Year: 2010

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Monkey Business at the Better Business Bureau

group-people-working-out-business-plan-office

BBB in crisis management mode after being caught taking cash for ratings

Over the years, Bernstein Crisis Management has often had the challenge of protecting businesses from the abuses of the Better Business Bureau (BBB), the less-than-honest organization whose mission is supposedly to protect the public from bad business practices, so when I spotted an ABC News story calling out the service, my only thought was, “about time!” A quote:

The Better Business Bureau, one of the country’s best known consumer watchdog groups, is being accused by business owners of running a “pay for play” scheme in which A plus ratings are awarded to those who pay membership fees, and F ratings used to punish those who don’t.

To prove the point, a group of Los Angeles business owners paid $425 to the Better Business Bureau and were able to obtain an A minus grade for a non-existent company called Hamas, named after the Middle Eastern terror group.

“Right now, this rating system is really unworthy of consumer trust or confidence,” said Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal in an interview to be broadcast as part of an ABC News investigation…”

Additionally, in my experience, the BBB does not consider a complaint resolved until the COMPLAINANT considers it resolved — no matter how wacko or vengeful the latter person is.

Although the BBB vehemently denies that it is possible to buy higher ratings, claiming the example cited was due to a salesperson’s error, the ABC investigation actually managed to capture video footage of business owners being told that their grades could be raised if they paid hundreds of dollars in membership fees. With such damning evidence being thrust into the court of public opinion, the shoe is now on the other foot, as the group that has put unfair pressure on so many business owners is forced into crisis management mode in an attempt to protect both revenue and reputation.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

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Training World Class Customer Service

Customer service training workplace

Submitted by Guest Writer Rosanne D’Ausilio, PhD
Consultant, Master Trainer, Customer
Service Expert, Coach & Best Selling Author

To Train or Not to Train: Kicking Your Customer Service Up a Notch

According to a recent survey conducted by Tealeaf, a leading customer experience management company, one key element to surviving an economic downturn is excellent customer service. This is a huge opportunity for companies (like yours) willing to significantly improve their customer service, as this enables you to stand out among your competition.

By providing world class customer service, and listening to what the customer needs and wants, you are more able to satisfy your customer’s needs. This allows you to not only retain the loyalty of existing customers, but through positive word-of-mouth, procure new ones without massive spending on marketing and advertising.

This is vital since these same survey results showed that in the online market in particular, 4 out of 10 people stopped doing all business with a company after just one incidence of poor customer service. A favorite expression of mine (I don’t know who said it) is you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

Listening is a major component in customer service. I just finished reading A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink. He reports research from twenty years ago when doctor-patient encounters were videotaped. They found that the doctors interrupted their patients after an average of 21 seconds. A more recent study shows that doctors have improved. It’s now 23 seconds before they interrupt.

While we can all probably relate and even chuckle, if we move this to the customer service arena, what happens? Customers don’t get listened to. And what do customers want? What do we all want? To be treated with dignity and respect, and most of all, to be heard.

It isn’t that people don’t want to hear what’s being said. Oftentimes the intentions are good. We want to do our best job in the shortest time possible. What ends up happening is you listen for the pause to jump in and take the person where you think they want to go (which may or may not be accurate). If you’re listening for the pause, you are not listening to the person so you have no idea what they have said and usually they repeat it and actually extend the contact.

In today’s world repetitive, routine, ‘just the facts, ma’am issues can be handled through self service usually efficiently and effectively. Therefore, the more complex, complicated, and accelerated calls are necessitating human contact.

Tools, techniques, common phraseology, and language are just a few requirements for world class customer service.

But are these taught in school? No. These are introduced in customized, live, interactive training sessions delivered in real time. Is this a cost to bear? No. This is about investing in your people. Usually the lowest paid person has the highest responsibility of contact with the current and potential customers. There are KPI (Key Performance Indicators) that can be directly positively impacted by customer service skills training.

