Archive for Customer Service
Recommended Reading on the Health Care Crisis
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The current health care debate that is being engaged in across the country is so important because it impacts every person and every business in important ways. While I am generally conservative in my political leanings (with libertarian smatterings – and even an occasional liberal thought), I won’t be using this blog to further any political purposes, other than to support free enterprise.
Nevertheless, I thought I would share one of the most intelligently written and carefully thought-out pieces that I have read on the state of health care in the United States. Everybody seems to agree that the system is broken, but there are disagreements about “what” is actually broken, and how to fix it. The article, How American Health Care Killed My Father, written by David Goldhill and published in the September issue of The Atlantic, makes a powerful statement about the real problems in our nations health care system, and proposes a unique solution that nobody in Washington D.C. is discussing.
No matter what position you find yourself taking in the current political debate, Goldhill will assuredly challenge your assumptions and make you re-think your position. I know it had that impact on me.
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Cut out excess sources of adrenaline Adrenaline is a powerful substance that has a strong impact on the body. From Wikipedia: Epinephrine is a powerful action, "fight or flight", hormone and also plays a central role in the short-term stress reaction. It is released from the adrenal glands when danger threatens or in an emergency, hence...... -
Assess Your Abilities and Resources Because starting your own business is a risky thing to do, it is important to come to grips early on about the potential risks you face. By facing those risks head-on, you can make an informed decision about whether or not you are willing to accept those risks. It also......
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The Five Factors of Customer Loyalty
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One of the important trends in the realm of customer relations has been the transition away from focusing on Customer Satisfaction, and instead focusing on Customer Loyalty. As a performance standard, “customer satisfaction” is a rather low bar. We should have higher goals in business than to just meet our customers expectations. Increasingly, businesses that do no more than satisfy their customers are losing their customers’ loyalty to companies that exceed expectations.
Fred Reichheld wrote a terrific book called The Ultimate Question, that introduced the concept of a “Net Promoter Score” or NPS, which measures Customer Loyalty by asking questions based on the idea of how likely customers are to refer a company to their friends. It is an important idea that can revolutionize how a business looks at its customer, and I recommend it highly.
When you break down the components of customer loyalty, there are five factors that influence and determine its strength:
- Price. Customers are more price sensitive now than they have ever been. In the new, post-recession economy, I think that price will continue to be a primary driving factor that will determine how loyal our clients and customers are to our business.
- Product. There is no substitute for delivering a quality product. With so many options in the marketplace, if your product or service doesn’t live up expectations, or is less than perfect, customers won’t come back. I know that for me, one bad meal in a restaurant is all it takes for me to not return.
- Delivery. The experience of receiving a product or service encompasses the entire corporate promise to the customer. It includes every aspect of what the customer sees, feels, touches, and experiences.
- Service. Customer’s expectations about service are continually increasing. To some degree, we’ve become spoiled by immediacy of information that technology provides. When we have questions or problems, we expect to be able to get answers and solutions now – and in the format we want it.
- Recognition. We all want to be recognized – for who we are, for what we do. We love it when people know and remember our names. We all like to feel important to someone. A key factor in building customer loyalty is in finding a way to provide that recognition, and provide it consistently.
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It's Only a 5% Discount! Here is a worthwhile piece of advice from Sierra Management Solutions on the potentially devastating impact of discounting on your company's bottom line: Problem: The CFO was worried. For the past six months the company's margins had been dropping and now they were at the point where something had to...... - Should You Hire Yourself? When you make the decision to start your own business, this is a really THE critical question. The answer to this question should consider several different factors: If you currently have a job, what problem is going to be solved by leaving it? If you are leaving your current job......
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