Part of the appeal of customer-centricity is that it takes very little business acumen to grasp its core concept. Focus intensely on customers, align your products or services with their interests, and voila: a customer – centric culture is born. Simple, right? Not quite.

Becoming a truly customer-centric organization is perhaps one of the most difficult transitions an organization can make, fraught with hidden obstacles and unanticipated challenges. Here are three potential roadblocks on the path to a customer-centric strategy, and how to get around them.

Failing to understand your most valuable customer
A customer – centric strategy is only as good as its customers. You cant let the average customer dictate what you do, says Robert Duboff, CEO of Hawk Partners LLC and coauthor of the book Market Research Matters. Generally speaking, Duboff says, 20 percent of a company’s customer base generates 80 percent of its profits. Given that split, its imperative to put your most valuable customers at the heart of your approach.

Identifying those customers need not take exhaustive research and complicated measures. It can be a fairly straightforward process, as it is with the Net Promoter Score, or NPS, a metric developed by Bain & Co.s Fred Reichheld. As set forth in The Ultimate Questionwritten by Reichheld and published by Harvard Business Pressthe NPS approach consists of one simple question: On a scale of one to 10, would you recommend us to your friends?

Based on the answer to that question, customers are segmented into three categories: promoters, who actively champion a particular product to their friends and colleagues; passives, who are lukewarm about the product; and detractors, the opposite of promoters. A given company’s score is simply the difference between its number of promoters and its number of detractors.

NPS has proven to be a powerful tool for such companies as General Electric Capital Solutions, which has used it not only to identify customers that are already valuable promoters but to gain insights into how it can convert detractors. For a business like GE Capital Solutions, which serves more than 1 million very diverse customers in many different industries, NPS helps us better understand what our customers are feeling and how we can improve their experience with us, says Stephen White, a spokesperson for GE Capital.

Failing to support your external customer – centric strategy with an internal customer – centric strategy
Speaking of valuable customers, what about that most priceless customer of all your employee?

While most companies aren’t in the habit of regarding their employees as customers, those seeking to instill a customer-centric culture should rethink their stance, argues Elaine Berke, president of Westport, MA based EBI Consulting, which specializes in helping organizations develop customer-centric strategies. Customer – centricity needs to come from the inside out, says Berke. Leadership must avoid a double standard that makes it OK for managers to argue with or demean staff while still being courteous and considerate to external customers.

Consider the case of the world-renowned Johns Hopkins University Hospital. In developing a comprehensive Service Excellence initiative aimed at boosting its level of patient care, the hospital included employee satisfaction as a core component of the program. The hospital conducted an extensive survey to gauge employee concerns that turned up such simple, actionable insights as making it a point to compliment co-workers and instituting criticism – free no negativity days.

Customer-centric organizations value and respect internal customers as much as external customers, says Berke. Like the old saying goes, If you’re not serving a customer, you’re serving someone who is.

Failure to identify the moment of truth
Companies spend considerable time and resources developing metrics for processes, execution and other day-to-day functions but often overlook defining their moments of truth those points at which a customer interacts with a company’s product or service and forms an impression.

Companies are usually very good at creating metrics around [such procedures as] production deliverables but have a much harder time knowing how to create and measure standards relating to the quality of service being delivered, Keith Bailey of Sterling Consulting Group says.

In defining a company’s moments of truth, Bailey suggests looking at three different angles quality of product, quality of procedures and quality of relationships. Taking a hotel as an example, the quality of the product would be the cleanliness and comfort of the rooms. The quality of procedures would be such factors as how it long it takes to check in or how long customers wait for room service. The quality of relationship would be the friendliness and helpfulness of the staff.

Considering each angle separately allows a company to isolate the negative moments of truth within each and develop a game plan for turning them into positive experiences. Procter & Gamble, for example, identified its moment of truth as that instant when a shopper picks up one of its products and decides whether or not to purchase its decision the customer makes in an average of six seconds. The company has overhauled its marketing with that insight in mind, creating a global First Moment of Truth business team designed to win over the customer in that moment.

There are as many different customer-centric approaches as there are customers, and each has its own unique challenges, but the road to a truly customer-centric strategy always begins with the same steps.

Management Career Training Centre provides training and development, such as motivational seminar programs for HR professionals, supervisors and employers.

First off let me just say this, make sure when you purchase a hi end stove to buy from a place that carries mostly hi end products. Major department stores can often do a good job with middle and low end products but rarely have the man power to handle the extra knowledge required with the expensive stuff.

3 years ago we purchased $24,000 worth of appliances and furniture from a major department store. Which included a stove, dishwasher, warming drawer, fridge, washer, dryer, a bedroom set and a kitchen table. This was all going into our brand new home and we were excited.

The problem really was that we ended up purchasing hi end products from a store that only services standard stoves and dishwashers. This whole experience could have been avoided had we simply purchased our stove from a boutique retailer.

After 8 months of dealing with the major department stores service staff we finally gave up and decided to have an outside service company come and look at the stove. The pros as I know call them found out that our stove had been improperly serviced as a simple screw had been lost from the main burner and instead of replacing it was installed without. This caused a host of issues the main one being the glass kept breaking as the burner was now directed towards the glass instead of the food.

I am not saying major department stores can’t provide good service, what I am saying is that sometimes using a boutique outlook will get you better service experience. Price is always the most important thing when it comes to the department store experience, it’s how they have become huge. Their buying power has allowed them to drive prices down and so has the lack of people servicing the product.

Have you noticed that in most cases when you purchase something from a department store that you are part of the building process now. Furniture is a great example, buy that nice table and when you get home you are now part of the assembly line building what you just paid for. I hate the fact that the pricing has become so cheap that we are now forced to build our furniture and barbecues.

Sometimes it’s nice to visit a local shop that is owned by people that are frustrated with the same things you and I are. These store owners appreciate this and do everything in their power to ensure you don’t experience the same thing in their store.

