Three Red-Carpet Service Tips for Product Sellers

Michelle’s Note: I purchased Donna’s book, Insider Secrets to Delivering Red Carpet Customer Service, on Amazon and received it about a week ago. I have read most of the book — and can say that she has some awesome information. Her advice and insight will help you change your perception of what is excellent customer service.

But she doesn’t stop there. I have written several blog post on customer service and how it is a partnership. Donna goes a step further and has an entire chapter of her book dedicated to describing how to be a better customer. Not only will this help you in your role as a customer, but will also help you identify the star customers in your business.

I’m also proud to announce that Donna has written a guest post for me to share with you about how you can provide red-cart service for your customers….

Three Red-Carpet Service Tips for Product Sellers
By Donna Cutting

It’s Award season again! That time of year when Hollywood rolls out the red-carpet for the fabulously famous and their entourage at the Emmys, the Golden Globes, and the cream of the crop – the Academy Awards. What better time to take stock and ask yourself, how can I give my customers a little red-carpet treatment of their own? Here are three ideas you can implement right now to give your customers The Celebrity Experience.

1. Give Them SWAG! – One of my audience members told me this story: She found a clothing store that she absolutely loved. She bought a few outfits, and wrote to the CEO of the store about how happy she was to find them. Two weeks later there was an unexpected box at her front door. She opened it to find 3-4 outfits, in her size, from the store with a note from the CEO: “These are for you with our compliments! We’re so glad you found us – and we look forward to your continued business.” Do you think she shops there regularly? You bet she does! Do you think she tells that story to everyone she knows? You better believe it! If you’re not convinced at how much giving products away can create buzz about your business and bring new customers, ask Ben & Jerry how much press they receive when they hold “free cone day.” It’s the kind of buzz that enabled a small scoop shop housed in a renovated gas station to grow to a $4 million business in six short years, and later to be sold for $326 million.
2. Let Their People Talk to Your People – If you sell products online, you want the online experience to be so easy, so smooth that the customer can simply make their selections, enter their credit card information, and cha-ching – they’re happy and you are that much richer. However, when your customer has a question that they can’t find an answer to online, or they simply want to talk with a live person, nothing is more frustrating than not being able to locate a phone number on the website. Delivering red-carpet customer service means being approachable and accessible. Otherwise, it’s like walking into a store and finding no one who wants to help you. Frankly, online it’s even easier to simply find another store. Give your online store a personality. Put your photo up, tell your customers a little about you, and let them know how to reach you. They may never have to – but it will ease their mind to know that if they need you, you’re there.
3. Give Them Star Power – Celebrities have choice, a voice, control, influence, and power. If you want to give your customers a true Celebrity Experience, consider giving them more power and participation in your business. Give them a choice – online ordering? In person? On the phone? Give them voice – write a blog and allow your customers to post comments.  Give them influence –Invite people to make recommendations about your products or give you suggestions for new ones. Remember when the Mars company invited customers to vote on what color would replace the tan M&M’s? Give them the power of an inner circle. Create an elite club and make your regular customers the members. Look at Harley Davidson’s HOG (Harley Owners Group) club for a great example of how this can work brilliantly.

Donna Cutting is the author of The Celebrity Experience: Insider Secrets to Delivering Red-Carpet Customer Service (Wiley, 2008) and is a full-time keynote speaker on the topics of employee engagement and customer experience.

This guest blog post was done as part of a virtual blog tour for Donna Cutting.

Yesterday the blog tour stopped at these blogs:

Phil Gerbyshak displays a book excerpt from Donna’s book
Melody Campbell / The Small Business Guru

Today, the blog tour is featured at these blogs also:

Terri / Pop Art Diva
Dawn Goldberg / Write Well Me

And tomorrow the virtual book tour continues with these blogs:

Dr. Sally Witt will conduct a book review on her blog.

Customers Really Can Be Wrong, Part 2

After yesterday’s post, I thought it would be a good idea to clarify my position on customer service.

As I’ve said before, customer service is a partnership. The customer and the business have responsibilities, kind of like in a marriage.

