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DSC Tech Library
This section of our technical library presents information and documentation relating to Call Center technology and Best Practices plus software and products.
Since the Company's inception in 1978, DSC has specialized in the development of communications software and systems. Beginning with our CRM and call center applications, DSC has developed computer telephony integration software and PC based phone systems. These products have been developed to run on a wide variety of telecom computer systems and environments.
The following article presents product or service information relating to call centers and customer service help desks.
Creative Customer Service Strategies
by: John Jantsch
Customers are kind of funny. They will rarely tell you how you messed up, they will simply leave. Poof...gone!
No matter what the size of your firm there are ways to get to the bottom of this problem.
Call them. Talk to them. Mail them. Do your maintenance.
Don't just take the order and run. Remember, it is a lot easier and a whole lot more profitable to do more business with your existing clients than it is to find new ones. So, do whatever it takes to make sure those existing clients are happy campers.
Here are a few simple practices that you might consider adding to your customer service routine.
1. A week after a client buys a product or service, follow-up. Ask them what worked, what didn't.
It’s an interesting fact of business but, sometimes, as long as people get the chance to tell you what's wrong and you do what it takes to fix it, they may become some of your most loyal customers.
2. Send postcards, letters, article reprints, notes, whatever, as often as you can. By staying in touch you create a bond that will serve you well when you launch new ventures and new product lines.
3. The most powerful yet cheapest research you can get. Talking to your customers about what works and what doesn't work is the greatest way to find hidden gold mines in your industry. Understanding very specifically why people choose to buy from you over others is the secret to marketing.
Be on particular lookout for phrases like...that's how we've always done it or we don't like it but we've just come to live with it.
4. Schedule routine maintenance appointments or calls with your clients.
Often after your clients have been enjoying your product or service they forget how much value it is bringing them. Find a way to build regular meetings with your clients into your service. Use the time to educate them on just how much you have done for them. (How much weight have they lost, how much money have they saved, how much more efficient are they, how much more business they now have, how much of what ever it is that you do)
They will appreciate the time and it is a great way to introduce new products and ask for testimonials and referrals.
5. Find out everything you can about your clients.
Don’t stop at name, rank and serial number. Devise a method for collecting personal information about your clients. Information about a client’s spouse, children, hobbies, schools, community involvement can be a tremendous way to further your relationship and offer clues for networking and referrals.
You don’t have to be intrusive or nosey to make this strategy work, sometimes you just have to be observant. Most people wear their allegiances on their sleeve. Any sales trainer worth a darn will tell you to look for ways to strike a common bond with a prospect as a selling tool, I find that as a customer service tool you are simply looking for ways to get a deeper understanding of the needs of your client as a way to uncover more ways to help them get what they want.
Now go do your customer maintenance... Every 3000 miles or so ought to do it!
Copyright 2004 John Jantsch
About the Author
John Jantsch is a marketing coach and creator of the Duct Tape Marketing System. You can get more information about the Duct Tape System and download your free copy of “How To Create the Ultimate Small Business Marketing System in 7 Simple Steps” by visiting http://www.DuctTapeMarketing.com
CRM Call Center Software
Database Systems Corp. (DSC) has been providing CRM Customer Relationship Management solutions to businesses and organizations for 2 decades.
TELEMATION is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application employed in a wide variety of organizations including contact centers, help desks, customer service centers, service bureaus, reservation centers and corporate call centers. The package has extensive CTI features and is fully integrated with our PACER phone system. TELEMATION operates on Linux, Unix or Windows servers. Software programmers can develop call center applications quickly using the robost features found in the Telemation toolkit.
Call Center Phone System
The PACER is a call center phone system that handles inbound and outbound calls for a wide range of contact centers. Calls are either initiated by the phone system or accepted from the outside and distributed in an intelligent fashion to your service agents. The PACER includes ACD and IVR components, plus call recording capability. Using industry standard components, the PACER phone system has features and functions that can only be found in large scale PBX’s, but at a fraction of the cost. And the PACER has predictive dialing capability that cannot be found in most of these larger phone systems. The PACER phone system can connect calls to your employees working at home or in a local or remote office. The PACER communicates with applications written on Unix, Linux, or PC servers over a LAN. For a complete product presentation, download our PACER demo.
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