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Empower Frontline Staff To Improve Customer Satisfaction

By on Tuesday, June 7th, 2011 | No Comments

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Empower Frontline Staff To Improve Customer Satisfaction

Empower Frontline Staff To Improve Customer Satisfaction

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Home Page > Business > Team Building > Empower Frontline Staff To Improve Customer Satisfaction

Empower Frontline Staff To Improve Customer Satisfaction

Posted: Jun 23, 2010 |Comments: 0
| Views: 241 |

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A young man working for a Big Boss made an expensive mistake his first week on the job. At the end of the week the young man cleaned out his desk and packed up his things to leave.

The big boss asked, “And just what do you think you are doing now?” “I’m leaving,” said the young man. “I made such an expensive mistake, surely you don’t want me to come back here again next week.”

“Are you kidding?” exclaimed the Big Boss. “I just spent a small fortune educating you. You’d better come back next week and show me what you learned.”

(Does this make sense to you? If so, read on to find out why this can improve customer satisfaction…)

Have you ever asked a frontline service provider for something special and been told, “Sorry, company policy. The answer is NO!” Doesn’t do much to improve customer satisfaction, does it? Have you ever asked to speak with the supervisor and found the answer soon changed to YES?

When this happens (and it does all over the world) how do you feel about the company? Do you respect the organization more, or less? Does it improve your customer satisfaction? How do you feel about the supervisor? Do you admire their use of authority, or feel pity for the frontline staff they overrule? How do you think the frontline service provider feels? (And whose rule was he following in the first place when he said, “The answer is NO?”)

One supervisor took this problem a step further and asked me the following question:

Dear Ron,

In our business, customers who get special treatment come back later and they only want to speak with a supervisor and no one else. These customers have lots of friends and tell everybody. I am afraid everyone will want the same special treatment.

In the end we would have no need for counter clerks as the supervisors would be serving all our customers! This might make the customers happy, and that is our ultimate goal, but it would be too much for our supervisors to handle. We have plenty of other work to do! How can we solve this situation?

Here is my answer: Companies should empower frontline staff to do what the supervisor ultimately does, without having to check with the supervisor each and every time. This means staff must get training to know what’s right – and have authority to do what’s right to improve customer satisfaction.

It means supervisors must trust their staff to do the right thing at the right time and not abuse the privilege. It also means frontline staff must learn the skills required – and earn the trust desired. Consistency will improve customer satisfaction.

This approach shifts the supervisor into the role of educator and motivator rather than controller and dominator. It’s a huge change of mindset and culture in any organization, but it can improve customer satisfaction.

And it’s the right thing to do for two reasons: One: The experience customers have with your company must be positive and uplifting, or they won’t come back. If your customer must get in touch with a supervisor to get satisfaction, more flexible competitors may take your customer away simply by working to improve customer satisfaction where you have not.

If, however, you can please your customers, inspire your customers, and make your customers feel welcome in a non-bureaucratic way, their desire to come back (and tell others) will grow. In short, your efforts to improve customer satisfaction will have worked.

This is essential for successful business in today’s fast-changing and customer-centric world. Improve customer satisfaction and businesses tend to thrive.

Two: The cost of staff doing robotic work (and referring every exception to the supervisor) is simply too high to sustain. Companies that invest wisely in appropriate training will do far better than those who overspend on high levels of supervisory staff. An overload of supervisors isn’t necessary to improve customer satisfaction.

Customers get smarter every day. So smart companies provide self-service tools for most basic needs. Well-trained frontline staff should spend their time helping new customers get acquainted and assisting repeat customers with any special situations to improve customer satisfaction.

This makes sense, it makes money and it will improve customer satisfaction.

The next time you need to go beyond the frontline staff to get what you want from a supervisor, ask yourself this question: “Would you rather go to another business if the staff in that organization could say ‘yes’ to you in the first place?”

If so, let the first business know what it takes to improve customer satisfaction. And if they still won’t empower their staff, then get up and go!

Key Learning Points

Give your frontline team the training and authority they need to take care of customers without constantly asking for approval. This will help you build your business, improve customer satisfaction and keep your most able staff loyal and growing.

