Archive for the ‘Customer service’ Category

There have been a range of studies into the links between customer satisfaction and business performance.   These have shown that a key element of customer satisfaction is the experience the customer receives when dealing with an organisation.  These studies have shown a strong correlation between perceived customer satisfaction and service quality with sales.  Service quality has been found to have a lasting effect into future year’s sales.

One important area affecting customer satisfaction was complaints handling.  The essentials of providing a fast response, timely information on the complaints handling process and achieving a satisfactory outcome for the complaint improved perceived satisfaction levels.  So quickly working to resolve a complaint increases customer satisfaction.  We’ve also experience of increased customer loyalty resulting from well-handled customer complaints.

The experience of these studies shows that investing in customer service can make a real difference to organisational performance and results. This perhaps explains why there is no shortage of customer service training available.  If you want to know more about these studies just pop an email though to me at: Alison@trainingtoachieveuk.com

However, the training is only part of the answer.  One of the main problems is that customer feedback is a lagging indicator. It can take time to see the customer service improvements resulting in increased customer feedback scores.

One of the interesting challenges in this area is that employees intuitively know when they have given or received bad service.  This means that they may be offering what they think is great customer service, rather than what has been defined as great customer service. This makes defining what good service actually is an important task of senior management. The company ethos, culture and reward systems send out to employees signals about what is valued and there is a need to seek to achieve employee buy-in to the same culture to achieve results.

To do this the customer contact points need to have a common level of training to support their customer service delivery. The wider organisation also needs to understand the impact that the whole business is aiming to deliver for customers so that the customer service teams are properly supported.

So a customer service course is not a quick fix, to have a lasting benefit it needs to be part of a customer service strategy reinforced by organisational goals and reward systems.  This requires investment of time by senior management to create the right cultural framework.

Once these strategic issues are tackled then finding the right training solution is straightforward. There are a range of training courses that are cost effective.  Customer service and complaints handling courses can reinforce the culture the organisation is promoting and achieve real benefits in improving the customer service experience.

At Training To Achieve we’ve found that a strategic approach to customer service and complaints handling courses can pay dividends for organisations. We have also found that as well as training customer contact staff by also training managers and internal trainers we can provide a lasting legacy and boost the performance of businesses over time.

Alison Miles-Jenkins

Founder and CEO
Training To Achieve

Have you heard the news about Gatwick Airport complaints handling?  There is a lesson there for all those dealing with customers and service users.

You may not have heard much about this because it is good news about complaints, something not often picked up by the media.

According to figures just announced by BookFHR, complaints from passengers have dropped by 15 per cent, while compliments about the airport have risen by 94 per cent, according to Stewart Wingate, chief operating officer at the facility.

He said: “Passengers will judge their experience of Gatwick not just on the quality of the airport facilities but also on the friendliness and helpfulness of our staff. That is why we are investing in the training and development of our people at the same time as we invest to improve the physical environment of the airport”

This fall has been attributed to some excellent training on customer service, but that is not the lesson I’m talking about.

The key for me is in the comment by Stewart Wingate, it shows that customers are not only judging the physical attributes of the product but are significantly affected by friendly and helpful the staff.  Simply addressing complaints handling training is one way of trying to deal with complaints but better still to go to address the causes through developing the customer service focus of the staff.

This lesson is one which has been out of the news for a while whilst organisations focus on cost cutting in reaction to the harsh economic environment.  If we pause to consider how expensive dealing with complaints can be, it is a short step to look for ways to stop complaints happening.  Gatwick airport have tackled this and given the huge volumes of traffic they deal with there is hope for all who deal with customers and service users in tackling the customer service delivered.

So there you have it.  An important lesson: Ignore the people parts of your product or service offering at your peril.  Training in customer service can significantly reduce complaints and increase the number of compliments received.

How do you access great customer service training? You need to find a training provider with a great track record in this field.  We can help you with this at Training To Achieve (UK).

Breaking news: Complaints Masterclass

The demand for effective complaints handling training has increased significantly recently. The recession has increased the likelihood of complaints. People are more ready to complain. Are you suffering from more complaints? Help is available. Come on our Complaints Masterclass.

We’ve just announced new dates: Are you looking for help in dealing with customers who complain?

