Category: Sales & Marketing

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The Social Graph

Man looking at a graph

Behavioral targeting and the next wave of advertising

What’s the Social Graph? According to Wikipedia, “The social graph is a term coined by Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, which originally referred to the social network of relationships between users of the social networking service provided by Facebook. It has been described as ‘the global mapping of everybody and how they’re related’”. WOW.

The social graph is digital, versus a social network, which is human relationship. “It’s a small world” applies to these concepts. In social networks, we are all connected to each other, as in the Six Degrees of Separation wherein we can reach anyone via six connections, because dense clusters create shortcuts.

Leverage the Social Graph

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner recently claimed that leveraging the social graph is the key to the future success of online marketing.

In the last few years, advertisers learned to use information on an individual’s web-browsing and search behavior as the basis for selecting ads to display to that individual. That concept also extended to profile information on social networks. For example, have you noticed that on Facebook, display ads incorporating your age regularly show up on the right side of your wall? They’ve used your birth date to more narrowly target you, the consumer.

The social graph is the next wave of data and behavior mining. And display advertising will leverage the greater depth of social graph information.

Marketers’ target audiences grow exponentially

Word-of-mouth advertising is now on steroids. Social data tells us quite complex stories about consumers’ preferences. Now marketers have the power to reach the extended pool of an individual’s like-minded network.

If display advertisers use techniques effectively – offering highly relevant, interactive, and informative ads that engage a consumer – they will tell their social network, click through, and build relationship.

Display advertising projections

According to Google, “By 2015, the online display market will be a $50 billion dollar business. Half of online ads will feature video, and 75 percent will contain some sort of social element.”

Have you considered highly-targeted online display ads in your marketing plan? Tell us how.

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

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

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Close More New Business

Businessmen in suit shaking hands to close a contract

Offer an Iron-Clad Guarantee

In the last post, I introduced Lance Latham’s extraordinary strategy for building his LinkedIn network from zero to over 23,000 direct connects in 18 months. While interviewing him for the post, and reviewing his company’s website Metrilogics.com, I was enormously impressed with another business-building strategy he and his team have successfully employed.

Metrilogics offers a rock-solid guarantee that sets them apart from other consulting firms – giving them an important competitive advantage, and an edge that helps them close more new business.

The Metrilogics Savings Guarantee

According to their website, here’s their powerful guarantee – verbatim:

“Following the Opportunity Assessment, we will present our summary findings to the client’s senior management team, including the identified annualized savings opportunity, and recommendations to achieve those savings.

If the client’s management team makes the commitment to achieving these savings by following Metrilogics’ recommendations, then Metrilogics will embark on a Savings Project with the client organization for a defined time period to make the annualized savings a reality. Metrilogics will always guarantee client annualized savings of at least 3x the client’s project investment (= a guaranteed client ROI of at least 200%).

If – by the end of the project – client annualized savings exceed the original guaranteed dollar amount, Metrilogics won’t bill extra for the additional savings achieved.

In the unlikely event that the guaranteed annualized savings have not been achieved by the agreed-upon project end date, Metrilogics will either:

  1. Continue working without additional compensation until the annualized savings target is reached, OR
  2. Refund a portion of our compensation, proportionate to the guaranteed annualized savings shortfall.”

Management’s Insights about This Guarantee

Lance reports that their significant expertise (25+ years) and keen ability to identify savings within their clients’ operations gives them piece of mind about the potential risk they take on this guarantee. In fact, Metrilogics usually finds a greater percentage of savings than they project – the perfect example of another outstanding business fundamental; “Always Under-Promise and Over-Deliver”.

Metrilogics’ sweet spot is a mid-size company with 20-25 employees, conducting an 8 week engagement, finding $100,000 in bottom-line savings (though they regularly work with multi-billion dollar organizations). In a recent project, Lance is deservedly proud to report that in a 9 week engagement, they projected (and GURANTEED) $125,000 in savings. The result? $168,000 in savings – $43,000 and 34% higher than projected!