This article was written by Shawn Wilson, a member of the customer support team at Datepad, where internet dating is always free. Datepad has a massive directory of informative dating articles along with a great list of dating site reviews on their dating blog.

Whether you have decided to keep your contact center solution in house or you are the outsource for many businesses, Syntellect (http://www.syntellect.com) can customize a solution for you with their award winning products. Art Gib is a freelance writer.

Management Career Training Centre provides professional development, motivational seminar, management and sales training, leadership and executive training and career training programs for HR professionals, supervisors and employers.

I’ve had a bunch of phone calls and conversations about a recent paper I wrote called “Do you know why your customers really buy,” which explores how using attitudinal data is critical to driving real business change. Based on that, I wanted to comment about two things on my mind:

There are a lot of professionals caught up in a quandary right now. They seem to be searching for a way to justify their loyalty and engagement efforts. They want to gain more ground competitively and showcase more quantifiable results to their company. They feel a bit exposed because much of what they do is “intuitive” and little is quantifiable. However, they are either not sure how to fix the issue or they are unable to get any real information to use/show.

I recently attended an industry tradeshow. I had many conversations about how to select metrics, and how to present results to other company peers and executives. This show confirmed what I have been witnessing for some time – a lack of understanding about how to quantify loyalty results.

I believe it is important to use metrics with any marketing or loyalty initiative. Many business managers use only a yearly customer satisfaction survey, exit surveys or a promoter score. Although these are good, I suggest using more. Utilize a broader spectrum of measures to get a clearer picture. At Allegiance, we deliver a handful of metrics: loyalty, satisfaction, promoter and engagement scores. These improve your read on the situation. Don’t use too many though or you’ll soon go crazy chasing data. You should feel comfortable about how to justify your job, get a raise and show positive economic-related results from your efforts.

You can measure churn, share of wallet, word of mouth, lifetime value, etc. The simplicity of net promoter is good because it brings the conversation into the boardroom in a way that people can understand. However, the backlash on net promoter is also deserved. It is just too simple to be the only metric to use for business decision making.

The other important item to consider when trying to justify success is looking beyond statistics and dashboards. What does the data really tell you? What decisions have you made that drive business forward as a result of having that data? Too many people say: “our net promoter score is such and such” or “our allegiance engagement index is this” and they leave it at that. A static measure only tells you half of the story.
It’s good to have a point-in-time measurement, but it’s even better to know what drives those scores, and build a best practice that allows you to understand what you can do to impact those scores.

For example, understanding why a customer buys the attitudinal part of the relationship you have with them will help you to really serve them better. Here’s an example from my paper “Do you know why your customers really buy?”:

An organization always assumed their most engaged customers were of a middle aged demographic. Through segmentation analysis, they discovered that one of their most engaged groups was their early adult group. Knowing this information, and understanding what drivers lead this group to be engaged, the company launched new marketing and product initiatives to better serve the early adult group and ensure their engagement remained high. They were also able to identify that both the early adult and middle aged groups became disengaged with the company after 2 years as a customer. They held focus groups and launched surveys to study why this happens. Knowing this information allowed them to change this pattern to impact long-term engagement and profits.

I like to talk to marketing, sales and loyalty pros about understanding the attitudinal side of relationships better. They tend to focus more on the transactional side too much. The “who, what, where, when, and how” of a relationship is important, but so is the “why.” I encourage anyone involved in enterprise feedback management to seek out attitudinal information. To learn more about how to do this, get a free copy of my paper.

Terence Fugazzi is the VP of Demand Marketing at Allegiance (http://www.allegiance.com). His company provides Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) solutions that help organizations grow and increase profitability through improved customer and employee loyalty and engagement.

When you fly on a corporate jet, you don’t serve wrapped sandwiches or tea and coffee in a Styrofoam cup to the passengers. No way! Corporate jet catering is almost like dining in a five-star restaurant. Passengers have a choice of meal and it is served on real plates with real cutlery. Along with having the appropriate flight attendant training, in order to work in this area of the aviation industry, you need to have training in the preparation and serving of meals. The catering is one of the upscale services that comes with flying and working on a corporate jet and provides passengers with a luxurious flying experience.

The catering process starts long before the flight departs. As a corporate flight attendant, you are responsible for submitting the request for food to the caterer you use in a city and in overseeing the preparation of the food at the caterers facility. Then you have to make sure the food is transported to the aircraft properly and then you need the know-how and experience to prepare and present this food onboard.

Personal hygiene is of utmost importance in a corporate flight attendant in the preparation of food during the flight. This is to ensure that all the food served to passengers is germ free so that it won’t cause any gastrointestinal illnesses either during the flight or just afterwards. The main thing you have to realize is that the food is cooked when you receive it and the part you play in cooking the food on the plane is to reheat it. There are certain things that you must keep in mind when doing this.

1. Always make sure the oven is heated to the right temperature before you put the food inside to reheat it.

2. Do not uncover the food in the reheating process because this will cause it to dry out. Always use a liquid in conjunction with the food to keep it moist.

3. Use a temperature probe to ensure that all foods are heated all the way through.

When you are serving food and drinks to the passengers, there are safe practices that you must use as well. Always hold the glass by the base or the stem and never let your hands touch the rim. If you are pouring drinks from a jug, the rim of the jug should never touch the top of the glass or the cup.

That being said, the types of meals involved in catering onboard an aircraft also mean you need to have training in the proper way to serve these meals. You should be able to display the food on the plate in the same manner as it would be if the passengers were actually eating at the caterers restaurant. The caterers chosen for supplying the meals are ones well known for their unique menus and the manner in which the food is presented on the plate. The passengers will also know which caterer is supplying the food, which is why these caterers are involved in the training of corporate flight attendants for the preparation and serving of their foods.

For more information on corporate jet catering, corporate flight jobs and executive jet jobs, visit http://www.CorporateFlyer.net

Without getting into deep research, it seems to me that the average marketing manager should be able to put together a sensible survey simply by using some common sense. Somehow, this is not happening as often as I would expect. My speculation is that people are so hungry for feedback on so many items that they can’t resist asking their customers for feedback on all of them. The result of this is that survey abandonment goes up proportionate to the length of the survey and the demographic of the recipient. And, you wind up with skewed results, since certain classes of respondents, as a group, are more inclined to abandon than others. Here’s a recent experience of mine to make my point.

