Following are five speeches Ken gives on making customers superstars and how that helps your business and your people grow into stars themselves.

• Customer Service? You Decide!
• Foundations of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty – Make ‘em Successful!
• Customer Service or “Customers Serve Us?”
• The Optimal Process Design®
• What Your Customers REALLY Want and How to Give It To Them Every Time

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Customer Service? You Decide!

We hear much about customer service these days, specifically, how to treat customers in such a way that they keep coming back to you.

Customer service, we are told, if consistently done in the right way will increase the loyalty rate of your customer base; and this will lead to greater profitability because studies show that it takes six times as much money to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing one.

There are all sorts of seminars, workshops, classes and presentations that instruct participants how to serve customers in an outstanding, memorable manner. You’d think that with all these offerings and all the people attending them that customer service would be alive and well in this country. My experience is that true customer service is experienced less often than it should be, certainly less often than companies proclaim that it’s done.

More often than not, I get the feeling that employees are doing me a favor by even talking to me, much less providing for my personal needs and addressing the primary reasons I even showed up in their place of business. Occasionally, I encounter a person who treats me in a genuine, warm and helpful way – and this is a refreshing experience.

What I have concluded is that customer service is a process that can be taught – employees can learn the steps that are necessary to meet customer requirements, demands, and needs.

But customer service is also a disposition: just because you go through a process doesn’t mean that the result will be customer service that leads to customer loyalty. No approach or process can force a person to truly serve others in a helpful and courteous fashion if that person is not disposed toward being helpful and courteous toward others. Such a person would merely drag the customer through a pre-determined process in such a manner that the result would not be satisfying to the customer but rather irritating and perhaps infuriating.

So customer service is both a process and a disposition. But it is more than that.

Customer service should not be done merely to give customers reasons to come back. It should not simply be an attempt to provide for the material needs and wants of those who come into your business. Its intention should not be just to demonstrate a pleasing personality or a disarming disposition. Customer service, in other words, is not just a pleasant process that you put people through with the expectation that beneficial results – for both customers and the company – will be assured.

Certainly, customer service is all of that, but if it was only that then it would only be a means to manipulate customers into thinking well of us and buying what we had to offer simply by performing generic and expected civil behaviors. No, customer service is more than acting nice and saying that the customer is always right, even when clearly in the wrong.

Customer service is a purpose, not just a process; it is a decision, not just a disposition. The true intention of front line employees – those who deal with customers day in and day out – is revealed and demonstrated by the decisions they make throughout the day regarding:

1) how they will treat customers all day long

2) how they want to feel about themselves at the end of the day

3) how they want their customers to feel about themselves and about the company at the end of each interaction with them

4) how they see the purpose of their job and the steps they will take to accomplish it throughout the day

5) how they will work together with others on the team to perform at the highest level of caring and competence for their customers

This true intention is what customers are left with when they leave the establishment. It registers in their minds and hearts as a certain kind of experience, positive, neutral or negative.

The combination of decisions that are made individually by every front liner determines the effectiveness of the customer service process; and this process is the means by which the purpose of the organization is materially manifested and by which it either thrives or dies.

Any training in customer service processes must involve clarifying and refining the decision-making processes that front liners use in dealing with customers – and with each other.

Customer service is what everyone who is tasked with doing it decides it’s going to be. What you first create in your mind and heart with purposeful intention will work its way out through your behavior into your relationships and to the bottom line.

Customer service? You decide!

What You’ll Learn:

• This program will teach your management and front line personnel dynamic ways to discover what customers want, what they need (which could be something totally different) and the behaviors they respond well to that will cause them to allow you to help them in the most satisfying manner.
• You will learn a simple yet powerful decision making process that will be used throughout every work day that will ensure customer satisfying behaviors and attitudes – especially when it’s most difficult to do.
• You can expect that attendees will perform better with less stress when dealing with customers.
• This program will also help participants develop a written game plan to deal with difficult people by dealing with the most important issues first – and they do not include the customer’s complaint!
• You’ll have fun while learning and you’ll be motivated to take action as soon as you get back on the job. You’ll also be eager to share what you’ve learned with peers, management and staff.

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Foundations of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty – Make ‘em Successful!

Everyone is involved with customer service and satisfaction – even those who do not come into direct contact with customers. For any organization, satisfying customers consists of a series of steps in numerous processes in which all employees are involved.

Without a clear understanding of these processes, their interrelationships, and why they exist, this intricate “web of service” can become snarled and inadvertently create a less-than- satisfying experience for the external customer.

This program slows down the processes and those involved in them by using proven techniques that focus participants on what really counts for their customers.

Using a simple, yet powerful, four-step process, participants develop practical and effective plans of action to design and implement a customer service infrastructure that results in the same high quality, satisfying service experience for every customer every time.

Beginning with understanding current performance as measured by the client’s internal and external customers, the process moves participants through awareness of current obstacles and on to improved processes.

Each of the following components of true customer service is explored in depth and action plans developed to integrate each into a comprehensive customer service strategy and process.

