گروه مشاوران بوستون در تحقیقی اعلام کرده اند که هزینه جذب آن لاین یک مشتری جدید بطور متوسط برابر ٣٤ دلار و هزینه حفظ مشتری فعلی و ترغیب وی به خرید دو باره در حدود ٧ دلار است.
تعریف فوق از دائره المعارف آزاد اینترنتی ویکیپدیا (en.wikipedia.org) است

ترجمه و گردآوری : سعید رستگار

How do they know you can hold? They don’t even know who you are. Maybe you can’t hold; maybe you have 10 seconds of juice left on your cell phone and your hair is on fire. Then you finally get someone on the phone, only to be told, “I can’t actually help you; I’m just paid to apologize, and I’m really sorry about that.”

Being frustrated, by a lack of customer service is nothing new. It just seems that in the last few years, companies have become more innovative when it comes to not helping you solve your problems. I recently asked a hotel employee to help me with my luggage. He told me to hold on and he would have someone look into it. I thought, “Hey, you’re someone—why can’t you look into it?”

I realize that we are as busy as we have ever been, and that many younger people, were not brought up in the traditional culture of customer service. But none of these excuses will protect your business in today’s challenging economy, where customers are questioning value even with companies they have known for years.

Maybe it’s time to get back to basics and make service a real priority. Sure, plenty of companies claim to offer great customer care. But raising your service standards requires more than a promise; you need to set concrete goals and establish effective procedures to meet them. Whether you own the company, handle key accounts or just accidentally encounter your customers, you’ll reap huge benefits by applying the following customer service goals:


On the Phone

Be friendly! No one wants to send a check to people who seem to be bothered by their call.

Ask permission before putting a caller on hold. If a customer is greeted with “Hold, please,” what the customer really hears is “Hang on! Someone much more important than you just called in.”

Keep it professional. Smoking cigarettes, slurping a drink, and playing the drums on your desk makes callers feel like they are getting advice from a guy in a bar.

Make sure that callers don’t have to repeat themselves. Someone who has explained a problem three times to three different people hangs up angry, whether or not the problem is solved.

Create a positive image to attract business. Remember that squirrels are just rats with good publicity.

Display compassion for people who are upset. People who don’t think you care won’t value your solution.

Be very clear when you explain a process. When customers don’t know what you’re talking about, they assume you don’t either.

Do what you say you’re going to do. When you don’t follow through, people don’t think you have forgotten. They think you don’t care.

Know when to bring in someone else. When it becomes clear that the customer thinks you are the problem, set your ego aside and send in a fresh face.

Establish a simple, easy-to-implement customer service plan. When something is really complicated, it’s hard to tell if it’s working.

Well, I think customer service will survive—and I feel better now that I’ve written this article—but it’s important that we help nurse that ailing customer service to a full recovery, ensuring a healthy prognosis for today’s businesses.

The companies that attract and keep the best customers are usually the most effective at managing expectations and emotions. Successful companies train their people to anticipate customer needs and to solve problems before the customer knows they exist.

But before you can do any of this, you have to start with the basics. If you really want customers, set customer service goals. Remember, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there

Studies show that the average business looses 20 percent of its customer base each year.  For example, let's say your business has 700 customers that buy repeatedly from you during the year and each customer spends an average of $300 a year. If you loose 20 percent of them ( one hundred and forty), you'll loose $42,000 a year. That's a lot of money to make up with new customers.

The longer you keep a customer the more he or she is worth to you. In
part, because it takes a lot more money to acquire a new customer than
it does to keep an existing one. In fact, businesses that are able to
consistently keep the majority of their customer base are usually the
ones that have increased profits year after year. Loyal customers spend
more, they refer new customers, and it costs less to do business with
them.

Before you can effectively put a plan in place to provide the highest in
quality service and market to your existing customers, you first have to
know the lifetime value of your customers. When you know the lifetime
value of your customers it helps you budget more effectively. You know
better how and where to best use your marketing dollars. This is valuable
information that every business needs to know if it is going to be
successful. And the only way to get this information is by knowing the
lifetime value of your customer.

Once you know how much each customer contributes to your bottom line,
you will begin to understand the value of hanging on to them. To do a
better job of keeping your customers, you need a system to gather
information about them and how they feel about your product and
services. One of the best ways to do this is through using questionnaires
on a regular basis. Ask questions such as: Why do you buy from us?
How well do we meet your needs? How can we improve what we're
doing? What are we not doing that you'd like us to do? What do you find
valuable about us? What's valuable about our competition?

