{"id":2828,"date":"2014-06-02T08:25:20","date_gmt":"2014-06-02T12:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/?p=2828"},"modified":"2016-05-03T18:14:04","modified_gmt":"2016-05-03T22:14:04","slug":"customer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/2014\/06\/02\/customer-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Customer Service = ???"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chaos and Confusion are some small businesses\u2019 response to customer service. You have probably even talked to some. I did when my cell phone died last year. When I called the customer service number, typed in my cell phone number twice, waited for 10 minutes and finally talked with Ms Chaos. I was told I needed a new phone and this would cost in excess of $150. Never mind that this same company was advertising a free phone to anyone but me. This just didn&#8217;t make sense.<\/p>\n<p>I said &#8220;Thank you, I&#8217;ll think about this&#8221; and hung up the phone. <strong><em>I called back and got Ms Confusion who was able to send me a new phone (no charge).<a href=\"http:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/cs.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-2830 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/cs-300x175.jpg\" alt=\"cs\" width=\"300\" height=\"175\" \/><\/a><\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Was she confused or was I?<\/li>\n<li>Did this company have a policy?<\/li>\n<li>Did they have a plan?<\/li>\n<li>Or maybe chaos and confusion were just the norm and I was lucky on the second call.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Do a check of your business and make sure Ms Chaos and Ms Confusion aren\u2019t answering your phones.<\/p>\n<p>Servicing customers can be a joy, but from time to time complaints happen. That\u2019s why it\u2019s best to have a Customer Service Manual handy. Here are some things to include:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Basic Customer Service Policies<\/strong> \u2013 when are refunds given, what shipping options do you have, who are your key contact people?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Customer Complaint Procedures<\/strong> \u2013 what\u2019s the process for handling a customer problem? Go the extra mile and map out scripted questions and answers and have a complaint form created for customers to complete.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Observe Clues<\/strong> \u2013 Look for cues to when your customer is unhappy. Then take action to head off the complaint before it occurs.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Key Customer Notes\/ Preferences<\/strong> \u2013 Treat your key customers like gold. Write down their preferences and how they like to do business. Then apply what you\u2019ve learned.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Customer Service should honor your customers&#8217; intelligence and the very fact they are willing to give you money in exchange for a product or service.<\/p>\n<p>Three cheers for Customer Service that really is a service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chaos and Confusion are some small businesses\u2019 response to customer service. You have probably even talked to some. I did when my cell phone died last year. When I called the customer service number, typed in my cell phone number twice, waited for 10 minutes and finally talked with Ms Chaos. I was told I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,17],"tags":[60,59],"class_list":["post-2828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-improvement","category-customer-service-culture","tag-customer-complaint","tag-customer-service"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2828"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2831,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions\/2831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}