What needs to be included? Obviously communication and (pro-active) listening; rapport building, anger diffusion, option offerings, and the like.

After all, we, the people, are who make the difference.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

Rosanne D’Ausilio, PhD
Consultant, Master Trainer, Customer
Service Expert, Coach & Best Selling Author
www.human-technologies.com
www.HumanTechTips.com
www.customer-service-expert.com/report.htm

Subscribe to Rosanne D’Ausilio’s popular tips newsletter at www.HumanTechTips.com

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Business Christmas Cards

Merry-Christmas-sign

What Marketing Message Do They Really Send?

It’s primarily a Christian tradition. But the custom of sending Christmas cards has become popular among a wide cross-section of people, including non-Christians, both in Western society and in Asia. The traditional greeting reads “Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”; much like that of the first commercial Christmas card, produced by Sir Henry Cole in London in 1843.

There are innumerable variations of the Christmas card formula, many expressing a more religious Christian sentiment, or containing a poem, prayer or Biblical verse; while others distance themselves from religion, with an all-inclusive “Season’s Greetings”. However, even the ‘generic’ holiday cards are sent at Christmastime, and often contain Christian symbols, such as Christmas trees and ornaments.

Is it (Possibly) a Negative Marketing Message?

What marketing message comes to mind when you receive a Christmas card from a business? Certainly, it’s intended to create goodwill, but it MAY create feelings of thoughtlessness. Are you unintentionally offending a valued customer who doesn’t share the same religious beliefs?

Religious Diversity in the US

The United States is the most religiously diverse country in the world.

While the majority of Americans (76%) identify themselves as Christians, mostly within Protestant and Catholic denominations, many non-Christian religions (including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism), collectively make up the remaining 24% of the adult population.

Instead, Send a Message of Thanks!

Thanksgiving is currently celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, and has been an annual tradition in the United States since 1863. Thanksgiving is a holiday widely regarded by Americans as a time for:

This year, Thanksgiving will be celebrated on Thursday, November 25, 2010. So consider sending your trusted employees and valued clients that same message of gratitude, family and fun.

By sending Thanksgiving cards, you will pre-empt other businesses (including your competition) that send Christmas cards, you will stand out from the crowd, and your message of thanks will be remembered long after the holiday ends. (Can you say the same for Christmas cards?)

What else inspires you (think outside of the box) in your marketing messages this holiday season?

PS: The first Thanksgiving feast consisted of fowl, venison, fish, lobster, clams, berries, fruit, pumpkin, squash and turkey. This recipe is for an entire Thanksgiving Dinner that takes one hour to cook: One hour Thanksgiving Dinner.

(Many thanks to Wikipedia for the great source of information.)

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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5 Ways To Do Your Non-profit AGM on the CHEAP

Non profit written on a white background close to a note

Doing your Non-profit AGM on the cheap is not for everyone. If you use your AGM for a fundraiser, or are totally dependent upon private donors, then this wouldn’t be for you. But if you are a small or fledgling non-profit, this could help immensely.

When I first ran a very small non-profit, actually having an AGM event caused us hardship because we were very project funding based with little to no additional funding for special events. So it’s a good idea to look at how you can reduce your costs for your AGM event if you are in a similar situation. This is how you can do it:

  • Get a free vendor – Often if you are a community based organization, you can develop or already have developed relationships with local schools, community clubs, churches or seniors centres. These types of organizations are often willing to let you use their facility for little to nothing for using it because they see your organization as a valuable, contributing member to the community.
  • Make refreshments in house – Instead of paying a lot of money to hire a caterer or even to buy from a restaurant, why not purchase the basics needed and have staff and volunteers prepare the refreshments. This will take more coordination, but it is also an opportunity to empower your clients by asking them to help with the event and take ownership of it. Recommended types of food would be: sandwiches, veggie platters, cheese and crackers, pickles, fruit platters, coffee, tea or juice.
  • Sponsor funded AGM Report – Printing can be expensive, but there are ways to get it at little or no cost to your organization. Often local politicians have small pockets of funding that they can tap into, or they can often use their own printing budget to do the printing of your AGM report for you, provided you give them credit on the report as a sponsor. Or you could consider developing a partnership with a corporation or local business that deals in photocopying and ask them to contribute the photocopying of the AGM report, with credit on the report as well.
  • Recruit Entertainment – Instead of hiring someone to be the entertainment at the AGM, why not look for local talent that is willing to do it for the exposure. Often, local schools, church groups, or even residents are willing to perform at your AGM for free. It is a win win situation, they get exposure and you and your guests get the enjoyment of their talent.
  • Donated door prizes – We always found that the lure of door prizes often helped to draw our community into our events. AGMs can be pretty boring otherwise and you want your clientele and the surrounding community to participate. So you can approach local businesses to ask for donations of door prizes and offer to put up their names on a sponsor list at the event. Businesses enjoy being included in community events and you get door prizes that will help to increase the numbers attending your AGM.

Question of the Day: What tactics have you used to reduce the costs of your AGM event?

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For more resources, see our Library topic Nonprofit Capacity Building.

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By Ingrid Zacharias, Managing Director, Envisioning the Future International, http://envisioningthefutureintl.ca/

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Customer Satisfaction is no Longer a Unique Selling Point

Customer satisfaction evaluation

The “WOW” Effect is the New Trigger for Business.

Ok, so here’s the deal for anyone owning a business or working for one. Your business is all about solving a problem for your customer, right? Every one of your customers carries particular expectations each time they part with their hard earned cash in exchange for your products and/or service. (We’ll call your products or services “goods” for now. Goods are therefore your business’s cash cow or more specifically what puts pizza on your table).

In the past, customers were usually happy to pay for goods in exchange for your business delivering “the customer expectations”. While expectations may have varied, every experience, interaction or transaction resulted in either a satisfied or dissatisfied customer. Satisfied customers would come back and dissatisfied ones would go elsewhere. This was business then.

Today, customer satisfaction alone is not enough. Businesses need to “wow” over their customers by exceeding customer expectations and indeed surprise them. Over delivering is the new business rule. Satisfaction is a given and therefore no longer a Unique Selling Point.

Some firms using this technique include immigration solicitors oxford. as well as immigration solicitors northampton

There’s a reason for this.

The Wow Effect is now the only Guarantee for consistent Business Results driven by Passionate People working with Best Practices to deliver Quality Goods repeatedly.

How do you “wow” your customers?
uk immigration solicitors immigration lawyers london
uk immigration solicitors london

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For more resources, see our Library topic Quality Management.
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Team building energiser: Team Jump

Business-team-mates-jumping-together

We would like to share an idea for a team building energiser that can be run inside or outside and would work especially well with larger teams. It’s called ‘Team Jump’.

A team jumping
This activity is not as easy as it sounds, especially with larger groups

Overview:
This team building activity is a great way to re-energise the team and have a great photo memory of your day’s training.

Running the Activity: Continue reading “Team building energiser: Team Jump”

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Capital Campaigns #7: Beginning the Extended Campaign

a-chair-person-in-a-division-addressing-colleagues.

As with the basic campaign, you must start with the knowledge of where the commitments will come from to achieve your dollar goal … only this time you are not limiting yourself to a relatively few major donors. This time, in addition to the major donors, you will need specific sums from different segments of your constituency.

In a campaign for a hospital, for example, at the top of the leadership pyramid are the highest-rated prospects — some major donors, prominent members of the community, some board members and (maybe) a few docs.

These individuals have responsibility for setting an example with their giving, and for recruiting and soliciting those who will be the leaders of the various segments of the campaign – including the overall campaign chair. This is the “Quiet Phase” — the solicitation of those donors whose commitments will ensure reaching the first “Safety Point” (60%, 80%, or more of the goal).