Lance and his team has never had to pay out on a guarantee. Rather, they have ALWAYS over-delivered. Bravo!

About Metrilogics

According to Metrilogics’ website and LinkedIn profile; “Metrilogics helps management teams achieve dramatic operational savings quickly. Through the Metrilogics process improvement approach, companies have achieved significant bottom-line cost savings, ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per year — the larger the organization, the greater the savings!” You may contact Lance by phone: 317-441-6844 or email: Lance @ Metrilogics.com (no spaces).

What guarantee can your company offer? Tell us about it or offer a link.

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

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

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How to Grow Your LinkedIn Network

Person holding linkedin icon

From Zero to 23,000 in 18 Months – A Case Study

LinkedIn is considered a highly professional, discerning business (social) network. Their model originally required introductions from your current network members in order to meet someone ‘new’. It was certainly inconvenient, and intentionally so.

Why is LinkedIn Important?

From their website; “Your professional network of trusted contacts gives you an advantage in your career, and is one of your most valuable assets. LinkedIn exists to help you make better use of your professional network and help the people you trust in return.”

LinkedIn Professional Network Growth is a Real Accomplishment

They intentionally make it hard to add people you don’t know.

So, when I learned that Lance Latham, of Metrilogics LLC had amassed a LinkedIn network of 23,000 DIRECT contacts (with outreach to 23 million 3rd degree contacts!), I wanted to know how. Lance was very receptive, and generously shared his strategy with me for this post.

Significant Growth in Two Steps

Lance started by asking his friends and business contacts, just like we all do. Then he devised two strategies to grow his network, spending about an hour every day for 18 months:

1.) Metrilogics developed 2 valuable APP tools to catch the interest of his target professional audience:

  • Task Rate Calculator for the iPhone and iPod touch – is specifically designed to enable management consultants and operations managers to quickly and easily derive capacity rates for any task, anywhere, any time.
  • Staffing Model Calculator for the iPhone and iPod touch – enables management consultants and operations managers to quickly and easily derive optimal direct production team sizes for any work environment – whether manufacturing, warehouse, financial services, or IT.

He then used the comments portion of the Tools page to promote these APPs. He introduced himself to interested responders, and linked via this dialogue. (You might consider offering valuable FREE information products instead of APPs.)

2.) Lance also joined LinkedIn GROUPS in his professional arena, sending INVITATIONS to connect to 30-40 group members each day. He simply told the members who he is and what he does. Since the groups he chose were synergistic to Metrilogics’ business, he experienced a high rate of connection!

Lance now has connections in business sectors all over the world. Congratulations, Lance, for your savvy use of an important social networking tool to enhance your business promotion.

About Metrilogics

According to Metrilogics’ website and LinkedIn profile; “Metrilogics helps management teams achieve dramatic operational savings quickly. Through the Metrilogics process improvement approach, companies have achieved significant bottom-line cost savings, ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per year — the larger the organization, the greater the savings!” You may contact Lance by phone: 317-441-6844 or email: Lance @ Metrilogics.com (no spaces).

Have you used unique strategies to grow your social network? Tell us about them.

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

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

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Free Social Media Monitoring

Woman checking social media with her phone

Set Up a Social Media Listening Alert System

In the last post, we discussed the importance of listening to the online conversations about your company, brand, products and service(s).

This post will walk you through the set up of a completely free social media monitoring system that is fully automated and customizable for your unique needs.

Start With the End in Mind

Decide what information is most important to receive. Decide on keywords most commonly used to relate to different aspects of you and your business. Examples of keywords to monitor include:

  • Your company name
  • Your brand name(s)
  • Your product and/or service name(s)
  • Your domain name(s)
  • Names of competitors
  • Keywords specific to your industry and/or niche

When you read the results, you can determine if you chose the right keywords. If you receive information that isn’t helping you, giving you news, or up-to-date insights, consider adding or changing keywords for awhile. It may take a few weeks or months to hone the list, but it’s well worth it, to keep you informed.