You can ask these questions through a mailed questionnaire, e-mail, or
by having one of your employees call them. Beside the obvious value in
knowing the answers, you get a few bonuses as well. First, your
customers will be happy the you bothered to find out what they want.
Second, you'll learn about specific problems that could cause you to
loose them. You'll get ideas for your products or services, and you'll find
out some valuable information about your competition.

When you know you've lost a customer, try to bring them back through an
interview. If you don't get them back, at least you can get valuable
information that will help prevent you from losing additional customers.
But, you first have to find out why they have stopped doing business with
you. And the way you do this is by asking questions such as; Was it a
question of price or quality? Was a better offer made by our
competition? Was it inadequate responsiveness? Were promises not
kept? Were complaints not resolved? Was it overall dissatisfaction?

Whether you are sending a questionnaire, using e-mail, or interviewing
them by phone always use open ended questions that require an active
response. Use questions that start with What? When? Where? Who?
Which? How? You'll find that open ended questions help narrow down
and specify their reasons for leaving.

Businesses loose customers due to poor service more than for any other
reason. When you make a service mistake and a customer complains,
you have an opportunity to win back that customer and gain long-term
loyalty. Here is a five step plan you could implement when a customer
complains:

Apologize and acknowledge the error.

Take urgent action. Quick effort shows you have the customer's interest
at heart.

Show empathy. Customers want to know you care about their feelings.

Compensate them in some way. (It doesn't have to be monetary)

Follow-up. Make sure you've satisfied the customer.

To transform your business into one that is committed to retaining as
many customers as possible, you need support at every level. Provide
customer service training for all your managers, frontline customer-
service people, and everyone else in the organization. Teach your lower-
level employees how important it is to keep customers, and show them
how to be on the alert for unhappy customers. Give them a system for
identifying unhappy customers, and reward them for using it.

Make it easy for customers to bring their problems to you so you can see
where you need to improve. Make sure you have an 800 number that is
designated solely for customers. Have a special section of your Web
site designated for customer comments. You could even offer a modest
gift of some kind for customers who alert you to a problem. And always
offer some type of satisfaction guarantee on your product or service.

Most businesses can do a much better job keeping their customers.
Write down your goals for keeping all your customers. Make sure
everyone in your organization is aware of them and is working to achieve
them. Identify the customers who have left you or are about to. Then,
bring those customers back by working to solve their problems and
satisfy their needs. And finally, use the feedback you get from both
former and current customers to put customer-friendly policies and
procedures in place.

A farm equipment company in Canada is blazing a new trail in customer service. REM Enterprises Inc. of Saskatchewan, Canada has developed a “Charter of Values”. This charter essentially lets customers know what they can expect from the company.

The basics of the REM charter is…

* Joy
* Character
* Integrity
* Honour

One of the statements in regards to character reads, “We are committed to corporate and personal integrity every day, through every transaction, in every relationship.”

I don’t know about you, but this statement alone would cause me to be interested in the company – and I’m not a farmer.

This ‘charter’ bears a striking resemblance to the Arena Football League’s “Fan’s Bill of Rights”. This document delineates some of the following expectations…

* The events will be wholesome in nature.
* The events will feature fair competition.
* The players will give their best effort.
* Fans will have access to players and coaches for autographs.
* Fans should expect all who are associated with the game to be positive role models.

Certainly there is more to the “Fan’s Bill of Rights”, but I wanted to give you a picture of what extremely positive customer service looks like.

The best customer service does not wait until after something negative happens to respond. No, it looks for ways to reassure customers and prospects that you already have their best in mind. A statement of what the customer can expect from your company can produce a radical
and enthusiastic response from your customer base.

Of course, all the promises in the world mean nothing if you don’t back them up. Don’t promise the world and then deliver a deserted island.

If you make big promises make big deliveries.

The “Charter of Values” REM Enterprises developed was a way to bring the issue of positive customer service to their clients, but it was also a way to move their staff to a place where they followed along with the team. When everyone was on the same page, everyone began to respond in a way that kept the client’s needs the focal point – not bottom line profits.

Interestingly profits seem to be a direct result of making customers the main priority in business. This concept is one of the primary reasons the Arena Football League continues to see strong fan support at the cities in which they play.

If you take just one bit of advice from the marketing articles you read make it this one – be proactive in customer service. When your customer knows you are committed to them they develop trust much faster.