The overall Campaign is separated into smaller “campaigns,” one for each segment of the constituency – the board, the administration, the medical staff, the nursing staff, each of the other hospital departments, the auxiliary, local (large) corporations, local businesses and the various segments of the broad community.

Each of those segments/Divisions must have a Chair, a person who will set the example, and recruit and solicit those who will solicit others in their Division. The Chair of a Division must be someone who is respected by the members of his/her segment and who has the clout to successfully lead a “campaign” limited to that segment.

Typically, the Chair for each of the Divisions of the Hospital Family are members of the Division they will chair, but they are not necessarily the Heads of their Departments – great care must be exercised to avoid the appearance of a Department Head coercing members of his/her Department.

As a practical matter, the “campaign” for the Board of Trustees should precede the “campaign” for the Administrators/Executives, which should precede the “campaign” for the docs … otherwise you’ll have the docs saying, “If they didn’t, why should we?”

In that context, the “campaign” for the docs should precede the “campaign” for the nurses, and those previous four “campaigns” should precede those for the rest of the hospital staff. Realistically, because you can’t solicit one segment of a hospital family (other than the Board) without the hospital grapevine spreading the word fairly quickly, the various “campaigns” for the different segments of the hospital family tend to be implemented within the same timeframe.

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your basic fundraising program, your major gifts fundraising program or a capital campaign? Email me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll likely be able to answer your questions.

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Managing Polarities

A businessman stressed due to problems arising at work

I was recently introduced to the work of Barry Johnson and his book, Polarity Management, in my professional coaches group. Johnson distinguishes between having a problem to solve vs. a polarity to manage. Most of us are familiar with problems- budget reductions, cost overruns, pressing performance goals. Johnson defines problems as those things that are time bound and have definite completion or end points. Polarities are those things that are continual and don’t have definite endings. They are often competing but equally important values or priorities. For instance, you may want to perform well at work and be home with your family. These will be continual struggles that don’t need to be resolved or completed so much as managed well.

I’m guessing most working mothers know this dilemma. You work with the polarity of being home with the kids while they are young and also being a contributing employee or fulfilling your professional dreams.

Have you struggled with any of these polarities?

listening and speaking tasks and relationships
planning and remaining flexible patience and action
controlling and allowing faith and doubt

What about your spiritual life and your professional life? Do you feel they are a polarity for you, perhaps separate but equal? Separate and unequal priorities? Do you strive make these interconnected rather than mutually exclusive?

The Yin and Yang symbols represent the Taoist understanding of polarities as natural flows of life. The poles or competing opposites aren’t so much tasks to be managed as life qualities to be recognized and appreciated, both being integral for life.

If you are feeling stuck now in some course of action at work, it may be that the polarities of two opposing desires, goals, values or commitments are pulling at you simultaneously. Knowing when to shift from one side of the polarity to another takes discernment, experience, and sometimes just plain trial and error.

Think of some aspect of your work where you feel torn between two values or commitments. Here are some clues as to when you need to shift attention to the other side of your polarity:

1. Are you feeling strain from going so far in the one direction?

2. Do you feel out of balance by what you are doing/what’s going on in your life?

3. Do you feel tired or irritable from what you are doing/your current focus?

4. Have you forgotten what it was like to be connected to the other polarity?

May you find peace in the shifting between your polarities. Let balance and flow be your guides.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Linda is an author, speaker, coach, and consultant. Go to her website www.lindajferguson.com to read more about her work, view video clips of her talks, and find out more about her book “Path for Greatness: Spirituality at Work” available on Amazon.

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Do we Need Innovation in Talent Management?

Talent-written-on-a-yellow-paper

A recent survey conducted by SHRM indicated that human capital is one of the biggest challenges in the next ten years for business. Recruiting and retaining top talent should already be a number one priority of your talent management strategy; however, the challenge will be in adjusting the strategy to accommodate changes in the workforce. The real challenge for the HR professionals and business will be in developing innovative strategy to meet the new normal of the business world. Unfortunately, in HR innovation seems to be a missing skill. And questioning long held beliefs in talent management seems to be an even less common skill or practice found in today’s HR departments.

