October 2006

It's "Make a Difference Day!"

• Motivate your employees to go the next level

• Volunteer for community activities

• Volunteer in your local school

• Volunteer to mentor students, employees, family members

• Take time to exercise your mind and body

• Call or visit a friend or family member just because you want to say hello

• Share a smile or joke with someone

• Do a random act of kindness

• Take time to appreciate your spouse or love one

• Tell your children that they are destine for greatness in their lives and that there is responsibility that comes with this greatness

• Take time to think

• Take time to read behind the news headlines to get the facts and don't accept the "spin"

• Get involved in the process

Each act to make a difference will not only enrich others, but also prepare you for future opportunities.

Motivate Your Team for Outstanding Customer Service: Six Secrets of Customer Service Motivation

Providing outstanding customer service is one of the most rewarding yet challenging activities within your organization. Exceptional organizations that provide outstanding customer service will experience the following benefits:

• Increased customer satisfaction

• Increased revenues

• Increased repeat and referral customer traffic

• Less employee turnover

• Increased profits

So how do we support and motivate our customer service team to give outstanding customer service? The following are six secrets to motivate your customer service team to give exceptional customer service to your customers:

1. Provide Ongoing Learning - It's important that you not only provide training on organizational policies and technology, but also how to handle customers. Create an ongoing system for training and feedback. Request continuous feedback and have the "courage to listen" to your customer service team's responses. Your customer service team members, because they are on the frontline, can provide you with excellent information on how to service your customer. Market conditions are changing all the time and the one piece of information your customer service team can share with you can make the difference between success and failure. After receiving the information from your customer service rep, if necessary, provide the training to your customer service team so that they can provide outstanding customer service.

2. Adjust the Attitude - Constantly work on your own attitude and your team's attitude to providing outstanding customer service. As a customer service leader, always be aware of the tone you set and how your customer service team will be motivated by your attitude. If you are upbeat, your team will follow the lead and provide outstanding customer service. If you have a negative attitude, your customer service team will follow your lead and communicate this negative attitude to the customers they serve.
   
   Work with your customer service team members to create a positive attitude in the following ways:
   
   
   • Look at every customer service experience as a learning experience that is preparing them for future opportunities.
   • Put your team in the customer's shoes to understand the customer's "pain" and create empathy for outstanding customer service solutions
   • Have your customer service team take on the persona of a positive individual they admire to help them through a difficult customer service situation.
   • Create "positive triggers" to remind your customer service team why it is important to give outstanding service. Your trigger could be as simple as a family picture or a picture of an item (new car, home, etc.) that is important to you.

3. Give Incentives - Motivate your customer service team by giving incentives based on meeting your organization's mission, goals, and values. Be timely, fair, and public with your incentives. Also, when putting together an incentive program, ask your customer service team what they would like as incentives. Many times organizations will invest thousands of dollars on incentives which are not the ones their customer service team wants. Just ask!

4. Show Appreciation - Appreciate to motivate your customer service team as much as possible. Remember, many times they are facing very challenging customer service situations everyday. Keep them motivated by sharing your appreciation in a timely, sincere, fair, and encouraging way. For more detail on this, go to my article, Appreciate to Motivate, on my website. By consistently showing appreciation, you will motivate your customer service team to excel when it is most difficult for them to do so.

5. Support Outstanding Customer Service - Support and motivate your customer service team in a number of ways. You can support and motivate your customer service team by making sure the technology supports them and the customers. For example, I recently called my internet broadband company about a mistake on a bill. The automated system disconnected my call five times before I finally spoke with a customer service representative; and I told him that he must experience many upset customers if they experience the same. The customer service representative agreed and said it made his job very difficult.
   
   Support your customer service team by "cheer leading" their concerns to upper management. Champion their concerns to upper management and let your customer service team know the progress of each concern.
   
   Support and motivate your customer service team by keeping standards high for customer service. When your organization is facing challenging times, it is very tempting to lower standards. That's the last action you should take. By lowering standards, you decrease customer satisfaction, increase customer service turnover, and muddy your organization’s name in the marketplace.

Apply these customer service motivation secrets with your customer service team and you will have highly motivated customer service teams and happy customers, and your organization's bottom line will increase.

October 3-9 is "Get Organized Week." Take time to organize yourself to achieve more success in your business, your career, your life!

Take time learn how to be more productive, less stressed by listening to my recent interview with organizing expert Brian Hill, His clients in the leaders in business, government, newscasters, and actors and actresses.

He was recently on the Martha Stewart sharing his unique secrets with Martha discussing how to be more productive in life.

Please click on the following link to listen to our interview: Organize

Happy Customer Service Week! (October 2-6, 2006) Quote #5

"Don't try to tell the customer what he wants. If you want to be smart, be smart in the shower. Then get out, go to work and serve the customer!" - Gene Buckley, Sikorsky Aircraft

It's Take a Long Walk Day!

Take time to take a long walk today. This walk can be leisurely or brisk.

The benefits are countless. For me it's an opportunity to "check myself" mentally, physically, and recharge my batteries. It's amazing how many good ideas come to me while walking.

Happy Customer Service Week! (October 2-6, 2006) Quote #4

"The single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that there are no results inside its walls. The result of a business is a satisfied customer." - Peter Drucker

Happy Customer Service Week! (October 2-6, 2006) Quote #3

"Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends." - Walt Disney

Happy Customer Service Week! (October 2-6, 2006) Quote #2

'It starts with respect. If you respect the customer as a human being, and truly honor their right to be treated fairly and honestly, every thing else is much easier." - Unknown

Happy Customer Service Week! (October 2-6, 2006)

"As far as customers are concerned you are the company. This is not a burden, but the core of your job. You hold in your hands the power to keep customers coming back - perhaps even to make or break the company." - Unknown