You probably won’t have been in business too long before you get your first complaint. It just can’t help but happen: low-end customers pay nothing and expect the Earth, while high-end ones pay a lot but expect an inhuman effort in return. You just can’t please all of the people all of the time, even if you run yourself ragged trying — there will always be someone who’s not happy with what you’ve done. So what can you do about it?

Don’t Be Rude or Dismissive.

The customer’s complaint might seem stupid to you, or even insulting — but that doesn’t mean that you can respond in kind. You must treat every customer complaint seriously, and always act as if it is 100% your fault that things weren’t to their satisfaction.

Remember that every unhappy customer will talk about their experience to your potential customers (research varies, but some say that they might tell as many as 20). Those potential customers won’t get to hear your side of the story. Going the extra mile to keep unreasonable customers happy is, above all else, a defensive technique to prevent them from damaging your business. Don’t be scared of complaints: you should, instead, be actively soliciting them, to give you a chance to put things right before they tell anyone.

Write a Letter of Apology.

People will really appreciate the effort you’ve gone to if you take the time to write them a formal letter of apology, and say that you’re sorry things weren’t to their satisfaction and you appreciate them taking the time to tell you so that you can improve. For example:

‘Dear Sir,

It has come to my attention that you weren’t happy with the service you received from my company in respect of the delivery of items to your home. We have now contacted our delivery service and fixed the issue, although I understand that this came too late to avoid inconveniencing you.

I would like to sincerely apologise to you for the bad experience you have had with my company, and hope that this will not harm our chances of doing business together again in the future.’

Make sure you sign the letter yourself, in pen. People hate seeing letters with printed signatures on.

Offer a Partial Refund.

The closing part of your letter should offer a refund of as much as you can afford to give — in this scenario, for example, where there was a problem with delivery, you should offer to refund the full cost of delivery, plus a little extra to cover the inconvenience.

In this way, you can turn your dissatisfied customers into some of your most satisfied ones. They will tell everyone they know that there was a small problem that wasn’t your fault, and they probably complained too harshly, but you handled it courteously and sent them a refund.

Having people know that you respond well to complaints is some of the best word-of-mouth marketing you can get. What’s more, that customer you treated well is surprisingly likely to come back and do business with you again — although, of course, they’ll be very annoyed if things don’t go well the second time either.

Do Some Complaining Yourself.

A large amount of the time, when a customer complains about something, it wasn’t caused by you — it was some kind of problem with your supplier, or someone else you rely on. Of course the customer didn’t know this, but you do, and you need to do something about them. Write them a letter of complaint, like the following:

‘Dear Sir or Madam,

Due to your service being unavailable this week, I have received the attached customer complaints. I hope you will understand that I am very displeased, and I am currently considering alternative suppliers.’

With this letter, enclose a copy of every customer complaint you got thanks to them. Your supplier will often be eager enough to keep you on as a customer that they will offer some kind of compensation package — which you can then pass on to your customers, or use to cover the cost of refunds you have already given them.

Whatever happened to the adage “The customer is king or queen”? or the customer is always right. Not anymore. Company’s representatives seem to delight in arguing with and stone-walling customers and some even brag on their blogs about early morning and late evening calling just to upset customers to set them up for their day.

What kind of individual gets kicks from this kind of behavior? Do they even think before they call the reaction of the customer they call and whom they might come in contact with that day? Is this kind of action possibly more legal liability just waiting to happen?

Road Rage is so common in our society now… what’s next- Telephone Tantrum? Will this also be a psychiatric diagnosis and a legally defendable offense? I would almost bet on it!

Credit card companies are the amongst some of the worst offenders and now, if one is a good, pay your bills on time and in full customer they don’t want you and in fact, are considering penalizing the “good customer” by charging them an annual fee to use their card. Seriously?

It truly amazes and stuns me how deplorable customer service has become. It‘s such an oxymoron… customer and service don’t go together anymore; there is no service for the customer it is all about the company’s way to make money, more profit. Don’t companies care anymore about the way that they are perceived? The only power and voice the customer has left is not to be a company’s customer anymore and when that happens there will be no need for the bottom-line, making money/profit, customer service or the CEO; therefore no more company.

