Customer Service Management Tips - Part 2

In part 1 we discussed the importance of Post-Sale Customer Support teams in retaining repeat customers, and why this is so important. Now let's look at some practical customer service management tips to help you get the job done.

What Is the Role of Customer Support

The customer support team needs to ensure customers are happy by representing the customer's interests inside the business at time when no one else is motivated to do so.

The customer support team, along with the sales team, represents the customer's interests inside the company. The sales team does it to get new customers. The support team does it to keep existing customers.

The major challenge that customer support teams face within most organizations is that it is hard to tie specific support activity to a specific amount of revenue dollars. There is always a temptation to ignore your existing customers, because they probably won't leave right away. There is always a temptation to ignore any customer that doesn't have an open order because as a business you need to raise enough money to pay your bills and your employees in order to stay in business.

What Can Support Team Managers Do?

As a Customer Support manager, there are a few things you can do to help your cause.

Recognize that fundamentally the Customer Support team is there to ensure repeat orders. Know the repeat order potential of each customer and factor that into the time, money and priority you give any given customer. Very often a small number of customers take up a large percentage of the customer support time and budget. Make sure you are not neglecting the high potential customers because you are busy serving the needs of needy customers with lower potential. I know we like to help everyone, but let's face it you make priority decisions every day on which issues to handle first. Many customer support teams have no idea what the repeat order potential of any given customer is. Make sure you know, and make sure that repeat order potential is at least as big a factor in your decisions as how loud the customer is. Tying action to financials will get the attention and support of upper management.

Get to know the Sales team. In most organizations the sales teams are much more influential than the support teams, it's just a fact of life. The sales teams are also the people inside the company who benefit the most from good customer support. They get the credit and the commission checks for repeat orders. Let the sales team know when their high potential customers are having issues, and when you are not getting the support you need to help them. You can be guaranteed that a commissioned sales rep will not sit idly by and risk losing a repeat customer. Keep the sales team in the loop. When things go well, tell them. It's a great opportunity for them to go in and make their next pitch. When problems are brewing, tell them that too so they can avoid walking into the lion's den with a new sales pitch, and instead make a timely service call to show they care and offer assistance. The sales team is motivated, influential, and has the most to lose from poor customer service. You already have the power to help them; use it to help them help you.

Look for ways to actively help your customers use the products or services they buy from you. Don't just wait for complaints and repair calls to come in. Think of ways that you could help your customer's use your products. Think about this. If you can help a customer use something he or she has already purchased, they will be much more likely to come back a second time. If you can help a customer use up something he or she has already purchased then they will need to come back and replenish their stock. Remember that customer support is there to help the customer use the product or service. Why do you think craft stores sponsor craft fairs? Because it helps people use up their craft supplies, and it also makes them happy. If you can help them use it up, or consume it, then you can rightly claim that you have helped the customer and increased revenue for the business when their frequency of buying increases. Be creative.

Summary

Fundamentally the role of customer support is to ensure repeat sales. Post-sale customer support teams are a critical cog in the business cycle. They should be respected. They should be in constant communication with the sales team. They should be actively looking for ways to help the customer use the products or services they have purchased.

As a customer service manager one of the best things you can do for your team is to learn to tie their actions to the business financials. That's how decisions are made at the top.

Customer Service Management Tips - Part 1

Customer support teams are perhaps the most misunderstood, and underappreciated teams in the business world. In many businesses the customer support staff talks to the customers more than every other team combined. They play a critical role in ensuring customers are satisfied. Satisfied customers are repeat customers. Everybody knows that a large percentage of business comes from repeat customers. And yet customer support teams are commonly staffed with junior, inexperienced people that don't have the authority to make any decisions, or the training and knowledge to answer difficult questions. What's the deal?

What is Customer Support?
First, let's clarify what I mean by "Customer Support", because different companies use this term in wildly different ways. I am talking about the team that takes care of the customer after the contract has been signed and the initial invoice has been paid. You may work in a company where a customer service team handles the transaction from order to invoice. You may have been taught that customer service starts when the customer walks in the door, and doesn't end until the customer dies or decides not to be a customer any more. These are fine concepts, but what I am talking about here is the role of taking care of the customers' needs after the invoice has been paid, and before they have expressed a specific interest in buying again. I refer to this as Post-Sale Customer Support to differentiate it from other definitions.
What's So Important About Post-Sale Customer Support?

