Any business without customers is like any car without wheels, it just won’t go anywhere. A solid business plan, like a solid car-frame with supped up parts, is grounded if it can’t acquire and maintain a loyal customer base. And this day in age, with technology booming and economies crumbling, a business’s ability to keep up with and satisfy relentless customer demand is key to a company’s financial success. And especially during these tough economic times, when money is tight for all of us and pinching pennies barely keeps our heads above water, great customer service is leaps and bounds beyond just being nice. A happy customer leaves happy. But an appreciative, happy customer comes back for return business and recommends your services to others. In any avenue of business, the following four customer service commandments will facilitate you forming a steady, loyal return-customer base:

1. Ditch the pitch and listen

Just because you’ve got quota to meet doesn’t mean you should stop listening to the needs of your customers. Most customer service representatives are too busy trying to sell something and too wrapped up in the pitch, that they neglect the true needs of the customer they’re futilely attempting to help. Nonetheless, all that results is a failed sell, an unfilled quota, and an unsatisfied, non-returning customer.

Let the customer do all the talking, let them tell you what they need. And, in the end, if you can work your pitch into what they’re looking for, no harm no foul. But as the most integral source of your business’s revenue, their needs trump your desire to sell them on a lame business pitch.

2. Promises aren’t made to be broken

If you can’t do it, don’t mention it. Don’t try to make a sell based on empty promises. Making a promise that you can’t follow through on might satisfy that customer’s immediate needs, but upon realizing that they’ll only be disappointed next time they seek your services, they’ll surely not return to your establishment. And worse, they might persuade other potential customers from seeking out your business to fulfill their needs. Credibility and integrity are the two most fundamental aspects of a business that can make or break its financial success. And filling a customer with false hope will only assure you financial failure.

3. Don’t step back, step up

Efficiently and adequately training your staff will guarantee you consistent customer satisfaction. There’s nothing worse than walking into a business as a customer and being passed around from employee to employee because only one person handles your specific need. Hiring and training an entire staff to be knowledgeable about each aspect of the business is a sure-fire way of preventing customers from leaving with needs still unmet.

4. Because the customer holds the purse strings, the customer is always right

Working in customer service businesses can be headache, especially when dealing with customers that are more than a handful. However, at the end of the day, more customers means more money for your business. And no matter how big of headache they might be, their needs should always come first. Whatever you can do or compromise to make them appreciative and satisfied is worth however many Tylenol you may need to pop later. Knowing that you’ve gone out of your way to accommodate them, even the most disgruntled of customers will return to your establishment, solidifying the loyal return-customer base that you need to insure your business is a success.

About the Author: Carol Montrose is a writer for MBA Online where you can browse top online MBA programs.

Customer satisfaction is notoriously difficult to measure for several reasons.

To begin with, you have to count on customers not only to give feedback, but also to be honest in their assessment. Many people, when satisfied, feel no need to contact the company, while others will quietly grumble about flaws in service or products and swear off a company without ever seeking redress or voicing their complaints so that the situation can be remedied.

Requirements for satisfaction are not only unique to each individual customer, they can be extremely difficult to quantify, even on a personal level. However, if you are able to set standards for employee conduct where interactions with customers are concerned (both from a point-of-sale and a customer service perspective) then you can certainly implement procedures and guidelines to ensure customer satisfaction and measure their success. You can start by going to the source.

1. Survey Customers

This is probably the only way to get customer feedback unless they contact you, which most people are too busy to bother with unless they are extremely upset for some reason.

You can provide surveys in several ways (through mail, email, or over the phone) and in order to get the best information, you should allow customers to answer questions on a weighted scale (as in “Rate your experience on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 indicating complete dissatisfaction and 5 indicating complete satisfaction”). You may also want to survey repeat customers to see how their experience changes over time.

2. Understand Expectations

If you know what your customers expect from you, it logically follows that you will be better able to offer them an enjoyable experience. So make an effort to discover the expectations of your customers in terms of both service and products in order to ensure that you’re meeting their needs.

