» Customer Service

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

Nicholas and Elizabeth had been married 3 years when Lizzy finally located the dry cleaners where her mother dropped off her wedding dress to be preserved. It had been an emotional process, having to call local dry cleaners and explain why her mother could not remember where she left the dress just before she passed away. In fact, Lizzy just let it go for 8 months before she had enough peace within herself to start looking for her lost wedding dress.

It was at the small town cleaners where Lizzy had grown up. She had been looking in St. Louis this whole time and there it was in the most obvious place.

Relieved to have found her dress, she asked the cleaner when she could pick it up. To her dismay, the cleaner told her that it had not yet been processed.

Lizzy was frustrated. The cleaners had the dress for 10 months now and they had not begun to clean it and preserve her wedding gown. This was no kind of acceptable customer service and she made it clear that the dress needed to be finished asap. The cleaner assured her that the dress would be ready in 3 to 4 months.

Another 8 months later, Lizzy phoned the cleaners again, having heard no word on her missing wedding gown. The customer service this time was even worse. The owner of the small operation started off nice enough, saying that the dress was ready to be picked up any time. When Lizzy verified that the dress had already been paid for by her mother 2 years ago, the owner said it had not. This was too much, Lizzy lost it.

How was it ethical to charge her full price for a dress that had not been cleaned for over a year now, was lost to her and the cleaner made no attempt to call her phone, which was listed on the account? This was a gift from her mother – the last gift she gave her. It was unacceptable to expect a customer to pay full price for horrible cleaning service and worse customer service .

The owner backed down and said she would have to look into writing the expense off with her insurance and would call Lizzy back on Monday.

Monday never came for Lizzy, in fact 58 Mondays later, Lizzy called the cleaner again. (She did not live in her small home town anymore and was hours away, otherwise she would have walked in and taken the dress months ago.)

It was not surprise when she found that the store was under new ownership. After the way the previous owners customer service , how could she have stayed in business? Frustrated to have to explain this whole disaster again, Lizzy tried her best to keep her composure.

As she took a deep breath and summed up the last of her story, she was astonished to find that a witch even wickeder than the first was now the owner of the property. With a cold and snappy reply, the owner said Lizzy must pay the full amount if she wants the dress back.

What happened next is the biggest mistake in customer service that any business owner could make. The owner added a haughty Take it up with your lawyer then and hung up the phone on Lizzy!

Lizzy had nothing to do but pay the 125 dollars to get her dress back. But it was not the end of the story. That small town where Lizzy grew up loved a good story to talk about. All the ladies who gathered every morning at the local restaurant buzzed about the latest gossip. Lizzy gave them just that. She wrote an editorial in the small town paper about the unethical, heartless customer service and questionable business practices. Citizens in the area were appalled at the cleaners. Business for them went under and now a sign sits in the window For Sale By Owner.

Furniture Storage in Kansas City

Tweet This Post 

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

You just cannot miss them and they are a different breed apart. There is hardly any country, city or shopping mall that does not have them. These people are often indifferent to the shoppers and are more engrossed in their own tasks rather than helping their customers that they are supposed to do. While the old gentleman is trying hard to read the fine print on the label of a particular product the person who has been recruited by the store management for assisting the shoppers is more interested in chatting with his friend. This is not a special store or a scene out of a movie. Bad customer service is a bane which is spoiling the reputation of many reputed malls and shopping centers. Even stand alone stores have a decent quota of them.

While there is no doubt that the salesperson is the first to be blamed in such a scenario, the management too is equally guilty. Yes the word guilty is being used because it is a crime not to attend to the customer who is the king and without whose patronage the store would not be there at all. Halfhearted customer service is the major cause of clients shifting their loyalty from one store to another, and why not? They are wasting their precious time and their hard earned money to purchase a product from a particular shop. They are entitled to the attention of the salespersons that are retained by the store owners for a fixed monthly pay package for attending to their clients. If the salespeople do not shed their careless attitude, not only will the store suffer, they too stand a chance of being chucked. They should remember that once blacklisted, it will be very tough for them to find a job of similar nature.