I have always been a positive person and I try to look at both sides of every situation. Do I have suggestions and offer solutions. ABSOLUTELY! When I have had an excellent experience with customer service I tell them so and thank them as well as telling everyone that I come in contact with what a great company, service or product they have. Lately, I have been silent… wonder why?

As the Internet becomes an increasing part of our lives there are a growing number of web sites which are run for dissatisfied customers to publicly air their complaints about bad service. See your name posted on these sites or get contacted by them and you know you have a problem!

How can you prevent your business from becoming ‘feature of the week’? Of all the skills small business owners need these days, the one least practiced is the ability to step back and look at your business from the customer’s perspective.

Having an effective complaint handling process is important but that is the equivalent of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted &ndash it’s too late, your customer has already suffered.

It’s more effective to know what your customers could potentially complaint about and put it right before it happens.

So what are the common reasons for customer complaints? Mark Bradley of Customer Service Network (.customernet.com), which facilitates in benchmarking, improving processes and implementing improvements to help reduce customer complaints, says,

“Financial loss is the obvious reason but the rest can be split into operational and emotional reasons.”

In this article we will look at some of the operational and emotional or human issues within your business which could give your customers cause to complain. Take a look at these and examine each part of your business. How do you stand up?

“You didn’t do what you promised.”

When did you last review your advertising material or web site? Do they contain service promises which sounded great at the time but have since been forgotten? For example, do you promise to deliver within 24 hours but changes in processes have meant that is no longer possible? No one may have complained yet but sooner or later someone will.

“Your product didn’t do what it’s supposed to do.”

When did you last undertake a quality check of your product? Random checks can help weed out poor quality workmanship before a customer spots it. When buying your stock or finished item do you test it?

“You’re never open when I need you.”

9 to 5, 5 days a week may have been acceptable when you first started out, but is this still what the customer wants? Check with your customers &ndash they may want you to open later and close later.

“It’s a long time before someone answers the phone.”

Hanging on the phone while it rings and rings is very irritating. It conjures up images of staff sitting drinking coffee and chatting; not the impression you want to portray and not the way to put customers in a buying mood! Do your staff understand the importance of the phone being answered promptly?

“Whenever I ring in and get transferred to another person I often get cut off.”

Have your staff been trained in getting the best out of your phone system? Do all staff have a handy list of extension numbers to avoid annoying ‘sorry wrong department’ answers? Ask a friend or business colleague to ring in and take note of what happens &ndash good and bad.

Mark Bradley says, “We usually encounter a number of interesting correlations that fundamentally prove that operational accuracy leads to customer satisfaction.”

Take some time to look at your business from the customer’s perspective and you should be able to stop customer complaints before they hit your desk.

It’s not only the operational side of the business which can let you down; the human side of business can also generate complaints &ndash your staff! No matter how good your product is one loose cannon in your team can upset everything. What actions can your staff take that can lead to a customer picking up the phone or putting pen to paper?

Bad Attitude

There’s no getting away from it &ndash some people have a bad hair day every day! The way they speak to people is enough to turn the most mild mannered of customers against your company. They act as if the customer is an interference to their daily routine. A person with poor job skills can be taught the relevant knowledge or skills but a person with a generally bad attitude, the proverbial chip on the shoulder, is harder to bring into line.

These type of people are the ones who never acknowledge your presence when you are standing in front of them, or still chat away on the phone The solution? Get them away from your customers.

Not Willing To Seek a Solution

These people are the ones who may acknowledge a customer’s problem but just can’t be bothered to find a solution; it’s too much hassle. The stock answer is, “I can’t help. It’s company policy.” Their favourite words are “I can’t”, “Yes, but”, “won’t”, “shouldn’t”. They can find nothing positive to help the customer. If this happens, your customers walk away thinking you are a ‘can’t do’ instead of a ‘can do’ business.

Not Giving Full Product Explanations

Your product may be the best in the world, but if it doesn’t do what the customer wants then you have one unhappy purchaser. Lack of understanding of how the product or service meets the customer’s requirements could be down to your sales staff being too anxious for a sale &ndash persuading the buyer that the product is just right when it clearly doesn’t fit what the client needs. This is partly down to sales training but also attitude. Do you want staff that are happy to sell to your customers on this basis?

