Oscar Worthy Customer Service – How Hollywood’s Model Can Make Your Company A Service Star
February 22, 2010 by Gail
Filed under Call Center Manager, Customer Care, Employee Coaching and Development
While Rosemary Rein wrote this article in 2009, her message on creating award winning customer service is right up to date.
The Oscar of Customer Service in 2008 Goes to USAA!
This year the national business award for outstanding customer service, considered the OSCAR of Customer Service went for a second year in a row to USAA, the Financial and Insurance Provider to the U.S, Military. (Reported in the March 2008 Edition of Business Week)
The news was not surprising since last year alone the Customer Service Team at USAA attended over 240,000 hours of “Additional Training” beyond their “Basic Training”.
As you listen to your service rep phone calls, (you do don’t you? through call monitoring?); hear and see employees in the hallways, who frankly look and sound more like street thugs than valued and motivated employees; as you read painful customer complaints, customer surveys and oh no, see that customers have told the world how bad your service is by blogging you; Do you think maybe, those responsible for taking care of your valued customers might need a little more training and recognition themselves? Well, perhaps you need to say Hello and Hooray for Hollywood!
Rate Your Hollywood Star Power:
The first question for every CEO and Training Manager is how many hours of field training do you give your front-line staff each year to up-level their skills to achieve Oscar Worthy Customer Service Performances? The second question is how effective is that training? The third question is what, inspiring, recognition programs do you have in place to honor outstanding service achievements?
As a Former Director of Customer Service Training, I followed the Hollywood OSCAR Model for Service Training and Employee Motivation, using the format symbolized by Hollywood’s Golden Man. It produced results. It inspired and motivated the team and much like the Oscars, was talked about, read about and even ignited friendly competition to be the best. What else could you want from your a Customer Service Training and Recognition Program? Here’s how to execute a similar Hollywood Style training model and Roll Out the Red-Carpet to your Service Team
Develop & Deliver Red Carpet Training & Recognition:
1. Define Award Categories for all the Areas of your Company that Impact Customer Service Performance, including those back office functions like technical direction, script writing, and outstanding achievement in special effects (service improvements).
2. Develop a Nomination Process and rules for and selection criteria for “Your Service Academy” that represents a cross section of your organization or departmental areas. This is a critical step requiring analysis of all contributing factors to the total customer experience for award integrity.
3. Acting Class for Customer Service Employees? You bet! Why do actors say the right thing and project emotion? They have scripts and use theatrical/communication techniques! Great Hollywood Actors also understand the principles of directing the Big Picture! Do your employees know what the big picture is for your company and your customers? We use an engaging Hollywood theme in our customer service training. Note/ Themes Build Team.
I usually held these spirited 1 days training sessions in the Spring, after the Oscars to reinforce key service principles, introduce award winning customer scripts and even run screen tests with video-tape feedback by a customer service producer. A fun “improv workshop” helps employees improve body language, voice tone and most of all learn to laugh again and connect with the heart of the Customer/Audience. It’s all part of the work it takes to climb to the top of the service charts.
4. Finally, start planning your Big Red Carpet Oscar Night. Make It Big! Make It Memorable! Make it the Event of the Year that Everyone Talks About! Make Winning a Service Oscar, the aspiration of every bright star on your team, who has worked hard the past year, to deliver consistent and a heart-stopping customer service performances.
Rosemary Rein, Ph.D is an award winning Author and Speaker on Customer Service and is writing the chapter on Best Practices in Customer Service, in a new upcoming book “Blueprint for Success” with Dr. Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard.
Bring Rosemary’s Customer Service Academy Awards Program to your Organization. For a free training proposal and Oscar template, write Rosemary@gowildgogreat.com or visit her web-site at http://www.gowildgogreat.com
Phone Tree – Do they work?
March 11, 2009 by Admin
Filed under Customer Care
Is Your Phone Tree Killing Your Business?
By Diana Liffick
Your phone tree might seem as insignificant as post-it notes or staples, but it plays an important role in the performance and profitability of your company. A poor telephone answering system can create dissatisfied customers and disgruntled employees — that’s definitely “bad for business”.
If customers are not routed properly and efficiently through your answering system, you might irritate customers who weren’t irritated when they initially called. This in turn frustrates customer support personnel, who usually have to deal with plenty of upset, demanding people already. To make matters worse, if your phone system is turning customers away from reaching your services, their issues and complaints may remain unknown to you.
