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Management Lessons from a Car Wash Guy - Click To Read Article
If you’re serious about strengthening customer loyalty, consider this management lesson I learned from an odd source - a car wash attendant. It’s an easy customer service concept that may change the course of your business.
The Humility Advantage - Click To Read Article
Discover how less ego create more sales
30 Seconds to Significant Sales - How to upsell without turning off your customer - Click To Read Article
Business owners and managers often feel pressured by increasing global competition. Ironically, they are missing massive amounts of potential revenues in their own backyards. By training employees on ethical, effective ways to 'up-sell,' managers can generate quantum increases in profits without price-cutting or advertising. The bonus is that these techniques are easy and take less than 30 seconds to apply.
Phrases that Pay - Simple Statements that Increase your Perceived Value - Click To Read Article
The conventional wisdom about providing great service is that employees must have an attitude that bubbles with enthusiasm. But in the real world of upset customers, long hours, and stress, employee enthusiasm occasionally fizzles. "Phrases that Pay" reveals several ways for employees to sound more helpful and professional even when they're not having a zipity-do-dah day.
Are you too Busy to be Productive? Why customers shouldn’t be your first priority - Click To Read Article
Time is a leader's most precious resource. When used wisely, a leader's time will serve to increase profits, boost morale, and serve the greater interests of society. However, as managers face more interruptions, shorter time frames, and increasingly demanding customers, what's needed are some guidelines on how to optimize your time.
10 Ways to Break it to them Gently - Diplomacy tips that keep customers - Click To Read Article
The task of giving bad news goes with almost every job. Employees may have to inform their customers of a price increase, of a product being out-of stock, or that their children aren't allowed to use the company's coat racks for rappelling practice. Employees facing these scenarios worry that the customer could become defensive, offended, or worst of all -- simply take their business elsewhere. That's a scenario where everyone loses. Employees get stressed, absenteeism and turnover increases, and customer retention plummets. Fortunately, there is hope.
Yes, I Mind Waiting - 10 ways to reduce lineup stress for staff and customers - Click To Read Article
Most managers' idea of dealing with a sudden lineup of customers is to simply have the staff work harder and faster. The problem is that employees soon get tired and begin making errors -- which takes more time to fix later-on. Worse, employees under stress can become irritable with customers -- which destroys repeat business. "Yes, I Mind Waiting" reveals 10 ways to manage lineups without making the staff work at full speed.
7 Keys to Creating a Customer Focused Culture - Click To Read Article
* Describes the problem of de-motivated employees and how mission statements - that were touted as being the great saviors of workplace culture - have fallen short.
* Outlines a new management concept called CAST Meetings. The idea was developed by Jeff Mowatt after 10 years of working with organizations that face this challenge.
* Describes how, within the first year of using this method, one organization improved employee morale noticeably, increased worker productivity by 34% and reduced customer complaints by 400%.
Creating a Customer Feeding Frenzy - 4 tools that make you simply irresistible - Click To Read Article
Customers hate to be sold to, but they love to buy. The problem is that most customer-contact employees focus their attention on trying to sell, when instead they should be stimulating the customer's natural urge to buy. "Creating a Customer Feeding Frenzy" provides four ethical ways to stimulate emotional buying behavior.
For Openers - Five greetings that boost sales to walk-in visitors - Click To Read Article
When it comes to first impressions, customers are reluctant to give a second chance to companies whose employees turn them off the first time. Unfortunately, front line employees often greet customers in a way that ruins the first impression, reduces sales, and eliminates repeat business. "For Openers" gives 5 greetings that are proven to boost business.
Getting your Foot in the Door - 7 steps to successful cold-calling - Click To Read Article
The most common concern managers express about their salespeople is that they're not doing enough cold-calling. The reason can often be traced to the fact that salespeople are not properly trained on the how-to's of cold-calling. The result is they use ineffective approaches and frequently get slapped with rejection. So, instead of cold-calling, sales people occupy their time with 'safer' activities like visiting with current customers and order taking. With the huge potential for boosting market share sales through cold-calling, salespeople need these simple step-by-step techniques to dramatically enhance their success ratio.
Grand Intentions to Greater Sales - Click To Read Article
You’ve probably noticed that today’s consumer is better educated, streetwise, and, frankly, more cynical about other people’s motives than ever before. Consumers seem to be taking the advice that parents give their children: “Come straight home, and don’t talk to strangers!” Beyond telling employees to be friendly with customers, managers need to equip their staff with tools for establishing trust. Expressing your Grand Intention is an easy way to break through the barriers.
Keeping Customers when Things Go Wrong - Five keys to turning upset customers into fans - Click To Read Article
When attempting to resolve customer complaints, most business owners and managers believe the myth that money back guarantees and/or exchange policies will fix the problem. In reality, money back guarantees and exchanges may fix the problem, but they do nothing to fix the relationship. Policies don't fix relationships -- people do. To create true customer loyalty then, front-line employees need to be equipped with tools for repairing both the problem and the relationship.