Action Steps

Make a complete list of everything your frontline staff cannot do to improve customer satisfaction without getting a supervisor’s permission. (Hint: ask your frontline staff to make the list.) Now scrutinize the items one by one and do everything you can to make the list simpler and shorter. Where staff can be trained to decide for themselves, train them. Where guidelines are needed, provide them. If mistakes will be made, allow for them. Over time, everyone can learn to do what only the supervisor used to do and improve customer satisfaction along the way.

Empowerment is simple, really. Give good staff the authority to make a decision and tell them to use their common sense to improve customer satisfaction. If they bring a situation to you that they should handle themselves, turn it back to them. If they make a good decision, pat them on the back. If they make a bad decision, pat them on the back for doing something and then help everyone learn from the mistake.

One more thing: Leaving things as they are is not an option for success. Your best staff will leave in frustration, your customers will leave for better service elsewhere, and you will be right where you were at the beginning, making all the decisions…alone.

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Ron Kaufman -
About the Author:

Ron Kaufman is the world’s leading educator and motivator for uplifting service culture. He is author of the bestselling UP Your Service! books and founder of UP Your Service! College. Read articles and tips about how to improve customer satisfaction at RonKaufman.com or upyourservice.com.

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Article Tags:
improve customer experience, customer service, improve customer satisfaction

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12 Top Traffic Conversion Secrets

By on Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 | No Comments

12 Top Traffic Conversion Secrets

Well, it is if you pay attention to the details. Here are 12 traffic conversion secrets that even a newcomer to Internet marketing can do:

1) Refine your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). What makes your product different, special, better or more desirable? That’s the USP. Now get the answer to that question down to one or two concise sentences. People want to know how your product will benefit them.

2) Sound friendly, not slick. Your sales copy needs to sound like one friend excited to tell another friend about a great buy. Avoid sounding like a high-pressure infomercial. People buy from those that they know and trust.

3)Ask for help. Give the viewers a reason to interact with you by asking for their opinion on a survey or product rating. You get useful information and keep them thinking about your product longer.

4) Simplify the offering. If you have three different products to sell, use three websites. Don’t make the mistake of trying to offer too much at once. This might work for major retailers, but they already have a brand and a following. The harder you make it for your customers to navigate your site…the quicker they will click away from your site.

5) Leave some open space. Prepare a sales page that’s easy to read with wide margins. You don’t have to fill every inch. Leaving some white space helps the reader to better focus on the copy. Keep the paragraphs short and keep the character count around 60-70 per line.

6) Brag openly. If your product has a good rating or endorsements from satisfy buyers, then let them brag about the product for you. Testimonials are one of the best ways to sell your product or service. It gives you instant credibility and trust.

7) Cast with plenty of bait. In your sales letter and squeeze page, put out the ‘bait’ for your offer over and over. Don’t skimp on bait. Better too many offers than not enough to convert that buyer who is still uncertain. But there again, don’t have so much going on that it confuses people.

Find problems. Even after your sales page is complete, keep thinking about other problems that your product can solve. You might get a hint of new ways to promote your product by asking buyers how they use the product.

9) Use moderate highlighting. Yes, highlights draw visual attention but too many highlights or excessive colors frustrate online readers. Highlight a few words in a statement so that if they only read the highlighted words, they could understand the main point you’re trying to get over.

10) Package deals are popular. After presenting your USP, sweeten the offer with a package including several free items as part of the ‘Buy Now’ deal. Limited time offers create a sense of urgency for the buyer to act. You can also use roller coaster pricing…have the price go up every sale or an allotted time period. This also creates a sense of urgency.

11) Ask for the order. An old principle of sales that must never be ignored – ask for the order, ask again then ask again. You can’t ask too many times. Place an ‘order now’ link or button through out your sales copy.

12) Say ‘Thank you.’ Have a gracious, personal sounding, ‘Thank you’ email with the order confirmation. It never hurts to show good manners and buyer appreciation! You can also offer an ‘unadvertised bonus’ just for paying customers. Make sure it’s full of value and the highest quality, and they will be eager to do business with you again and again.

Find out what keywords relating to your niche market that people are searching for, and you’ll have eager customers ready to buy. High search counts – low competition – means higher profits for you!

