nice joke

Pecans in the Cemetery

on the outskirts of a small town,there was a big,

old pecan tree just inside the cemetery fence. One day, two boys filled up a bucketful of nuts and sat down by the tree, out of sight, and began dividing the nuts.

"One for you, one for me.

One for you, one for me," said one boy.

Several dropped and rolled down toward the fence.

Another boy came riding along the road on his bicycle. As he passed, he thought he heard voices from inside the cemetery.

He slowed down to investigate. Sure enough,

he heard,

"One for you, one for me.

One for you, one for me."

He just knew what it was.

He jumped back on his bike and rode off.

Just around the bend he met an old man with a cane, hobbling along.

"Come here quick," said the boy, "you won't believe what I heard! Satan and the Lord are down at the cemetery dividing up the souls."

The man said, "Beat it kid,

can't you see it's hard for me to walk."

When the boy insisted though, the man hobbled slowly to the cemetery. Standing by the fence they heard, "One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me..."

The old man whispered,

"Boy, you've been tellin' me the truth.

Let's see if we can see the Lord." Shaking with fear,

they peered through the fence, yet were still unable to see anything.

The old man and the boy gripped the wrought iron bars of the fence tighter and tighter as they tried to get a glimpse of the Lord.

At last they heard,

"One for you, one for me.

That's all. Now let's go get those nuts by the fence and we'll be done."

They say the old man made

it back to town a full 5 minutes ahead of the kid on the bike.

Troubled Customer

Ever thought why do the companies serve more to troubled customer? If you are associated with any company, just mark one thing, they would be paying more attention to the troubled customers instead of let them go away from the company.

I have gone through this situation. And the reason behind this behavior is the troubled customers are mostly most valuable customers. They are the customers who give continuous business to the company. The company loves those customers even though they are the most hated customers among the employees.

But company and more precisely the sales people would like to serve those customers even with more attention. They know that if we keep these customers happy, they will definitely give more business. Very few are the customers who are troublesome without giving good business.

All though they are troubling you most, they have lots of trust in you. They will always come to you for any kind of queries. Even when that query is not related to your company. They even take your advice in the area which is confusing them. And frankly they believe/obey your advice.

So even I would suggest, treat them with respect and you will definitely have one of the most loyal customers.

good story

I came across a very good story on the net:

The boss of a big company needed to call one of his employees about an urgent problem with one of the main computers. He dialed the employee's home phone number and was greeted with a child's whispered, "Hello?"

"Is your Daddy home?" he asked.

"Yes," whispered the small voice.

"May I talk with him?"

To the surprise of the boss, the small voice whispered, "No."

Wanting to talk with an adult, the boss asked, "Is your Mommy there?"

"Yes," came the answer.

"May I talk with her?"

Again, the small voice whispered, "No."

Hoping there was somebody with whom he could leave a message, the boss asked the child, "Is anybody else there?"

"Yes" whispered the child, "a policeman."

Wondering what a cop would be doing at his employee's home, the boss asked "May I speak with the policeman?"

"No, he's busy," whispered the child.

"Busy doing what?" asked the boss.

"Talking to Daddy and Mommy and the firemen," came the whispered answer.

Growing concerned and even worried as he heard what sounded like a helicopter through the earpiece on the phone, the boss asked, "What is that noise?"

"A hello-copper" answered the whispering voice.

"What is going on there?" asked the boss, now alarmed.

In an awed whispering voice, the child answered, "The search team just landed the hello-copper."

Alarmed, concerned, and more than just a little frustrated, the boss asked, "What are they searching for?"

Still whispering, the young voice replied, along with a muffled giggle 

"Me."

customer mentality

What do general public want? What is their general tendency? I always wonder while talking to different types of people. They always have different demands while renewing their account. Some ask for better prices and some for better service. If it is based only on pricing, no one can do much except reducing prices which is however not recommended. But if it is service oriented customer, you most probably will get the order. The clue here is, you should always be ready with some new add-on or service when you call up your customer. If you are ready, let them ask and you will drop an item to their basket. It is always advisable to have something ready with us when calling up for renewal. It may be free of cost or at a very nominal rate. But something new is always required. And this is the way you can stay up to date with your customers.

Your customers will also feel refreshment with your company. As you will be coming up always with new add-ons, they will spread words of mouth. And you get the publicity for your original product along with the add-on you would have introduced.

who writes your salary?