I recently stayed at a hotel in southern Utah. Two days after my stay, I received a survey request from them. I like this particular hotel chain, so I had no problem opening the survey and giving them my feedback. They had a nice little progress bar on the screen so I knew exactly how far into the survey I had gone. After three or four pages of multiple ranking pages, however, I was still only 40% complete. The next page had 15 ranking questions on everything from their toiletries, to the beds, to the TVs, etc. I bailed out of the survey.

There are two issues in how the hotel should have designed their survey:

1. The hotel knew who I was and from my profile, should already have known whether or not I was a frequent business traveler or a pleasure/family traveler. Knowing that, they should realize that getting frequent survey responses from me would be very valuable to their business, but also knowing that I am a business person with very little time, they should ask, at most, no more than 5 questions. They could have easily asked me 5 questions out of a set of 20 and by doing this randomly across all their business travelers, still have received the feedback they desired. This would especially be true since their abandonment rate would probably drop by a factor of two or three.

2. Even if the hotel did not know I was a business traveler, they still should have done the same process outlined above because hotel stays are generally a repeated service. This means unlike, for instance, a car purchase, you are likely to repeat business with them more often than once every few years. Common sense says that recipients of surveys who have made higher dollar, more infrequent purchases will be more likely to tolerate a longer survey. If you are a provider of a more frequent service, you want to design a survey that is quick and easy for the recipient to take so that you will get feedback EVERY time you deliver that service.

So, use common sense when surveying. Understand your recipient. Spread the feedback items across the audience, especially when the sample size and frequencies are high. Know your key goals and cut questions that are not absolutely necessary to meet them.

Terence Fugazzi is the VP of Demand Marketing at Allegiance (http://www.allegiance.com). His company provides Customer Engagement Software that helps organizations grow and increase profitability through improved customer loyalty and engagement.

At first glance, big picture thinking and customer focus would seem to be mutually exclusive terms. After all, the first phrase connotes a farsighted, panoramic view of business, while the second implies an intense, laser-beam-like concentration on the customer. Yet as revealed in Magnifying Customer Focus: A Study of Current Trends and Future Possibilities 2006-2016, a global study commissioned by American Management Association and conducted by The Human Resource Institute, the terms are not only compatible, they are inseparable.

The study finds that customer focus is a top strategic concern for many businesses today and is ranked as one of the most important needs concerning issues ranging from leadership challenges to ethical behavior and innovation. Yet it also reveals that there is a wide disparity between what activities companies practice when it comes to customer focus and what they should be practicing.

The study asked respondents to rank a variety of strategic actions in each of five areas environment/culture, communications, HR practices, measurement and organizational practices in terms of what their companies are doing now and then to rank those same actions in terms of what their companies should be doing. Here is a closer look at the results for each of the five areas.

In environment/culture, having the support of top management ranked number one in both the should-do and doing-it-now categories. On the surface this would appear to be a heartening result leadership is doing what it should be doing.

But that good news is undercut by the number two should-do action: having leaders set the example with customer-focused behaviors. This is only number four in the doing-it-now category, meaning that while leadership may nominally support customer focus, it is not necessarily supporting it with its actions. Perhaps that helps explain why including customers in our corporate value statements ranked number two in the doing-it-now category but only number six in the should-do category; mission statements are all well and good, but its action that counts.

In the communications area, Magnifying Customer Focus finds that companies are falling short of communicating the customer focus message internally. Respondents ranked the action of having an internal plan in place to communicate customer insights number four in the should-do category, but only number seven in the doing-it-now category, suggesting that many companies are missing this crucial component. Its important to note that this doesn’t simply mean leadership handing down memos. It means employees at all levels of the organization must share their perspective and facilitate feedback from the customer so the company can get a true picture of the state of its customer service.

Companies are placing too much emphasis on market share as an indicator of customer satisfaction, according to respondents results in the area of measurement. Regularly measuring market share ranked third in the doing-it-now category, but eighth in the should-do category, strongly suggesting that respondents believe this particular metric is of little value when it comes to gauging customer satisfaction. Bain & Co.s Fred Reich held has gone even further in questioning the relevance of market share as a reliable measurement of customer satisfaction. Reichheld maintains that although companies may capture market share and generate considerable revenue from dissatisfied customers, it is actually more costly than profitable in the long run to do so.

When it comes to HR, expecting employees to anticipate customer needs ranked number one in the doing-it-now category and number three in the should-do category. It seems that while the respondents believe this strategic action is important enough to be included in the top three of actions that should be taken, it is not the overall most important action. That distinction belongs to providing customer-oriented employee training, an action that ranked number one in the should-do category and number three in the doing-it-now category, a surprising result considering the number of customer service training programs currently in place. The takeaway from this seems to be that while companies may think that they’re addressing customer service training needs, they are in reality falling far short.

While the organizational practices area is a broadly defined subgroup with substantial overlap with the other four areas, it did produce some interesting results of its own. For example, responding to demands for customization and personalization ranked eighth in the doing-it-now category but ranked only twentieth in the should-do category. Customization and personalization have been hot topics lately, with many proclaiming them the next big thing, but clearly the survey respondents consider them overrated as a customer focus issue.

Conversely, the tactic of being customer-focused at all customer touch points, not just sales and customer service ranked fourth in the should-do category and twelfth in the doing-it-now category, revealing a large disparity between its perceived importance and the extent to which its executed.

That point an urgent reminder that customer focus needs to be instilled throughout the organization and not isolated in one or two departments serves well to sum up the entire survey.

Management Training Centre provides professional development, motivational seminars, leadership and executive training and career training programs for HR professionals, supervisors and employers.

When speaking to audiences or coaching clients, I am always asked what may have gone wrong upon submitting their proposal to a prospect who was previously interested but now no longer communicates.