Not Willing To Admit a Mistake

Isn’t it refreshing to hear someone say, “Do you know, you’re right. We really messed this up.” If you get this as an opening line when making a complaint, you immediately know you’re in business. However, sometimes getting a business to admit it has made a mistake is like pulling teeth. If you’re in the wrong, get your staff to own up and say, “Yes, we were wrong”, it can take away the emotion which sometimes blocks successful resolution of complaints.

Not Keeping You Up To Date

In any effective complaint handling process, everything can be done according to the book, but it can all be thrown away if the client is not kept up to date. A complaint, followed by days of silence, allows doubt and anger to bubble up again. It may be that the person handling the complaint had a bad time when taking the initial query; he’s not motivated to pick up the phone and engage in another torrent of abuse! However, not speaking to the client can only make matters worse, and so guaranteeing that the next call will be even more interesting! Get ‘strong’ characters to front your complaints, people who are not intimidated and are happy to solve problems.

Broken Promises

This is probably the most frequent reason for human cause of complaint; ‘Yes, I’ll do that for you. Leave it to me.” What happens? Nothing! The impression given is that your staff just don’t care, or that the customer is not important. Impress upon your staff the importance of following through on their promises. Any broken promise will compound a complaint.

So, in what areas are your staff letting you down? Are you doing everything to ensure your staff are treating everyone as loyal customers? Listen to what your staff are saying, and listen to what your customers are telling you. Get the human side of your complaint process right and you have more chance of keeping your customers for life.

The art of complaint handling is not only resolving it to the customer’s satisfaction; it’s also about taking action on what you find out and being proactive in finding potential problems before they become problems.

First, let’s define what a CRM is: The term Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is a system that connects different parts of a company through the thread of customer relationships. Sales, Marketing, Accounting and Customer Service can all be tied together with a powerful, centralized CRM software made to retain customer loyalty, increase revenue, deliver consistent and efficient customer service, and finally, evaluate which customers to focus on.

Basically, every company has customers, and every company should maintain some basic information about those customers such as names, addresses, purchases, contracts, invoices, etc. Therefore every company should have at least some basic “CRM Technology” to track and serve their customers. Even small businesses use Outlook, Quicken or other applications for this purpose. If you use Microsoft Outlook for your daily communications, calendaring, tasks and appointments and need a way to track sales leads and opportunities, to share data across sales representatives, to improve the understanding of your sales process, to communicate with a broad groups of people on a one to one basis, to improve your business process in the most important area &ndash sales, and need a reporting system that beats multiple excel spreadsheets, then you need a complete CRM solution.

Why ? Because a CRM software can increase profitability for your business by reducing current operating costs, usually in the call center or distribution system, and by increasing customer value through smarter marketing using customer data to increase customer profitability.

Can you do it without a CRM ? Probably, but not as efficiently because only a CRM is built to take care of Customer personal needs “centrally”, meaning that by using a single software, all the employees of the same company can access an organised database via Internet, where sales, customer service and management have access to the same customer data using tools such as “Sales Force Automation” (provides Lead Management, Opportunity Management, Account and Contact Management, Reports and Dashboards specifically useful for your organization’s sales team), “Customer Support and Services” (provides Ticket Management, Knowledge Base, E-mail Notifications specifically useful for your organization’s customer support team.), “Marketing Automation” (provides Lead Management, Mailing Lists, E-mail/Mail Merge templates, Product Management, specifically useful for your organization’s marketing team.), “Inventory Management” (provides Products, Price Books, Vendors, Quotes, Purchase Orders, Sales Orders, and Invoices specifically useful for integrating your organization’s sales, inventory, and accounting processes and enhance the sales effectiveness.) , providing a complete integration between pre-sales, post-sales, procurement, fulfillment, and other business processes within your organization.

In other words, a good CRM software will help you build customer relationships by setting mutually satisfying goals between organization and customers, establishing and maintaining customer rapport and producing positive feelings in your organization and for the customers.