Then here is the answer our popular Complaints Masterclass booking now in London, Birmingham and Manchester

Complaints Masterclasses

Birmingham 23 June 1 delegate £349.99 Birmingham 23 June 2 delegates £625.00 Central London 20 July 1 delegate £349.99 Central London 20 July 2 delegates £625.00 Manchester 15 September 1 delegate £349.99 Manchester 15 September 2 delegates £625.00

Do you want to:
• Gain a higher level of sales success from your complaints handling?
• Identify new ways of resolving complaints?
• Gain some great strategies and advice on how to handle complaints professionally?
• Identify how you can increase your team’s ability to deal with complaints effectively?
• Identify ways in which you can increase your team’s motivation and level of commitment to achieving great complaints resolution?
• Gain advice from an expert on how to increase your team’s complaints handling performance?
• Review and assess your approach to handling difficult complaints?
• Have an expert on hand that you can use as a sounding board to work through key issues and challenges you may be facing with your complaints handling?
• Identify new ways to tackle emotionally charged complaints and the difficult conversations that can go with them?
• Get some fresh and innovative ideas that will increase your complaints resolution performance immediately?
• Need training to achieve success at complaints handling?

Complaints Handling Masterclass training booking now in London, Birmingham and Manchester

Complaints Masterclasses

Birmingham 23 June 1 delegate £349.99 Birmingham 23 June 2 delegates £625.00 Central London 20 July 1 delegate £349.99 Central London 20 July 2 delegates £625.00 Manchester 15 September 1 delegate £349.99 Manchester 15 September 2 delegates £625.00 Complaints Handling Masterclass training booking now in London, Manchester and Birmingham

Complaint handling tips

You may have noticed my recent focus on sharing ideas and tips to assist you with complaints handling.  I’ve spent years working in this area.  I am passionate about customer service and part of this is great complaints resolution.  In the past few months I have had a large number of calls for help from businesses experiencing difficulties in handling complaints.  Why is it now that there is a heightened need?  The economic climate is having a huge effect on the customer psyche.  Customers are even quicker to quibble when they don’t get what they want.  So I thought I’d continue to share my ideas and tips so that you can benefit.

The advantages of good complaints handling make sound economic sense: reducing transaction time, increasing staff morale and customer repurchase rates. So try reflecting on these questions: Does your business have an excellent reputation for customer service?  Does that reputation extend to the way that you deal with customer complaints?

Do you know how many people a complainant will tell about their complaint? The answer is probably at least twenty.  Many more if they use Twitter and have a large following. So make it easy for customers to complain so that you can turn those complaints around before your customer tells someone else that they are not happy.

As a business, every complaint should be treated as important: a good definition of a complaint is “any expression of dissatisfaction’.  Even what seem like small niggles can become large complaints so it is best to nip them in the bud as quickly as possible.

To help you and your people deal with complaints as part of my series of articles on complaints handling I’ve put together three essential tips for complaints handling:

1. Connect with the emotion

Complaints often bring with them a lot of emotion.  It may even feel that this anger and frustration is directed at you.  It is unlikely that you are the target because most likely it is not personal but simply the sum of a number of frustrations over time. In the UK some people get stressed when challenging an organisation or corporate authority and this discomfort may lie behind their raised emotion.

So make sure you are listening to them.  Really listen. Write down key points.  Try not to interrupt.  Give some verbal indications to let them know that you are listening, sometimes these are known as verbal nods. Be careful if you have been trained to adopt a neutral and dead-pan tone in the hope that this will stop the emotion escalating. Often it does not. This is because the complainant will want to know they have connected with you and the importance of their complaint has been recognised.  So you want to sound: interested, concerned and keen to help not deadpan or neutral.

When you can, thank them for raising the issue.  Acknowledge their anger and frustration.  Tell them that you want to help and apologise. Sorry really is sometimes the hardest word but a well-meaning apology early in the conversation will help a great deal.

2. You’re here to help

Let the complainant know you are here to help.  Do this by summarising what they are saying.  People often feel better if they know they’ve been listened to.  You also need to ask them (if it is not obvious) how they want the problem resolved.

Your notes will help a great deal.  By summarising what they want and saying that you are here to help will assist you in getting the conversation onto a productive footing. Try to use their language back to them without being rude!

When you have summarised and explained that you want to help, ask a closed question, such as: “Thank you, I understand from what you have said that you are complaining about X and would like me to do Y to put it right”

Repeat that you are here to help and if you are asked for something that simply is not possible, apologise, give reasons why this is not an available option and then tell them what you can do for them.

3. Resolve it

Now you are onto the solution.  Having explained what you are going to do to resolve the customer’s problem, do it. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.  Make sure you give realistic timescales and make a note in your diary to follow it up.

Turn that complainant into a satisfied customer. Make sure that your good work is not undone in the follow up stages.  Having gained the confidence of the complainant be clear about what will happen next. When they will hear back? How they can check on progress if they need to do so?

If you have a range of communication channels such as phone, letter, web-chat, email then find out how they would like to hear from you.

So there it is.  It may seem easy on paper and if you want to make it easy in practice you need to make sure your people have the best training. We specialise in complaints and communication with customers. We’ve been doing that at Training To Achieve for many years and have some great experience in the UK in helping people deal with complaints.

Alison Miles-Jenkins
Training to Achieve