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Customer Service Week
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Customer Service Week is October 3rd through the 7th. The importance of honoring and recognizing the people who directly serve and support customers is what Customer Service week is all about. This year Simple Truths new movie, 212 Service, will add to the momentum of celebrations by reinforcing that a service culture is not only about serving the customers but also includes serving each other within all levels of an organization. Be the leader in appreciating all who serve customers by sharing 212 Service with your boss and colleagues. Simple Truths has unique inspirational gift books, frames and jewelry that make wonderful gifts for your customer service team.
212 Service movie banner 212 Service Product
How to make your customers say, "WOW!"
I'm a big fan of Nordstrom. My wife is a bigger fan! For many years we've been impressed with the "Nordstrom attitude" when it comes to serving their customers. A few years ago, we were in Nordstrom doing some last-minute Christmas shopping. As we were walking through the men's department, an employee came out of nowhere and said, "Sir, wait here, I'll be right back." I watched him run over to See all customer service products Click here!
the next counter about 100 feet away, grab something and start running back. When he got back, he said, "Sir, I think you've been trying on sweaters." I said, "How'd you know?" He said, "The back of your black shirt looks like it's been snowed on, and it's not snowing in here!" We both laughed and he proceeded to remove the fuzz with his lint roller. After about 10 seconds he said, "That's it...you're free to buy more stuff. I hope you and your wife have a wonderful Christmas!" After spending about one hour in the store, we each had three Nordstrom bags, and as we were walking out the exit into the rest of the mall, another employee ran over and said, "Let me keep all these bags here while you do the rest of your shopping. They'll be right here, just ask for me." He introduced himself, as did we, and he handed me his card. About one hour later, with more packages from the mall, we came back. As we walked into the store, I saw the gentleman who had taken our bags walking toward us with a big smile, "Welcome back Mr. and Mrs. Anderson." He then looked at our new shopping bags and said, "My goodness, you're going to have a load. Can I help you take these bags to the car?" Now please understand, it's Christmas, the store is full of people, it's cold outside, the parking lot is full...and this gentleman is asking if he can help take our bags to the car! Even though I said "no thanks," I knew his intentions were 100 percent sincere. I have to tell you the whole service experience on that day blew me away, but I've learned over the years, it's business as usual at Nordstrom! ~~~~~~ As the founder of Simple Truths, I've come to realize just how much people love great stories. In Customer Love, you'll find 24 great stories about great service. Here's just one example from the book excerpted from Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless by Jeffrey Gitomer. You'd heard of jaw-dropping service, right? Maybe you've even received it; and you certainly strive to provide it. Here's one idea designed to WOW! customers that officially qualified as phone-dropping. "Hi, my name is Kim Waggy, I'm the concierge at the Broadview Hotel (in Wichita, KS). You'll be staying with us on the 15th and 16th of October and I'm calling to see if you need anything special." "Oh my God," Gitomer said. Total shock. Five hundred hotel stays over the last three years and this is a first in service. I screamed at our staff. Told them Kim's quote. They gave her a standing ovation on the spot. Over the phone I could hear Kim blushing. Memorable service is about surprising someone. I was flabbergasted. I asked Kim what typical reactions were to her call. "Surprised, very surprised," she said. "People realize we're going an extra step to satisfy their needs. It makes the guest feel more welcome, helps people remember us as a step above. Pleased—valued—thought of. Not just a name in the computer." I don't know about you, but I wanted to find out what people ask for when they get Kim's call. "Very little out of the ordinary. That's not the only reason we call them. We want our guests to have an experience here, not a stay—and we believe that starts before the guest even arrives. I make sure my friendliness and service orientation set the tone and the expectations for their stay." WOW! "How surprised are they?" I asked. "Well, today three people dropped the phone," she said. "How did you come up with this idea?" I asked. "Leo Villafana, our front desk manager, came up with the idea. We have a weekly meeting to review the guests coming in. We were brainstorming, trying to EXCEED their expectations. We were stuck for an idea about the best way to find out the guests' needs and Leo said, 'Why don't we just call the guests and ask them?' (duh) We decided to call each guest one week in advance to pre-determine their needs. If we don't ask, we don't know. If we don't know, we can't wow." WOW! "We just implemented this practice a few weeks ago. The response has been positive," said Kim with her Midwest modesty. "Most people don't need big stuff. But they love the call." I asked to speak to Leo Villafana. There was great music on hold — no surprise. "Our corporate philosophy is to put the person staying at the hotel at the top of the list. To make customers feel special," Leo said."...every guest should be a name, not a room number. The advance call is not just a courtesy, it's a philosophy." Cool. ~~~~~~ The stories in Customer Love w/Free Dvd are just the starting point for the distinctive service you can provide to your customers. Use them to talk with your team and discuss how they can apply to your company or your department. It's my hope that reading Customer Love w/Free Dvd will inspire you and your team to make your service culture all it can be! Today, we're pleased to offer Customer Love w/Free Dvd
Customer Service Sampler Set
A Boy With Down Syndrome Ended Up Being The Most Important Employee... The story of Johnny the bagger by Barbara Glanz , The Simple Truths of Service with DVD
I always leave my telephone number and e-mail address with audiences, encouraging them to call me if they have questions or want to share a success story they experienced by adding a personal signature to their work. About a month after I had spoken to the supermarket folks I received a call from a frontline customer contact person, a nineteen-year-old bagger named Johnny. The caller, who proudly informed me that he was a Down syndrome youngster, told me his story. "Barbara, I liked what you talked about!" Johnny said excitedly, "but I didn't think I could do anything special for our customers... After all, I'm just a bagger. He decided that every night when he came home from work, he would find a thought for the day. "If I can't find a saying I like," Johnny said proudly, "I think one up!" With the help of his dad, he copied and cut out each quote of the day. "When I finished bagging someone's groceries, I put my thought for the day in their bag and say, 'Thanks for shopping with us.'"
