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Casual Articles - Customer Service - The Huge Gap Between Intention And Reality
That change is a fact of life does little to mitigate people’s usual reactions to it, namely fear, suspicion, and resistance. That’s why it’s critical to have a plan for communicating and managing during transitions, whether they are planned (such as expansions, mergers, acquisitions) or the result of legislative mandates, breakthrough technologies, changing customer needs, and other unplanned events.The most important thing to keep in mind is that people’s perceptions are
What does that mean?
Jargon obscures. There are various terms used such as Customer Relations; Customer Care; Customer Service; Customer Support – and a few more besides.
Customer Relations refers to the principles and practice used by everyone across the board in a company in developing and maintaining a certain quality of relationship with customers and prospective customers.
Customer Care refers to the techniques and attitudes necessary to deliver a high quality of service to customers.<
The world of business is changing dramatically. There was a time in corporate America when employees were closely connected with their employers – when they had a sense of corporate loyalty. This is seldom true today. The reason? The old psychological contract between employer and employee has been broken.There were reasons for breaking the psychological contract - heavy competition, cost pressures, having to do more with less - all of these have impacted most corporate c
You know about Pareto’s Law – I discuss it often enough – yes that one, the one that says 80% of the business comes from 20% of the customers? Well, it (almost) applies in this case. More than 80% of front line staff haven’t yet totally bought into the idea of effective customer relations. The other 20% have discovered a very enriching way of achieving a satisfactory outcome from interactions with customers. In other words, most of the time they succeed! And when they succeed, the customers actually thank them!
This can’t be about you – can it?
So what’s the problem? The first answer is: ‘the Directors” the next answer is “the Managers”. “Nonsense”, you say. “I’m one of those, and I have explained very earnestly why we must all focus on achieving first class relations with customers”. Mmmmm! Creating business and profit enhancing relations with customers requires the right environment, ethos, culture and philosophy. You can’t achieve it by simply telling other people to do it. You can tell them the technique for turning “difficult” phone calls around, but if they don’t feel like doing it, then they won’t.
If You And Your Whole Organisation Don’t Believe In Developing Good Relations With All Of Your Customers – It Won’t Happen.
When so much time and money is spent on training people about the need for constructive relations with customers, why is it often so bad? For much the same reason that when so much money has been spent on telling people that smoking kills you, they still insist on smoking. No, the issue is the environment. There used to be spittoons in bars. What is a spittoon? It’s a bowl or bucket into which people spit. Oh yes, people used to spit into spittoons. They spat because they chewed tobacco; they spat because they had – please forgive the term – phlegm. For whatever reason, they spat. And so there were spittoons. So long as the environment accepted people spitting, there were spittoons. Once that environment changed, the very idea was repulsive. Which gets us back to relations with customers. So long as the environment in your organisation is tolerant of taking a patronising, competing or negative attitude to customers, some people will do just that.
What does that mean?
Jargon obscures. There are various terms used such as Customer Relations; Customer Care; Customer Service; Customer Support – and a few more besides.
Customer Relations refers to the principles and practice used by everyone across the board in a company in developing and maintaining a certain quality of relationship with customers and prospective customers.
Customer Care refers to the techniques and attitudes necessary to deliver a high quality of service to customers. Employment Conditions in the Canadian Furniture Sector
As of 2004 the furniture industry in Canada employed some 92,810 persons, more than 44% higher than 10 years ago, but almost unchanged since the beginning of this century. The improvement from its 1993 recession low of just 59,559 is truly remarkable. In other words furniture industry employment has exhibited much resiliency, especially considering the impacts the industry faced since the early 1980s from Canada’s free trade agreement. The more recent employment decline is a reflect
This can’t be about you – can it?
So what’s the problem? The first answer is: ‘the Directors” the next answer is “the Managers”. “Nonsense”, you say. “I’m one of those, and I have explained very earnestly why we must all focus on achieving first class relations with customers”. Mmmmm! Creating business and profit enhancing relations with customers requires the right environment, ethos, culture and philosophy. You can’t achieve it by simply telling other people to do it. You can tell them the technique for turning “difficult” phone calls around, but if they don’t feel like doing it, then they won’t.
If You And Your Whole Organisation Don’t Believe In Developing Good Relations With All Of Your Customers – It Won’t Happen.