As a customer, up until the time that the invoice is paid you always hold the trump card of being able to withhold payment if you are not satisfied. And everybody understands that money talks. After the invoice has been paid you can often be left feeling powerless. The delivery team has collected their money and been assigned a full load of new customer transactions to look after. The sales team is being pressured to focus on customers who have already expressed a specific interest in making a purchase to meet monthly sales targets. So who takes care of you now?

This is where customer support comes in. There is a general feeling within most companies that they need to provide some sort of post-sale customer support, but there is a poor understanding of why. The sales team brings in the customers – which equals the promise of money. The orders team works out the details – which equals the promise of money. The delivery team provides the solution – which equals the collection of actual money. The customer support team ensures the customer is able to use the solution – which equals what? Happiness and karma? Let's face it; shareholders can't trade in their karma for a retirement home. Companies want money.

Here's what people are missing. In a healthy business between 25 and 75 percent of all revenues should come from repeat customers. 25% to 50% is considered typical for a healthy retail outlet, and 75% repeat business would be the top end for a healthy service business. Retail outlets with less than 25% repeat business are probably not meeting their customer needs or more of them would be coming back. Service businesses with more than 75% repeat sales are probably losing their skills at generating new customers and run the risk of severe financial problems if they lose 1 or 2 major accounts. Any way you look at it, a very large part of your business should be coming from repeat customers.

The other factor you need to look at is that the cost of getting a new customer is much higher than the cost of keeping a customer that you already have. Marketing and advertising are expensive business. Smart businesses invest in retaining customers. That's what customer support is all about. There is no better time to ensure repeat business than when your customers are feeling that they have no leverage. That is exactly when they appreciate your support the most, and will remember it as something that makes them want to come back. In part 2 of this series we'll look at some practical management tips for customer service managers to get the business behind your team and your customers.

The Unsuccessful Habits of Hard Working People

We've all heard the phrase work smarter, not harder. It's one of those motivational statements that once held a great message, but now days is more often used to mean "You're taking too long. Quit complaining and get it done". In many ways these messages are not that different, but they hold two very different sentiments.
The truth is, many of us need to work smarter instead of harder, but we don't really know how to get from where we are to where we need to be. I was brought up believing that hard work is the key to success and fulfillment. Work harder than anyone else and you'll get recognition for it. While this is true in many ways, this philosophy can also severely restrict the level of success you achieve.

While working hard truly is a virtue, it also has some basic failings. First of all the hard work principle lends itself to measuring how hard, or long you work instead of what you are getting done. Many hard workers feel they are entitled to rewards as long as they put in long hours or carry heavy loads. It can lead to resentment of people who have figured out how to work shorter hours for larger rewards. Instead of admiring them, you see them as lazy and undeserving. Hard workers are often frustrated by the efforts of people around them that they feel are not making the same contribution, or reaching the same level of productivity as they are. What the "hard working" crowd is missing is that every employee is hired to get a result, not to fill an empty space.

Look at it this way. Pretend for a moment that you were doing the hiring and paying the bill. Would you rather pay a hard working man with an axe for 2 months to clear your land of trees, or pay a lazy dude with a chainsaw who can do it in one month? What I'd really like is a hard working man with a chainsaw, but given the choices I'll take the man who made the smart tool choice over the one who works hard. Why? Bottom line, it gets the job done faster and cheaper, which is what I really want.

The second failing of the hard working philosophy is a tendency to want to jump into action without a well thought out plan. Let’s get moving! The problem with this is that the devil is in the details. I have seen many hastily laid plans leap into instant action and gain immediate progress. I have seen just as many of these plans sitting in the trash bin after huge amounts of time and money have been invested in them because they didn't actually accomplish what the customer really wanted. By the time they figured they weren't going to meet the real requirements they had too much invested in the hastily chosen direction to make the required corrections. A common companion of these discarded plans is the discarded manager who goes along with it. Action is critical, but first you must ensure your actions contribute to a plan that actually ends in the right results.

In both cases of these cases, the work hard philosophy is missing the main opportunity. A smart plan is better than a hard working plan every time. But we are taught to spring to action. Get to work. Get it started. The reality is that working hard without a plan is fruitless. Working hard at things no one cares about is simply not productive.