Making Connections - How to create rapport with anyone in under 30 seconds - Click To Read Article
Society is becoming increasingly diverse and global. That means that we are communicating more frequently with people who are different -- in their looks, dress, manner of speech, and even mood. "Making Connections" reveals a fast and easy way to establish rapport with others despite the differences.
Are your People Problems really the issue? Take this mini-quiz - Click To Read Article
Take this mini-quiz to find out if your problems involving attitudes and teamwork are actually just symptoms of flawed infrastructures.
Speed Kills - The service standard that does more harm than good - Click To Read Article
As a business owner or manager, you have probably heard management experts refer to the importance of service standards for frontline employees. The idea is that managers should give customer-contact people a performance goal or service standard by which they can be measured and rewarded. Sounds good in theory. Unfortunately, over my years as a consultant and business advisor, and as a customer myself, I find that some service standards are not only ineffective, they are actually counterproductive. I wonder if this may be the case in your organization...
Test your Telephone Effectiveness - Find out if your phone practices are winning or losing customers - Click To Read Article
Test your telephone know-how with this 5 question multiple-choice quiz to identify your telephone effectiveness, and that of your co-workers. Discover the 'correct' answers with strategies for enhancing telephone greetings, using the hold feature, juggling a caller and in-person visitor, and more.
The Shocking Truth about your Image - Four bizarre reasons customers may not like you - Click To Read Article
We are surrounded by a popular culture that embraces freedom of expression. Ironically, in the business world, freedom of expression is the last thing customers want when dealing with front line employees. The result is employees are inadvertently offending customers and turning away business without realizing what they're doing wrong. "The Shocking Truth about your Image" reveals four of the most common blunders and what to do to prevent them.
The Myth of Treating People Fairly and Equally - Click To Read Article
I'll just come right-out and say it. I believe that treating customers fairly and equally is a mistake. It's unprofitable. It belittles customers and employees. And it's unethical. There, I've said it...
When Talking to Strangers - Click To Read Article
Discover three reasons potential customers may distrust you or your employees.
When the Cat’s Away - Click To Read Article
Getting better front-line decisions - without you
When you’re the Top Dog - Three keys to leading like a professional - Click To Read Article
Judging by the way we elect some of our political leaders, you'd think that the three most important qualities for leadership are: popularity, an outgoing personality, and loyalty to your supporters. Coincidentally, these just happen to be three characteristics that are often used to describe the average family dog. Hence, there's much more to effective leadership than what's often perceived on the surface.
How not to Plan your Company’s Future - 5 common mistakes when identifying customer needs - Click To Read Article
When managers plan their business strategies, common sense dictates that these game-plans should be in line with customer needs. The first step in planning is therefore to identify customer preferences. Unfortunately, most conventional approaches to determining customer needs are flawed. Here are five of the most common methods used to gather customer opinions along with their drawbacks. Keep these often-made mistakes in mind when planning your business strategy...
Chili and Your Intuition - 8 ingredients for making better strategic decisions - Click To Read Article
As a business owner or manager, what you ultimately rely on most when deciding your company’s future, is your intuition. The challenge with so many stakeholders relying on you to make the ‘right’ decision, is ensuring that your instincts are reliable. Effective leaders hone their intuition the way a chef cooks a pot of chili. Like chili, intuition needs to include the right ingredients and then be allowed to simmer a while. Here are eight ingredients for you to stew on...
Tea and the Secrets of Staff Retention - Click To Read Article
Staff retention a concern? That’s particularly a challenge for frontline jobs that are considered to be boring. Today’s employees do indeed want something more – and it isn’t just money. According to the landmark studies in employee motivation spearheaded by Dr. Kenneth Kovach at George Mason University, the number one motivator for employees is interesting work. The real trick is how an employer makes a boring job more interesting. The secret lies in the tea ceremony…
Telus’ Leadership Lesson in Brand Mismanagement - Click To Read Article
Telus, Canada’s second largest phone company, decided to be the first wireless provider to offer to sell downloads of pornographic images and videos. I’ll leave it to others to debate the morality of pornography on the Internet. The issue I want to tackle is how ‘leadership’ in such a large company decided this was a good business decision…
Becoming The Employer of Choice - How to boost staff loyalty - without buying it - Click To Read Article
With regional labour shortages intensifying, some managers are struggling to keep even mediocre employees. Unfortunately, far too many managers figure the only way to gain staff loyalty is to buy it. That’s a myth – and it’s an excuse that you shouldn’t accept of yourself or other managers. Of course money is important – but there is another way to gain employee loyalty that doesn’t cost a thing...
