Posts Tagged ‘Customer Care’

Newer Entries »

16 PR Tips that No One can do for You

September 12, 2010
Answer the phone promptly

Answer the phone promptly

PR or Public Relations is all about Managing your Reputation– protecting, maintaining, building and managing your reputation.

There is nothing more valuable as a good reputation and this is about a lot more than employing a PR company.

Your reputation is every single aspect of how your business relates to the outside world, your customers, your prospects, the general public and the media. This applies equally to a small store as it does to a large store or brand.

Ok, how about 16 Tips for improving and managing your Positive Reputation (PR)

1.    Behave in an upbeat way with staff and customers
2.    Ensure your staff does the same
3.    Answer the phones promptly, politely, positively and helpfully
4.    Return missed calls promptly
5.    Return email enquiries quickly
6.    Deliver a good, friendly service to customers
7.    Handle complaints fairly and efficiently
8.    Deliver products and services on time
9.    Be polite, fair and efficient with your suppliers and staff
10.    Keep customers and prospects up to date with new products, features and services
11.    Treat your customers with respect (even if they are experiencing difficulty and are under financial pressure)
12.    Ensure that your website and all your printed materials are well laid out, with correct English,  easily understood, professional and properly reflect your business
13.    Ensure your store, premises and vehicles are kept neat and tidy
14.    Ensure the attire of your staff is in keeping with the standards of your business
15.    Ensure your staff always talk up your company and do not air grievances outside of the four walls with external people – make a pact to sort things out internally
16.    Talk up the achievements of your company and the staff working there – their talents, skills and achievements

This is not an exhaustive list – have a think about it and add another 5/10/20 points to improve your reputation even more. Even better get your team to help you with this task.

Ok, all of this is good for your business reputation, it didn’t require the intervention of third party consultants and oh yeah, it didn’t really cost a shilling – you still have your €1 left!

So far we have looked at some housekeeping reputation issues, what about behaving even more positively?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Customer Care, Marketing, PR | 2 Comments »

Chow Mein Special! – Going further to find New Business

August 29, 2010
Chinese Takeaway

Chinese Takeaway

Eventually we arrived at my sister’s holiday home in Duncannon in Wexford having spent a few hours in the car and a short ferry ride from Passage East.

A little later when we were all a little peckish and no one at all fancied cooking, someone suggested a Chinese takeaway. The menus were produced and we all picked out a dish of our choice and rang in our order. I jumped in the car with Coley, my brother in law as we were dispatched to collect the grub to satisfy the hungry bunch.

After a few minutes I was quite confused as the car was headed in the direction of the ferry. Maybe I was wrong, but I couldn’t remember passing anything that resembled a Chinese takeaway along the route we had taken earlier. Eventually we arrived at the spot where the ferry operates from and Coley suggested that we get a quick pint at the conveniently located pub.

Totally bewildered at this stage I just said nothing and proceeded to order a pint but I must admit that my stomach was starting to moan and groan as I had started to look forward to my Chow Mein Special!

In the middle of our chat about whoever Liverpool might be signing this year, Coley pipes up with “Here comes our dinner”. The penny took a while to drop but eventually I understood as the ferry approached the pier and we were greeted with the unusual sight of our Chinese friend running up the pier on foot with half a dozen bags! In he ran to the pub without saying a word, handed over the bags of food to the barman and just as quickly as he arrived he had disappeared again, just in time for the return journey!

Without blinking an eye the barman asked was the food for us and if we wanted the food kept warm for a while?  We weren’t the only customers waiting for a Chinese as there were a few other hungry souls nursing a pint until our man ran up the pier. Each bag was carefully marked with the contents and the cost – we finished our pints, claimed our bags and settled our tab with the barman and returned to the hungry mob!

At a time when we all have to dig a little deeper and get up a little earlier just to keep the show on the road it was a terrific and simple lesson in finding new customers by being a little bit creative, working with partners who might also benefit from your offering and literally looking beyond your nearest port for customers.

The Chow Mein special was really special!
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications, Marketing & PR

Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Customer Care, Irish Economy, Marketing, Recession, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Get it off your chest Online!

April 20, 2010

Have you found yourself in the frustrating position of getting absolutely nowhere with a complaint?

Now this could be on a small scale in a corner shop, at a restaurant where you have had a lousy meal or it could be against one of the big guys. The old saying goes that a bad experience travels quickly with word of mouth as we do tend to share our frustrations with friends, loved ones and anyone that will listen! If anyone is really annoyed about something they tend to share it with a lot of people.

TripAdvisor Logo

TripAdvisor

Spreading the frustration has now got much faster and easier and with a much bigger reach with the onset of the web and the powerful free tools available including Trip Advisor, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs.