The businesses’ responsibilities include:

• Providing the advertised product or service
• Working with the customer to give them what they ask for
• Being respectful and considerate
• Being honest

This reminds me of a customer service experience when I was in high school, working at McDonald’s. A man walked in and very sheepishly said that his wife, who was waiting in the car, wanted a bread and butter sandwich. Was there any way we could provide one?

My co-worker, who took his order, said, “Sure!” She found two hamburger buns, buttered them and toasted them slightly. Then wrapped this sandwich and sold it to the man. I don’t know how much she charged, but that’s not really the point. She found a way to provide him with what he needed.

This brings me to the customers responsibilities, which include:

• Asking for exactly what you want
• Working with the company to figure out what you want
• Being respectful and considerate
• Being honest

Now, if the man at McDonald’s had come into the store, rudely demanded a bread and butter sandwich, complained that it was made on a hamburger bun and not a slice of white bread and then expected to receive it for free — I’d say he was wrong and should be sent packing.

Wise Words Wednesday: Customers Really Can Be Wrong

I know, I know. I’ve been harping on this one for awhile now.

I just don’t like it when I hear stories from my clients or design partners who have been bending over backwards for someone so long and so far, that they risk breaking their back, rhetorically speaking.

So, when I saw this article called “Customers Can Be Wrong” at 3tailer, I had to share it with you.

One woman who frequently flew on Southwest, was constantly disappointed with every aspect of the company’s operation. In fact, she became known as the “Pen Pal” because after every flight she wrote in with a complaint.

She didn’t like the fact that the company didn’t assign seats; she didn’t like the absence of a first-class section; she didn’t like not having a meal in flight; she didn’t like Southwest’s boarding procedure; she didn’t like the flight attendants’ sporty uniforms and the casual atmosphere.

Her last letter, reciting a litany of complaints, momentarily stumped Southwest’s customer relations people. They bumped it up to Herb’s [Kelleher, CEO of Southwest] desk, with a note: ‘This one’s yours.’

In sixty seconds, Kelleher wrote back and said, ‘Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you. Love, Herb.’”

Wasn’t that great? Herb’s response illustrates exactly what we should do when we have a customer who refuses to be happy.

Alex at PositiveSharing.com has a list of Top 5 reasons why the maxim “the customer is always right” is actually wrong.

Here are my thoughts as a WAHM on his reasons:

1. It makes employees unhappy.

You may think this doesn’t apply to you because you are a solopreneur — no employees. But you’re forgetting someone — YOU. I have heard many stories of women who started a business, doing what they love, serving others. They were providing great service.

But then the jerks came along and demanded more than they paid for, bellyached when things didn’t go they way they wanted them to, nevermind that this is not what they’d paid for.

Just last week, one of my design partners had a client purchase one template. By the end of two months, my partner had created five templates for different sections of her site and the client was complaining that things were taking too long. Well — one template normally takes two weeks. Five templates — we’re looking at a little more than two months! This client still had only paid for one template.

Had my partner stood by the customer is always right maxim, she would still be working on the site, creating new templates and losing money every minute for a client who did not know what she wanted and was never going to be happy.

2. It gives abrasive customers an unfair advantage.

If you think that all customers are going to be so happy with your product that they’ll never even dream of uttering a complaint, must less make unreasonable demands in abusive and uncivilized ways — you are wrong.

You can have the best product in your industry and there will be someone who doesn’t like it. Interestingly enough, the more successful you become, the more of these abrasive customers you will find.

You must remember that no one has a right to treat you with disrespect and to demand more than they have paid for. Respect yourself and get rid of those whiners!

3. Some customers are bad for business

Respect and dignity, the terms Alex uses in his post, are more important than money. If you are wanting to be treated rudely and disrespectfully, go get a job on Hell’s Kitchen.

Otherwise, this is your business. You get to decide you who work with. Pick those people who have great attitudes, respect you and WANT to work with you.

