I am available to give advice anytime! I am located inWestern Washington, Pacific Time zone! My number is: 360-809-0661.

         Best of luck!

         Andy Porter  

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A business is there to service or provide products for customers.  At the same time, research shows that only one in twenty-five dissatisfied customers, will tell you what was wrong.  The other twenty-four customers, who leave dissatisfied with your business, will almost certainly tell other people.  They just won’t tell you!

Customer feedback is extremely valuable.  You can do so much with it.  A primary use is to help the business correct problems.  If your customers are complaining of long wait times, you can add more staff or streamline the order process.  But that’s just the tip of the tulip.  Customer feedback can be used to:

• Create effective bundles of services or products
• Improve perception of value
• Set pricing/discounts
• Determine which products to carry
• Educate employees
• Motivate your team

In fact customer feedback is one of the most valuable management tools in existence!

It’s really impossible to get too much customer feedback.  I don’t know of any company that gets enough.  Realistically if you want to create loyal customers you need to know what ALL of your customers think about you, NOT just the ones who love you!

Of course how you USE your customer feedback is tremendously important.  But before we get to that lets discuss more about HOW to gather the feedback. 

A company must establish three easy-to-find and use channels for customers to communicate what they like and don’t like.  In addition, you must create a customer service record where you and your staff can track any and all customer comments, both good and bad. 

Methods to gather customer comments: 

• Mail out survey forms to all of your new or existing customers
• Surveys can be mailed with your invoices
• Surveys can be mailed to all new customers with a personalized letter
• Have survey forms to hand to customers
  • If you do on-site repairs for example, your technician should hand the customer the survey as they leave. 
• Place stacks of surveys forms for customers to fill out or take home and send back. 
  • If you have a business where customers come in, there must be a customer survey table with stacks of surveys, in plain view where customers can report! 
• Have a survey section on your web site
  • The survey on your web site must be easy to find! 
  • This is a great time to provide your anonymous feedback avenue. 
• Send out emails with surveys
  • This can be used with an offer for discounts if they fill out the survey
• Call new or existing customers and survey them on the phone. 
  • Follow-up calls rock!  All follow up calls are essentially opportunities for customer feedback. 
• Survey the customers in person while they are still in the store or business

Rule # 1:  You must have at least three channels for customers to provide feedback. 

Rule # 2:  One of these channels must enable customers to give feedback anonymously. 

Rule # 3:  In addition to the three avenues you choose to gather feedback, you must ALSO use the Customer Service log!   

Before we tackle the methods of gathering feedback let’s look at the survey itself.  What questions do you want to ask your customers?

As already covered, only 1 in 25 customers will tell you what they didn’t like.  This is not good!  A customer who leaves unhappy may or may not come back to see you, or they may start to look for a new service provider.  They will almost always tell other people what they didn’t like about your business.  It’s always better for them to tell you, and the sooner the better, so something can be done. 

From my view, I always want to know what went wrong:  Why did the customer leave?  Maybe you can fix things and the customer stays, maybe you can’t.  But even if the unhappy customer does leave, if you know why, you can make changes and prevent other customers from leaving as well. 

Have you ever gotten lousy service or product and yet you didn’t complain?  Why didn’t you say anything?  The most common reasons are that the customer: 

• didn’t want a confrontation
• was in a hurry
• didn’t want to get someone in trouble
• felt that it wouldn’t make a difference

Generally speaking people are much more likely to tell you what they DID like than what they DIDN’T like. 

If you are going to ask your customers’ questions about your company, you need to ask intelligent questions that will provide you with data you can use to make improvements. 

To create your survey questions, start with making a list of the things that your customers are most likely to get irate about.  Here are a few possible categories: 

• Cost, pricing is too high
• Value, was it worth the price?
• Speed of service
• Receiving the wrong item
• Schedule
• Selection of products
• Friendliness
• Cleanliness 

Next, make a similar list for YOUR business.  Then, based on these lists, create your questions.  If the questions on your customer feedback form make you nervous about asking them, then you are on the right track! 

Make the survey no more than seven to ten questions.  No multiple choice or numerical ratings.  Just ask the question (or bundle of questions) and leave a box for the customer to answer. 

I recommend that you list all your questions and have one box for the customer to answer.  Below is a sample of a customer service survey from a web site: 

How are we doing? 

Your input is valuable and helps us in our never ending quest to improve our levels of customer service.  Please take a moment and let us know how we did. 