As a profession, we tend to get wrapped up in the compliance piece of the job and forget about what it means to recruit and retain talent. In the most recent issue of SHRM magazine, there is a great article on the biggest missteps in performance management. The information is solid and the article is filled with great advice. It lists information that seems to be often forgotten by managers in the workplace le reminding HR folks of all the little things managers do that drive us crazy. By being written from the vain of legal compliance, it reinforces that our job is so filled with compliance that we might not even realize that we have a greater responsibility in our roles as the drivers of talent management.

We owe it to our organizations to focus on innovative and creative strategies that will attract and retain the talent needed to meet the needs of the organization. We have to start by questioning everything we do in our current strategy and see if it actually yields the results that you have been taught that it does. And for all of you in HR who believe our mission is about the people, you should realize that by taking care of the people in your strategy, you will retain them and that is the win-win we always strive for in this profession.

If you want a place to start, look outside of the HR department. Start with the talent.

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For more resources, See the Human Resources library.

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Sheri Mazurek is a training and human resource professional with over 16 years of management experience, and is skilled in all areas of employee management and human resource functions, with a specialty in learning and development. She is available to help you with your Human Resources and Training needs on a contract basis. For more information send an email to smazurek0615@gmail.com or visit www.sherimazurek.com. Follow me on twitter @Sherimaz.

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Should a Speaker, Trainer, or Facilitator Spend Thousands on Coaches and Programs to Ensure Success?

A-male-speaker-with-his-audience-in-a-conference-room

The quick answer is easy. No one can ensure your success. Success as a speaker, trainer, or facilitator depends on other factors than refining your talent as a communicator. A business acumen is essential, marketing, some psychology so you know your audience, but most importantly a product yourself, a plan and the will to see it through.

I am speaking as a speech coach. I will not take money from students unless we have had an in depth discussion of what may be the best path for them under their current circumstances. It may be since I left home at an early age and worried about my own survival that I worry about my students. I’m sure I could make more money by being less ethical and such a nice guy, but if there ever is an area where you can lose your money and your dream, this is it.

Coaches can help your confidence, help you get rid of bad mannerisms that distract, help you direct your message, and literally fine tune your performance–if that truly is their goal. Still, they cannot guarantee your success.

However, you can spend a lot more money on a great coach and go nowhere. Have a solid reason to pursue the career. When you are certain you have the talent (or do you need the coach to tell you?), then invest if you so desire and can afford to. Asking the coach if you have the talent to succeed may just open the door for “Sure, with my help.” Be very specific on what you need.

Be careful, as in any business, those selling the how-to are often doing better with the selling than the work and stop doing the work altogether. It’s not unusual for those who offer these programs or coaches to often make a lot more money on selling the programs or coaching than the speaking itself. The fact that it’s just human nature to want that success makes a bit more palatable to us.

The drive to success can be an opiate. You and your potential coach can be easily addicted. You, for your speaking dream; he or she for a more financial one.

There are many paths toward a chosen profession. Not all involves training by “successful” others. It’s a little like the rich guy who tells who the secrets of making money and neglects to tell you he wasn’t worried because Mom and Dad had plenty should he fail at “this” endeavor. Some of us don’t have the support systems so counting on someone to train us right into success is naive. To those who had the resources, I hope you take advantage of them; not all of us are so lucky. You should invest in what saves you time, in what helps you concentrate on the areas you need to concentrate.

There is no guaranteed path or quicker access to success even for the enormously talented. Just look at actors. There are great ones who never see Broadway or the Silver Screen, and others, in the right place, right time with the right connections, that have stardom.

As you peruse the slick marketing packages, the successful look of the sellers themselves that represent what you might become, remember the person who came before them and did all with hard work without others. I’m not saying never pay someone for a service, just to remember that it is just that: a service. Get your money’s worth, stick to your plan and you’ll accomplish your dream.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.