Using databases to help you serve your customer better

By Arbeck (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Knowing your buyers is one step towards cementing a great relationship.

The more you know about the people who like your products or services, the better you can serve them.

There may be things they want that you could offer but never thought to. Ask. Use the survey as another route to giving a great customer experience.


For more, see the FM articile on Data Mining by Tamara Beck:
http://connect.forwardmetrics.com/customer-service/mining-your-data-its-a-customer-service-thing.html

How do you handle difficult customers?

Dealing with customers is not always easy. There are those who are hard to please, and those who make life difficult for anyone they encounter. Or at least, that is your perspective.

When they are impossible, we've suggested that you just let them go. Refer them on or tell them you can't help them.

If you have another member of the sales team who might get along better with a tough customer, by all means, share him/her with your colleague.

If the relationship is not so compromised as to still be salvageable, and you want to keep working with Difficult X, what do you do?

For more on dealing with hard to please customers, see http://connect.forwardmetrics.com/business-management/what-have-you-done-for-me-lately.html.

How do you deal with difficult customers?

The customer is always right

We all know that the customer is always right. And with that adage, it's only natural there should also be some resentment. We are admonished not to bite the hand that feeds us, even if sometimes we really really want to...

Central Park ducks are challenged to share their lake with
tourists in boats.  Photo by Tamara Beck

Those who dwell in tourist towns typically resent the the hoards who come to enjoy the beauties of their nabe, and disturb their peaceable lives. The fact that tourism puts money in their pockets makes the resentment deepen. No one likes to be beholden.

 As a business owner, you are beholden to the customer, dependent on their good will. Without them, your business would fail. You don't have to like it and you are free to vent. "Mrs. So and So is very demanding," you can tell your spouse, your therapist, or your priest if you are so inclined. Mrs. So and So must never know how you feel.

The customer is always right.

There are probably a hundred ways to lose business....

As a businessman or woman, you don't want to be singing the refrain as modified from "Wonderful Town," listing the many ways a business can go south.

Our focus of course is on the customer service side of keeping your business pointing true north.

Any interaction between your customers or prospects and the people you hire to meet and greet them requires good customer service. Customer service implies a good interaction. It is expected that customers and prospects will be treated well. 

This also applies to the folks you hire to man your booths at expos, like the #NYXPO which I attended last week. People walk around the floor of the Javits Center looking at exhibits and asking for information. They are not all customers or even necessarily good prospects, but you never know....

At the #NYXPO the coolest exhibit bar none was an old pick up truck with plastic letters displayed in its bed for a sign company. Only drawback for the company in question? The two guys repping them on the floor were so engrossed in their cell phones they couldn't bother to talk to passers by. I went by the truck twice with the intention of getting a little information. On both passes, I was roundly ignored.

So, here's one way to lose....

So how exactly does Starbucks make its bucks?

Let's start where a customer service blog should by praising the folks who work there. They are invariably polite. They go out of their way to be helpful. Service at Starbucks is excellent.

However, any drink order in any one of their many shops and you'll have a minimum 10-minute wait time.
This is true when they are very busy, or when you are the sole person at the counter. Doesn't matter if it's a simple drink like iced tea that is ready to pour from a pitcher, or one as complex as a latte.

Therein lies the reason for my titular query: If each $5 drink takes 10 minutes to prepare, Starbucks is selling 6 drinks per hour per barista. That would come to gross income of $30/hour.

Rent? Payroll? Materials? Product? What could be left? Yes, I know they are a profitable company.

It's just puzzling that so much staff time can be vested in cooking up our drinks and Starbucks can still make money.

Sometimes you encounter a tough customer

If there's a customer who is never satisfied, feel free to cut him/her loose. Refer him to someone who may have better luck with him or with whom he may have a better rapport.

For more on this topic, visit my recent article at ForwardMetrics.

Connect the dots

Keeping members happy keeps them engaged, just as keeping customers happy keeps them coming back for more.

Associations and affinity groups have to keep their "customers" happy, too.

Give them reasons to renew with:

• great programming
• superb customer service.

Make yours an organization they feel involved in and to which they want to belong:
Samrt, savvy and responsive to their needs.

More advice for Best Practices for Affinity Groups is found at the Assn Practicum blog.

For more about Membership and Customer Service, click here.