3. Find Out Where You’re Failing

If you’re not meeting customer requirements, you need to find out where the failure is occurring. Are the products less than what is advertised? Are employees making promises that cannot be met? Are customer service representatives dropping the ball on dispelling customer concerns and managing their complaints? Whatever the case, it would behoove you to know where the lines of communication are breaking down so that relationships with customers can be mended.

4. Pinpoint Specifics

Whether a customer is satisfied or not, the data you collect will need to accurately assess what is working and what isn’t. So inquiries into level of satisfaction should include more than just the overall experience. You need to determine the products or services they purchased, what they liked or disliked about their sales interaction, how the actual purchase compared to their expectations, and any suggestions they have for improvement.

5. Assess the Competition

If you don’t know why customers prefer another brand over yours, you cannot hope to keep them from flocking to the competition. So as part of your survey process, you may want to consider inviting customers to compare and contrast similar products or companies to find out what they are offering that you are not.

About the Author

Kyle Simpson writes for Medical Coding Certification website where you can find information on a career in medical billing and coding industry.

Every company has customers. Some come in the form of consumers, some in the form of clients, some patients and some patrons. A company without customers cannot succeed.

Customers are responsible for a company’s profit and return customers are responsible for an increase in that profit. But in order to ensure return customers, customer service is key.

As Walt Disney once said, “Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.” This is the secret to a successful business.

However, in an effort to maintain high levels of customer service, many business owners either grow lazy or weary as time goes on. Sometimes their attention is diverted from customer service to other aspects of the business. Other times, due to stressful incidents with customers, companies grow tired of providing service.

Today, in an effort to motivate, inspire and challenge us to continue in our pursuit of return customers through providing impeccable customer service, I have compiled ten quotes from successful, great thinkers:

Sam Walton

American businessman and entrepreneur best known for founding the retailers Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club

The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary.

Benjamin Franklin

One of America’s founding fathers and a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat

Well done is better than well said.

Tony Alessandra

motivational speaker and author

Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game.

Nelson Boswell

British writer and journalist

Here is a simple but powerful rule – always give people more than what they expect to get.

Leon Gorman

Former president and current Chairman of the Board of L.L. Bean

Customer service is just a day in, day out, ongoing, never ending, unremitting, persevering, compassionate type of activity.

Ross Perot

American businessman from Texas best known for running for President of the United States

Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers.

Michael LeBoeuf

American business author and former management professor at the University of New Orleans

Every company’s greatest assets are its customers, because without customers there is no company.

Socrates

Classical Greek philosopher

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

Brian Tracy

Canadian self-help author

Customers today want the very most and the very best for the very least amount of money, and on the best terms. Only the individuals and companies that provide absolutely excellent products and services at absolutely excellent prices will survive.

Jeff Bezos

Founder, president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Amazon.com

If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.

About the Author

Cathryn Johnson is a content writer for Online MBA Rankings who gives advice on education, pursuing an online mba and living a healthy life.

Phone etiquette is a very important part of delivering outstanding customer service. Though it may seem like common sense for some to spit out the bubble gum before handling customer service calls, others need a nudge in the right direction to deliver the quality of service that customers demand. Agents can significantly improve the quality of service delivered to customers by following these five simple rules of good phone etiquette.

#1 – Agents should have nothing in their mouths while on the phone.

While agents should be allowed to keep covered beverages at their desks to prevent hoarseness, those beverages should only be consumed between calls. Nothing else should go into the agent’s mouth while on the phone with customers or in queue to receive customer calls. This includes but is not limited to: nail biting, use of any tobacco products, eating, and gum chewing. The headsets used when talking with customers over the phone will pick up any mouth noises, amplifying them into the ear of the customer.

#2 – Agents should avoid personal conversations with other agents while on the workroom floor.

Though it may be necessary to occasionally consult with a coworker on a business related topic, all other conversation should be limited to breaks and held off the work room floor. Even if the agents involved in the conversation are off the phone and out of the queue, personal conversations should not be held on the work room floor. These conversations may distract other agents who are working, and may result in customers hearing conversations of a personal nature that some may find offensive. Customers may also feel that the agent that they are engaged with is not giving the customer’s problem his or her full attention. Additionally, the presence of noisy personal conversation in a call center environment projects an unprofessional image that may reflect badly on the business.

