Improve Your Customer Relationships
How to keep your customers on side when you mess up.
Tips from the Trenches
The software industry is infamous for its poor customer service. If you run into a problem, chances are it will take you an age to reach a support person, and when you do, they’ll probably tell you your problem isn’t their problem and suggest figuring out your networking issues for yourself. Print Audit, a 10-year-old Calgary-based company that makes print tracking software, has won multiple awards for service (the Customer Service Award in 2005 and 2008 from the National Quality Institute). Here’s how they do it.
They have one full-time employee whose sole job is to contact customers post-sale (15 days after, 45 days after and once yearly after that). “When we find someone who is not happy, typically it’s a communication problem and we’re able to catch them in our net and fix the issue,” says John McInnis, the CEO and president.
They ask for testimonials for any sales, support or accounting staff – and staff who get a testimonial get a $50 cheque. Nothing motivates employees quite like a monetary incentive. WestJet also uses that technique, and call centre employees who score high marks can earn an extra $8 per hour.
They train their employees using a training program called Give ’em a Pickle, developed by a restaurateur in the United States, and staff in every department participate. “We also have ongoing training, and our support staff will do calls with each other and listen to each other’s calls,” McInnis says.
Corporate policies encourage good service. Most call centres want calls kept short: the longer the call, the longer the wait times and, ultimately, the higher the costs. But Print Audit staff are under pressure to resolve the problem, not worry about call length. “It is not always our software that’s the issue, it might be a networking issue, and our people are perfectly happy to work through that,” McInnis says. “We have some calls that last two minutes and some that last hours.”
RELATED LINKS
Action Plan in Print, Part 10 of 10: Strengthen Your Business Relationships
In 2008, an average of 1.3 million barrels of bitumen per day were produced in Alberta’s oilsands – a decrease of 1% from 2007. When production decreases, it may hurt the bottom line of the producer. But the bigger loser is the supplier, who has little control, and often less warning, over how much their orders will fall. In times of financial stress, your relationships with two key partners are likely to slip: your suppliers and your customers. Here’s how to mitigate the damage so they’ll still be there when it’s time to ramp up. More >
 | Changing the corporate mentality from defence to offence |
December’s Action Plan Podcast: Frank Falcone, senior product manager for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, on strengthening business relationships
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