4. It results in WORSE customer service.

When you give yourself the power to say no to a customer, to tell them that you no longer wish to do business with them, you improve your customers service. Here’s why:

• You’ll be able to care more about other people, including customers
• You’ll have more energy
• You will be happy, which means more fun to talk to and interact with
• You will be more motivated

On the other hand, if you are constantly dealing with customers who try to run over you, you’ll quickly become demoralized:

• You are not valuing yourself
• You’re telling yourself that being treated fairly is not important
• You’ll convince yourself that you have no right to respect from customers
• You’ll have to put up with everything from customers

If you were an employee of your company, handling your customers, would you want to work for you?

5. Some customers are just plain wrong.

There. I said it. (Again, right? LOL!)

Alex puts it like this:

The fact is that some customers are just plain wrong, that businesses are better of without them, and that managers siding with unreasonable customers over employees is a very bad idea, that results in worse customer service.

And in my words:

The fact that some customers are just plain wrong, that businesses are better off without them and that you siding with unreasonable customers over your own rights as a human being is a very bad idea, that results in worse customer service.

How To Create A Blogger Blog

Blogger helped create the blogging explosion that hit the internet recently. Blogs are a great way to connect with your customers and build relationships.

It is very easy to set up a Blogger blog. Simply go to www.blogger.com and enter in some basic information. Blogger has quite a few different themes to choose from, and you can further customize your blog by choosing the colors and fonts.

Blogger makes it very simple to add page elements to your site, such as RSS feeds, Google Adsense, and other items.

If you want to further customize your blog, Blogger allows you to change your template by editing the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) of your blog.

You can host your blog for free by using Blogger’s host service. Your blog’s URL will have “blogger” in it, for example http://yourblog.blogger.com.

You can host your blog on your own web host by changing the ftp settings in your blog. This will allow you to customize your domain, such as www.yourdomain.com/blog.

Another option is to switch to a custom domain. If you have registered a URL, you can go to the “publishing” section of your blog’s settings and enter the domain. When someone goes to that domain, they will be directed to your blog.

Blogger will also allow you to write your posts in advance and set them up as drafts. When you are ready to publish them, you simply press a button and your post is on the web.

Inserting pictures and links in your blog posts is also very simple using Blogger’s editor. Blogger’s comment section allows you to control who can post comments and whether or not they can add links to your blog.

Tell Me Your Email Horror Stories

I once last a potential client because his emails to me kept bouncing back to him. My email addressed worked properly for many other people (and still does). But for whatever reason, his emails would not go through to it. So, he emailed me at another address of mine, to tell me that he no longer wished to do business with my company since I obviously didn’t want to do business with him.

Ummm….OK.

Can I have a show of hands — How many of you can identify with this situation? You’ve sent emails out that have gotten lost and customers complain that you are ignoring them.

Or a customer sends you email that never arrives — and then you have to run double time to catch up on a situation and smooth things over.

Do you have stories of email escapades with a Murphy’s Law twist?

I’d love to hear them!

(And whoever has the best story — I’ll interview you, or at least tell your story — in an episode of my new podcast, Product Seller’s Talk Radio.

So, stay tuned — and tell me your stories!

What Does Great Customer Service Mean To You?

Does great customer service mean the company will bend to its customer’s will, no matter what?

Does it mean that the company is bound by “the customer is always right” — with no recourse?

I’m wondering what your thoughts are, because I recently read a thread at The Babywearer forums in which baby sling business owners discuss a particularly nasty customer service situation.

I would like to add another perspective into the pot. This situation reminds me of an entry in Seth Godin’s blog regarding the customer is always right:

Rule 1: The customer is always right

Rule 2: If the customer is ever wrong, reread rule No. 1

Rule 3: If the customer is wrong, they’re not your customer any more.

Bet you hadn’t thought of that.

Seth gives some additional advice for handling customers who are wrong:

Fire them. Politely decline to do business with them. Refer them to your arch competitors. Take them off the mailing list. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, don’t be rude, just move on.

If you’ve got something worth paying for, you gain power when you refuse to offer it to every single person who is willing to pay you.

Now that’s something to consider, especially for small WAHM businesses who can’t afford to spend 95 percent of their time placating the 1 percent of their clients who are unhappy and always will be.

Thoughts?