• When you called was the receptionist friendly and helpful?
• How about when you arrived, did things go smoothly?
• Was the doctor compassionate, helpful, and knowledgeable?
• Did you receive more or less than you expected?
• Do you have any suggestions for us on how we can get better? 

 You can leave your contact data if you like, it is not required. 

 Your Name:  ____________________________

Date of service:  ______________________

In this example you could have an answer box after each question, or just one box as above.  There could be more questions.  But don’t forget what you’re after:  Honest feedback that enables you to make things better.

Once you have your survey questions the next step is figuring out how to get them distributed. 

Now that you have your survey questions all ready, go ahead and choose three of the above methods for gathering feedback and get started

There are many reasons to have a staff meeting each week.  The most basic reason is that if you want to have a team that works together then you have to enable the employees to communicate.  Yes, there is an investment of time, and it’s hard to schedule, etc.  But, NOT having weekly staff meetings, as outlined below, will decrease your bottom line, period.

Often staff meetings are rather boring affairs (at least from the viewpoint of the employees!). They are usually one-sided with management doing most of the talking. The actual purpose of staff meeting is to co-ordinate actions and get everyone working together as a team.

In all my years of experience I have never seen any system for staff meeting work better than the one outlined below:

1. Schedule a set day of the week where the staff meeting can be held.  This should be done at a time when there are no customers in the office and there are no distractions.  It needs to be held the same day each week.  Set an exact time.  The meeting should be between 30 and 60 minutes long. If you have a large number of staff, the meetings could be for smaller groups, but ideally this ‘word of mouth meeting’ would include everyone.

2. Before the meeting, make sure that all comments are in the log; including any customer surveys, notes from follow-up calls, and comments from your web site – any and all comments should be gathered up.

3. Read aloud each item from the Customer Comment Log.
1. Congratulate any department or employee named in the compliment.
2. Take time to discuss each complaint from the viewpoint of what could be done better.  You may come to the conclusion that there was nothing that you could have done better.  So be it.
3. Invite the STAFF to solve the problem or come up with the new policy or procedure that will make sure the problem does not repeat.
4. The manager should not be lecturing here, he or she should invite the staff to talk and come up with the answer.

4. Ensure a record of the meetings are produced and made available for staff not in attendance.

5. Additional Notes:
1. Read all comments no matter who they are about.  If the complaints are about a manager or owner, address them as you would any other complaint.
2. Staff who are upset about this program tend to quit fast.
3. Make certain the no one is EVER chastised for writing a customer complaint in the Log.

The log is a vital tool for developing a team of people who work well together and care about what happens at work.  Not to mention creating loyal customers and improving word of mouth about the company!  Most everyone wants to take pride in their work and are highly motivated when they can personally make a difference.

The log has several columns that are filled in completely when a compliment or complaint is received.  The columns are:

Client name / date / who took data / what was said /what was done / result.

Client name and date are self evident.  Who took data is who spoke to the client and is writing the data.

What was said is EXACTLY what the client said.  The only editing should be if there was any foul language used by the client.  This need not be written verbatim.  But if for example the client names a staff member who they feel has wronged them, this must be written down.

What was done is any action the staff member took at that time to remedy the situation.  Was there any apology given?  Was there a promise to investigate further?  Was a product exchange or credit given?  Was a refund given?  Was nothing done?

Then, what was the result of the handling done in the previous step?  Did the customer leave happy?  Were they still upset?  Did they say they would never come back?  Were they smiling?

The Customer Comment log must be kept in a very accessible location where ALL staff can easily add to it or read what is in it.  Larger companies might categorize the logs by department or division.

The idea is that ALL staff would take the time to fill in the things that they hear from clients, both positive and negative.  Usually receptionists, and other front-line staff, hear more of what the customers have to say, but not always.  Sometimes they are afraid to pass on what they hear because they fear repercussions from staff higher up.  There needs to be a firm policy in place that no staff member can be disciplined in any way for writing what the customer says.

It is up to the executives to make sure that the log is USED.  Any and all compliments or complaints should be recorded daily.  The log should be reviewed regularly by executives and gone over in staff meetings.

The log gives execs a broad picture of the client’s point of view, where the company is strong and where it needs work.  It is a very valuable tool and can and will create strong staff member enthusiasm when used.