Organizations that implement CRM and turn their business into e-businesses will find their competitors’ customers ready to welcome them with a “smile”. According to a study by IT Consulting firm Aberdeen - “The winners in this new economy will be those companies that can effectively leverage the Internet to redesign, automate and integrate all business operations”.

Take the plunge!

Either jump on board with CRM and invest, knowing you need it, or get out the calculator and pencil and start adding up what you’re going to lose!

One thing is for certain &ndash a few short months after implementing your CRM solution, you’ll wonder how on earth you ever got by without it!

.momentustech.ca

The integral role played by the telephone as a business communication tool accounts for the growing importance of answering service businesses. All businesses, whether a physician’s private practice, a small construction company, or a conglomerate, rely on the telephone as one of the fastest and most reliable communication tool in their businesses.

Anyone with a busy schedule and a telephone needs an answering service! Answering service can be a real lifesaver to a small business. Many small businesses have neither the time nor the means to take incoming calls during business hours when they are out on jobs — yet those calls represent the very lifeblood of their business! They cannot afford an office; much less a secretary, but they certainly need those phone calls. Unless they can find a reliable and affordable answering service, they will probably have to do without (or ask people to call them only after 7 PM) or use an answering machine (which has a whole set of disadvantages).

Yes, you indeed can use an answering machine but the fact is that people really do not like to talk to machines, if they are unable to reach a human voice easily, they will go somewhere else &ndash it’s a lost business opportunity.

Fortunately, employers are recognizing this problem and solving it by contracting people to answer the phones when they cannot do it themselves. That personal touch you can offer can mean the difference in obtaining or keeping a client. Hiring a professional answering service business assures that you can take messages, deliver specific messages to callers, provide basic information, clarify the intent of calls and even arrange meetings with customers.

It’s always in the best interest of small companies to hire an answering service provider to work for the company during the extended business workday, say from 8.00 AM to 8.00 PM or may be even for the rest of the day if your business needs it. Now it doesn’t costs an arm or a leg to hire an answering service. Generally, in a competitive market you can get it for as cheap as $30-$50 per month on the lowest slab! So go and hire an answering service provider so that you never lose that customer again.

By Flemming Andersen

Moving is a difficult and stressful time. There are a lot of things that have to be done and it can take a long time to get everything that you want and need to be done. In most cases, there are so many things that have to be packed and loaded up, that time runs out before it all can be achieved.

It can be a helpful idea to hire movers to help with the load of all the work that needs to be done. Movers are there to help with these things so that your life is easier and you can worry about other things that come up when you are trying to move from one location to another. There are many movers in certain areas. All you have to do is find one that you feel comfortable with and you will be ready for the big move.

The first thing that you should do when you are looking for the right movers to help you is search around. You should call around and find out prices first. Another thing that you can do is asked for references from each company. Most of these companies will have references or former customers to help you get a better idea of what the company is like and what you can expect from them.

Once you find the movers that you want to use, you should reserve them for the date that you are going to need them to move you. Most of the time, movers are booked up. For this reason, you should make the reservation early so that you do not end up with no one on the day of your move. In some cases, you may have to pay a deposit or you will have to give them a credit card number so that they can book you for the date.

Getting movers for your move is a smart thing to do and one that you will appreciate very much. You will be glad that someone else is there to help with the packing and unloading. This is a huge help for anyone that is trying to move and work at the same time. Moving takes a lot of time and there are so many little factors that have to be taken care of before you can actually get into the new place. It is so important to make sure that all the little details are taken care of and when you have movers to worry about the other things, you will feel less stressed and more relaxed.

Movers also have insurance to protect them and you incase any items that you are moving get broken or lost. You should always make sure that the movers provide you with their insurance so that you can feel protected and more comfortable with your decision.

For more info visit: .find-movers.org/

Increasing workloads are forcing people to spend more time in the office, even when the office is at home. This means that many parents are unable to stay involved in their children’s lives as they develop, and are becoming

mere spectators instead of loving role models. The result is an undermining of their relationships, higher stress levels, a lack of balance and a generally unfulfilled life.