Ron Richardson is an online entrepreneur and consultant.
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By on Monday, September 13th, 2010 | 2 Comments

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Assessing the benefits of health research: lessons from research into the use of antenatal corticosteroids for the prevention of neonatal respiratory distress … [An article from: Social Science & Medicine] Reviews

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Errors in Internet Marketing – Top 5 Mistakes Internet Marketing Newbies Make

By Success Analyst on Monday, April 20th, 2009 | No Comments

If what began as an internet marketer can be a bit overwhelmed by all there is to know about Internet marketing. Wanting to succeed online is one thing, knowing how and what to avoid is another. If you want to succeed online, knowing these top 5 Internet marketing mistakes made by novice and never forget. I guarantee you will be miles ahead of your competition.

Internet Marketing Mistake # 1: no action

The number one reason internet marketers have failed to succeed online is to never start. In order to make a sale you have to take action and get the product you are promoting in front of your audience.

No matter how much you know about internet marketing, product creation, customer service or any other aspect. If you do not have a product to sell and do not put a product on a website for your audience to find, that will never make a sale – no matter what. My point is that if you do nothing, will win nothing. Take action!

Internet Marketing Mistake # 2: wanting to be PERFECT

Another rookie mistake in Internet marketing which is what they want to be perfect. Just another adjustment here, another there and modify. If you always wait for your products and websites to be perfect, always will be waiting.

It has to be perfect. Ask yourself, Does the page to serve its purpose? Does it look like the product and the website can sell? So, do not need any adjustment.

Avoid the mistake in marketing want to be prefect and to double if not triple their income by the year!

Error Internet Marketing # 3: fear that we do not know enough

This marketing mistake often goes hand in hand with Internet Marketing Mistake # 1. Many new Internet marketers are afraid they do not know enough to succeed. Therefore, no action yet.

Do not be afraid! If it’s any consolation, you never know all there is to know about Internet marketing. Know and learn more about Internet Marketing is an ongoing process. You learn more on the fly. The best tactic is to apply what you know. Learn from your mistakes and improve on that next time.

This leads to the error number 4 …

Internet Marketing Mistake # 4: THE FEAR OF FAILURE

This may be one of the biggest marketing mistakes that keeps internet marketing newbie again more than any other error. They fear that if the market for a product will fail. How could you fail when you know something the market have not tried yet?

If – and only if – do not try, failure is guaranteed.

In fact, no such thing as failure. If something fails, it means you have to make minor changes for next time. Failure is all I thought that all Internet marketers great way to not promote. It is an Internet Marketing success that has continued to promote a product or service at least once. New Internet marketing, and even large Internet marketers, not much. It is part of the process.

Try – take a risk – and if it does not stick, ‘pick up’ and move on.

Internet Marketing Mistake # 5: MARKETING IMPERSONAL

I see many, many internet marketing newbies launch a website (sometimes complete product and sales promotions) that lack a privacy policy, contact form, and most importantly, a personal reference and introduction of who you are and why you can help others as an expert in your field.

People tend to buy more readily when the trust is buying. Building trust is key to online success as an internet marketer. Get yourself known as the expert in your niche / target market. People trust experts. People believe (rightly or wrongly) that it would not have “experts” unless you know what you’re doing. If you are serious about building your business based on trust with your audience through a personal connection with them. Add a photo of himself, and a short description of who you are, some or all of its website, is the least we should do!

Now that you know the 5 biggest mistakes in Internet marketing, I advise you act accordingly. He is miles ahead of its competition and the track to online success. I guarantee!

Introduction and action are its top priorities. Do not try to be perfect. Do not be afraid to make mistakes, but try to learn from them and improve them later. And the most convenient, build trust with their customers. You’ll get more repeat visitors and therefore more sales.

Yves Barneveld wants you to learn how to successfully market your business online, and follow highly profitable advice shared by 100s of other authors on http://SmallArticles.com – With over 800 articles in the Internet Marketing Articles Category alone, there’s a strong chance they have an answer to what you want to know about Internet Marketing right now. Welcome to SmallArticles Article Directory!

Author: Yves Barneveld
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera News

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Empower Frontline Staff To Improve Customer Satisfaction

Through the Customer’s Eyes – Module 4 – Essential Customer Service Skills, Part II – Product Knowledge, Questioning Techniques, Providing Information and Creating Trust – Core Skills That Will Enhance Customer Satisfaction

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