It is the onus of the store management to impart proper training to their personnel so that they can deliver proper customer service to their clients. If the goods are the body of a shop, the client is the soul and they should be treated like a king. Many salespersons carry over the quarrels from their home to the store. This is not ideal. If you are not feeling up to it, just inform the management and take a leave. Like the single proverbial apple spoiled the entire basket of apples, a hot tempered salesperson can spoil the atmosphere of the entire store.

There are, however, some salespersons who know what high-quality customer service is all about. They know that a satisfied shopper will not only come back to the store, chances are that they might even mention their good qualities to the owner. This can very well bring about a promotion for the salesperson concerned. It is a win-win situation for all. The store benefits from the knowledge that the client will be a repeat visitor, the salesperson will take home a fatter pay package.
 
Thankfully, with more and more institutes coming up, that specialize in training salespersons about client handling and customer service , the day is not far away when one can see each and every client leaving the store with a smiling face. The old gentleman, who has yet to gauge the right product that he requires, and is still fumbling around the store, will be attended to in a way that a citizen of his age deserves.

Helotes RV Storage

Tweet This Post 

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

The owner of the restaurant noticed his feedbacks from some of his customers were dissatisfied with the quality of service they received from some of the waitresses. They found the survey cards went from the extreme on the scale. Either the customer was very satisfied with their service or they expressed a need for better service. So the owner decides to hire a company to help his services. They should determine the best secret shopping company to hire to get the results they need.

How can a secret shopping company help you improve quality service? Many companies are hiring these companies to do research from the actual customer point of view. These companies send shoppers on an assigned shop to pose as a customer. The shopper performs various tasks as required by the owner. They ask predetermined questions, evaluate the friendliness and responsiveness of the service or waitress, and the cleanliness of the business. They detect where improvements can be made with staff performance and work ethics.

Research of each secret shopping company you interview before hiring them. Each company is different. Compare fees, assignments and the companys reputation. A legitimate organization will employ top quality researchers to work for their clients. They take researching seriously and provide these services to all businesses with the customers best interest in mind. Be aware of scam companies

Ask questions of the secret shopping company before hiring them. How long have they been in business? How many clients do they currently have? What are the other types of industries they serve? Read the feedback from other businesses that have used their services.

The restaurant owner hired a company to do some evaluating for them. The company had a good reputation with many well known clients. The shoppers they sent on the assignments were prompt in their evaluations. But how does the business owner know the shopping program will help improve service?

Make sure your program is actually helping you to improve your business by asking yourself a few questions.

Is your return on investment clear? Can you see how the money you invested in the program is directly affecting your sales and profits? Data and analysis should be top quality and the reports and feedback should answer all your questions immediately. What good is the data if you cannot understand how to implement the changes?

Is the program teaching more about your business than what you currently know or can easily find out? An expertly designed, professional program will offer quality, beneficial suggestions and numerous possible solutions through out the entire analysis program.

Is the provider sending in page after page of unexplained data, increasing your paperwork? A good shopping company will not bombard you with stacks of meaningless data. Each report will be detailed to help the owner set up a strategic plan for making positive changes in their business.

Are the scores adding up? Do all forms of your assessment plans come up with the same data? Is your shopping program in line with what the customer surveys are showing? If surveys show satisfaction with service while your evaluators assessment differ, you might need to reevaluate your program providers.

There are many more questions you should ask if you believe your secret shopping company is costing you more than it is helping you. After all you hired these companies to help you improve your customer satisfaction by provided real customer feedback.

Brooklyn Furniture Storage

Tweet This Post 

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

It can be said that everyone has had a great customer service experience at some point in their life. Whether it was when you went out for pizza or took your family out to one of the local restaurants, you have come across someone that has wowed you with their customer service .

When you think about what customer service means to you, what do you think about? Do you see someone being professional with you and catering to your every need? Do you envision a person or company that is there for you when your product is no longer performing at the standard that you expected it to? Customer service can come in many different shapes and forms. It means different things to different people.