Basic Free Monitoring Tools

Set up these tools in the order below, and you’ll have a fully automated social listening, tracking and reporting system. In order to make them all work together, you’ll first need to set up a Google Account. Then feed the rest of the tools into Google Reader:

  1. Google Reader – Set this up first. It will collect the links found in the keyword searches and feed them to you. Google Reader is an RSS Feed Reader, sending updates as they occur.
  2. Google Alerts – This is a fundamental tool, and without it, you won’t have a full reporting system. Select ‘comprehensive search’, and choose to receive alerts by RSS Feed. For each keyword, click ‘create alert’ and ‘view in Google Reader”.
  3. Google Blog Search – Very important, since many opinions, rants, and even raves appear in blogs. “subscribe” and select RSS.
  4. Social Mention – Searches include social networks, such as Facebook, You Tube, LinkedIn, etc.
  5. Google News – Stay informed about your industry, niche and competition.
  6. Twitter Search – Searches Twitters’ massive content. Choose to add this to your Google Reader account.

After you have these set up with feeds going to your Google Reader account, you can organize Google Reader into folders and maintain an easily-accessed archive.

Now you’re set up to listen, monitor the social media conversation daily. Soon it will become a regular part of your day.

What type of listening has been most helpful to you and your company? What have you done to counteract the negative mentions?

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

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

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Why is Social Media Listening Important?

Young lady on her phone on social media live stream

You Need to Know What People Are Saying About Your Company

People are talking about you. Word-of-mouth. It happens in person and online. Before the internet it was much harder to find out what they were saying. But now that everything is posted – and permanent – it’s relatively easy to find out what people say about you, if you know how.

Did you know that you can set up a fully automated system to let you know anytime anyone says something online about:

  • you,
  • your company,
  • your brand,
  • your products, or
  • your competitors?

Social Media Conversation Monitoring

You can’t control the conversation, but you can listen and be alerted immediately when people write about you on:

  • Blogs
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Articles
  • Comments
  • Ratings, and
  • Anywhere people post content.

You can’t control it, and you don’t really want to control the conversation. By really listening to what people say, you can learn an awful lot about what you’re doing right (so you can keep doing it, or do it even better), and especially what you’re doing WRONG. This is perhaps the most valuable information, although often the hardest to hear.

Do You Live Up to Your Marketing Messages?

Your audience will point out, for the entire world to see, anytime your promises (marketing messages) don’t match your service (operations). If you know what you’re doing wrong, you can FIX IT.

If you want to make a splash online, listening is essential. In the next post, I will show you how to set up a fully automated system for getting immediate alerts on the topics of your choice – absolutely FREE.

Have you found negative information about your company online? If so, what did you do about it?

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

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman: With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

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How to Interview a Social Media Marketing Firm

Women sitting on a table conducting an interview

Start With Your Company’s Goals

In the last post, we discussed the importance of defining and articulating your company’s offline marketing goals and your social media marketing goals. Together, they serve as the target by which you measure success.

If a social media marketing firm doesn’t first seek to understand certain core fundamentals about your business and competitive environment, they are likely not a good fit for you. You’re looking for a firm that understands savvy, successful business as well as social media technicalities and online campaign execution. That’s a tall order. So it’s important to take time, interview several firms, and find the right fit for you. If you don’t put in this effort upfront, you may waste a lot of time, energy and money.

Example Interview Questions

Keep in mind that YOU are the hiring authority. Even though you may not know a lot about how social media campaigns are run, it is still the social media marketing firm that must pass YOUR scrutiny. So drill the questions at them and hold their feet to the fire.