It is in fact a very old and popular concept in service industry. All who is working in service industry should understand that your salary cheque is not written by your management, they are written by your customers. Your customer will make the payment to the service taken from your organization and your payment is going to be taken from this amount.

Now if they are not satisfied by your service, they are not going to renew their account and hence the company revenue will decrease which ultimately results in reduction of number of employees.

It is important to note that here you are not selling any product where customer will check the product initially and then takes it. Here they will check it for the entire period and then it has to be renewed. So the service and support becomes the major factor for retaining the customer.

 

customer first

We all should understand one thing. Either we are related with product industry or service industry, customer should be our first priority. When you are dealing with a customer, you should not bring your personal reason (however if it is unavoidable, it’s a different matter) in between. Customer should be given first priority even when you are making a deal with new client and you get a call from the old customer for some issue, your first priority should be solving the issue and not to sign the deal.

In today’s competitive world, customer is always looking for something new and something different. Normal support and service is provided by almost everyone. Your count increases on what extra you provide. And that really matters.

 

loyal customers

How many customers are loyal? Ever thought on this? Do the customers move away directly on the basis of prices? Yes, they do. If they are not much concern about services. They however convince themselves that the services will be given by everyone. What’s there? They why should I pay more to someone else? They don’t understand the small fact that why will anyone charge for the same if it is possible for them to give at very little price? There will be something.. But here they always think on only one way… PRICE/RATE. They are very much price-conscious. They will always ask for discount on all of your offering. And even they would not hesitate to move out after few years on the basis of low price offering by someone.

 

client's missing

One more problem is currently being experienced with the clients. They don’t respond to your request but they always want you to respond to your request at the lightening speed. But they even don’t want to give any explanation on why they don’t answer to our queries. Customers should also change their nature. And as we are also customers to some one, we should first improve ourselves before expecting others to improve.

 

Lowest email-viruses are found in India

I just came across a news on one news site:

India is the global leader in junk mails with a whopping 91 per cent of all its electronic mail messages constituting spam, but ranks lowest in incidence of viruses, a media report said in Jerusalem.

Hongkong ranks second on the global chart with 76.7 per cent of junk mails followed closely by Israel with 70 per cent of all messages being spam, 'Ynetnews' reported quoting the results of a research carried out by an internet security company published in the electronic journal 'Rid it Now'.

 

The country with the lowest amount of junk mail is Japan, where only 23.5 per cent of messages received are unsolicited advertisements.

 

Findings of another report however found that India has the lowest frequency of e-mails affected by viruses with UAE being the most badly plagued with the nuisance, the portal reported.

 

One in every 13.9 e-mail messages residents of UAE receive have a virus attached to them.

 

Singapore ranks second, with one in every 14.1 e-mails bearing a virus and India ranks lowest with only one in every 63.7 messages bearing a virus, the report said.

irretional demand

It is not proper to stick on one side only. I was writing continuously taking customer’s side only. But customers are not always correct. They are also wrong. I have seen some customers lying to seniors / management about juniors / trainees. They always try to influence their demand. And seniors generally can’t go against the customers as they have to keep the rapport with those customers.

They always try to say something which is not at all happened. I have myself had an experience with this. The CSR has sent reminder mails and calls in front of me to the customers. But when finally he took actions, the customer told me that he gave me only half day to reply. Now this is a sheer lie the customer was speaking. But I was not able to answer it. I know here my CSR was not at all in fault. But how do I say to that customer that he is wrong.

Sometimes, the customers try to utilize our leniency. We stay lenient so that the customers need not to suffer. But here, ultimately the company gets suffered. Question is how to tackle this type of customers.

I got an idea. I called up my colleague who was heading that particular department and asked him to call up that client. He also knew that client very well so as the client. I told him to ask the client why he said like this even after providing so much extensive support!!!

However, my colleague didn’t call up as he thought it could worsen the situation. So, the question is still here… how to tackle them? On one side, you have your loyal CSR and on the other side you have your customers who are not loyal but are definitely giving you the good amount of business. Need to think it and tackle it on case-to-case basis. No definite solution is possible.