There are companies that have an entire department devoted to helping others. When you research the company online and need to talk to someone about some issues they have been having, you look for the customer service line. The people on the other end of the phone, email or letter are trained in order to assist you in every matter pertaining to the issue at hand.

Companies can succeed or fail based on their level of serving their clients. The moment or moments the company loses touch with their service to the public the harder it is for that company to succeed.

How does one provide excellent service?

• Having a professional demeanor no matter how the customer reacts
• Being able to find a solution for them when it seems like there is not a solution
• Knowing how to caterer yourself to match their lifestyle
• Understand what is important to the person in which you are speaking to
• Knowing when to speak and when to listen
• Practice makes perfect

Some people believe that most of it is a skill that is possessed from their birth. There are many people that have a good knack for getting to know those people that are around them and finding out what makes them tick. The better a person is with taking care of the clients they have the better it is for the business. Just think how great it would be for businesses if everyone that was employed by them would be good at taking care of their customers.

Going into a retail environment is different than going into a restaurant. What do you expect out of a retail environment when you go in?

• A friendly hello as you enter
• Someone to ask to help you within a decent amount of time
• That person that greats you, to be able to help you find what you need
• Making the sales process easy to go through understand and know what to do next
• Someone telling you thank you for coming in.

When going into a restaurant, you might expect something a little different.

• To be seated in less than five minutes of entering
• Not be seated by the kitchen
• When you are seated, your server comes soon to take your order
• After the order is placed, the food and drinks come quickly
• During your feasting, your glass of beverage, never is empty
• You look for your server to present your check at the right time. To early denote they want you to hurry up. Too late, shows that the server is not paying attention.
• When leaving the restaurant, being thanked for coming in

Customer service can come in many different ways. Everyone has encountered great service and some have encountered horrible service. Hopefully we all encounter more great days of service than not.

W. New York Furniture Storage

Tweet This Post 

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

Having had training for quality assurance service is a good thing, but you do not necessarily have to have it in order to be good at it. There are always things that you can try to do to improve your work performance, no matter where you are employed.

Most obviously, excellence is one of the first major things to think about when trying to perform quality assurance service . That goes for everything you can think of, from the product, to your performance and treatment of customers. It seems to automatically translate into trust when a customer sees that you are 110 percent devoted to the value of your work and work environment. And even if you cannot control the value or type of products you promote or sell, you can try to ensure that when it reaches your hands, it remains in good condition from there on out. When a customer walks into any store or business, they will want to know, even if they do not need it, that there is someone who is available and very willing to help them at all times. This is part of the excellence of a persons job, making themselves available for this type of thing.

Being sincere is also one of the most important things to quality assurance service . Most people will be able to immediately spot if you are sincere about both your job and the things you are telling them about the products. If you are not sincere about these things, and a customer sees this, it is highly unlikely they will choose to buy from you or your company. You should not have to lie about a product, or even beat around the bush about what it is for or the advantages that a customer might have in purchasing it. If you thoroughly know your product, sincerity should be no problem at all, and you should constantly be ready with the information any customer might be seeking.

This leads to another important thing, knowing your product. This is definitely a huge part of quality assurance service , and should never under any circumstances be overlooked by any employee of a company, whatever their particular job is. Everyone within the company needs to know the product or products as well as they possibly can. For instance, if you are selling lawn mowers, you need to know what kind of lawn mower it is, as many of the parts as you can, the brand of the company who manufactures it, the speeds or levels it may have, and any other additional information about it that a customer might ask or need to know before purchasing it. A good way to gauge how much you need to know about a product is to pretend that you are the customer for a moment. Ask yourself what you would want to know about a certain product or item before you went to the trouble and expense of buying it. This is usually a fairly good indicator or how much information you need to have on the item.

Lastly, just simple smiles and friendliness are one of the best tactics when impressing customers. As a customer yourself, you know that a frown or a rude or indifferent attitude from an employee trying to serve you definitely puts you off, and makes you not very anxious to return to that company again. So add a smile and a good attitude to all of the above advice and your quality assurance service should be great.