1. Speak to the budget of your prospect
2. Itemize your packages offered for easy comparison
3. Full disclosure

Prior to writing your proposal, you of course need to find out why your prospect invited you in for an appointment or agreed to take time on the phone to speak with you.

The initial conversation puts you, the vendor, in the position of a consultant. You need to dig deep through questioning to discover all of the problems your prospect is experiencing.

In turn, you question further to find how each problem is affecting other areas of their business. Only after you ask all of the relevant questions for the situation, will you be able to determine if your services are a correct fit and that you can indeed help.

It has become apparent that some industries do not know to ask for the budget of their prospect. Instead, these suppliers simply assume they know what is needed and that the money is available to accept the proposal.

The belief of these vendors is their prospect would not have inquired about their services in the first place. Nothing is further from the truth.

When it is your turn to speak after uncovering the needs of your prospect, ask upfront,What is your budget? If you do not ask this frank question, you may well be wasting your own valuable time putting a proposal together and presenting it.

Your prospect may have designer taste or a budget so low they cannot possibly afford the services offered. You will frustrate the prospect to the point where they walk away.

The second element of a proposal is line items. Your proposal should clearly indicate everything that is included. If you provide individual pricing for each service then that should itemized. If you instead provide a package, be certain every element is carefully listed in the package.

Provide as much detail as possible so that your prospect knows exactly what is to be expected. Your prospect needs to know exactly what they will be receiving in exchange for their money spent.

To improve your success rate for sales, relationship building throughout the sales cycle is also a critical element.

The biggest error on a proposal is omission. Omission of expected items in the package will cause your prospect to not walk away but run.

Some vendors purposely omit or are vague about what needs to be included. They hope to begin the project and mid-way through announce an extra element is needed which allows them to add money to their bottom line.

This practice only serves to spread bad word of mouth and hurt business on a bigger scale than just losing one prospect. Honesty is still the best policy.

Upon working with a kitchen designer, an associate was given a proposal to update his old tired-looking house. Jim initially told the designer he was on limited income and the improvement needed to be modest. He was never asked precisely what he had in mind. Instead, the designer said she understood.

The proposal came back being thousands of dollars over the expected amount. Jim told her the numbers needed to be redone.

Jim and the kitchen designer finally came to agreement however Jim said he needed to check one more source before signing. The second vendor asked the question, In addition to the cabinets, how much are the counter tops?

Jim called the first company to ask if the counter tops were included in their proposal. He thought, how would a kitchen design be complete without the counters? To his dismay, Jim found out the counter tops were a never-before disclosed extra charge and not included in the bid.

Jim walked away thanking his lucky stars he never signed the paperwork.

Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale! and author of Nice Girls DO Get the Sale selling worldwide, speaks, trains and coaches.

Her products suit all learning styles.
Visit Smooth Sale or call 800-704-1499.

It’s tempting to concentrate on making new sales or pursuing bigger accounts. But attention to your existing customers, no matter how small they are, is equally essential to keeping your business thriving. The secret to repeat business is following up in a way that has a positive effect on the customer.

Effective follow-up begins immediately after the sale, when you call the customer to say “thank you” and find out if he or she is pleased with your product or service. Beyond this, there are several effective ways to follow up that ensure your business is always in the customer’s mind.

1. Let customers know what you are doing for them. This can be in the form of a newsletter mailed to existing customers, or it can be more informal, such as a phone call. Whichever method you use, the key is to dramatically point out to customers what excellent service you are giving them. If you never mention all the things you are doing for them, customers may not notice. You are not being cocky when you talk to customers about all the work you have done to please them. Just make a phone call and let them know they don’t have to worry because you handled the paperwork, called the attorney or double checked on the shipment – one less thing they have to do.

2. Write old customers personal, hand-written notes frequently. “I was just sitting at my desk and your name popped into my head. Are you still having a great time flying all over the country? Let me know if you need another set of luggage. I can stop by with our latest models any time.” Or, if you run into an old customer at an event, follow up with a note: “It was great seeing you at the CDC Christmas party. I’ll call you early in the new year to schedule a lunch.”

3. Keep it personal. Voice mail and e-mail make it easy to communicate, but the personal touch is lost. Don’t count these as a legitimate follow-up. If you’re having trouble getting through, leave a voice mail message that you want to talk to the person directly or will stop by his or her office at a designated time.

4. Remember special occasions. Send the regular customers birthday cards, anniversary cards, holiday cards – you name it. Gifts are excellent follow-up tools, too. You don’t have to spend a fortune to show you care; use your creativity to come up with interesting gift ideas that tie into your business, the customer’s business or his or her recent purchase.

5. Pass on information. If you read an article, see a new book, or hear about an organization that a customer might be interested in, drop a note or make a quick call to let them know.

6. Consider follow-up calls as business development calls. When you talk to or visit old clients or customers, you’ll often find they have referrals to give you, which can lead to new business.

With all that your existing customers can do for you, there’s simply no reason not to stay in regular contact with them. Use your imagination, and you’ll think of plenty of other ideas that can help you develop a lasting relationship.

Jeff Casmer is an internet marketing consultant with career sales over $25,000,000. His “Top Ranked” Earn Money at Home Directory gives you all the information you need to start and prosper with your own Internet Home Based Business.

Loyalty cards have invaded and have taken over our lives! It all started innocently enough. It seemed like no big deal when airlines and hotels embraced the ‘frequent’ traveler rewards programs. We consumers embraced the idea of earning rewards for our travel.

Little did we know that loyalty cards would band together and plot to overtake our lives! The momentum built slowly so that we wouldn’t notice. First we had one airline and one hotel loyalty card stowed safely in our wallets. Soon, we added other cards to make sure that we took advantage of our travel activities on all airlines and hotels that we might visit. Then, as if we wouldn’t notice, rental car reward cards snuck into our wallets. As we added airlines, hotels, and rental car cards, the number of loyalty cards that we held crept into the double digits.