However, this should not be the case. Working at home allows greater freedom and independence and should result in less time being wasted. Yet many of us fail to successfully make this transition. Discipline is a key factor when running a business from home using a virtual office.

Here ways you can successfully work from home and enjoy the benefits using a Virtual Office…

Establish a routine - Structure your day so that it is both purposeful and productive. Decide on a starting and finishing time for your day; allow for breaks so that you work smarter, not harder. Doing this will also allow you

to better differentiate between work and home, and will encourage you to be more professional.

Focus on your strengths, outsource your weaknesses - Spend the maximum amount of time working on the parts of your business that you are best at. If your billable time is worth $200 an hour, then make sure you spend most of your time on the activities that will produce that for you.

Investing in a virtual office is key (see Virtual Offices. Avoid filling up your day with non-productive activities. Invest your time and money into the right areas of your business; don’t just keep yourself busy.

Organise your environment - Have the right tools and systems to work with - an appropriate chair, desk, computer, filing system. In addition, using a Virtual Office, meeting clients in an executive boardroom in a sky rise office building, will show your professionalism and will inspire confidence in you.

Declutter the clutter - A messy working environment which forces you to be continuously spending valuable time searching for things, whether files and emails on the computer or documents in filing cabinets and cupboards,

cumulatively wastes hours a day. In fact The Wall Street Journal found that the average white collar worker spends 6 weeks a year looking for things around the office! Clutter is distracting and causes stress, and it is the primary enemy of productivity.

Learn to say ‘no’ - Inform your family and friends of your working hours and that because you’re working from home doesn’t mean you’re ‘available’. If you were in a corporate office, you would not allow your friends to drop by. Enforce these same rules at your office at home.

Network to expand your business and your mind - Join local networking groups to meet other like-minded business people. Share knowledge and discover new

ways of doing things. Check out your local council and chamber of commerce. Enquire about active small business networks. Join your own trade association

and share ideas. An organised business referral group can also be of enormous benefit to the home based business owner.

Take time out for you - It can be easy to lose yourself in your work. Take time to ’smell the roses’ and to make human contact. Go for a walk every day. Have a weekly or fortnightly massage. Visit the gym more often.

It’s generally the simple ideas when acted upon consistently that will make a dramatic impact overall in your business and your life. You’ll feel happier

and more fulfilled. You’ll also discover extra time in the day that you never had before.

Working from home couldn’t be easier with the use of a Virtual Office.

For more information see (Servcorp Virtual Offices) .servcorp.com.au or .servcorp.net

You’ve probably heard or read plenty about the Internet and network marketing. Network marketing often gets a bad “rap” because so many thieves and greedy people have abused this type of business. But for all those who have given network marketing a bad reputation, there are plenty of others who are successful through hard work and perseverance.

If you can forget the negative things you’ve heard and find a team of network marketers with similar goals, you can realize the same success that thousands of others enjoy every day - and work from home doing what you love.

Learn the Principles of Network Marketing

Before getting started, do research to learn the basic principles of network marketing so you will know what to expect. Network marketing gives you the freedom to become “your own boss” without limiting your potential to create a steady cash stream.

Network Marketing with Others

The first key to success with network marketing is to learn to recruit others. Spend time getting others involved in the business so you can enjoy profits from their efforts as well. Some network marketing companies will recruit people for you. With these types of businesses, you may pay more on your initial investment, but will enjoy the benefit of marketing experts promoting for you.

Receive a Residual Income

Second, set goals that will enable you to receive a residual income. This is an income that you receive on a regular basis, even after the work has been done. You might recruit several individuals to work with you. If they are successful, you’ll receive a recurring income from their efforts. So it behooves you to encourage and help them every step of the way.

Grow Your Network

Third, you must learn how to grow your business or network. When you work from home, you can use the Internet and network marketing together to grow your business. The Internet opens doors of opportunity you might never have in your local town. For example, in your hometown you might find 10 to 20 people who are interested in network marketing. On the Internet, however, you can find thousands of others just like you!

You can promote using many avenues online without spending a fortune. Also, email is a free avenue of communication for you and your network marketing team members, and it’s a great tool in finding new prospects.