Staffing Shortages? Maybe You’re the Problem - Click To Read Article
Demographers are predicting that staffing shortages are only going to worsen in the coming years. Too many managers mistakenly assume the only way to keep people is to bite the bullet and pay more in salaries, benefits and perks. Unfortunately, those managers are often 'fixing' the wrong problem. Marcus Buckingham of the Gallop organization reported that the number one reason employees quit was their personal feelings about their immediate supervisor. Ask yourself if it's time your company took measures to fix the real problem when it comes to staff turnover - managers and supervisors are not equipped with the necessary skills to make their team members feel valued...
Making Attitude Adjustments - Improving customers service behaviors other than replacing people - Click To Read Article
Not long ago, if a customer service employee fouled-up, he or she was warned, then if improvements didn't happen, was shown the door. In today's workplace however, where it's so difficult just maintaining staffing levels, dismissal doesn't really fix the problem - it just changes the problem. That means it's more important than ever for managers to be able to confront unacceptable employee behaviors without causing the person to simply walk out and get a job elsewhere. Next time one of your frontline employees needs an attitude adjustment, consider these tips...
Managing Multiple Priorities - How to juggle customers, projects, and admin – and still have a life - Click To Read Article
It may be a popular advertising slogan - our customers are our number one priority. As a manager however, buying into that strategy will actually reduce your effectiveness and damage your business. I learned this the hard way...
Buying Trends – the Shift to Hassle-Free - Click To Read Article
You may have noticed a shift in recent years in what it takes to satisfy customers. Customers are now making buying decisions less on the quality of an organization’s products and services, and more on the quality of the buying experience itself. If you’re a business owner or manager, this trend offers both risk and opportunity. To ensure that your organization profits from this shift in customer loyalty, consider a recent history of buying behaviors…
Risky Business - How repeat customers may jeopardize your future - Click To Read Article
When I speak at conferences and corporate meetings about customer service I often hear managers reminding their team members about the importance of repeat business. The assumption is that if customers keep spending their money with you, they must like you. But is that really true? Many business owners and managers are unaware of the harsh reality that some folks who spend their money with your organization may not enjoy doing business with you at all. The consequences of this can be staggering. Consider the example of my local video store...
How to Work Less and Get More Done - Click To Read Article
In the days before email, the most pervasive interruption for the average manager was a ringing phone. Now that email is everywhere, including our PDAs, managers receive literally dozens if not hundreds of messages/interruptions/distractions every day. The problem gets worse as employees who are sending email messages within a company can easily send copies, no matter how trivial, to everyone else - including to other managers. The end result is that with the advent of email it's easy for a manager to spend an entire day reacting to other people's priorities. That's why I when it comes to a manager's productivity, email is the silent killer. The good news is some managers have learned to get past the clutter...
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Related Businesses - Evan Elite Authors |
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Leanne Hoagland Smith
Are your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales success or one of the many who have failed to change? So what are you doing to change those results? Let’s be honest, with companies moving globally and at lightening speeds, the traditional business solutions are outdated and dead. My approach moves your business out of its comfort zone and secures your competitive advantage now. If you are seeking to increase sales, build customer loyalty, create a culture of great attitudes or just achieve some sleep filled nights, then we should talk because my clients have experienced exactly those types of results. Learn more about customer loyalty at http://www.processspecialist.com/customer-loyalty.htm Give me a call at 219.759.5601 for a free strategy session. P.S. If you are seeking a motivational speaker, sales trainer or small business expert that will leave your audience smiling and remembering, please feel free to contact me at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland Smith's Website |
The Evan Elite Authors program is currently in beta phase. For details please contact us.
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Jeff Mowatt
(Visit Jeff's Website)
Jeff Mowatt, B.Comm., CSP is an
award-winning professional speaker,
customer service strategist, and
bestselling author of, Becoming a Service
Icon in 90 Minutes a Month. His Influence
with Ease® column has been syndicated and
featured in over 200 business publications
including Canadian Manager, HR Reporter,
and Commerce and Industry. He has worked
with thousands of leaders, professionals,
and front-line employees on enhancing the
service and sales culture and boosting
results with customers. Jeff heads his own
training company and his clients include
some of the most admired corporations in
North America including: Home Depot, Shell
Canada, CIBC, and WestJet.
The Influence with Ease® approach that
Jeff shares with audiences is effortlessly
professional. Spiced with humour and
dramatic examples, audiences discover how
to engender more trust, feel more
motivated, and enhance influence with just
about anyone. It's powerful, and it's
profitable.
To obtain your own copy of his book or to
inquire about engaging Jeff for your team,
visit www.jeffmowatt.
com or call 1-800-JMowatt (566-9288).
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Jeff Mowatt's
Complete
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