How Harley-Davidson got started, what led to their success, and what you can learn from them to help you grow!
Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details.
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
We know that there are two kinds of customers: Internal and External. Internal customers are the people with whom we work – and we rely on them to help us meet the company’s objectives. What do we do, when internal customer relations go awry? The principles of providing exceptional customer service do not change when dealing with internal customers, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that the people in our workplace are our customers too! The basic needs of a customer are especially important to remember and implement when considering your co-workers.
The Six Needs of a Customer are:
1. To be informed
2. To be in control
3. To have choices
4. For customer service reps to be friendly,
5. Knowledgeable, and
6. Attentive
Are you keeping your internal customers in the know? You may think you don’t have time to talk to everyone in your office or place of business about what is going on, but uniformed customers are unhappy and uncooperative customers. Hold a brief team meeting to bring everyone up to speed. Take a few moments to jot down a memo, or send out an email to keep people updated. With everyone on the same page, work will flow more smoothly.
Are you telling your co-workers or staff what to do and how to do it? Or are you explaining to them what needs to be done, then empowering them to find the best way to accomplish the goal? Do you collaborate as a team, or is every man an island to himself? Remember customers need to feel in control, and this is no different for the workers in your organization. You can facilitate that feeling by giving direction, then enabling your staff to do what they do best.
Offer choices. While it is important to delegate tasks, most people don’t appreciate having work delegated to them without their input or consent. You can avoid being the target of resentment by explaining what needs to be done, then asking for help. A true team will evaluate the task at hand, and those with the expertise AND the time available will typically step up. Should this not happen, don’t panic! Explain that you realize everyone is swamped, and ask the question, “How can we get this done without any one person feeling overwhelmed?” Engage the team in problem solving, and together, you will work out a viable solution.
If your attitude is something like this, “I don’t have time to be friendly for the sake of some sensitive co-worker’s feelings”, then you are violating Customer Need number four. Just as your external customers appreciate a smile, a friendly greeting, or a kind word of encouragement, so do your internal customers. Friendliness breeds more of the same, and builds loyalty as well as the willingness to cooperate.
People rely on you to help them get their jobs done. When they come to you with questions, is your most common answer, “I don’t know”? Customers need you to be in the know. Your ability to intelligently answer internal customer inquiries establishes their trust in you as a knowledgeable, competent member of the team. This is especially true if you are in a management role. It is your responsibility to be on top of the information your internal customers need to know. If you honestly don’t know the answer to something, reply with, “I’ll find out for you.” Then, ensure that you follow through on that promise in order to maintain your credibility.
One of the most fundamental service delivery standards in customer service is that of making eye contact with a customer within the first 3 to 7 seconds. How often does it happen though, that in a workplace co-workers pass each other without so much as a hello? Customers who feel ignored tend to develop a sense of indifference or general dislike towards the offending service provider. Over 60% of all external customers who leave a service provider do so because of that sense of indifference! Without attentive service to your internal customers, you could experience high staff turnover, discontent amongst your team, and uncooperative staff members. Isn’t it amazing what a little acknowledgement can do?
CRM is not just about maintaining databases, touching your external customers every so often, remembering their names, and upselling. It is so much more than that, and begins within the walls of your organization. I...
For a manager to develop, organize and motivate their employees is pretty much the most important job they have, to ensure progress and profit. Everyone in the team needs to really comprehend their role and how it s...
Sam Walton of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has been quoted as having said it takes just seven days for new employees to start treating customers the way they are treated at work. All the customer service skills and training...
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
Accessible Business Consultants
Dave Turkin, President, of Accessible Business Consultants is a full service business consultant that has over 32 years of experience working with small-medium size businesses. Dave has designed and implemented numerous business and marketing plans, designed internal programs for accounting and operational procedures. He has analyzed businesses and prepared strategic plans setting budgets for growth, expansion and business restructuring.
He currently sits on the Board of Directors of various corporations as an advisor. For many years he has been the Business Coach to many executives offering advice and guidance from old and established companies as well as new companies just getting started.
Dave has the ability to analyze a business quickly and get a strong indication as to the necessary steps to improve operations, productivity and profitability. - Visit Accessible Business Consultants's Website
Dave Kurlan
Dave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development.
Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit.
He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine.
He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball.
He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website
Dr. John Oda
John Oda Ph.D NLP is a business peak performance expert, an author, and speaker frequently called upon to provide corporate training, workshops and seminars for many companies in the United States. He is an expert in coaching sales and business professionals in overcoming the behaviors and obstacles that may impede their sales results and affect their bottom line. Since 1995, John has created a speaking bureau such topics, which include: time management, sales training, human diversity, leadership programs and etc. He provides companies with a strategic plan to increase their bottom line by over 25 percent yearly. - Visit Dr. John Oda's Website
The Evan Elite Authors program is currently in beta phase. For details please contact us.
Julie Christiansen
(Visit Julie's Website)
An internationally recognized speaker, and
published author, Julie Christiansen
htbrings over 15 years experience in group
and individual counseling, to your
boardroom. Branded as “Oprah for the
Office” by some of her clients, Julie
educates and entertains audiences
throughout Canada, the United States, and
the Caribbean. While she has been compared
to the likes of Brian Tracy and Jack
Canfield, Julie has an energetic,
humourous, and insightful style that is
all her own. Julie has successfully merged
her previous career with her passion for
helping teams attain peak performance and
productivity through enhanced
communication models. Her aim is to help
her clients to attain optimized Workplace
Effectiveness, with a focus on team
development, communication, anger and
stress management. Julie's new book,
Stress Less in 27 Days is now available!
To order your copy, visit www.angerso
lution.com. To learn more about her
Extreme Team Survival programs, email: info@
angersolution.com or visit Julie's
website www.angersol
ution.com
Crazy Busy - EvanCarmichael.com expert Julie Christiansen discusses how workplace stress, violence, and turnover is sucking the financial life out of North American Business (BILLIONS of dollars per year). If that ain't crazy - what is?