Gather your management team together for each interview session. Many ears with different areas of expertise will hear the firm’s answers in different ways. Ask these questions:

  • How will you incorporate our company goals into online strategies and social media campaigns?
  • Do you have actual client campaign examples that got measurable results from your social media campaigns?
  • How did you measure results in those campaigns?
  • How did you determine success?
  • Have you had experiences in which clients did NOT achieve their goals, or were unhappy with their social media campaigns? Why? What would you do differently?
  • Do you establish baseline metrics to measure progress? Give me an example from a client campaign.
  • What has been your biggest client challenge or problem, and how did you solve it?
  • What methods have you used: To identify a niche audience and grow it? To engage that audience? To convert them into customers?
  • How will you go about determining the right social media campaign to reach OUR goals?
  • How do you price your services?
  • What if we’re not satisfied?

I highly recommend interviewing THREE firms. Ask all these questions verbatim. With your management team at each interview, have each person write down all the answers. After all the interviews are over, have your team pow wow to compare notes and discuss preferences. A clear winner will probably emerge during your discussion.

After all this, you will have gone up a very steep learning curve in a relatively short time period. It’s well worth the investment, because social media will continue to grow in importance for all companies around the globe.

What other aspects of a social media marketing firm interview have you found helpful?

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

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

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Recognize the bad stuff too! How to make the good words even more meaningful for Reward and Recognition in your Call Centres

Man in a button up shirt wearing a headphone

Recognize the bad stuff too! How to make the good words even more meaningful for Reward and Recognition in your Call Centres

A friend emailed me the other day and suggested that we could make our words even more meaningful by effectively dealing with issues and concerns. He said ‘Even if you deliver recognition perfectly, it will quickly lose its value if you let performance issues/concerns slide. Some managers make the mistake of ignoring issues if overall team performance is on target.”

I mused on that for awhile, over a cup of morning coffee, and thought about a time where I witnessed this happen. One of my Team Managers had a team that was performing very well with respect to their key performance indicators – meeting their productivity and sales targets, and achieving good customer service scores. This manager was very good at delivering rah, rah messages in their team meeting, providing pizza parties for team success, pumping up the team with cheers, etc. It was apparent, however, that some team members were not pulling their weight and were riding on the success of a few strong team members. The stronger team members were starting to get disillusioned and were not quite as motivated as they had been, and the manager was perplexed. Had he not treated them all to pizza and pop? Framed certificates for team performance for the kudos wall? Celebrated team stats in huddles? Yes, he had done all that – but not all the team members were doing their part, and the ones who were carrying the team were getting tired of performance issues being swept under the carpet. Why should Susan, who achieved only 50% of her sales target, get the same rewards as Peter, who overachieved at 122%? Why should the 11 people who met their productivity target be treated the same as those 7 people who did not achieve it? One sure fire way to demotivate your call centre reps is to lump them all together when it comes to recognizing results – both in a positive or negative way. It’s just as important to have the tough conversations!

So this weeks rule (#6) – Don’t forget to have the tough conversations or the great conversations won’t mean anything!

Some quick and easy ideas for Reward and Recognition in your Call Centres

And we’re adding to our list of 100….thanks for the suggestions!

Let’s build a list of 100 quick and cheap ways to Reward and Recognize in the Call Centre

Help me add to this list by submitting feedback – or emailing me at kimvey@rogers.com

5. Take calls for an hour for your rep. This can have a double benefit – the team sees the manager out on the floor and their peer gets an hour off the phone. This is also a great way to mentor your reps and teach best practices.

6. Create a wall of fame where you post new reps photos and a short bio. This is a great way to ‘recognize’ new employees joining the team

7. Mini first aid kit – with a note “thanks for taking care of our clients today’

8. An incentive for you readers this week – send in an idea and you could win a prize!

And remember, once we get to 100 – I’ll post the entire list right here and you can start using all the great ideas people have shared

Feedback or comments: Share your ideas for low/no cost rewards and recognition in your call centres

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What to Do Before You Interview a Social Media Marketing Firm

Person holding a pen writing in notebook

Tips for the Beginner

I’ve heard it at least a bazillion times … You’re starting to feel like your marketing strategy is falling behind the times. You know you should at least create a Facebook page and use Twitter, but you don’t really know how to use them. (Is it worth the time?) And, even more frustrating, you don’t know what you don’t know.