Columbia Furniture Storage

Tweet This Post 

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

Researchers are the secret or anonymous shoppers hired by companies. These shoppers evaluate the employee behavior, productivity and customer service skills received at a particular store, service company or hotel.

When an employee is aware of being evaluated they might act differently than in a normal situation. The employees sense of pride, job security, and the desire to please play an important role in the way a worker responds when they know they are being monitored. Employees actions are often to be found more favorable when they know they are being observed.

A professional shopper or researcher is hired to secretly evaluate products, services, employee performance and customer satisfaction. The researcher enters the establishment as a typical customer. The employees are not warned they will be monitored. The shopper reports the attitude, behavior and skills they observe from customer service employees. The shopper observes, critiques and reports the effectiveness or poor quality they received.

Normally a researcher interacts with the employees to rate their performance according to a set of predetermined factors. The employee has no knowledge they are being evaluated. Hiring these anonymous shoppers is an increasingly favorable way of evaluating employees. The shopper observes how quickly an employee responds to the customer complaint, if they provide helpful solutions and offer suggestions, the cleanliness of the store, the reactions of other customers. The shopper is observant and takes detailed notes of the surroundings and staff members. They then send a full report to the client. These reports are objective coming from someone other than management or administration. The observations of the shoppers allow the business owner to get a view of their employees actions and behaviors in a real time situation.

The secret researcher can be hired to help companies recognize quality services and employees. It is important for a company to know who is providing excellent service to their customers.

Companies hire a secret researcher to evaluate guest service in many types of businesses. Retail shops and restaurants can improve the quality and response time of their service. Hotels retain the services of shoppers to measure the guest satisfaction and customer experience to increase occupancy rates and guest loyalty. Each shopper program is custom tailored to each service, shop or company.

The shopper results give you a look into a normal customer experience and satisfaction. Professionalism, customer follow up, sales techniques and other skills are examined during the shop. Having detailed feedback about positive and negative aspects of customer service allows companies to grow and retain loyal customers.

Customer service is the number one priority of businesses and should be to staff members who answer phones, deal with customers and suppliers in any way. Customers who are not satisfied with your service will often not complain to your staff. They simply quit using your services.

Typically a persons desire to please others motivates their actions. Knowing they are being monitored, anonymously or otherwise, staff members perform honestly and courteously. If they know they are being evaluated, they have a need to perform better. The rewards for these actions are job security, desire to please their superiors and peers and acceptance.

Hiring a secret researcher to monitor customer service allows many businesses to improve staff behavior, response times and profitability. Having great service is the crucial to success in any business.

Olathe RV Storage

Tweet This Post 

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

A growing trend among marketing research is website mystery shopping. Can you remember the last time you requested information online by filling out a contact form? You probably searched the sitemap for a phone number first and then settled for filling out the form, right? Many times a company may not even list a phone number and only offer online correspondence with clients or customers.

While you still may be hesitant to fill out the online query forms, for fear of spam, this has become a standard method of online consumer service. And you may be relieved to know that online businesses are taking a proactive approach to diffusing the nasty taste spam and phishing scams have left in the mouths of online consumers.

This new form of serving customers has created the need for a new mystery shopping niche. If a business is going to rely on Internet communication, then they would be amiss not to check the quality of that service. A business owner or operator should start by checking the following regarding the handling of request forms:

• Timeliness of response
• Accuracy, or response from appropriate department
• Helpfulness
• Friendliness

An online company should also take quality control measures to ensure products are delivered on time, accurately and in working condition.

A business with all or a large amount of revenue generating from online sales may hire a web consultant or mystery shopping service to determine the user-friendliness of navigating their website. Some of the questions an online business should ask are:

• Was the customer able to locate what they were looking for quickly
• Did the website display other like items for the customer to compare
• How easy was it to find the shipping info
• Did the customer receive what they ordered quickly
• Was the order shipped accurately
• Was the product delivered without damage

Business owners will quickly realize the cost of asking for customer opinions is much less than hiring a website consultant, which is creating this new niche of mystery shopping jobs. So, if you find yourself shopping online very often you may consider registering with a few reputable mystery shopping providers who offer website quality control services to their clients.