Other businesses eager to cash in on the loyalty card phenomenon were quick to respond. One by one we added loyalty cards from restaurants, grocery stores, department stores, gasoline stations, coffee shops, video stores, and pet stores. Colorful plastic cards that beckoned us to use them more and more soon overwhelmed our wallets.

The invasion was on! Our wallets were completely overtaken and could take on no more new plastic cards. Like an aggressive parasite, loyalty cards looked for new areas to invade and quickly found our key rings an inviting target. Like something out of a science fiction movie, loyalty cards spawned a new breed of key fobs that crept onto our key rings and multiplied like rabbits. Seemingly overnight, plastic fobs overtook our key rings.

The quiet invasion of the loyalty cards continues today. New businesses enter the fray every day. Book stores, doctors offices, eyeglass stores, veterinarians, and home improvement contractors add to the mountain of loyalty plastic. I fear the day that my lawyer or doctor issues a loyalty card for proctology exams.

I know that I have reached the point of saturation; there is no more room in my wallet or key ring for even one more loyalty card. The overflow of loyalty cards that won’t fit have now assembled together and have begun an assault of various desk, kitchen, and dresser drawers in my house.

We could fight back by throwing them all away, but that’s like asking a life long cigarette smoker to quit cold turkey. Loyalty cards don’t necessarily encourage loyalty – they create a sense of guilt. When a shopper buys at a store without their loyalty card they feel guilt; guilt for not saving a few dollars or not earning their reward points. Loyalty cards are like an addiction; they’re hard to give up.

Loyalty cards are popular with businesses because it can help them to identify their customers, create a sense of exclusivity, and reward their best customers. The mountain of loyalty plastic, however, is creating a burden on today’s consumer to carry – and remember to use – their loyalty card.

To stop the invasion, businesses need to increasingly implement loyalty programs that allow the consumer to self-identify without the need of a physical loyalty card. For online businesses, this is easier to accomplish with cookies or simple online account management capabilities. For brick and mortar businesses, the challenge of consumer identity management is the holy grail of customer relationship management. Until then, the loyalty card invasion will continue to be well engrained in today’s business environment.

I just hope they solve the problem soon. I can’t carry any more loyalty plastic…

…and I shudder at the thought of loyalty cards invading my underwear drawer.

Robert G. Howard, the founder of ClearBrick.com and is the author of The Customer Experience Solution Kit, and 7 Steps to Customer Experience Domination. [Blog: The Clear Brick]

Customer service (also known as Client Service) is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a Purchase. According to Turban et al, 2002, Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation. Its importance varies by product, industry and customer. As an example, an expert customer might require less pre-purchase service (i.e., advice) than a novice. In many cases, customer service is more important if the purchase relates to a service as opposed to a product.

Customer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means called self-service. Examples of self service are Internet sites.Customer service is normally an integral part of a company customer value proposition. Some argue that the quality and level of customer service has decreased in recent years, which can be attributed to a lack of support or understanding at the executive and middle management levels of a corporation and missing of a customer service policy. A service is the diametrically opposed non material counterpiece of a physical good.

A service provision comprises a sequence of activities that does not result in ownership of the outcome, and this is what fundamentally differentiates it from furnishing someone with physical goods. Service provision is a process that creates possessions predetermined benefits by effectuating either a change of service consumers, a change in their physical , [disambiguation needed] or a change in their (in)tangible assets. In the field of marketing, a customer value proposition consists of the sum total of benefits which a vendor promises that a customer will receive in return for the customer’s associated payment (or other value-transfer). In simple words: value proposition = what the customer gets for what the customer pays.

Accordingly, a customer can evaluate a company’s value-proposition on two broad dimensions with multiple subsets, relative performance: what the customer gets from the vendor relative to a competitor’s offering, price: which consists of the payment the customer makes to acquire the product or service, plus the access cost. A customer service advisor, or CSA, (also customer service associate and customer service representative) is a generic job title in the service industry. It covers a variety of customer facing occupations, primarily in call centres and stores. he dichotomy between physical goods and intangible services should not be given too much credence. These are not discrete categories.

Most business theorists see a continuum with pure service on one terminal point and pure commodity good on the other terminal point [citation needed] Most products fall between these two extremes. For example, a restaurant provides a physical good (the food), but also provides services in the form of ambience, the setting and clearing of the table, etc. And although some utilities actually deliver physical goods like water utilities which actually deliver water utilities are usually treated as services.

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My sister-in-law recently shared a little tip with me, and even though the tip was related to housekeeping, I thought it was a great concept to apply to any business.

Here’s what she said: she always ends her day by making sure her kitchen sink is cleaned. No leftover dinner dishes. No stray items. Stainless steel polished to a shine. That way, she can wake up in the morning to a nice clean sink, and the rest of her day just goes more smoothly.

It’s easier for her to keep the rest of the kitchen clean when she sees her shiny sink. She’s in a better mood when her kitchen is clean.

And knowing her kitchen is clean is a great incentive to keep the rest of the house clean. This one easy step of cleaning the sink each night helps everything else fall into place.

I’m sure you’re probably wondering what in the world this has to do with business. Well, let me explain…

A clean sink is a relatively simple idea. And in the grand scheme of things, it might not seem all that important to some people. In fact, some people might not care what their sink looks like at all.

But to my sister-in-law, it is a huge concern. Her kitchen sink has the power to make or break her entire day. And most people would never know that it matters to her so much.

So what are your customers’ and prospects’ “kitchen sinks”? What are the things that matter to them so much, they have the ability to make or break a deal?

Is your client a stickler about grammar and spelling? Does she really value punctuality? Does he want a particular color to always be in stock?

Chances are, every one of your customers has their own kitchen sink. And chances are, if the sink is clean, other issues don’t matter quite as much. As long as my sister-in-law wakes up to a clean sink, she’s OK with an extra pile of laundry.

It doesn’t matter (as much) when my nephew forgets to tell her it’s his turn to bring snacks to soccer practice. She can handle it when my niece uses her antique table cloth as a “wedding gown”.

