From the category archives:

Customer Service

From Apology to Enchantment

by Daria Steigman on September 23, 2011

customer service, StubHub, Independent Thinking, Steigman CommunicationsThere are very few Soup Nazis in business.

In other words, most of us have to provide good customer service to be sucessful. You can screw up and recover–companies do it all the time. But how many use the opening to move from apology to enchantment?

Stubhub did this the other day.

The online ticket seller’s Web site went down for a few hours, leaving sellers unable to sell. I knew the site was having glitches, but I had not realized the extent of the problem. But Stubhub did.

A couple of days later, unprompted, I received an email from Stubhub that showed me they understand their customers:

On Friday, our Web site experienced periodic downtime due to database issues, which continued into the late afternoon Pacific time. We worked as quickly as possible to fix the problem and restored functionality Friday evening.

We know you depend on our site–and that you need it to be up and running without problems like this. We also know you can list your tickets elsewhere. We need to do better to keep your business.

But they didn’t stop there:

To express our gratitude for your patience, we’ve added a FanCode to your StubHub account. Your [$30] FanCode is valid for one year, so you can use it anytime between now and September 13, 2012… We’re really sorry for the frustration and confusion that Friday’s Web site issues caused you. We take this seriously and are continually working to make our site experience better. We hope you’ll accept our apologies.

I have no idea whether the glitch cost me money. Neither does Stubhub. But rather than try to figure it out (or wait for me to ask the question), the company shifted the conversation from frustration to enchantment.

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What’s Your Sweet Spot?

by Daria Steigman on September 20, 2011

Business, Value Proposition, Restaurant Impossible, Steigman Communications, Independent Thinking I was watching Restaurant Impossible the other day. It’s a show about a chef who works to help turn around failing businesses.

In two days.

This is reality TV, so one presumes the producers vet and select restaurants where the business issues are so blatant that a few tweaks (and a decor redesign) can make a big difference. And that’s the point: the difference between failure and success often boils down to whether or not you understand your core business.

You have to know your sweet spot.

In the episode I watched, Irvine asked the two owners of the Off Street Cafe to name the five bestselling items on their very lengthy menu. Each correctly identified only two. Because they didn’t understand what their customers wanted, they were wasting money on inventory that was used infrequently (or, perhaps, not at all). And even frozen food has a limited shelf life.

The restaurant also had major service issues that were driving customers away.

You need to know what your business does best–and you need to know what your clients, customers, and prospects believe you do best. And what they need (i.e, the market landscape). If you don’t have the data to back up what you’re doing, you’re pretty much throwing your money away.

Do you know your sweet spot?

Photo by Shauna Young Dessert Tables (Flickr).

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Why Upselling is Unnecessary

by Daria Steigman on August 25, 2011

Upselling, Customer Service, Customer ExperienceUpselling is a really dumb strategy. Instead of pressuring people into buying something they don’t want (and often don’t need), why not just wow them?

If you do customer service right, your customers will buy more. Maybe not this visit, but they’ll come back. And they’ll tell their friends too (word of mouth marketing anyone?).

I was in my local Best Buy the other day for help with a quirky computer problem. Alec, the Geek Squad guy, fiddled with the settings for a little while and succeeded in stopping my system from asking for an imaginary security code every time I tried to log into a public wifi network.

While talking with Alec, I noticed a flyer for one of Geek Squad’s services: home wifi set-up. Not only does it includes the hardware, but they also throw in several months of tech support. My parents are looking at (finally) getting wifi; until I saw this, I thought I was going to set it up for them. Now I have a better Plan A.

Just by wowing me with kindness, they’ve sold me on something bigger without “upselling.” Plus I’m sharing my story.

Photo by hortulus (Flickr).

Have you signed up to receive the Independent Thinking newsletter? Now’s the time! Once a month I’ll send you exclusive, subscriber-only content highlighting interesting articles I’ve found, as well as tips on marketing, social media, and how to grow your business. Sign up today!

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Is Your Business Responsive?

by Daria Steigman on August 8, 2011

business, customer service, lead generation, Independent Thinking, Steigman CommunicationsWhen I moved into my condo, it took me a couple of months to find a tile guy to replace my kitchen floor. The job was “too small,” one contractor flat out said to me.

When I was writing articles for an insurance company, two brokers and one attorney (the company’s contacts) kept agreeing to phone interviews and blowing me off. “They’re hard to nail down when they’re busy,” sighed my client.

When a friend was looking for a company to build a fence, one contractor showed up nearly an hour late (with no “heads up” call) just to write an estimate.

When another friend was looking for a handyman, she waited two weeks for a callback because the guy came highly recommended. She hired someone else.

Hubspot recently pointed to data from Harvard Business Review that found:

Companies that try to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving queries are nearly 7 times as likely to have meaningful conversations with key decision makers as firms that try to contact prospects even an hour later. Yet only 37 percent of companies respond to queries within an hour.”

While not everyone needs to have a 60-minute window, every business has to be responsive.

Customers have choices. I wonder how many of the folks my friends and I contacted are still in business today.

Is your business responsive?

Photo by Darwin Bell (Flickr).

Have you signed up to receive the Independent Thinking newsletter? Now’s the time! Once a month I’ll send you exclusive, subscriber-only content highlighting interesting articles I’ve found, as well as tips on marketing, social media, and how to grow your business. Sign up today!

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3 Ways to Strengthen Customer Experience Online

by Daria Steigman on August 4, 2011

Customer Service, Social Media, Independent Thinking, Steigman CommunicationsI heard Linda Ireland speak last week about how to strengthen the customer experience on social media platforms. A key point she made during the MarketingProfs Webinar is that customers are demanding–to be heard, authenticity, speed, support, interaction, reaction–and you’d better be ready to meet their needs.

Ireland also walked through 10 tips for connecting more effectively with your customers. My top three takeaways:

1. Know which platforms work best when. A blog can be a great way to connect with prospects or to educate existing customers with ongoing or evolving needs, but it’s probably not the best platform for addressing customer service issues. The more you understand where your customers are in their buying cycle and how they interact, the more proactively you can plan where you should be engaging with them.

2. Customer experience is about what happens AND how customers feel. Ireland’s point: you (the business) impact both.

3. Focus on your customers, not your competitors. Ireland glossed over this at the end of her presentation, but I think it’s the most important takeaway. Too many companies are so busy worrying about what the competition is doing that they forget why customers interact with their brand in the first place. Don’t imitate. Instead, create your own customer experience.

What’s your top tip for strengthening the customer experience online?

Photo by lulu (Flickr).

Have you signed up to receive the Independent Thinking newsletter? Now’s the time! Once a month I’ll send you exclusive, subscriber-only content highlighting interesting articles I’ve found, as well as tips on marketing, social media, and how to grow your business. Sign up today!

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