If you are not interested in working part time for a mystery shopping service, but you still find yourself filling out those entry forms, registrations forms, service orders or query forms here are a few simple tips to follow to avoid filling out the forms that are phishing for information from you in order to flood you with spam, or worse.

For starters, you should feel safe inquiring to a help desk for a company with whom you already have an account. By the time you are asking for help on a product you already have, that company has most likely proven themselves trustworthy with your personal contact information.

If you are shopping for a new product, make certain the online source you choose to purchase from does not have unresolved complaints with business bureaus or negative consumer reports. Look for a product guarantee and also read the security statement before giving any payment information.

An easy, but often overlooked way to avoid receiving solicitation after you register or join a website is to pay attention to the registration process. Many times a company may have a small box to check if you do not want to receive promotional offers from them in the future. Even trickier, they may have a box that is automatically checked in order to receive promotional offers, in which case, the registrant would have to unselect that box.

Additionally, the site you are registering with may have a box to check or unselect consenting to allow them to share your information with their affiliates.

Companies rely on the that fact that the you are in a hurry or do not read the fine print. Taking a few moments to notice what you have agreed to can help you avoid the headache of filtering through spam in your inbox.

Lenexa Boat Storage

Tweet This Post 

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

For companies that wish to know how their employees and services are doing without the rather invasive method of sending representatives blatantly to the store to observe and critique, hiring mystery shopping services might be the exact solution that is needed. When you employ this type of service to do this type of work for you, it is almost guaranteed that you will get a maximum return for their services. You, as the business, manager or owner, receive reports back regularly. These reports give you good and thorough detail feedback on your employees, the services, civility and respect that they offer to customers, as well as the way that your always-important customers are responding to the said services.

Of course, another obvious benefit of mystery shopping services is that your employees are aware of them. This ensures that your employees will always be on their best and most courteous behavior, even when neither you nor the mystery shopping services are watching them. 

Hiring mystery shopping services is an objective way to view your work environment and or employees. It can give you as a supervisor a view into how an unbiased and impartial customer might see your store or business. Are your employees treating the customers with total respect and manners? Do they greet customers as they enter the store? Are they pitching specific sales or specials that are currently going on? Do they have the necessary information about the merchandise they are dealing with? Do they keep the store or business in good and clean working order at all times? These are things that it is invaluable for a manager or supervisor to know about within his own business.

Many times these types of services will offer online support and information, and even post the reports about your business on a site that only you may access. This cuts back on the waiting time for a report to be mailed or phoned to you, and allows you to have 24 hour access to the information that you need. Services like this will only send out their best and most seasoned shoppers, and you may be sure that they will know what to look for when they are imitating a true customer at your store.
 
One of the other great benefits of using mystery shopping services for your needs is the ideas you might take from the reports you receive as feedback. Once you know the strengths and weaknesses of your staff, facility, and merchandise you will know better how to remedy the weaker points. You can take this information and decide how you will better train your staff, better equip your facility and make your merchandise more attractive to consumers. A great thing that these services do as well is to work with you when you initially hire them. Many of these services will have someone work directly with either you or someone else on the specific report that will be used to critique your business and employees. This way you can tweak it yourself to make it exactly as you would wish. You may want to take things from another form or report that you have used in the past, or you may have definite questions and points you wish to stress on your own.

There are too many reasons to use a service like this to ignore!

Elgin Furniture Storage

Tweet This Post 

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

If you are interested in a way to uncover the truth about how your business handles customers on the phone and how they treat customers in your store, there are several tools you can use to learn the truth.

One method that is popular among retail businesses is a customer survey. In a customer survey, the company allows customers to answer questions that may relate to the quality of service or quality of the product. The answers are usually on a sliding scale of 1 to 5, or something similar. Open-ended questions are not typical, as the numerical data is the goal of the customer survey.

The data gathered from a customer survey can be charted and used for graphs. These graphs will show the management team the strengths and weaknesses of the team and allow them to gauge what grows areas to focus on.