And as long as you “keep the sink clean” for your customers, other issues that might crop up won’t seem quite as important to them.

When you have a choice to make between different deadlines or multiple concerns that need to be addressed, you’ll have a clearer picture of what would please your client best. You’ll know where to put most of your attention and efforts.

How do you find out what your client’s kitchen sink is? Believe it or not, it’s OK to ask. In fact, you’re doing a disservice to yourself and your customer by not asking.

It should be relatively easy to work this question into your proposal or sales inquiry. For instance, let’s say you’re a wedding planner. You might have your assumptions about what will make the perfect day for the bride.

But isn’t it much better to simply ask, “If we could guarantee only one particular thing would happen on your wedding day to make it the most perfect day ever, what would that one thing be?” If the bride replies that it’s really important to her that her grandmother have a great time, you’ll know some of the things you need to focus on.

If you’re a salesperson in a retail clothing store, you could ask, “What one item would you absolutely require to make the perfect outfit?”

If your customer says he really, really wants a blue paisley tie, you’ll know you can work around the fact that the brown slacks he had his eye on are out of stock… as long as you can get him that blue paisley tie.

Knowing your client’s kitchen sink is a great rapport builder. It also allows you to follow up in a very personal manner.

What a huge difference there is between “Thanks for letting us plan your wedding” and “It was wonderful to see the joy on your grandmother’s face. We were so honored to be a part of that special occasion.”

So start inquiring about your customers’ kitchen sinks. And by the way, if anyone wants to come over and clean mine, you’re more than welcome!

Karen Scharf is an Indianapolis marketing consultant who works with small business owners and entrepreneurs. She offers several whitepapers, free reports and checklists, including her FREE Can-Spam checklist and FREE email pre-flight checklist to ensure your emails get delivered, get opened and get read. Download your copies at http://www.ModernImage.com.

Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits to prospective customers to buy products or services,either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call.Telemarketing can also include recorded sales pitches programmed to be played over the phone via automatic dialing.

Telemarketing has come under fire in recent years, being viewed as an annoyance by most. This involves commercial communication (direct mail, e-mail, telemarketing) with consumers or businesses, usually unsolicited. The second characteristic is that it is focused on driving purchases that can be attributed to a specific call-to-action.This aspect of direct marketing involves an emphasis on trackable,measurable positive (but not negative) responses from consumers (known simply as response in the industry) regardless of medium.

The registry is intended to give U.S. consumers an opportunity to limit the telemarketing calls they receive. Registration for the Do-Not-Call list began on June 27, 2003 and enforcement began on October 1, 2003. Since January 1, 2005, telemarketers covered by the registry have up to 31 days (initially the period was 90 days) from the date a number is registered to cease calling that number. Originally, phone numbers remained on the registry for a period of five years, but are now permanent due to the Do-Not-Call.

Improvement Act of 2007, effective February 2008. If an individual does not want to register a number on the national registry, he can still prohibit individual telemarketers from calling by asking the caller to put the called number on the company as do-not-call list.The second most common form of direct marketing is telemarketing, in which marketers contact consumers by phone. The unpopularity of cold call telemarketing (in which the consumer does not expect or invite the sales call) has led some US states and the US federal government to create no-call lists and legislation including heavy fines.

This process may be outsourced to specialist call centres. A sale is completed by the seller, the owner of the goods. It starts with consent (or agreement) to an acquisition or appropriation or request followed by the passing of title (property or ownership) in the item and the application and due settlement of a price, the obligation for which arises due to the seller’s requirement to pass ownership, being a price the seller is happy to part with ownership of or any claim upon the item.

Sales outsourcing firms provide accountability regarding all sales results and activities while representing the brand of the client. For the end-customer, it usually appears as if the client sold the product themselves rather than the sales outsourcing firm. The outsourcing firm is, in essence, an extension of the client but is responsible for all operations associated with direct sales activities (often receiving sales engineering and initial product/service training support from the client.

Business to consumer cold calls are often frustrating for the person receiving the cold call, since they expected upon picking up the phone to hear from someone they know and care about, and instead deal with a minor nuisance in the form of a sales pitch. Business to business calls are a more accepted method of introduction, but can still become a nuisance. In the US, a national do-not-call list went into effect on October 1, 2003.

Under the law, it is illegal for telemarketers to call anyone who has registered themselves on the list. After the list had operated for one year, over 62 million people had signed up.The telemarketing industry opposed the creation of the list, but most telemarketers have complied with the law and refrained from calling people who are on the list.

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A sales lead is the identity of a person or entity potentially interested in purchasing a product or service,and represents the first stage of a sales process.The lead may have a corporation or business associated (a B2B lead) with the person(s).Sales leads come from either marketing lead generation processes such as trade shows, direct marketing, advertising, Internet marketing or from sales person prospecting activities such as cold calling. For a sales lead to qualify as a sales prospect, or equivalently to move a lead from the process step sales lead to the process sales prospect,qualification must be performed and evaluated. Typically this involves identifying by direct interrogation the leads product applicability,availability of funding, and time frame for purchase.This is also the entry point of a sales tunnel,sales funnel or sales pipeline.

A formalized sales process is generally more common for companies that either have large revenue risks that require systematic assurance of revenue generation and/or those that choose to use a more consultative sales approach(Saturn, IBM, Hewlett-Packard).Strictly speaking, even an effective ad hoc or retail sales process can be described by steps of an ideal sales process though some of the steps may be executed quickly.Often a bad sales experience can be analyzed and shown to have skipped key steps. This is where a good sales process mediates risk for both buyer and seller.

A solid sales process also has the dramatic impact of forecasting accuracy and predictability in revenue results.In general terms, sales professionals need to know a set of discrete data in order to determine whether or not the prospect will become qualified. These variables may include,business needs, authorization to transact business (financial or operational), money or budget and an economic buyer or in other words, who would stand to benefit the most (or lose the most) if the good or service were to be acquired (or not acquired).