Where do you begin?

Can you learn how to do all this social media stuff, or should you find a social media marketing firm to launch you online? (Yikes, how much will THAT cost??) And, if you DO engage a firm, how do you find a good one? A good one could be defined as a team that ‘gets’ your business, with the objective of attracting new customers.

Define Your Offline and Online Goals

Before you start the hunt for the right social media marketing firm, gather your management team together and focus on articulating your offline marketing and sales goals FIRST. The result of any social media marketing firm’s work is only as good as the goals they work toward, and those come from your company. No management strategy and/or targets – no bullseye.

Once you have the offline marketing and sales goals articulated and prioritized, you’re ready to define your social media business goals. The offline and online goals work together hand-in-hand. Each supports and supplements the other. Good social media goals should at least include:

  • Identifying your online target market
  • Finding the places that they congregate online
  • Establishing your brand in these online communities (social networks)
  • Listening, listening, listening
  • After listening, easing into engagement with the target audience
  • Giving value
  • Offering solutions and converting the audience into customers
  • Monitoring, measuring, and continual improvement

You might also spend some time searching online and reading blogs about how other businesses establish their social media campaigns. They may or may not apply to you, but you will learn an awful lot, and give you more confidence before approaching a social media marketing firm.

What social media marketing goals have been successful for business?

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

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

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Who Could Refudiate a Good Headline?

Young cheerful lady showing thumbs up

 

Press Releases, Tweets — even, or especially, email subject lines — demand strong, catchy headlines. Imagine the volume of words that cross an editor’s or reporter’s eyes each hour! Guess which subjects they will be drawn to? Those that creatively thread the needle of journalism are the ones that will get sewn into the fabric of a feature story or news item. And that thread is your header.

A quick search of the past week’s headlines is instructive. This week the New Oxford American Dictionary named its word of the year Refudiate. And you have to admit that it’s a pretty “nifty” word, as Sarah Palin might say. In fact, it’s Alaska’s Governor Quit who coined the term. She’s got to feel pretty darn good about it, too, the designation from the Oxford word wonks coming in the same seven days that her reality show about Alaska — but mostly about her and her overexposed family and her simplistic political views — is breaking viewing records on TLC cable, such as they are. I have to admit, a sneak peak I stole the other night for 15 minutes revealed unusually high production values and tons of beauty shots of the inspiring scenery of the distant state where you can see Russia.

You can refudiate her politics all you want. But SP remains a headline grabber, despite the fact that she’s making fishing-boat-loads of money doing all this stuff in the guise of being some Teabag politico that believes she’s qualified for higher office.

Make Your Reporter Connection

Rather than dial up her BoobTube brand of Palintology online, I urge you instead to consider the power of good headline grabbers at another place. It comes this week from “Bill and Steve Harrison’s Reporter Connection” (if you haven’t joined yet, you should. It hooks up reporters with sources, like HARO does. Join here:

http://www.reporterconnection.com/11-15-2010.htm

The Harrison’s write, “Long before Diane Sawyer became the anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight, she did an interview in which she spoke about what kind of stories producers love, and what makes a great headline. For example, Sawyer talks about how this sentence: ‘This is a committee meeting which is very important politically,’ becomes more compelling when re-written as ‘This is a political time bomb – disguised as another government meeting.’ Take a quick read of this brief interview for other interesting nuggets.”

The power of the headline….Send me a few you’re proud of and I’ll post them. I promise I will not publically or bloglically refudiate any of them.

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For more resources, see the Library topic Public and Media Relations.

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Martin Keller runs Media Savant Communications Co., a Public Relations and Media Communications consulting company based in the Twin Cities. Keller has helped move client stories to media that includes The New York Times, Larry King, The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, plus many other magazines, newspapers, trade journals and other media outlets. Contact him at kelmart@aol.com, or 612-729-8585

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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