• Attitude (courtesy, sincerity)
• Communication (listening, paraphrasing, verbal/non-verbal expression of care, negotiating, making the customer right)
• Integrity (honesty, confidentiality)
• Value (giving more than is usual)
• Involvement (making it a fun and worthwhile experience)
• Gratitude (true appreciation)
• Walking the Talk and Talking the Walk (acting to implement the vision of stellar customer service and consistently communicating that vision)

The bottom line:

1) your customers’ success in getting what they want by doing business with you is more important to them than their satisfaction with your products and services.

2) How you give is more important than what you give.

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Customer Service or “Customers Serve Us?”

Have you ever felt whenever you were in a place of business that the employees really didn’t care whether you were there or not? I have even felt as if I were being viewed by owners and employees alike as existing for their benefit.

Far too many times I have encountered service personnel that made no attempt to hide their annoyance at my questions and comments. More often than not, whenever I’ve provided feedback that was intended to be helpful and constructive it has been met with joking, excuse-making, patronization or obvious, even if polite, disregard.

What can be done to make the experiences we have with American businesses more enjoyable, satisfying and fun? In this program you will learn the seven “Fs” of making customers’ experience with your organization outstanding and memorable.

Participants will learn how to use each of these approaches at the appropriate times for maximum benefit for the customer. The various customer types will be identified and written action plans for each type will be devised for immediate implementation back on the job.

Immediate improvements in customer satisfaction levels will result.

• Focus on others not on yourself
• Feelings of others are more important than our own feelings at the time
• Following the customer first by listening and understanding, then leading them to the best product/service for them
• Fun – making the experience memorable by making it fun and interactive
• Forwarding information received about customers to other departments/branches/people so they can serve these customers better (None of us know as much about the customer as all of us know)
• Funnel the customer’s attention and interest into broader possibilities and opportunities
• Future state of the organization is linked to the way we treat customers right now

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The Optimal Process Design®

There are two sides to optimal performance. One side deals with structures, processes and procedures, tools and measurement. This side deals with management of “hard” objective data: facts, figures, charts, etc. that can be examined and “seen.” The other side has to do with attitude, creativity, commitment, buy-in and self-discipline. This “softer,” intangible side deals with leadership: when leadership is present, the right things get done in an efficient, enthusiastic way.

When leadership is absent, things get done but often without achieving the intended results. Optimal Process Design© (OPD) targets both the personal (leadership) and the process (management) sides of performance for immediate improvement and sustained progress toward better results.

Participants will learn how to use the twenty elements of Optimal Process Design© to move their organization and themselves forward faster by:

1) Identifying who current internal and external customers are

2) Clarifying current corporate assumptions and business objectives

3) Clarifying current personal assumptions, goals and objectives of employees

4) Determining what internal and external customers needs and want – currently and in the future

5) Measuring how well internal and external customers are being satisfied

6) Determining how external customers are using the organization’s existing products and/or services

7) Deciding who the organization wants as its external customers and determining the similarities and differences between these and existing internal customers

Determining the current processes for meeting internal and external customer wants and needs

9) Identifying opportunities for improvement within each of the existing processes

10) Conducting formal creativity sessions with all employees to generate ideas that will result in improvement in providing customer what they want and need

11) Structuring work schedules to include guided and unguided individual T2 (Think Time) sessions as part of all management and employee job descriptions

12) Devising an optimal management “shell” structure that serves as a guiding template for developing customized business strategies and tactics for both internal and external customers

13) Developing a focused approach to turning a subconscious negative mindset among employees into a positive mindset that drives the organization forward toward goal accomplishment

14) Developing pilot implementation schedules

15) Assessing pilot project(s) and communicating results to all employees in a timely manner

16) Developing short- and long-term plans of action for improving the identified steps of the processes

17) Devising a monitoring system to follow-up on implementation efforts and results

18) Designing corporate celebration, fellowship and recognition opportunities

19) Identifying and enlisting “Process Champions:” one for change, another for stability

20) Creating a supportive and encouraging work environment in which people can do “better than their best”

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What Your Customers REALLY Want and How to Give It To Them Every Time

What are the “moments of truth” that your employees must manage with every customer?

What do YOUR customers really want from you and your organization?

Can you be 100% confident that you’re giving it to every customer every time whether it be on the phone, in writing, in person or via your marketing and advertising campaigns? You will be after you’ve attended this program!

You will learn:

• How to clearly determine what your customers really want
• How to give what your customer want to them every time you have an interaction with them
• Essential communication skills for consistently effective customer service
• Conflict resolution and prevention skills and strategies
• Attitude development and control
• Negotiation skills for “both gain” outcomes
• Developing effective customer service processes for increased customer satisfaction and company profitability
• Setting and managing customer expectations
• Service mission development and communication
• Service recovery strategies and techniques
• “Give ‘em the Full Q.U.A.R.T.®” (Query, Understand, Align, Raise, Trade) Customer Service Process Model

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Is Ken Available for Your Next Meeting?

Call me now (866.586.5021) or click here.

Ken’s topics include:

Pervasive Leadership
Complete Communication: Saying & Hearing it Right the First Time
Change and Transition Management
Customer Superstars