CUSTOMER COMMENT LOG

 What creates an atmosphere of friendliness and a culture of truly caring customer service?  Is it simply having great employees?  Or a generous benefits package?  How about an effective staff training program?  Clearly these points are part of it, but there is a lot more to it.

Internal customer service, meaning how everyone in the company interacts with each other, is what sets the tone for the overall level of customer service.  This is true in small businesses and it is true in large corporations.  Larger companies have distinct levels or echelons of employees, owners or directors, upper management, middle management, and so on.  Internal word of mouth between these “groups within the group”  are the corner stone of a successful business.

What Employees Want

Employees want to know where things stand and they want stability.  Sudden change never goes over well.  Direct, honest communication works two ways:  Ideally, management would communicate exactly what they think to employees and all employees would feel perfectly safe in communicating what’s on their minds to management.

While this ideal may never be completely achieved one can see that every company is somewhere on the scale of open communication.  Where communication is more open and honest the employees tend to be more loyal to the employer.

Another thing that employees want is simply to be able to contribute to the company.  Anyone who is part of a group wants to help out and make things better.  When their efforts are ignored or rebuffed they tend to lose interest.  If a person feels they cannot be of help to the group they stop caring.

Who are your customers?

Everyone knows the basic definition of the term “customer”.  It’s a person who purchases your goods or services.  This definition applies to most business transactions.

Now let’s look at the customers of a government office.  In many cases the person does not purchase or pay for the service.  So let’s revise that basic definition to:  A person or group for whom you provide services or products.

These two concepts are similar in that the organization is providing services or products to an outside entity, an individual or group.  One could say that these are external customers.

Internal Customers

Internal customers are those individuals or groups within a company or agency who are helping to provide/sell goods and services to the external customers.

Each department or division of an organization is a “customer” to the other.  The sales department is a customer of HR.  Shipping is a customer of Sales.  All departments are customers of reception or the call center.  Effective management views everyone, clients and all employees, as customers.

In the same way that a company can have bad word of mouth with its customers, an employee can create bad word of mouth inside a company.  Have you ever seen an employee whom many of the other employees constantly complained about?  “If you have a problem, don’t ask George for help, he’s always grumpy.”

An entire department or part of a company can have bad internal word of mouth.  “Those idiots in shipping can’t even write their own names.” or “The planning department just sits on their butts all day long.”  Have you ever heard anything like this, in your company?

Most companies and agencies tend to focus solely on external customers.  The paying customer gets more attention than the company employees.  This can be a grave mistake.

In any company with more than two employees a majority of the customer’s complaints stem from a lack of communication or coordination between employees, sections, groups or departments.

I’ve seen this in countless businesses:  The wait staff bickering with the cooks; the technical support staff cursing the sales staff; the management critical of the employees, and vice-versa.  It’s hard to be friendly, courteous and smile to the customers when someone you work with is being rude, nasty or disrespectful to you.

If you have work groups or departments bickering in your company, you had better get busy.  Right there is the source of some, if not all, of your word of mouth complaints.

2. A business must have a system to gather accurate, up-to-date feedback from customers in order to understand how customers feel and where the company might improve.  Otherwise it’s all just guessing.

3. Constant attention on quality of service based on the feedback you receive is vital.  Hold weekly meetings to discuss what is working and what needs to work better.  Invite your experienced staff to come up with ways to handle any problems.

4. An ongoing program to train and educate staff is a must.  This includes:  Training for their basic duties and complete understanding of the services or products offered, mastery of all applicable software, training on customer service and when that’s all done, cross training on related positions.

5. Recognizing and rewarding service excellence.  Employees who excel at servicing customers should be acknowledged and if possible promoted.  Building a team of motivated, empowered staff is the key to creating loyal customers.

6. Recognize and effectively deal with employees who constantly gossip, gripe and complain.  These behaviors cause stress for the rest of the staff and can ruin morale.  If management does not effectively rid the company of these behaviors, they will drive your best staff away.

Drill:  Give your company a grade on each of the 6 areas above.  Grade each point like in school:  A, B, C, D, F, and write the grades in the left-hand margin.  If applicable, grade your department in the right-hand margin.

Negative or unpleasant emotions and stress are what make dealing with employees and customers sometimes difficult. If everyone were happy and relaxed then dealing with people would be a snap and stress free. Of course this is not always the case.

Sometimes a person is temporarily grumpy or miserable. Life is full of surprises, some good and some bad. When a person is under any type of stress or strain it changes their emotional outlook. This in turn changes how a person communicates, how well they listen to what you have to say and of course what comes out of their mouth.