Making smart choices that contribute to the results that matter to other people is one of the keys to success. Solid up-front goals and objectives planning sessions are critical to your personal success and to the success of everything you endeavor to do. If you're a hard working person, learning to effectively recognize the goals and intelligently plan objectives and strategies to accomplish them is one of the best investments you can make in yourself.

My success management tip for hard workers: learn to plan smart first, and then work hard. This is the unbeatable combination.

All You Need To Know About Pay Per Click Advertising

What is Pay Per Click Advertising?
It is just as it sounds. You place an advertisement, usually text or graphic, and you pay each time someone clicks that advertisement. Sounds simple enough right? Though simple, it is a very powerful form of advertising that in many cases makes more sense than other methods of advertisement. How does Pay Per Click Advertising work and why is it the best choice for your business? That is a good question, let's have a look.

Targeted Audience

With Pay Per Click advertising, also known as PPC, you have the ability to target your unique audience. Sure, you have other methods of advertisement that may target a portion of your customer base, but with PPC, you have a more defined method of targeting. You target your specific customer base with solid keywords. These keywords are crucial to your advertisement. If you operate a chocolate business, you might use keywords such as chocolate, chocolate candy, candy, gourmet chocolate, and the list could actually continue to grow.

However, what makes PPC so useful is that it incorporates these keywords to make it work for you. Your pay per click advertising will not show up until a user searches for your keyword terms. The next way that PPC works best for businesses is that it works well within your budget.

Costs and Budgets

The great thing about pay per click advertising is that it is designed to work within any budget. With many sites that promote PPC advertising, you have the ability to define just how much you are willing to pay. However, it is important to note that you will likely be in competition with other businesses, depending on your keyword. The more you pay per click the higher you will be on the search engine results; this is of course dependent upon your competitors and what they bid to pay as well.

As your pay per click campaign goes along, you will have the ability to monitor your campaign. If at any time you feel that your specific campaign is not working as well for your business as you had hoped, you can change it, add another, or delete the campaign as you see fit.

What makes pay per click advertising so appealing is that you are only charged when someone clicks on your advertisement, hence the name pay per click. With other advertising methods, you are charged when your advertisement is displayed or rotated. With PPC, you pay only when a potential customer clicks on the advertisement to visit your website. This is a great cost efficient method of advertisement.
Just Works Better
Pay per click advertising just works better because you know, if you have chosen the right keywords, that when someone clicks on your ad to visit your site, that they are doing so because they are truly interested in what you have to offer via their search terms. This means that each and every person that clicks on your advertisement is a targeted potential customer, which means more likelihood for a sale or membership.

Where Can I Find A Good Pay Per Click Company

With the advent of internet marketing, there has been a rise in pay per click advertising. But after showing a booming prospect, pay per click advertising has begun to lose its charm due to frauds that are being committed in the name of pay per click advertising.
In pay per click advertising, the advertiser, for every click on its link by its potential customer pays a certain agreed amount to the advertising company. But over the years a trend of dishonesty is being seen in the advertising companies where they generate fake clicks on advertiser’s link and try to make easy money. In other cases, vengeful competitors can click on such links to increase their bill without getting any genuine customers.

So this becomes quite difficult for companies to find a good pay per click company, but still, there are some measures which can follow to ensure that investments are not being wasted.

You can look for Google certification which is in the form of “Google AdWords Certification” which ensures that the bearer is competent and is very familiar with the way the PPC system of Google works. You can look at testimonials of the company and use your instincts to find out whether these are genuine or fabricated by the company itself. You can also benefit from experience of other companies who have got this type of work done. You can find someone in such a company who can guide you in the process or can reveal their experience with the same. And don’t forget to take warnings from such people if you do not intend to waste your investment.

You can also go through the previous works of the advertising company. Ask them about their clients and the kind of results they have given them and see for yourself how much you are satisfied with the information given by them. You can also check the familiarity of the advertising company with your field of operation and check whether they are really knowledgeable or not.

You can check the professional conduct of the advertising company. Hold your advertising company to a very high level of Professional Demeanor and if it fails, its better to find some other firm.

It may sound tempting but always consider more than one advertising company so that you have many options to choose from. It is always beneficial to consider competition in the market while selecting a service provider for yourself.

Avoid companies that guarantee fast results, because generally, companies that offer speed in their services do not give time to test the results.