Find a network marketing company that already has a profitable business model in place for their business. The company should be able to provide proof that it is working well for others with no gimmicks and hype - just good business strategies.

A popular type of network marketing today is global resorts networking, in which you can purchase trips to beautiful destinations at wholesale prices. You can do what you love, work from home, and take vacations that most can only dream about.

Start looking online for a work-from-home network marketing opportunity that works for you. You can realize success and meet other great people as you reach your goals.

It has always been important to make sure that as you find a work from home job, you are finding one that truly matches your needs and is truly what you would like it to be. Your ideal work at home job should be a job that you are already good at, and one that you can easily do from home… The people who have the most success at work form home jobs are able to find jobs that they already know how to do, or jobs that they are already doing, and turn them into work at home jobs. Therefore, if you are interested in work from home customer service jobs, you already know that you are going to have a good shot at finding good work. There are plenty of reasons that you will be able to find good work from home customer service jobs, and these reasons include being able to finally find the type of work that you were looking for, as well as being able to make the most out of the situations that you are in…

If you are already good at customer service, you know that there are a few things that you like about the job, things that set the job apart from other jobs that you might have had. These are probably things that make you keep wanting to do these customer service jobs &ndash even if you think that you’ve already found another job that you like. When you are doing work from home customer service jobs, you are going to be able to keep on doing these things that you love to do, and you will find that they are even better when you work from home. Most of the work from home customer service jobs are fairly easy to get into, and you can do them easily from home.

The reason that there are many work from home customer service jobs is that customer service is mainly a job that is done either on the phone or on the internet. This means that a company can hire you to do the same thing that you would do in an office from your home. The first thing that you have to do is learn how to run the program or learn how the company or service works, so that you know how to help people when they call. There are work from home customer service jobs for any type of industry. You might be hired as a phone manager to take phone calls and direct them to other places. Or, you might be hired as someone to help people when they are having problems with a product. No matter what, your job as a work from home customer service job will be to help people when they need it. This is probably what you like about customer service to begin with, and you will get to have even more experience with it as you are working through it in work from home customer service jobs and other situations.

In life from the time that we are coherent and able to be verbal we love choices. Chocolate or white milk? Do you want fries with that? Leather or clothe seats? We love choices and this love spills over into our lives, our mates, the number of children we have and our careers. With the love for choices, people are in a good time and place for a home based business opportunity. If you take just a few short minutes to search the Internet for home business opportunities you will find that there are results totaling 28,000,000. This gives you plenty of opportunities to choose from doesn’t it?…

You have the chance to choose from numbers upon numbers of homebased business from sales to transcription. You can do at home assembly of products and mail the completed merchandise out and receive payment. You can transfer data from an assignment sheet to a computerized form and get paid for it. You can answer questions about products or services and get paid for it. These jobs are all done as you sit in your home. You can dress comfortable, set a pleasant schedule and be in peace in your own environment. No distractions or conflicts to get in the way of a peaceful workday.

You basically have to look through these opportunities and choose one of the many that may interest you. Once you read through the job description, the schedule choices and the job and salary details you are ready to begin a life changing career move. You can now take the time you need to care for family and or yourself. Perform errands and personal tasks then go to work from your sofa on your laptop. How can anyone say I hat my job if they work from home? No uniform, no assembly line, no co-worker conflicts to deal with. You can perform medical billing while you wear your bathrobe. Working from home can take your stress from sky high to non-existent.

A side from the number of job types you have to choose from you also benefit by saving money by working from home You no longer have to pay for the subway, bus or fuel for your POV. You travel on foot from your bedroom to your office or you stay in your bedroom and turn on your laptop. This is another choice that people love when choosing a home business. Choices are everywhere and there is a beneficial and satisfying home business opportunity choice for everyone. You can be young, old, married, single, have kids or just cats and find a home business that suits your needs and brings you happiness. You simply have to read and choose and begin living life a new.

Home business opportunities can be found online, in the newspaper and even through home business books from your local library. Begin looking into these resources and you will soon see yourself enjoying your job and excelling in success with a life full of happiness. A home business opportunity awaits you to choose it and make it your own.