Everyone has experienced moments when they were under stress and said or did things that they may have later regretted. This doesn’t mean that the person is bad or always like this, in this case it was a temporary thing.

Then there are people who are just generally irritable, grumpy or unhappy. We have all encountered such people. In this case their emotional state is not temporary. For example: a person who always disagrees or argues or the customer that you just can’t please no matter what you do or say.

The difference is that in the first case the person soon “comes out of it” and goes back to being himself or herself, while in the second case the person stays in an unhappy condition.

Dealing with customers, employees or co-workers

Temporary upsets

            When a person feels that something did not go as planned it can upset them. Some people get upset when there is any change, or if something unexpected happens. If a customer has certain expectations which are not being met this will cause some problems, not to mention if the customer feels that your company did not do what was advertised or promised.

When someone yells at you does it change your emotional outlook? How about when you get a speeding ticket? Are you happy about this? An otherwise happy person can become angry, sad, worried, etc temporarily when something happens that they don’t want to have happen!

When a customer is upset it is usually because either your company actually did do something wrong or the customers feels that you did something wrong.

A customer may be irritated and direct this to you or your company when the actual source of the upset was elsewhere. Maybe the person just received a speeding ticket, got laid off, or is ill. All of these things probably came as somewhat of an unwanted surprise and were not on the person’s wish list for the day!

It doesn’t matter what caused the customer to be upset. The biggest mistake that you can make is to take it personally and become upset yourself. Being defensive is one of the most common reactions. Interrupting the person because you don’t want to hear the customer’s problems is another one.

Sometimes what a customer is saying is pretty crazy. Once I called the phone company and was ready to scream at the person on the phone because they “couldn’t find my account”. Then it dawned on me that I was calling the wrong phone company!

Emotions are interesting. Just being near someone in a specific emotion can have an effect on ones mood and outlook. Of course when a customer is emitting a strong negative emotion it’s more difficult to remain light hearted.

Being able to master ones emotions and remain calm is a vital necessity when dealing with customers. It can also come in handy when being married, having a family or in any relationships!

The most important attributes of anyone dealing with customers are: friendly, calm, interested, helpful and knowledgeable about their services or products.

What about the person who is always unpleasant to deal with?

Customers:

Generally it would take many different interactions with a customer to know if they fall into the impossible to please category. But if this is the case, what does one do?

Of course all of the points above for dealing with unhappy customers apply: being friendly, calm, interested, helpful and knowledgeable. With such customers one needs to triple their efforts!

Sometimes it’s best to find another person to deal with the customer. Some personalities don’t mesh well. So you can tag team with another co-worker. In many cases this alone can turn the situation around and everyone will be happy. If you do this and it works, don’t take it personally! No one gets along with everyone.

Just recognizing that the person is generally grumpy or irritable can help. RULE: once you know the general emotional condition of a person you can predict what they will do and say. Knowing this you can keep from becoming upset about them. This rule can be helpful in dealing some customers and possibly even select relatives!!!

I am also a firm believer in the idea that you don’t have to like everyone. And you don’t have to service everyone. If a customer is just too belligerent then in some cases it may be better to send them elsewhere for service. Customers can fire their provider. Well, service providers can also “fire” a customer!

Employees and Co-workers:

What if you work with someone who is constantly miserable, grumpy and unhappy?

First of all make sure that you are looking at things on a long term basis, don’t look at a temporary condition.

People who are constantly negative don’t tend to have good days and bad days. They have bad days and worse days! Such people tend to get upset very easily and then stay that way. Another characteristic is that they tend to blame someone else for their problems. It’s never their fault.

Gossiping and spreading negative news or rumors is another favorite pastime. An interesting fact is that when they do spread gossip or rumors it is usually about your most productive employees!

There are many words written about stress at work. One idea is that stress comes from being busy. In my experience stress at work comes from having to work with someone who is constantly negative. Its hard to get excited about going to work if you know that you’re going to have to listen to Joe or Sally complain all day long!

I have hired many professional people in many different businesses. I have found that one of their main concerns is the atmosphere of the work place. Is there lots of unrest? Gossiping? Back biting? More and more people understand that this is the cause of stress at work and want to get away from such places.

When you trace it down you will probably find that the majority of the stress and drama at work comes from a very few people.

Don’t make excuses for such people. Just apply your regular HR procedures and start to hunt for a replacement!

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