Where’s April?

Aug 27, 2013 | Sales, Marketing & Customer Service

He didn't realize he'd even said it, yet my husband had stopped in his tracks and had basically bellowed the question across the dining room of one of our favorite lunch spots. Upon entering the dining room, he'd done a quick scan to ensure April was there. When he didn't see her, without thinking, he opened his mouth, the question came out, and all the patrons, the other servers, and the chef stopped and looked at him. "She took the day off. She'll be back tomorrow," the Chef growled. My...

Exceeding Customer Expectations

Jul 30, 2013 | Sales, Marketing & Customer Service

The “buzz” in customer management arenas continues to be “Customer Expectation Management”. Customer Expectation Management or CEM is a way of doing business that focuses heavily on delivering not only a quality product, but delivering that product with service that exceeds the expectations of the customer. Studies have shown, many companies and individuals will pay a higher price for a product, if they can do business with organizations that put quality customer service at the top of their...

Critical Numbers

Jul 2, 2013 | Sales, Marketing & Customer Service

Critical Numbers are those key financial, production, or sales numbers that tell us how well we're doing -- or not doing. These numbers help us determine what we MUST accomplish day in and day out to be successful. For instance, for a movie theater, one critical number to track may be the number of seats sold; for a food processor, cost of raw product and additives; for a grocery store, spoilage rate. Whatever the number -- everyone in the organization must know what the number is -- not just...

Confirming SERVICE Value: Measure the Specifics

Jun 25, 2013 | Sales, Marketing & Customer Service

As businesses look for ways to cut costs while maintaining or improving profitability, I'm hearing more and more about “identifying Value” in our work processes and in our businesses overall. Identifying “Value” in its most basic form means identifying those services you perform, or those production steps that occur, that create a benefit to your customers. As a means of cost-cutting, most businesses look for ways to minimize non-value-added steps. As managers, we try to cut any step that uses...

Building Business Relationships- “Good Enough Never Is”

Jun 11, 2013 | Sales, Marketing & Customer Service

I received a call recently from one of my client’s – let’s call him “Bruce”. Bruce owns a technical services firm. Bruce had just received a letter from one of his long-standing customers – and his customer wasn’t happy. Apparently, one of Bruce’s technicians had been sent out to fix the customer’s problem – and he did fix it very quickly. However, when the customer asked the technician what he'd done, the technician replied – “It’s pretty technical. You wouldn't understand.” The technician...