soulati.com

Digital Marketing Strategy, PR and Messaging

Soulati-'TUDE!

Customer Service Survey Fatigue

By

I’ve been threatening to write about this topic but the envelope push was this week with my lawn service, TruGreen. I’m not picking on them at all; they are just the straw in a huge haystack that has been growing for a year or more.

Customers are extremely tired of surveys, companies. Let me repeat – we are sick and tired of being asked to fill out your stinkin’ surveys. We get phone calls, duplicate ones at that, asking for our ratings for a water heater that was installed 30 days ago. We are asked by every teller and retail clerk to “go to this website and you can win a shopping spree, an iPad, new diapers for your baby” if you fill out the survey and tell my company I rock.

The TruGreen guy rang my door bell, disappeared awhile in back and came around to shake my hand and make eye contact. I went back to work and so did he. On the door knob were two pieces of paper – the one about the application he applied to my lawn that day (with a handwritten “please take my survey”) and a piece of white paper with no branding asking me to complete a survey with my customer number and, and, and.

My friend at Allstate is an auto claims adjuster. He travels in the field to speak with policy holders and informs them how much Allstate is going to pay for vehicle damage. He lives and breathes by the customer satisfaction surveys he gets after that frontline experience. In fact, Allstate is chasing people out the door if adjusters’ numbers are lower than 90/100. That’s some serious pressure right there.

Companies need to stop.  People need to be empowered to do their jobs basically, satisfactorily and then over and above. Customers will notice the over and above, and guess what, companies? We will make the effort to call in out of the blue and tell someone we had awesome customer service. (Have you ever tried doing that? It’s next to impossible to nail down someone or a recording to report excellent customer service…I know as I’ve tried.)

Instead of customer service surveys at every interaction with frontline employees, consider these options:

1. Beef up your social media engagement with a Facebook page and let customers speak with you there. Add a Yelp profile where we can really give you a rating with stars and write about our experience. What are you afraid of? Does your customer service suck that bad that you’re fearful of negative backlash? Whose problem is that – the customer or the company?

2. Rate your employees randomly; work with them in the field and you can see their performance and how customers regard them and their service. Give them a rating that day and about 10 other times in the year – is that enough? You can’t tell me someone working with their boss is going to be that much different to customers; people do what comes naturally – customer service should come naturally.

3. Ask for the un-survey. Tell customers “this is not a survey. We’re not asking you for a rating of this employee today, we’re asking you to rate this employee only if you have something to share, something good or bad. We know you’re tired of all these surveys, and so are we. If you have thoughts on what we should do differently, please let us know by filling out this un-survey.”

4. Trust in your training programs! Give those people you’ve hired an opportunity to experience good, bad, indifferent customers and they will know what to do in that situation. Know that the people you hire are who they need to be on the frontline.

5. Give employees a survey goal – we want you to earn 10 surveys a month; pick your customer or your engagement and get your scores. That means they don’t need to ask for a survey every cotton-picking time.

I’m not sure when this survey business started, but it’s become a joke. No one takes the survey seriously any more. And if you’re a company like Allstate demanding high marks for all customer service engagement, it puts undue pressure on policyholders and frontline employees at the same time.

What do you think, dear Readers?

When Social Media Collides With Plumbers’ Customer Service

By

From Media Vine Marketing

There are still so many companies that allowed the social media revolution to pass them by. I am having regular conversations with a variety of business owners from solo lawyers and insurance brokers to start-ups, mid-sized companies and larger corporations.

For all intents and purposes, we are in the post social media era. Social media marketing is now part of the larger marketing mix, and it’s here to stay.  What that means is that companies must engage all customer-facing services and orient employees to what social media is all about. I’m talking about impression here; what first impression is your company sending to prospects who engage your company verbally?

  • How is your company projecting its brand via good old website marketing, search engine marketing and social media marketing?
  • Does your company website have good navigation and information about the products you’re offering for sale?
  • Is your site optimized so search engines can crawl your information and inform potential customers about your products?
  • Do you have the necessary social media icons on your site so people can connect with you on social media channels (or the interwebz, as they’re now known)?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes? Awesome.

Here’s the kicker…think about your frontline customer service team and those who answer phones. Are you extremely satisfied with your representatives tasked with selling to social media savvy consumers? If you’re still confused about what I’m getting at, let me tell you a story about what happens when customer service collides with, in this case, plumbers’ customer service.

My hot water heater is 10-years-old, and rather than wait for an emergency, I decided to be smart and buy one before a crisis. Knowing nothing, I began web research for local plumbers from which I could buy and install.

I learned a little and selected a plumbing company that had a decent website with Facebook icons, testimonials and simple navigation. Armed with my information gleaned from a Google search on “how to buy a hot water heater,” I dialed.