Closing is distinguished from ordinary practices such as explaining a product’s benefits or justifying an expense. It is reserved for more artful means of persuasion, which some compare with confidence tricks. For example,a salesman might mention that his product is popular with a persons neighbors, knowing that people tend to follow perceived trends.Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising, and sales.

Internet marketing does not simply entail building or promoting a website, nor does it mean placing a banner ad on another website. Effective Internet marketing requires a comprehensive strategy that synergizes a given company’s business model and sales goals with its website function and appearance, focusing on its target market through proper choice of advertising type, media, and design. The volume of B2B transactions is much higher than the volume of B2C transactions. The primary reason for this is that in a typical supply chain there will be many B2B transactions involving sub component or raw materials but only one B2C transaction, because the sale of the finished product to the end customer is only a single transaction.

In complex sales, the process of selling can take several weeks, or even months, to complete. Sometimes there are long discussions between buyers & service providers before finalizing the specifications. In some cases, offer and counter offers will go back and forth. Prospective buyers sometimes issue a Request for Proposals (RFP), Request for Information (RFI), Request for Quotation (RFQ) or an Invitation for Bids (IFB). These requests guide the sellers and provide specifications about the buyer’s needs. Meeting the specified requirements is a major objective in writing a successful proposal.

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SWOT tool is one of the main management strategies. It refers to Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat. An explanation of each element will be provided as the following.

Strength Issue

You have to show your contact center’s strength. Thus, you can demonstrate this tool via many occasions while proceeding with tackling the management scenario.

As an example, you can select your contact center’s own market and change its strategy periodically as well.

Weakness Issue

To aware any weakness in your contact center’s strategy will be efficient to turn it into more strength, power and influence through the industry. Consequently, you can push your call center towards fleeting on-demand interests. The reason is your center may be obligated at any time to miss its position due to its responsibility of fulfilling the customer needs.

Weakness may be represented in facing some obstacles. Those obstacles may include how to understand well the milieu of culture, going through cultural contexts, brands, and advertising as well.

Opportunity Issue

The opportunity issue is very important. You must catch every opportunity available in the market. You can enter the available business or if you like to be involved into a merger with any other call center and go ahead too, while using the other services of all involved companies in that joint venture.
Using other words, you have to gain your contact center’s opportunities via entering an expanded market in digital age and modern technologies via media space. In addition, you have also to consider that there are some expectations, which will be existed by the year 2010. Do not miss the fact of the promised market of Asia. This, in turn, must be the target of your call center, along with any available markets of other countries, such as Brazil market.
As soon as you are capable to do investments on more than 70% of your contact center’s programming, you can get the capacity of providing your customers with all whatever services they are craving for them.

Threat Issue

As a fact, threats are around all business operations. If you feel the existence of some threats, such as strong competition from other centers of the same industry, your call center can follow more strategies of management to fix its steps on the market perfectly.

However, in order for this strategy to be able to work effectively, it must be applied on all departments with success. You have to encourage your employees to face the issues of threats at any time with courage. Using the issues of creative thinking will be great to face many types of threats. Facing threats will demonstrate that you can manage your call center well with applying the elements of SWOT Analysis perfectly.

Using the SWOT Analysis in managing your call center is not a joke. Yet, you have to trace all media issues, new tendencies, modern training, and provide all technological facilities regarding this matter.

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Do you promise 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed? If so, how do you deliver for 100% of the complaints?

Your most important objective is to resolve the matter quickly and hopefully to the satisfaction of everyone. The goal is to quickly eliminate the potential spread of bad word of mouth that can kill your business.

In my experience, most people are reasonable and so it is easy to come to an understanding of how to rectify the situation. The first step is to apologize and ask your client how they prefer the fix – and then offer a couple of suggestions. If the fix is obvious, then offer your solution immediately.

It is necessary to stick to your principles of what you can and cannot do and have the possibilities firm in your mind before you relay the message. Then, in a pleasant voice, offer what you can do for the other party. Very often they are looking for the leader in you. In this case, once you take control, you will find a satisfactory ending for both of you.

But what do you do when a client is not reasonable, but instead makes demands for something over which is beyond your control, has no merit or would put you in the red? Negotiation comes to mind.

On the off chance, the other party is completely unreasonable you will have to find a way to diplomatically end your business relationship. Most likely, if they are treating you in such a manner they are doing the same to others to see what they can get for free, and their reputation will follow them. Sometime it is necessary just to grin and bear it, and realize, at the very least your reputation is well-respected.

When negotiating, use a calm voice. Leave all emotion behind. Explain why you cannot meet the demands of your client and offer an alternative solution instead. Ask if that will be satisfactory. Work to meet the client half-way. It is important to get the agreement of satisfaction so that they will not angrily leave your presence only to tell others their point of view of a seemingly bad situation. Do your best to have them smiling before they leave.

The better the issue is resolved, the more likely your client will be grateful and you will be able to claim, 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed!

In corporate sales, I was continually apologizing for those who went before me in my territory. Consistently, I was able to turn dead files into thriving corporate accounts. In my early years of entrepreneurship, I found those wanting to take advantage of my newness. Taking a stance for what was possible, these people quickly moved out of my horizon to find others whom they could more easily intimidate.

On the other side of the table, I have found business people making justifications for changes in venue, policy, and fees. The end result found the justifications to be invalid yet no adjustments were made to the structure, policy or fees. From my point of view it was frustrating and I vowed not to do business with them again.

Take a moment to consider who you routinely go to for a service without ever considering their competition. Why is that? List the reasons you like doing business with them and determine if you can implement the similar customer service. You too will enjoy a Smooth Sale!

Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale, LLC and author of “Nice Girls DO Get the Sale” trains others on her proven relationship selling techniques through services and products. Her book sells worldwide.

Services include training, coaching, and speaking. Her products suit all learning styles.

Visit Smooth Sale or call 800-704-1499.