These tools can work for you in that they can help get rid of that frustration and genuinely hurt the culprits but they can also help to actually resolve your issue to a satisfactory conclusion.

If your issue is with the “big guys” your activity online can really work in your favour and help to get that proper attention that you have been looking for.

The “big guys” and a lot of the smaller companies are very conscious of their reputations and are often carefully tracking what is being said about them online using tools such as Google Alerts and Twitter searches.

To demonstrate this point I will share with you a small real life example of how this worked for me.  I recently had a problem with one of our national phone service suppliers and was very quickly getting nowhere fast. After nearly 12 months of total frustration and the realisation that this problem was not being sorted out by the normal means I decided to write about my issue in my personal blog, carefully naming the offending company in a way that, if they were paying attention they would definitely notice!

Having completed my blog post I then shared the blog with my Social Media Community, my Facebook contacts, my Twitter followers and my connections and groups on Linked In.

All I had to do then was wait and see if my nothing to lose experiment would actually work ..

Within a few hours not only did I have a bucket load of responses from other people with similar complaints but I also received a call from the offending company in response to my blog issue!

Not in response to my complaint but to my blog!  To be fair to the guy calling he wanted to sort out my problem and I was able to take him through it in detail and within days the whole issue was sorted and I managed to negotiate a fair rebate, which I was told was impossible up until then.

Was this a company eager to satisfy unhappy customers or one that didn’t want to be “red-faced” online? – to be honest I didn’t really care, I finally managed to solve a problem that had been dragging on forever.

The lesson in all of this is that if you require it, you have a very powerful and effective voice available to you online if you choose to use the  tools available , to make your point.

However this can be a double edged sword!

Exactly the same can apply to your own business and you should pay attention to what is being said about you online.  Use the simple to use tools such as Google Alerts and Twitter Search and hear first hand about the good, the bad and the ugly!

If it’s good then highlight the unprompted testimonials on your website and in your newsletters and presentations. If it’s bad or it gets ugly then deal with the problem and don’t be afraid to share how you solved the issue online. Use the issue as an opportunity to show you genuinely care about your customers.

There is no hiding place online!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Customer Care, Irish Economy, Marketing, Social Media, Web Marketing | Leave a Comment »

Eircom Business – Are you listening to your customers (part 2)

February 8, 2010
Eircom Business

Eircom Business

This is a really strange one.

If you recall on my last blog on this issue I was sharing a huge frustration that I was having with Eircom Business for quite a while and quite politely getting nowhere fast.

I am not sure if this is good or bad? – Eircom actually responded literally within hours – ‘to my blog’ and not to my actual complaint.

The caller from Eircom Customer services, quite a nice lad Vince wanted to know in detail the nature of my complaint – this I guess is good?

Eircom cared enough to track what was being said by customers online and responded by tracking me down and listening to what I had to say.

On the negative side you must wonder why the ‘official’ channels don’t seem to work as well as the ‘online’ and unofficial public channels.

The issue still isn’t resolved, which is quite staggering, but I did get a response, which I guess is hopeful at least.

I will keep you posted ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Customer Care, Marketing | Leave a Comment »

Eircom Business Customer Service!

February 4, 2010
Eircom Business

Eircom Business

I am sure that I am not the first to have experienced lousy customer service but I just have to blog about Eircom. At a time when we are all busting a gut to get by, delivering excellent customer service it astounds me how some companies can get away with the total opposite.

Without going into the blow by blow of the story they made a total shambles of a simple leasing agreement on a phone system and put us on a careless business tariff that had us paying about €300/400 too much every month. This went on for over a year – I was offered a credit of €200.

Read on …. the text of my last email to them (lets see if they are listening to their customers online: I will circulate the blog on LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter)

email: 4th Feb 2010

Hi Padraic,

This is going from bad to worse ..

In response to your efforts to get this sorted on your side I received a call yesterday from a ‘Debbie’ in Eircom.

While very pleasant and courteous she seemed to be quite junior. She politely explained that her credit jurisdiction did not extend beyond €200 and if I wanted to achieve something more than this I would have to make an ‘official complaint’!

Aaaaaahhhhhhh …. what in the name of god is going on at Eircom.

In fairness to Debbie she saw the funny side and acknowledged that what was going on and my steady flow of correspondence did qualify me as ‘a complainer’. She totally empathised with me and promised that someone with some sort of authority would call me back in half an hour.

I needn’t tell you that I never received a call from anyone.

Officially ‘This is a complaint’ to Eircom and not me writing for the fun of it.

I would appreciate some action please.

Regards,

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion Communications

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Customer Care, Marketing, Recession, Retailing | 5 Comments »

Newer Entries »