Fast food chains also find the customer survey a good way to gather customer satisfaction data. One of the most common ways to conduct it is to print the information on the bottom or back of the customers receipt. There is often an incentive tied into completing the survey, such as a discount for the next purchase or the chance to win money or prizes.

The data collected here is very simplistic and not too direct towards the companys standard operating procedures.

Another method that gives a business an inside look at how the customers feel is a mystery shopping service . These services are conducted by professionals who anonymously shop your store under the ruse of an every day customer. Although the shopper appears as any other customer, he or she is making a mental note of each interaction with your associates and taking a mental picture of his surroundings. The feedback provided from a mystery shopping service is usually statistical and in essay form.

The results a mystery shopping service will give detailed feedback regarding a specific interaction between the shopper and the associate. These mystery audits are usually done sporadically or monthly so the data is not as vast as that of a customer survey. However, a customer survey can not be directed too closely to the detailed sales strategies the company practices but a professional shopper is able to report specifics about what sales techniques worked well and what sales techniques need improvement. This data is very powerful as a sales tool for the growth of the business.

Some of the most popular industries that use a mystery shopping service are retailers, fast food restaurants, dining restaurants, doctors offices, car dealerships, hotel and resort destinations and more. The list is ever-growing as new industries discover the power of the anonymous shopper.

There are pros and cons to a customer survey as well as a mystery shopping service . In fact, many businesses feel that a combination of both is the best way to go. Whether you choose just one, or both, you are sure to find the benefits discovering what your customers experience when they use your services. Any business who puts an interest into how their customers feel has already made a step in the right direction. The easy part is gathering the data. The hard part is making the necessary changes, but a determined business person will not fail.

Chicago Car Storage

Tweet This Post 

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

Do you know what secret shopping services are? These services are people employed by a company to evaluate the services or products of a particular store. They look like a regular customer doing normal shopping.

Secret shopping services are intended to supply valuable information to companies in order for them to improve their business, a product or service. These companies hire the shopper to visit a certain location to evaluate certain tasks. These assigned jobs might include specific questions to ask, voicing a complaint to a service department, evaluating the cleanliness or other business aspects or possibly purchasing a certain product.

These programs work well for most companies, although larger chains or restaurants may see the need more. Even though management can be sent in to audit the employees and services of individual stores, the results may not lead to a true account of the service since the auditor is expected. With a secret shopping services shopper, the store will not know when they are being evaluated. These customers act as spies while enjoying shopping, dining out or taking in a movie.

Someone working in the shopping field needs to have a sharp eye for details, noticing even the smallest feature of a service. The assignment for a client can include making purchases or evaluating service to the customer. They report on the length of a wait in service line and give an opinion on ways to improve it. For example, they may suggest hiring more employees or laying out the store in a more functional way.

So what types of information can a business learn from shopping programs? Businesses can learn basically every part of a customers experience since the anonymous shopper is basically a real shopper. They gauge the employees knowledge on its products, how clean the store is and how prompt service people responds to a problem or complaint. They ask questions such as how long did they wait to be served at a restaurant. Did a store associate greet them when they entered the store? Was an extended warranty suggested with a new electronics purchase? Did an associate suggest the customer open a credit card? Were associates able to point you towards a particular product?

Businesses can expect to gain the opportunity to get an objective review of the customers experience and find out exactly where to make improvements. Many companies use the results from secret shopping services to improve the training for their employees or to reward employees when excellent scores are reported.

These services have helped businesses to increase customer loyalty, improve the quality of their service and improve up sells and cross sells. This allows the company to increase sales and profits and remain competitive with other similar stores.

The shopping industry serves as a detective. They search out what might need improving and recognize quality services. They identify employees and store locations that provide excellent service and daily business needs. The company can then provide rewards and incentives to these employees for continued good work.

The purpose of these services is to provide impartial opinions on company improvement needs. Having an anonymous shopper acting as a customer lets the evaluator without being treated different from a normal customer or a planned visit from a management auditor.

Secret shopping services are there for a company to make improvements when needed and recognize quality employees from an unbiased opinion.

Aurora RV Storage

Tweet This Post