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Putting the “Service” Back in “Customer Service”
March 11, 2009 by Admin
Filed under Customer Care
by: pianopl123
The future of customer service is here. Technology has made seeking out support faster and easier than ever. But, has your digital age company sacrificed true service in the name of automation?
Today, finding customer support is as simple as writing an e-mail or picking up the phone. But, even though you’re not face-to-face with your customers, you still leave a lasting impression. Do you come across as caring and competent, or menacing and mechanical?
Offering stand-out service on the Internet isn’t as hard as it is rare. Take these simple steps towards old-style service in the digital age:
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Customer Service: 3 Typical Employee Mistakes And How To Handle Them
March 11, 2009 by Admin
Filed under Customer Care
Beth Banning & Neill Gibson
Do you want to increase profits dramatically? One of the best ways to do this is to focus your attention on your current customer satisfaction and good customer service skills. Profitable businesses don’t just rely on attracting new customers, they work at encouraging existing customers to buy again and to provide positive word-of-mouth advertising to their friends.
This can only happen when employees learn leading edge customer relationship management skills. Read on to discover the three most common customer service mistakes as well as how to handle them before they occur.
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5 Traits You Cannot Teach In Customer Service
March 11, 2009 by Admin
Filed under Customer Care
By Leonard Buchholz
There are character traits you cannot teach in Customer Service. If we could, we would because it makes the whole world a better place, not just Customer Service.
We can’t, and therefore we work with people whom we believe to most exemplify these traits.
Here are 5 you cannot teach.
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Customer Service and the Cattle Prod
March 11, 2009 by Admin
Filed under Customer Care
By Leonard Buchholz
Cattle Prod Customer Service
This is the most frustrating of all Customer Service experiences for most of us. It is a combination of poorly trained personnel and terrible responses that cause us to believe that the only way we can get Customer Service from the organization we are dealing with is to use a cattle prod. (poke, zziittt)
Take a look at this example.
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Difficult Customers: There’s No Such Thing
March 11, 2009 by Admin
Filed under Customer Care
A couple of years ago I had a call from a Customer Service Manager working in the paper industry. He wanted me to run a seminar for his team, on “How to Deal with Difficult Customers”.
I had several telephone conversations with this manager organizing dates, times and getting to understand his business. If I was to describe his style on the telephone I would use words like, businesslike, cold, curt and somewhat impatient. I started to realize that if I was one of his customers then I might have been a bit “difficult”. He certainly knew his business and I don’t think he was a bad person but warm and friendly – forget it.
There are actually very few genuinely difficult customers in the world. And I hear you say – “we’ve got all of them”. However the majority of customers in the world are reasonable people. They may not think the way, look the way, sound the way that you do. However they are your customers and if you want their business then you’ve got to deal with them. They may get “difficult” from time to time if they feel they’ve been let down. It’s how you handle them that’ll determine if they continue to be a problem or if you can turn them around.
Difficult customers and situations usually occur because some part of our core service has failed or the customer perceives it to have failed. We’ve not delivered on time, the customer has the wrong product, it doesn’t work or it’s not what the customer expected. What happens then is, the customer comes to the interaction with us in a negative frame of mind. It’s what happens then that’ll decide whether they deal with us again or bad mouth us to other people.
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Sales Calls – Use Your Time Wisely
March 11, 2009 by Admin
Filed under Customer Care
by Joshua Feinberg
Sales calls are an art form. Many new IT Consultants have never had to sell anything before. For the uninitiated, sales calls are intimidating. By gaining the right perspective about a sales call and understanding the possible outcomes, you are on your way to becoming a sales call expert.
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Good Client Relations Start Here
March 11, 2009 by Admin
Filed under Customer Care
By Diana Ennen
Want to have the best relationships with your clients? Try these tips!
Tip #1 – Come Again? It’s critical to establish right from the beginning how you will handle the communications with your clients. If e-mailing, what is the standard turnaround time that you respond back to emails. If phoning, what are your hours? Once a client knows when they will hear from you, then they can plan their day and work accordingly.
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Handling Complaints Without Making Things Worse
March 11, 2009 by Admin
Filed under Customer Care
The email comes, or the phone rings, and there’s an absolute flood pouring right at you. “Hey, you didn’t do what you said you would do. This didn’t work as advertised. You goofed!”
Yup, a complaint. Ahhh! A complaint?! But you poured your heart and soul into it, how could they complain?
Then you take a breath, and you read what they’re asking for, and you realize… they were right. You DID make a mistake. Things are goofed up, perhaps badly.
Time to hang up your hat and go work in a cafe?
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