Depending on which survey you read, it is difficult to discern if Chevrolet and Ford have surpassed Toyota or still lag behind in sales. According to Edmunds.com, a popular automotive network newsletter where you can also buy and sell new and used cars, Ford increased 35% this past month. Snowstorms in the Northeast kept many buyers out of the showrooms in February, so the numbers may not be accurate.

So how are the Toyota representatives putting the giant back together again? After all, Toyota has had the most complaints about rogue gas pedal car acceleration over a 5 year period, and 52 people have died in sudden acceleration crashes in Toyota vehicles since the year 2000. Jim Lentz, President and Chief Operating Officer of Toyota Motor Sales stated, “We’re committed to doing everything we can – as fast as we can- to restore consumer trust in Toyota, and these recalls are part of this effort.” Toyota has promised more stringent quality control, more investigations into customer complaints, and a quicker response time when identifying safety issues, and has apologized to consumers and loyal customers repeatedly. Car dealerships have staff working 24/7 to repair and replace parts, and local and national television commercials have been launched reiterating customer loyalty.

Bob Carter, group vice president and general manager of Toyota Motor Sales, USA stated, “We launched this program to expand the focus on our customers, and thank them for their loyalty by adding value to our products.” And with that promise, Toyota introduced new financing programs and incentives offering 0% financing on popular models, low lease rates, and complimentary 2 year premium maintenance programs.

It will be interesting to follow Toyota’s rise and fall; will they be able to regain their giant market share and their once stellar reputation as a car manufacturer that provided reliability, durability, and safety? It’s not over yet; the hypersensitive press and public are waiting.

photo credit: ThreadedThoughts

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Being kind is the one of the most important aspects of customer service. If you are a techie and you only like dealing with technology, do your business a favor and hire a “people person.” Even though they might not have the technical skills, people do business with people they like and not always the most experienced. The more technical problems can be handled by a separate department. Try to keep the customer service representatives in the house; in other words do not outsource.  Of course, the company might save labor costs, but it could end up costing the company customers. Training employees with efficient programs, using mentors to help employees handle customer service requests, and learning the culture of the company can provide the tools to keep the customer as the top priority. HostGator, a leading web hosting company based in Houston, tried outsourcing for a year, but language and cultural differences created such a gap that the company felt they were losing their “personal touch.”

Listen to what your customers are telling you. What company doesn’t want free advice? After all you might spend hundreds or thousands of dollars attending seminars on customer service, but listening to what customers have to say might make a difference. Always let the customer finish speaking, and take their suggestions seriously. Never rush a client through a service call; that is the easiest way to send your client packing to one of your competitors. Put yourself in their shoes and give them what you would expect.

Show respect for your customers, and don’t give a customer a reason to leave unhappily. If a customer wants a refund despite everything that you have done to rectify and solve their problem, by all means return their money. It’s not worth the bad publicity. Also make sure that your staff is familiar with new promotions and sales. Increase the staff when needed and anticipate the high volume times so customers don’t have to wait on “hold” or have to wait for “live help.” If the host company deals with international clients, have service representatives who speak foreign languages.

And by all means, show respect by your actions. If a customer leaves a phone message or an email, get back to them quickly. If you can show you appreciate and value your customers, then you are delivering customer service.

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The fine line between creativity and communication makes the message memorable. The offbeat humor fits the quirky culture of Zappos.  After all, CEO Tony Hsieh encourages his customer service representatives to make a Personal Emotional Connection. The culture of the company is what the company is all about, and as new employees train with two weeks of classroom training and two weeks of practical knowledge answering customer calls, they are offered money to the tune of $1000 to quit if they feel they do not fit with the culture. Employees who decide to stay within the company are much more invested in their loyalties, and with Hsieh’s mission which is to “provide the best online experience possible,” employees are better able to think independently in order to achieve the goal. Every year each employee is required to write a short essay about the culture of the company. All of the writings are entered into an unedited book and distributed to the staff.  It is a place where employees want to come to work.

