Here - Building Contractors Association of Otero County

ACKNOWLEGEMENT from Page 13
concerns so you can deliver customized one-to-one
service.
12. Look for even minor customer complaints and see if
you can use them to thrill customers and turn these
complaints into new standard procedures for great
service.
13. Measure customer satisfaction! You can't improve on
it if you don't know your starting point.
14. Use innovative relationship marketing and unprece -
dented customer service to increase customer satisfac -
tion.
15. Include your employees in customer service changes.
Enlist their ideas.
16. Consider paying specific bonuses or commissions for
high customer ratings.
17. Understand that every aspect of every customer inter -
action is an opportunity to get more business?.or lose
it. Make a list of your "moments of truth" when pros -
pects and customers form impressions of you.
18. Know your customers?what do they want from your
business? What do they like about you: what do they
dislike?
19. Use the information you learn about your customers
to build a relationship with each customer. Keep track
of what you know in a database.
20. Work to reward loyal customers and encourage refer -
rals.
21. Gather input from all employees as to how they see
current internal customer service. (In organizational
climate studies, you might measure cooperation, sup -
port, morale, job satisfaction, and so forth.)
22. Ask employees what they want from their jobs.
23. Calculate your turnover and absenteeism rates and
what they cost you. Include costs of "dropping the
ball" for customers.
24. Make sure top execs regularly spend some time on
the frontline.
25. Find ways to turn your organizational pyramid upside
down to emphasize customers and support your staff.
26. Develop a clear message about internal customer
service and disseminate it throughout your organiza -
tion.
27. Develop recognition programs where employees can
acknowledge each other for internal service.
28. Develop a larger incentive program where all em -
ployees can earn bigger rewards for internal service.
29. Set up a schedule to shop your competitors regularly.
Encourage your employees to do so also. Use your
findings to benchmark your business.
30. Establish specific customer service criteria-for exam -
ple, greet customers within 10 seconds, answer phone
by second ring, automatically offer a rain check for
out-of-stock items, use customer's name when possi -
ble.
31. List five ways you could use data from a mystery
shopper program.
32. Call several mystery shopper services. Evaluate their
services to find the one or two that best fit your needs.
Then check their references.
33. Discuss mystery shopper programs with your staff. So -
licit their input on criteria and procedures. Tell them
how the data will be used.
34. Decide how to discuss data with individual employ -
ees. Remember, reprimands should always be private;
praising can be public.
35. Consider use of a reward program for employees
who give good service (name and photo on plaque in
store, gift certificates to restaurant, name in company
newsletter, and so forth).
36. If you are part of a shopping center or other multibusiness
complex, talk with other owners and center
management to see if coordinating an overall mystery
shopper program is feasible and desirable.
37. Collect the "easy" complaints. Ask all frontline people
to contribute. Make it fun by having a competition for
the "best" complaint.
38. Develop a plan to uncover the 96% of complaints that
are never made by customers. Consider paying cus -
tomers for complaints.
39. Do the same thing for internal customer complaints.
Start by taking them privately since they will involve
more internal politics.
40. Involve employees in developing a "manual" on how
to handle complaints and things they can do to make
it up to customers.
41. Train employees in helping unhappy customers, start -
ing with saying "Thank you for complaining."
42. Clarify your lines of authority so any employee can
deal quickly with most problems.
43. Develop a follow-up system to check in with custom -
ers who took the trouble to complain.
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