When you first start out in Internet marketing you are excited about your new venture and you picture yourself making thousands of dollars. You have seen hundreds of advertisements all telling you how much money you can make by basically sitting at your computer doing nothing. What you quickly realize is that these advertisements could not be more wrong. Internet marketing can be profitable but it can also be a lot of hard work too!

In order to succeed, you will need quite a bit of knowledge on the subject and that is where an Internet marketing course comes in.

Why Use an Internet Marketing Course?

By enrolling in an Internet marketing course you will be learning new skills to use within your business. A good course will tell you:

* Which products are the best to sell
* How to gain a good customer base
* Everything you need to know about advertising and marketing
* Tips that you can use to optimize your site
* How to build a good professional website on a budget

By learning all about the different ways to advertise and market your business, it will enable you to potentially reach more customers and therefore earn more profit.

Internet marketing is something that many people have tried and failed at. There is so much useless information out there that gives you the wrong advice and fools you into thinking that you do not have to put any work in to get results. By taking an Internet marketing course you will be presented with realistic expectations and you will be given only the best and most relevant tips that will help you to move forward in your new career.

Think about it, you do not change your career usually without learning the necessary skills beforehand. If you went from a job in hairdressing to information technology for example, you would have to learn everything there was to know about IT before you started the job. The same goes for Internet marketing; you need to know what it is, what it involves and how to successfully use it to your advantage before you can begin properly working as an Internet marketer.

Another advantage to taking an Internet marketing course is that it will teach you all about the latest techniques. As time has gone by new techniques have been introduced and they will continue to be introduced in years to come. By learning more about the latest techniques it will help you to keep on top of the business and provide your customers with the best possible service.

Overall Internet marketing is not as easy as you may think and you do have to spend some time learning at least the basics before you begin. Profit can be made; you just have to ensure that you know the best tips and tricks in the industry. So if you are looking to start out in Internet marketing why not find out more about an internet marketing course today?

Ranju Kumar assistant to the website, http://www.6m-ebizprofits.com/ is promoting a internet marketing course called the 6M Profit Method. Here you can grab a FREE Copy CD called the Million Dollar Desire at Million Dollar Desire Audio.

People grudgingly accepted the lack of customer service as the price they paid for cheap products. They complained, but they bought anyway because that’s just the way it was. Online shopping, while distant, is more customer centered than many local retailers.

To develop a rapport with customers in a virtual environment, online marketers had to establish trust and expertise, and they did it with relationship building, money back guarantees plus fast delivery. This customer-centered approach not only created trust as planned, but also caused a surprising number of customers to ignore the local stores and shop at major retailers online sites.

As a developing Internet marketer, you can learn from this brief history. You want to position your product as user friendly, beneficial and open for refund. Granted, this is easier with downloads and information products than with shipped products.

But even shipped products that offer guaranteed, no questions asked refunds actually have fewer refunds because the consumer feels free to try to return it if they’re not satisfied. Before the sale, you want to provide ample information about the product and the benefits that your customer will receive from it – ie. save time, money and effort etc – including several photo or video views if appropriate.

Think about the questions a buyer might ask and have the answers ready before the question arrives. An easy way to provide this information is with an expanded FAQ (frequently asked questions) page. Make sure there’s a link to the FAQ page from each product page.

If your product requires assembly after delivery, post an extra copy of how to assemble it. Even better is to post a video showing and telling how to do the assembly. Another great idea is to post videos showing alternative ways to use the product. This gives buyers options that they might not have considered.

To be consumer-centered means that you can be reached easily. Post your email (or that of your customer service center) and a phone number or SKPYE name. If you are the ‘Customer service center,’ send those emails to a designated email box and answer them promptly.

If you can’t, at least set up an autoresponder saying that you received the customer’s email and are working on the solution. The more ways you can be contacted, the more the customer feels at ease that you aren’t hiding in some unreachable corner of cyberspace. You can’t shake hands with your online customer, but you can create an ongoing buying relationship by demonstrating that you’re a customer-centered and an expert in your field online marketer.

Ron Richardson is the editor of Business Opportunities Newsletter. Subscribe & and claim your free ad seen by 4200+ subscribers ad

With so many home businesses out there, and so many people leaving their jobs to become entrepreneurs, why have we not heard about more success stories? Whether you have been working on your own home business for quite a while, or you are just looking to get started, you will find that it can take a lot of work to make a successful home business. The issue is that although a home business is quite easy to start, and although you are going to be in a place where you can get lot of work taken care of, you will find that unless you have the right information under your belt that there is a good chance that you are going to flounder and sink. For many people, getting the right information to help hem run their home business makes all the difference between success and failure, and for many o those people, this is where a good internet marketing training course comes in.

When you look at a good internet marketing training course, you will find that it can teach you a great many things. For instance, you are going to be in a place where you can move forward and learn things much more quickly than if you had started picking up the information on your own. While there is quite a lot to be said for making the most out of any learning opportunity, you will find that when you take a good internet marketing training course that you will be able to leapfrog far ahead in your business. This is all information that it would have taken you a great deal of time and perhaps even money to learn. Instead of making all of the mistakes that many of the home businesses that are just starting out are prey to, you are instead going to get the right information exactly when you need it.

You will also find that when you choose the right internet marketing training course that you are going to be getting good information that is quite specific to what you are looking to move forward with. What kind of growth are you expecting, and what can you do to make sure that the work that you are going to get done is really helping you build towards your goal? Goals are another thing that your home business needs. You need to both short term goals that you are working towards consistently, and you will also find that you need long term goals, goals that stretch over the years, that will also let you move towards the kind of lief that you want.

When you think about home based businesses, you will find that they are not altogether so difference from the idea of regular businesses in that they occasionally need new information pumped in and new material to work with. Take some time to really consider what your options are, and what you can do to make the most out of the internet marketing training course that you choose!

Ranju Kumar assistant to the website, http://www.6m-ebizprofits.com/ is promoting a internet marketing course called the 6M Profit Method. Here you can grab a FREE Copy CD called the Million Dollar Desire at Million Dollar Desire Audio.