Look at what kind of results they provide to their customers. Firms sometimes charge you without increasing the traffic of customers to your website. Go through the contract thoroughly and be sure about all the terms and conditions. Generally, companies that think of themselves as experts in using Google, consider PPC advertising as their area of expertise but you can easily check their credibility in the side bar ads when you search them in Google.

These are certain points which you can keep in mind while finding a good pay per click company and make sure you are not short of your advertising budget.

SEO Campaigns And What Not To Do

Given the ratio of the internet, and given the fact that so many people in the business world use it to further their goals and ambitions, it is shocking how so many people still have issues with using the internet appropriately. Search engine optimization is one powerful tool that many people use when they are looking to increase the level of relevant traffic to their website, but remember, that like any tool, its efficiency depends on the employer. Take a look at a few of the reasons why so many SEO campaigns falter and fall, and often are unable to rise again.

Bad keywords are one of the first culprits. Look at the text on your website and really think about whether it reflects your company. Will the people who are searching for your services know to use those terms? Bad keywords can work in two different directions. Firstly the keywords are too specific. They are only understood by other professionals in your field, and someone who isn't aware of the ins and outs of your business would never think to search for them. Over-generalization is similarly a concern. With keywords that are too generic, you will simply bring irrelevant people to your site who have no actual interest in what you have to offer.

SEO also means that you have to take into account the format of your page. Are things placed in a logical way that will draw people? Have you made sure that your page has enough content to draw people to it? Part of good page optimization is ensuring that your website has a good place when it comes to link building. The more people who link to you without you offering a reciprocal link, the better your rating goes. Link building is one aspect that the Google search engine uses to push you towards the top of your search page, so make sure that you don't ignore it when you are thinking about optimization and content.

Some companies who try to avoid these mistakes contract with SEO consultants, but even there they might find that they are working with someone who uses illegitimate means to bulk up your numbers. Some warning signs include multiple names, the ownership of shadow domains and a guarantee of rankings through obscure keyword phrases that you would have gotten anyway. Beware of companies that give you a strange feeling or refuse to explain how your website would be getting the hits. Although there are many of them, the concepts relating to SEO are fairly straightforward, so if you catch someone being secretive, make sure you find out why.

When you are looking to conduct an SEO campaign, unless you are a specialist in the field yourself, you should consider consulting with a professional. A professional who cares about his or her work and is dedicated to making your site a success can easily save you from the blunders that could cost you in time, resources and money which is important to any business.

Why We Use Search Engine Optimisation Services In The UK

Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, is one of the new buzz phrases that is being tossed around on the internet. You see more and more web administrators seeking employees who have experience with SEO and know how to implement SEO techniques. So what is SEO? Why do we use Search Engine Optimisation Services in the UK?

Search Engine Optimisation is, basically, a way in which people try to improve the quality and volume of visitors to their websites from search engine search results. It is used as a way of promoting websites by pushing them higher in search engine ranks. It works by using a variety of “keywords” that grab the attention of search engine spiders that regularly crawl the internet looking for new content. The more visitors a person has to his site by clicking on a search result, the higher the site will rise in the ranks of the search engine. The goal among most web masters is to make it on to the front page of Google (or Yahoo, etc).

While it is certainly relevant to learn all you can about Search Engine Optimisation, if you are just starting to build your website, it is in your best interest to employ a Search Engine Optimisation Service. These services can help you add content to your site that is guaranteed to catch the eye of the various search engine spiders crawling your site and they know about the different SEO marketing methods that will work best for the central subject of your website.

Here are some of the reasons to use a Search Engine Optimisation Service in the UK:

Search Engine Optimisation services can usually point you to a proven track record of success. These businesses are not operating on a system of trial and error like you will be when you are first learning. They know what gets the spiders to notice a site and they will make sure that yours gets noticed.

They are time savers. You are trying to market your new site and trying to get the word out about your site. All the while you are trying to come up with content for your site that is original and fresh. By employing one of the search engine optimisation services you are free to run the website without worrying how the search engines will notice it.

Sometimes the search engine optimisation service is also skilled at internet marketing as well and can help you promote and drive traffic to your website from other venues as well as from the search engines.

If you are looking for something on the internet, the best way to find it is to use a search engine to help you find it. If you have a website or are offering a service via the web, you want to make sure that your site is as high as possible in the search engine rankings to ensure a high traffic flow to your site. Using a Search Engine Optimisation Service in the UK is the best way to make sure this happens, especially if you do not have any experience in SEO.