This same commercial that has probably made all of you smile by now was able to communicate who Zappos is, what they want you to do and makes you want to do it.  If Hsieh can encourage managers to goof off with his staff for 10 to 20% random time, have interviews over “vodka shots,” and paint the bathrooms “urine colors” just to be weird and funny, two very unusual puppets extolling the virtues of an unusual customer service phone call can only add to the uniqueness of a tremendously successful company.

The puppets bring home the concept of being humble, having fun and being a bit weird. It’s Hsieh’s mantra, “Deliver WOW through service.” The video is after the jump.

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So what is the best return policy? If you model your business plan after Nordstrom’s slogan, “Even if you’re making an exchange or return, we make it easy,” the policy should be whatever keeps the customer happy which is getting their money back with the least resistance and work. Of course the store owner gets stuck with extra credit card fees, repackaging, restocking, and reselling the returned item, but the loss of a customer is far more expensive.

All return policies need to be visible. Post them on cash registers, on receipts and if online, post prominent links. Staff should be trained when checking customers out so as to mention the policy and how many days a customer has to return merchandise. Nowadays it is obvious how many stores have extended the return time period, and some have no limits at all. Any exceptions to the return policy should be clear, and an upfront approach perhaps by the sales representative at checkout could reinforce the reminder with a statement such as, “Sales items cannot be returned.”

All employees should be trained to handle returns, exchanges and refunds. The staff should stay friendly and proceed as quickly as possible with the least amount of paperwork and questions. A return is not the time to ask customers for more data than necessary since the customer is likely not happy. Try to turn the transaction into a pleasant experience by staying friendly even if the customer gets rude. Online return policies often include prepaid return labels, which is a great way to gain the competitive edge by reversing and reducing the risk for consumers. Again, making sure that the policy is clear reduces confusion.

Lastly, don’t treat 99% of customers like the 1% who are dishonest and who try to take advantage of generous return policies. Most customers just want to be happy with their purchases and ensure they have spent their money wisely.

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It’s important to set customer service apart by creating a strong brand which in turn can give a business the competitive edge. Since the reputation of a company is based on the experiences of their customers, it is important to give them positive experiences. Remember that bad experiences are emotional also, and customers may not come back, but that can cost a company the loss of many new clients because now friends, neighbors and co-workers have all been told about the negative experience. Also consider that the neutral experience a customer might have is almost as bad as the negative experience because it has no emotional ties and thus is not memorable at all.

In customer service, the process usually involves multiple steps. For instance, there is the initial call routing, interaction, resolution, and then finalizing the resolution. Human assisted services are here to stay since not all customer service requests, complaints, orders, procedures, etc. qualify for the one-size fits all. Emphasizing the human assisted customer service over self-service can brand a company with a positive memorable experience. Some people just prefer the human touch.

Team representatives can be matched with the brand of the company. It’s much more of a positive memorable experience perhaps to have an athletic looking person providing customer service at the running store. A brand aligned agent creates the consistent and repetitive visibility since the public’s memory is very short. It is much more effective to expose your brand to a small audience numerous times than it is to advertise your business only once a year to a large audience.

Finally when branding your customer service, it is most important to have  unified objectives so customer experiences stay consistent. If clients have to experience different communication channels and are forwarded from one representative to another, it is crucial that the training and education of the staff be logical and consistent with the branding of the company. Simply stated; make sure the left hand always knows what the right hand is doing.

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Eclipse Internet is known for its fast fiber-optic connections, its reliability, and, its support team. According to their website, the “team” gets a financial bonus for giving exceptional customer satisfaction. Happy customers stay longer and become loyal, and they go beyond what is expected to deliver the best customer service. The company’s claim for reliability is 99.9% uptime for broadband and web hosting. Their support calls claim to be answered in 60 seconds or less, and 70% of their faults are fixed at the first call.