To my chagrin, the man who answered the phone was chewing cud, he had a sleepy drawl that was anything but professional. He said, “huh? huh?” every time I spoke. After repeating myself a number of times, I asked my final question, “Do you carry XX brand of water heater because your website says you do?” And, the coup de grace…”nope, but we can order it.”

I went to Lowe’s.

This is the absolute missing link. Companies are doing a great job impressing upon consumers that they are social media savvy. What’s wrong? The disconnect arises when consumers engage with companies and the customer service teams fail to live up to basic marketing standards. When the website and social media channels indicate a company is savvy, there is an expectation that customer service should meet or exceed that standard.

Here are a few pointers to consider if your company is falling into a collision trap:

  • Encourage (read require) all employees to read, learn, and recall the company’s website when a customer is on the phone.
  •  Messaging is critical for anyone on the frontlines, and this platform needs to be shared with those in social media as well as in customer service.
  •  Train company employees, especially those responsible for customer service, to be knowledgeable about social media and what happens. Teach them how new leads come in!
  •  Get back to the basics with phone etiquette and customer service. That plumbing company lost my business forever (the man on the phone told me $1000 to buy and install a hot water heater; that price wasn’t even close to what I paid.)
  •  Consumers now have an expectation; they want high-end customer service to MATCH the impression a company gives on its website, SEO and social media channels. When that fails, prepare your customer service teams to know more than a customer about your company’s products.

I know there are many companies doing this well; got any stories to share?

 

 

Customer Service, Auto Collision Repair and Social Media

By

When there was hail damage to my beloved orange Mini Cooper convertible, I was devastated, yet counted our lucky stars kidlet and I survived driving in the tornado. The experience following to get my vehicle repaired was eye-opening and resulted in my blog post and Facebook posting on the “offender’s” fan page.

This is a piece about vehicle collision repair shops or auto body shops or whatever you’d like to call them. The teams in these businesses, often mom-and-pop establishments or franchises or dealerships, have to work daily with customers who have angst, stress, injury, insurance issues, and are expecting to spend dollars to repair their vehicles.

I’ve spoken with many experts of late about the situation that exists in body shops — they are behind the times in how they service customers, how they engage with customers, and how they perfect their own customer service to ensure a new customer returns for future work.

Here’s what I recommend right now for any body shop, collision repair facility, or dealership:

>> Bring in a public relations/marketing practitioner with expertise in social media to meet with your team, observe and analyze how services are rendered.

>> Allow that expert (Hi?!) to conduct a social media analysis to determine your collision repair facility’s brand and influence on social channels. That includes Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, Foursquare/Gowalla, daily deals/Groupon, and others.

>> Select one point of contact from the customer service team in the body shop to get trained in social media. That person can work with the public relations practitioner to learn why social media is critical, how to listen to customers, how to document what they say and follow-up, how to ask for a review on Yelp, and how to keep them coming back for more services (beyond auto body repair).

>> The contact internally becomes basically tied at the hip with the public relations consultant so that content can be delivered across channels within the regional boundaries of that business.

Social Media Campaign

The social media campaign could look like this:

>> Analyze the website and freshen it to be customer centric; write for the customer to entice and convince them that your brand, reputation and service are solid.

>> Establish a Facebook fan page and add the buttons to your facility’s website.

>> Launch a profile on Yelp and ask for reviews from customers you know had a good experience. Put up a coupon on Yelp good for an oil change and tire rotation.

>> Explore a daily deal with the area newspaper or buy a Groupon campaign to bring in new prospects. When they come in for the first time for services other than auto body repair, take them on a tour of your facility and show them the capability you have for detailing and collision repair. (The most fascinating thing about collision repair services or a personal injury law firm, for example, is that you don’t know where your next customer is coming from until there is an accident.)

>>Record the name and email of the prospect in a database you launch and add this to Constant Contact. You’ll launch a newsletter perhaps four to five times annually about collision repair, auto health checklist, and more.

>>On the business website (which should be updated), add a form that says “Register for our Newsletter here.” When you capture names, they get added to the database and they get the email newsletter.

Conclusions

The point I’m making is this:

Customer service begins on the frontlines, but it doesn’t end there.

>>Customer service begins prior to that person ever entering your business.

>>Customer service has to happen during the entire face-to-face experience.

>>Customer service requires “the ask” to invite a post-visit review (either a Yelp rating, or Facebook posting, or register for our newsletter).

>>Customer service is a follow-up phone call or survey to ensure satisfaction, and it is also a real and genuine person concerned that a customer had a good experience while in a place of business.

For years, we’ve all said, “customer service is dead.” Isn’t it high time those charged with customer service in small businesses get a little more creative to earn and keep a customer?