Customer Service Email Should Never Be Overlooked

By Josh Jordan, Senior Contributing Editor to Delight Customers!

Make a quick guess at the number of emails that you receive in a day.

Next think about the types of emails you receive (from customers, from partners, from friends), how frequently you check your email (once a day, once an hour, every ten minutes!), and how you prioritize those messages (customers always first!).

Now change into your customers shoes.

Email is a great communications tool. It gives you a way to clearly state your questions, purpose, plan, and results. It can also be overused and ignored.

Give yourself a refresher on email communications with these few simple tips:

• Subject lines are not the great American Novel: The purpose of a subject line is to summarize your message and get the recipients attention.
• Know who you're emailing: Reply and Reply All are two different buttons. Make sure you know which one you are hitting.

Case in point: You are on an email exchange with a customer and co-workers, you need information from your co-workers to give to the customer. You use the email exchange as a short-cut and don't remove the customer. Your question could be as innocent as what time should the meeting be, to I can't get through to them, you try. Best case you've created confusion, worst case DEFCON 4.

• Copy those who need to know: A carbon copy (CC) is meant to keep people informed of a situation, or event but may not require them to act, or provide input. If you intend to solicit someones opinion, list them in the To: field.

AND Don't Cry Wolf: Make sure when copying others that the message pertains to them. Copying for copying's sake will eventually end up with something important being ignored.

• You took the time to type it, take the time to read it: Before sending any message, run a grammar/spellcheck and re-read your message. (Tip: Set your email system to auto-check for grammar and spelling).

Ask yourself, is the purpose of this email clear? concise? will it elicit the response I'm looking for? It's great to have multiple touches with a client everyday, not so when it's trying to explain your email.

• Pick up the phone: Ever get into a "real-time" conversation on email? Messages fly back and forth as both parties happen to be checking messages at the same time. It's the perfect opportunity to talk to your customer. You know where they are, what they are doing and have something that relates to them to discuss. Take advantage.

Give your email a little tune-up. Make sure you are doing what you think you are. It takes seconds to send and can take days (or more) to fix!

Josh can be reached at josh.d.jordan@gmail.com

For more tips on email and email etiquette, click here, or for a short-list of tips visit: http://email.about.com/od/emailnetiquette/tp/core_netiquette.htm

Customer Service: Calculating the Benefit

Suggestion: Use these simple formulas to Calculate the Benefit of Customer Service Excellence in Your Company:

Harvard Business Review – Increasing customer retention from 10% to 15% can double revenue.

Customer Service Institute – It costs 5X more to get new customers than to keep an existing one.

Just a reminder that it pays to DELIGHT CUSTOMERS!

Customer Service Selling Cues Lead to Revenue Opportunities

Our posting on the horror of a customer say, "I didn't know you did that." prompted a suggestion from my long time friend and associate Charles Thompson, the senior operations officer at World Color... and a "World Class"Customer Service provider.

Charles suggested we follow up with additional insight into SELLING CUES.

If you search "Selling Cues" on Google you end up with a great deal of
information about buying and selling CUES for pool, snooker and
billiards.


Not what we were looking for, so perhaps we can add to the content.

In Customer Service and all Marketing and Sales, selling cues, or if
you prefer, "buying cues" occur continually.

Cues can be very subtle or pronounced but they all signal a shift -- or the opportunity for a shift -- in the buyer's position ... to your favor and to your advantage.

To be certain, all cues require developed listening skills and
continually asking ourselves, "What is the customer REALLY saying?"

So what should we be listening for? Some suggestions:

• Problems - Perhaps more than any other cue we should listen for
  problems we can help customer solve. These no harm in asking outright,
  "Are there any problems you are having that we could help you with?"


• Needs - What are the expressed needs of your customer and how can
  you relate them to you product or service line.


• Staffing - In current economic conditions, listening for inadequate
  staffing concerns can lead to revenue generating solutions.


• Curiosity - If a subject interests your buyer, it should fascinate
  you. What are your customers' current interests and can they lead to sale?


• Objections - We've all heard that objections really are questions and
  signal that we need to provide more information about the subject. Keep the information flowing to your customers.


• Complaints - Particularly about competitors. Be careful not to join in
  the criticism of competitors, but, rather, offer solutions.


• Schedules - If there are scheduling concerns, can you bring parts of
  project you are not managing under your control for greater revenue?


• Costs - Can you offer efficiencies or alternatives to other vendor
  partners or competitors? Would a greater share of wallet afford the
  opportunity for discounts?
  

There are others, and that's a GREAT TRAINING EXERCISE for your next Customer Service meeting. Begin your own custom Selling Cues List directly related to your industry and your customer base.

The point is that we must ENGAGE with customers.

Engagement today means moving past Customer Service details and becoming business problem solvers.

When we engage, listen and serve we have the greatest opportunity to
DELIGHT CUSTOMERS!

Results for the Twitter Poll Are Complete

In our informal poll of visitors to this Blog, we asked:

How do you Twitter?

The results:

Personal 17%

Business 11%

Both 23%

And, surprisingly,

I Don't Twitter 47%

We Are Pleased and Honored to Welcome Craig Combest

... as the newest Follower of Delight Customer.

Craig in the Dean of Sales and Marketing, ALWAYS Leading by Example, Supporting Others, and Giving of Time And Talent.

He is known as "Mr. USO" in Cincinnati, where his contributions to that worthwhile organization are incredible!

Welcome, Craig!

http://harnessing-loyalty.blogspot.com/

Great new Blog by Loyalty Professional Stephen Drees. Informative and well written.
I'm following Stephen and encourage others to as well.

Your Silent Partner in Customer Service

By Josh Jordan, Senior Contributing Editor to Delight Customers!

How do you serve customers 24 X 7 and strengthen their relationship with your business?

Having the right workflow management tool in place (and understanding how it works) is one sure-fire way!

Solutions such as Avanti, Promail, Printstream, and even SAP are found throughout the marketing and service provider world. Advertising Agencies have their own version classified as Marketing Resource Management systems (Marketing Pilot, Marketing Central, Robohead to name a few).

They each share the same common goal of providing a 'one-stop-shop' for your operations - managing customer service information, job information, postal processes and in most cases billing.

While these tools and automated reporting are nothing new, many businesses still struggle to find the right mix of information to pull and deliver to customers. And while there are important decisions to make when it comes to sharing information, less is not more, and nothing is deadly.

Follow some simple guidelines to start leveraging your existing investment:

• Partner with IT: Don't leave Customer Service to your IT department, create a cross-functional team with Customer Service and Sales leading the charge
  
• Lead your customer: Don't wait for customers to ask, dig through the 'canned' reports your system offers and give your customer five to choose from
  
• Provide context: Explain the value of the information you are providing and how it will impact your customers business
  
• Automate the process: Providing reports consistently is key; create automated workflows in your system to ensure timely delivery - don't leave it chance
  
• Create a parking lot: As you begin to satisfy customers with your existing capabilities, create a parking lot of ideas to extend your system use and create DELIGHT

• Stick to the plan: Develop a schedule to release new reports, workflows and opportunities that customers can benefit from; use this as a way to stay in communication, differentiate and delight

Google has made it easy to find information an anything and everything you want to know. Turn your workflow management tool into an internal Google for your customers and their jobs and watch your relationship grow!

You can reach Josh with questions at: josh.d.jordan@gmail.com