A month later the store manager called me. He told me... "When I was making my rounds, I found the line at Johnny's checkout was three times longer than anyone else's! It went all the way down the frozen food isle. I was concerned, so I announced 'Get more cashiers out here; get more lanes open!' all the while trying to get these people to change lanes. But no one would move. They all said, "No, it's okay - we want to be in Johnny's lane - we want his 'Thought for the Day.'"
Johnny's spirit of service transformed that store. The manager later called and told me how each of his departments was coming up with their own personal touch and all because of one young man with Down syndrome who decided he could make a difference! As I tell my audiences... "Every one of us in this room can make a difference. We can all be a Johnny."
•A customer service classic that will grab your heart and not let go! •Your competitive edge is how your customers are treated. Each and every member of your team will be coming up with their own ideas of how to deliver that extra special service after they read this book. Get creative about customer service! The Simple Truths of Service unforgettable true story about a very special young man who takes a chance and changes the culture of a grocery store. More than 5 million people have been touched by this story. Has it touched yours? Johnny is young man living with Down Syndrome who changes the culture of a grocery store by being creative and giving the customers more than they expect. He puts his own personal signature on each and every interaction. Read about Johnny plus other great customer service stories from Ken Blanchard. Your customer service team will be bursting with new ways to make your company stand out from the crowd. Best-selling authors Ken Blanchard and Barbara Glanz have written a book that any company can use to reshape their culture around serving the customer. Designed by Michael McMillan (The Race and Paper Airplane), this book will become a customer-service classic. This story will grab your heart and get your creative juices flowing on ways to create "customer enthusiasm" in your organization. "Once in a great while you read something that bypasses the brain and goes straight to the heart. The Simple Truths of Service is that book... and then some." -Mac Anderson , Founder Simple Truths We invite you to preview this Book, and view the short DVD movie
Quotations about Business
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. ~Henry Ford
Business is a combination of war and sport. ~André Maurois
The absolute fundamental aim is to make money out of satisfying customers. ~John Egan
Wise are those who learn that the bottom line doesn't always have to be their top priority. ~William Arthur Ward
Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
It is not the employer who pays the wages. He only handles the money. It is the product that pays the wages. ~Henry Ford, 1922, also sometimes quoted as "It is the customer that pays the wages"
Hire character. Train skill. ~Peter Schutz
I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business. ~Henry David Thoreau
The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. ~Bill Gates
Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things. ~Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus puerisque, 1881
I don't pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages. ~Robert Bosch
In college, Yuppies major in business administration. If to meet certain requirements they have to take a liberal arts course, they take Business Poetry. ~Dave Barry
Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in man. ~Author Unknown
Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions. ~Edward R. Murrow
Make the workmanship surpass the materials. ~Ovid
A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation. ~Howard Scott
The executive exists to make sensible exceptions to general rules. ~Elting E. Morison
There are so many men who can figure costs, and so few who can measure values. ~Author Unknown
For all of its faults, it gives most hardworking people a chance to improve themselves economically, even as the deck is stacked in favor of the privileged few. Here are the choices most of us face in such a system: Get bitter or get busy. ~Bill O'Reilly, about capitalism
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. ~Bill Gates, Business @ the Speed of Thought
People that pay for things never complain. It's the guy you give something to that you can't please. ~Will Rogers
To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart. ~Thomas Watson, Sr.
I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well. ~Alan Greenspan
Men err when they think they can be inhuman exploiters in their business life, and loving husbands and fathers at home. ~Smiley Blanton
Let's be honest. There's not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings. ~Bob Parsons
Successful enterprises are usually led by a proven chief executive who is a competent benevolent dictator. ~Richard Pratt
The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed. ~Henry Ford
The NBA is never just a business. It's always business. It's always personal. All good businesses are personal. The best businesses are very personal. ~Mark Cuban
It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises but only performance is reality. ~Harold Geneen
You can't file a conversation. ~Author Unknown
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. Teach a man to create an artificial shortage of fish and he will eat steak. ~Jay Leno
The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell. ~Confucius
It is unfortunate we can't buy many business executives for what they are worth and sell them for what they think they are worth. ~Malcolm Forbes
Too many people think only of their own profit. But business opportunity seldom knocks on the door of self-centered people. No customer ever goes to a store merely to please the storekeeper. ~Kazuo Inamori
A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practise it. ~Alexander Pope, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1727
Government in the U.S. today is a senior partner in every business in the country. ~Norman Cousins
To take something from a person and keep it for oneself: that is robbery. To take something from one person and then turn it over to another in exchange for as much money as you can get: that is business. Robbery is so much more stupid, since it is satisfied with a single, frequently dangerous profit; whereas in business it can be doubled without danger. ~Octave Mirbeau, Torture Garden
Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you are in business. Yes, and that is also true if you are a housewife, architect or engineer. ~Dale Carnegie
A consultant is a man sent in after the battle to bayonet the wounded. ~Author Unknown
The results of quality work last longer than the shock of high prices. ~Author Unknown
It doesn't matter how many times you fail. It doesn't matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you because... All that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are. ~Mark Cuban
Commerce, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's World Book, 1906
You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough. ~Joseph E. Levine
Customer Service Skills
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