Quality Customer Service As A Result Of Quality Products

Quality Customer Service

I’ve recently read Jeff Haden’s article about how company growth effectively kills quality customer service. When you look at the largest companies in the business world, chances are you would only be able to name a handful of international companies who maintain quality customer service; and these are even conscious company efforts to be recognized for the customer service they give their clients. But, can’t quality customer service simply follow---out of their sheer desire to provide exceptional products and services?

Apparently it is possible, even in this time and age. In the above mentioned interview, Haden had an email conversation with Road ID co-founder Edward Wimmer. The topic of the conversation?

 “Growth and scale are the enemy of outstanding, personal service.”

Now, a little clarification on why Haden chose Road ID as his counterpart for this conversation; on one forum for bike hobbyists, a member complained about how Road ID didn’t match up to the quality promised to him, such as the tag inscription on one quickly becoming unreadable and the clasp of another not functioning properly. Of course, complaints from customers and clients are commonplace. But the amazing fact is that, for the next couple of pages, other Road ID customers defended both the company and their product. And these are not even paid evangelists, they are simply loyal customers. When Wimmer was asked how they were able to achieve such devoted customers, he simply replied: “I wish I could tell you we have a secret sauce, but it really isn't hard. It's easy. We do have systems, but they are based on common sense and how we would want to be treated.” So what exactly are they doing right that everyone else seems to be doing so wrong?

Learn to take a loss - All your interactions with your customers need not necessarily benefit your company directly. If you want to please your customers, you have to learn to accept losses, even if means replacing a product for an unhappy customer for free when your policy clearly states that they should buy a new one because of their situation. It will not only please your customer, but that customer might also become a brand evangelist because of the pleasant experience they had with your company. It’s all a matter of using your better judgement.

Do what you can to keep your customers - Because it’s been said, time and again, that keeping existing customers is way more cheaper than looking for new customers all the time. While Road ID is actively expanding its market, it doesn’t mean that they neglect all their past customers.

Humanize your brand - When people have problems, they want to talk to other people to make sure that their problems are resolved right away and properly. Wimmer uses his personal email to respond to customer purchases, and it’s his voice that customers hear when they call the company, not some generated automatic voice.

Always be prepared - Make it so that your customers call your company because they want to, not because they have to. But when they do have to contact you, be willing and ready to respond to their problems.

Small Business Marketing News Update - Klout May Not Be Delivering Real Clout For Jacksonville Businesses

Several Jacksonville marketing firms that been touting to their clients the importance of increasing their scores on social measuring sites such as Klout.com. They also advocate targeting the top Klout scorers because they are online influencers who could have an impact on their client’s product, service or idea.

But when you dig down into what is being measured, are these social scoring services really compiling accurate data needed to determine if someone is a major influencer?

If you are not familiar with these social sites, there are several free measuring services such as Klout, Kred and Peerindex that offer a third party evaluation of a person’s activity and social capital online.

One of the problems I have with these services is that they do not take data from any other source than Twitter and Facebook. They do not collect data from Google, Linkedin or blogs. Twitter is the major data source for them because Twitter activity is one of few social networks that doesn’t firewall conversations.

And people can game Klout with Twitter. A good example is when you constantly see an individual tweet their location (I’m at the gas station or I’m at so and so restaurant.) The more tweets someone has, the higher their score is on Klout. So does that really make them an “influencer?” 

Paul Gillin, a columnist for B-to-B magazine (New Channels by Paul Gillin) has an excellent expose’ about the value of measuring online influence. His concern is somewhat two fold. First, he believes that influence involves decisions that are more complex. He reports “conversations at conferences – over dinner or on the golf course – help decision-makers work out important details. The bigger and more complex the decision, the less likely it is that those who influence it are sharing their recommendations on Facebook.”

His second concern is that social media has demonstrated that audience size has little to do with influence, particularly in the narrow markets that typify b-to-b transactions. He goes on to say that the measurement services frame their definition of influence by number of followers and retweets. Gillin hits home this point by saying that, based on this criteria, Lady Gaga is the most influential person on the planet.

Gillin offers additional excellent examples of the flaws of measurement sites:

Marc Andreesen is one of the fathers of the modern Internet; but because he rarely uses Twitter, he earns mediocre rankings on the two most popular measurement service sites.

Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, because of his job, cannot use Twitter. According to these sites, he has no influence!

I would have to agree with Gillin in his assessment that for b-to-c marketers, these services have limited use. And for b-to-b marketers, they are almost useless. Therefore, I caution Jacksonville businesses not to place too much confidence and too much time online with social measurement sites.

If you get a chance to read Gillin’s column each month in B-to-B magazine, you won’t be disappointed with his updates of online industry trends. His website is www.gillin.com.