 

Give what they want

It has been noticed now a days that whenever you try to stick to your rules, the customer is going to be annoyed. Rules and regulations always have positive as well as negative sides. It is up to the management to see how it is implemented. You should not be rigid in implementing the system. As per the system, the customer has to log a support request. But what if customer is calling you from on the way? Will you wait till the customer log a request after reaching near the computer? Yes, your system says that you should wait.

But what if your customer is sticking to you from last 4-5 years? The time when you were not having this system online? He was getting good support at that time. So now what? “Why are you forcing me to create a support request? I am calling you directly.” This is the feeling they get in their mind. They feel like you are finding out the way to delay the task. They should not feel like this.

You should not stick your system always. System is here to help us and serve the customers in better way. But if the above is the scenario, you may be helping the new customers but you are losing your old customers. They have the relation with you. A kind of bond. They don’t want to leave you but here they are being forced to leave you. They expect the personalized contact with you. They don’t want everything to go on system.

Be sure while implementing the system. Always think about your oldest customers by keeping in mind the new customers. This way, you will be able to make a nice and flexible system which will be suitable to both the kinds of clients.

 

nice story

I read a nice story yesterday. It goes as follows:

There is a story about an ancient Indian sage who was called ugly names by a passerby. The sage listened unperturbed till the man ran out of words. He asked the man, “If an offering is not accepted, who does it belong to?” The man replied, “It belongs to the person who offered it.” The sage said, “I refuse to accept your offering” and walked away, leaving the man dazed.

 

Isn’t it nice. I think relates to my previous post for false commitment. Don’t get excited for what you hear of the customers. They may be right at their place. But you have to make your patience. Reply them with pure calm and mind it, do not ever give the false commitment. You need to develop your patience if you are in service industry.

 

False Commitment

False commitment is also must avoidable in any organization. You are making your customers fool by making the false commitment. I have seen many examples where weak CSRs make the false commitment. This is because they are not being trained for handling the Trouble Customers. When this type of customers call up and start speaking angrily, they are agree to whatever the customer asks for. They don’t think whether it is possible or not. They even don’t think whether it is practical or not. And what’s the result? “FALSE COMMITMENT.”

This situation is must avoidable in service industry. False Commitments make the client irritated and also make the company image spoil. False Commitments can be delivered either by sales person or by support person. Sales person do the same to attract the customer and increase his sales. Support person do the same to finish the call without much argument and remove the pressure from his shoulder. Definitely this practice is ultimately harmful to the organization. And it is the responsibility of each and every organization to train their people to handle this type of customers and additional pressure. They should be always calm in worst to worst situation. Presence of mind in this situation can help the person to increase their value in the organization.

customer support

How important is the customer support in service industry?

Answer is “THE MOST IMPORTANT” factor.

As we all know, the service industry is highly dependent on the after sales support. The sales people will be hardcore sales guys. They will attract the customers through their speech and impressive way to represent their organization. But what if the support people who are responsible to provide the after sales service are not that much enthusiastic? The result will be, the customer will never come again for the future orders. The sales people’s tactics, the organization’s values will all go down. And it is highly possible that this will spread to the market too and spoil the company image in the industry. Remember, one client can make you rich and one client can make your company to the down level.

I would always advice to keep an eye on the support/service dept. to enrich their level so that your customer will never go away due to dissatisfaction. It’s the best practice (you can say hidden sales) to increase the sales of your organization.

Miscommunication

I was wondering how one can explain the customer about what miscommunication has been done? This is because, a customer do not want to listen you when there is a misunderstanding. They don’t even care to hear you. So if you are explaining to a customer who is angry because you have told something to them, you are talking to a deaf.

For this, I would suggest to let few days go. I know that in these few days, you are entitled to lose a lot of business. But there is no alternative for this. Let some time pass, speak to that customer informally. Try to avoid any business talk or regarding any past matter for 2-4 visits. When both the parties, you and customer, are feeling comfortable in talking to each other, accepts your mistake for that miscommunication and then explain what was happened. This will impress your customer to you for your gentleman attitude.

However, you may not start getting the new business immediately but you will definitely eat fruits for your patience and hard-work. And of course, you need to make sure that in future the same thing will not happen and even need to give the same assurance to your valued customer. This make the customer feel their value to you and your organization.

Miscommunication

Ever thought that a small miscommunication can create a big problem!!! Will write more on this.

 

wake up

Due to month end, was bit busy on Tuesday and yesterday, the hang over… J Let me try to come again in routine to update this blog.