The web site lists their November, December, and, January performance with the heading entitled, “How Are We Performing?” Included is a list of performance criteria:

• Availability of our core services
• Orders fulfilled on time
• Customers needing technical help
• Customers faults fixed at first call
• Fault rate compared to average
• Spam/virus blocked

This all made me ponder if money is indeed the motivational tool for employees to render better customer service? The company’s support team seems to have some impressive values listed. If so, how much and how does it influence employee productivity? Motivation is a huge part of the formula, but how does one evaluate the happiness level since happiness goes way beyond the job. People tend to be happier when they make more money because money is purchasing power, and the ability to purchase more plays an important part in happiness.

I am convinced that money does play an important part in employee motivation, but the key is to find the right candidate for the position. Capability, professionalism, patience, knowledge, and personality to fit the company marks the spot for success. Once the candidates are well-trained and given the tools to conduct business with the company’s success firmly implanted, the added monetary rewards for jobs well-done do seem to make a difference.

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Instead of written applications, this year’s submissions came in as short videos. Videos let you see (literally and figuratively) what companies do and how they work. They’re also interesting because they are more reflective of the type of culture the company has. Everyone fills out an application in pretty much the same way, but the type of videos that I saw varied greatly. Some were more “traditional” and featured people talking about customer service while some of the others were more upbeat and engaging.

The winner this year was a company called Pet Relocation. The company is interesting and a great candidate for an award like this because part of what they do on a daily basis is dealing with out of the ordinary situations that require going above and beyond to complete the service (moving a pet safely from point A to point B). Their slogan is “Any Pet, Anywhere, Any Time,” which implies that they are a company that wants to go above and beyond for its customers. From reading about the company, it’s easy to tell that they have a strong commitment to their customers and to providing the highest quality service.

Like most companies that excel at customer service, Pet Relocation knows what it has to do in order to impress its customers. Personalized service provided by people who are empowered to go above and beyond (and a strong desire to provide that type of service) is what has led to Pet Relocation’s success. Congratulations to them on winning The Fanati this year and thanks again to Rackspace for giving me the opportunity to judge the contest again.

You can see Pet Relocation’s video, and more information about the 2010 Fanati Award here.

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The Wachovia branch in the subdivision of Abacoa in Jupiter, Florida knows how to build new cooperative and collaborative relationships with customers. Since consumers now can choose from a bank on nearly every corner, what sets a particular branch apart from another? Enlightened consumers have an infinite amount of choices.

Nearly every bank offers full services including checking, savings, loans, certificates of deposits, credit cards, brokerage services, etc. Almost all banks provide paperless services, online payment centers, call centers with English speaking representatives, and comprehensive websites with dozens of services, but the difference in local branches is the relationship bank employees build with local residents.

Up until a few weeks ago, I had never been to a Wachovia Bank, but special circumstances for an ailing relative brought me there. The Service Manager, Brandi immediately greeted me at the kiosk in the center of the lobby and was able to direct me to the financial specialist who could handle my  special banking needs. Admittedly, I had to wait a considerable amount of time and that was a legitimate complaint, but once I met with the representative, the transactions were effortless and efficient. When I was leaving, Brandi even asked me if my banking needs had been met to my satisfaction. Within a week, I had to make some more changes to this specialized account and returned to the bank; again a friendly and smiling Olinda greeted me at the kiosk. Senior Financial Specialist, Fred C. made changes for me, remembered my name and has gone out of his way to accommodate the special needs of my situation.

It can take weeks or months to find and maintain a good customer, but a satisfied customer brings in more business. Of all the banks in my area, the exceptional personal touch by the employees made a profound difference. Their service quality and operational efficiency with  improved data information services made my experience that much quicker. Their ability to immediately contact their legal department to help me set up the account correctly gave me the confidence I was not able to find at another financial institution earlier in the day. My congratulations to a team of professionals for going that extra mile for customers.

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