#3 – Address customers formally unless you are given permission to address the customer personally.

The means calling the customer ‘Mrs. Hunter’, instead of ‘Amber’, unless the customer asks you to refer to her as ‘Amber’. If given permission to address a customer informally, do not use a nickname variant of the customer’s name. If the customer introduces himself as ‘Joseph’, do not begin calling the customer ‘Joe’. Addressing a customer formally denotes respect, and tricky calls can result in smoother resolutions in the customer feels from the first moment of his call that he is being treated with respect.

#4 – Never use slang or offensive language in a conversation with a customer.

Though a customer may use slang language or offensive language when speaking to agents, agents should maintain a professional demeanor at all times. Agents should never use slang or offensive language while on the phone with customers, and should refrain from using such language with other agents while on the workroom floor.

#5 – Try to avoid transferring the call, but if absolutely necessary, try to warm transfer the call.

There’s little that aggravates customers more than waiting on hold for even a few minutes to get an agent, and then being transferred to someone else. Agents should at least make an attempt to resolve the customer’s issue before transferring to another agent or department, with few exceptions. If a transfer is absolutely necessary, agents should explain that to the customer why they are being transferred and the most direct route to get back to the appropriate department should they be disconnected. The agent should then place the customer on hold and attempt a warm transfer to the correct department. Though call volumes often won’t permit warm transfers, agents should at least make the effort to save the customer the frustration of explaining the problem to another person…and mitigate the risk that the customer has been transferred to the wrong extension.

Teaching customer service representatives these five basic rules of good phone etiquette will help ensure that customers receive superior service with each call, reduce escalations and bounce rates, and encourage repeat customers.

About the Author

Amber Hunter is former customer service representative turned freelance writer / web designer. She has several years of customer service experience in a corporate call center environment, and uses her skills today to provide her clients with excellent customer service. Samples of her work can be viewed on The Bucket Truck Blogger.

This is a guest post from Louise Baker.

Finding a customer is often easy. Keeping them is the harder part. You must always strive to provide excellent customer service if you want your clients to come back to you again in the future. Yet, it may be hard to figure out exactly how to do this. Each client has their own likes and dislikes so it can be hard to accommodate everyone. There are five easy things you can do to wow your customers and have them returning to you again and again.

1. Greet every customer by name and remember them when they visit again. Each client is an individual and you need to treat them as such. If your business does not offer a service in which you would take the customer’s name at the beginning of the interaction, be sure to use it if they pay by credit or debit card. This personalizes the relationship. You may also ask them to fill out a client card so you can contact them with sales and new merchandise alerts. This is an easy way to get their name, phone number, e-mail address and preferences. When they return again, try to call them by their name as it will impress them that you care enough to remember who they are.

2. Follow through with your customers after they visit. Send a thank you card or just give them a call to see how their service was. They will appreciate this and remember that you valued their opinion.

3. If an issue does arise, strive for a quick resolution. Find something you can do to resolve the problem quickly and to their satisfaction. It may be an exchange or return or it may be just listening to their concerns. Make sure you adjust for each situation. One resolution may not work for every customer and you need to bear this in mind.

4. Strive for employee retention. Nothing is better than returning to a company you are satisfied with only to find that the employee who was so helpful is still there. This will also save you on training costs. The longer an employee is with a company, the more they will learn and can pass on to your customers.

5. Always look to improve. If a customer asks for something you don’t carry, offer to get it for them. Pick their brain to see exactly what they are looking for that you don’t offer. If it works with your other merchandise, start carrying it. This will show that you value the opinions of your customers and are willing to adjust to accommodate their needs.

By following these five simple steps to wow your customers, you will see your customer turnover rate decrease. A satisfied customer is one who will not only return again and again, but also one who will pass on your name to others. Word-of-mouth advertising is free and can be a great way to grow your business.

Louise Baker writes for Zen College Life, the directory of higher education, distance learning and online schools. She most recently wrote about the best colleges online.

I went to Walgreens pharmacy yesterday to pick up some medicine for my sick daughter.

I drove up to the window and asked the pharmacist for the prescription. She looked in the computer and said, “We have no record of that prescription.”