When so much time and money is spent on training people about the need for constructive relations with customers, why is it often so bad? For much the same reason that when so much money has been spent on telling people that smoking kills you, they still insist on smoking. No, the issue is the environment. There used to be spittoons in bars. What is a spittoon? It’s a bowl or bucket into which people spit. Oh yes, people used to spit into spittoons. They spat because they chewed tobacco; they spat because they had – please forgive the term – phlegm. For whatever reason, they spat. And so there were spittoons. So long as the environment accepted people spitting, there were spittoons. Once that environment changed, the very idea was repulsive. Which gets us back to relations with customers. So long as the environment in your organisation is tolerant of taking a patronising, competing or negative attitude to customers, some people will do just that.
What does that mean?
Jargon obscures. There are various terms used such as Customer Relations; Customer Care; Customer Service; Customer Support – and a few more besides.
Customer Relations refers to the principles and practice used by everyone across the board in a company in developing and maintaining a certain quality of relationship with customers and prospective customers.
Customer Care refers to the techniques and attitudes necessary to deliver a high quality of service to customers.<
The first goal of any hiring manager is not to find a candidate, but to ELIMINATE unqualified candidates. Most hiring managers reading your resume will take the pile of up to 500 letters they received and try to separate the definite "no's' (Don't Call) into one pile and the interesting resumes into the second pile (Might Call). They then go back and eliminate again until what they have is a manageable pile (5-10 max) of pre-qualified candidates (To Call).Getting into the s
If You And Your Whole Organisation Don’t Believe In Developing Good Relations With All Of Your Customers – It Won’t Happen.
When so much time and money is spent on training people about the need for constructive relations with customers, why is it often so bad? For much the same reason that when so much money has been spent on telling people that smoking kills you, they still insist on smoking. No, the issue is the environment. There used to be spittoons in bars. What is a spittoon? It’s a bowl or bucket into which people spit. Oh yes, people used to spit into spittoons. They spat because they chewed tobacco; they spat because they had – please forgive the term – phlegm. For whatever reason, they spat. And so there were spittoons. So long as the environment accepted people spitting, there were spittoons. Once that environment changed, the very idea was repulsive. Which gets us back to relations with customers. So long as the environment in your organisation is tolerant of taking a patronising, competing or negative attitude to customers, some people will do just that.
What does that mean?
Jargon obscures. There are various terms used such as Customer Relations; Customer Care; Customer Service; Customer Support – and a few more besides.
Customer Relations refers to the principles and practice used by everyone across the board in a company in developing and maintaining a certain quality of relationship with customers and prospective customers.
Customer Care refers to the techniques and attitudes necessary to deliver a high quality of service to customers.<
Heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC/R) are major concerns for most organisations when it comes to operations. Whatever business you’re in – from manufacturing to office-based services – these constituents can be the ‘life’ of a building. They can have an indirect effect on production, if your workers depend on comfortable working conditions. And they can have a direct effect if you depend, for instance, on product storage (e.g. refrigerated produce).
What does that mean?
Jargon obscures. There are various terms used such as Customer Relations; Customer Care; Customer Service; Customer Support – and a few more besides.
Customer Relations refers to the principles and practice used by everyone across the board in a company in developing and maintaining a certain quality of relationship with customers and prospective customers.
Customer Care refers to the techniques and attitudes necessary to deliver a high quality of service to customers.<
Have you ever noticed that all of the Old Navy commercials on television all have the same look and feel? How about the mailers that you receive from Staples, Office Max or Best Buy? They’ll feature different products each week, but have you ever noticed how consistent their look is from week to week? Is this an accident or just a company being cheap? Neither.Big companies know the power of establishing a consistent, recognizable bran
What does that mean?
Jargon obscures. There are various terms used such as Customer Relations; Customer Care; Customer Service; Customer Support – and a few more besides.
Customer Relations refers to the principles and practice used by everyone across the board in a company in developing and maintaining a certain quality of relationship with customers and prospective customers.
Customer Care refers to the techniques and attitudes necessary to deliver a high quality of service to customers.
Customer Service / Support / Helpline refers specifically to a department set up to field enquiries and complaints from customers so that operational departments need not spend time dealing with them. The term ‘Customer Relations’ may also be used for this function. Technical Support performs a similar function for technical reasons.
In discussing customer relations we are not just discussing the work of a Customer Service Department. We need to look at the whole company wide approach to Customer Relations.
Copyright © 2007 Jonathan Farrington. All rights reserved
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