I mentioned that the pediatrician told us she was going to call it in two hours earlier. The response: “We have no record of that prescription.”

I asked how prescriptions were received. Was it by fax or electronically? She said, “We just finished processing all our faxes.”

Flustered, I picked up my cell phone and called my wife to confirm that the prescription had been sent. While on the phone, the pharmacist returned to the window and said that the prescription would be ready in 30 minutes.

What?

When customers are looking for help, they don’t believe you unless you actually go and check.

So what do you have to do to go and check?

Acknowledge that the computer may not have it yet, but that you’ll go check manually.

Explain that sometimes there is a delay in these things.

Customers are looking for reassurances that everything is in order and that you actually know what you are talking about.

If you recite the same excuse repeatedly, it undermines customer trust.

So if things aren’t where you’d thought they’d be, double check. Double check and explain to the customer what is happening and why things may be the way they are.

Showing that you are putting in some effort will reassure the customer that yes, you know what you are doing and that you actually care about the customer.

This is a guest post from Zeke Michael

It’s not easy to admit mistakes. In a litigious age like ours, it can even get you into trouble.

But businesses, like people, sometimes goof. They make bad decisions, or someone on staff simply isn’t thinking. Maybe the negligence of a supplier results in a customer receiving a bad product.

Once the customer is involved, the company must make several decisions. As the owner or manager of the company, you are its face and voice. What level of responsibility are you willing to take for your customer’s dissatisfaction? Is it a fairly simple problem you can resolve yourself, or will you need legal advice? If you feel the customer also shares the blame, should you admit that?

How an organization handles these situations says a lot about the people who run it. A defensive, uncooperative approach to a customer’s complaint virtually guarantees lost business. Even if you eventually manage to satisfy your patron, you have created an indelible impression in that person’s mind. He or she now sees your company as a troubled operation, one incapable of flexibility, collaboration, and basic humility.

You don’t have to adopt the slogan the public now wields like a handgun in the face of many business owners: “The customer is always right.” That kind of hard-and-fast generalization is bound to be wrong some of the time. In fact, customers occasionally are completely mistaken. They accuse companies of practices and incompetence not remotely related to reality. But how your firm deals with these types of people also reflects your professionalism.

Sometimes it’s enough to tell customers that you’re sorry for the circumstances. That you regret they’ve been put in an inconvenient or unpleasant situation. In other words, you can apologize for the conditions without taking ownership of them.

Here’s an example. The battery in my wife’s car recently died, and we took it to our local dealer to have it replaced. About a month later, the “new” battery conked out. I called for another service appointment and was told I’d have to wait four days. We needed the car before that, so we took it to another mechanic and had it repaired and returned the same day.

After telling me the battery from the dealer was junk, the mechanic installed another one. He gave me the dealer’s battery and suggested I return it. I stewed in frustration for a couple of weeks and finally e-mailed the dealer to explain the circumstances.

In his response, the service supervisor said he was “confused” about the follow-up appointment we had made but forgot to cancel. He claimed that I had not really described the problem accurately when I scheduled the follow-up, and said that oversight was probably the reason I was told it would take so long. He did admit, however, he was “surprised” I was told it would take several days.

The resolution? I returned the dud battery to the dealer’s parts department, and they reimbursed me for the cost of the battery, which was about half of what we paid initially.

I felt fortunate we recovered what we did.

Twice the dealer told us that if we had just brought the car back in for a second battery, they could have easily exchanged it, implying that they would have done it for no charge.

I felt like we had done something wrong. Like we should have known better. Like somehow we had our chance and blew it.

And not once during this whole experience did anyone at the dealer apologize for the situation, or for the company selling us a defective battery. A simple “Gee, we’re sorry this happened” would have meant something, even if the company never confessed the battery was worthless.

The dealer most likely was not responsible for the bad battery. They received it from the company’s mother ship, so to speak. But they did bear some responsibility for the situation. It was one I probably would not have gone through at another dealer. They could have silently acknowledged that and made some effort (a future discount, etc.) to keep me as a customer. Instead, they lost me forever. Now I wouldn’t let them work on the car if it died on their lot.

So don’t be afraid to say you’re sorry, even if you think the blame doesn’t lay solely with you or your company. You’re not admitting weakness; you’re projecting strength. You’re showing you run a business that knows how to handle challenges. That yours is an operation that skillfully addresses problems. And most important, you’re proving that you and your company know how to work with, and keep, customers.

Every customer you have will require some help. Your existing processes and systems may help many customers but there will always be exceptions.

How you handle these exceptions will determine how great a company you are.

On a recent Southwest Airlines flight, my family and I were traveling with our four kids. The flight attendant noticed this and gave us our very own trash bag to help us out. Since I, as a parent, know we can produce a mess, this was a great help.

Because the flight attendant anticipated our needs, my flight was a little less stressful and Southwest had a cleaner plane. Everybody won.

When you anticipate your customers’ needs, you:

• prevent problems before they start
• reduce customer service demand later
• show customers that you are actually thinking about them

How do you anticipate customer needs?

Observe

The first step of anticipating customer needs is to watch what is happening. What are your customers doing? What are they saying? What is happening around them? If you keep your eyes and ears open, you will be ready to see what a customer needs.

Look for Patterns

The more you observe customers, the more patterns you will see emerge. Take note of what happens when customers are in a particular situation. You’ll see similar results. Identify the patterns. Look for the cause and effect of results.

Action

As you observe and identify that this particular situation matches a pattern you’ve seen before, take action. Help the customer leap frog ahead to the desired result. Help them avoid potential pitfalls. Inject yourself between the customer and the problem before it happens.

Prevent

Over time, you’ll see common patterns. It then becomes essential to correct the root cause of these issues. When you fix the root problem, the customer won’t have the need to begin with. Problem solved.

Other times problems and needs will always arise because they are out of your control. In these cases, make sure you have a process or system in place to identify and address customer needs before they arise.

Your experience will allow you to see a few steps ahead of a customer. Pave the way for a smooth experience and the customers will be happy to walk with you (and do business with you) again.

Whenever a customer is about to do something necessary but that they don’t like, you need to be at your most cheerful and helpful.

The last time I got my flu shot I had a very friendly nurse. She was cheerful, made a joke to set me at ease, and made the otherwise dreadful “I’m getting a shot” experience a rather pleasant one.

Flu shots are one of those things that people have to get that they don’t necessarily like.

Your business may likewise sell products that are necessary, yet painful, for customers. Or perhaps you have business processes that customers have to go through but that they hate (think product returns).

You, as a business, can make these experiences more pleasant and in so doing turn the tide of consumer sentiment.

Here are some steps you can take to ease customer pain when they are expecting the worst:

• Explain what exactly the end result will be
• Tell the customer what you will be doing
• Explain what the customer will need to do
• Outline anything the customer will experience (wait, discomfort, etc.)
• Call the customer by name to personalize the experience
• If tension is high, break the ice with some humor or a distraction that takes the customer’s mind off of the negatives
• If the pain is caused by your mistake – fix it

By helping your customer through painful transactions with you, they will recognize that you care and that will help build your relationship with them.

Beware of problems with your company and product leaking from one department to another.

When issues are caused by one department’s error, it may not be detected until the product reaches another group or even the customer.

Unfortunately, the farther down the line the mistake travels, the less likely it will make it back to the original offending party to correct future mistakes.

This can put your company in a constant battle of producing errors and mistakes that are never corrected and the effects thereof constantly being felt by those “downstream.”

The last time we needed a faucet for our bathroom sink, I found a new, sealed box on the store’s shelf and purchased it.

When I got home and opened the box, I saw that the faucet wasn’t the same as was shown on the box. In fact, it wasn’t even close.

Oops.

I took the product back to the store where the customer service folks and then the department manager helped me and refunded my money.

In this case, a quality assurance problem with the product wasn’t felt by the packaging and shipping people but rather those at the end of the line: the customer and the customer service people.

Granted, not all problems will be caught before your products are handed off to the next group.

However, you need to have a feedback mechanism in place to continually refine and correct issues that are detected later in the purchasing cycle so that they can be prevented with future occurrences.

Your company may be broken into silos internally but don’t let this let you run your business inefficiently.

Identify the problems in one group or department that have a root cause in another and make changes across the board.