http://customerservicezone.com Customer Service Zone - Dedicated to Helping Companies Improve Customer Service - Recent Free Library Additions en http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1097 http://customerservicezone.com/1097.html These are effective anger management tips, especially for those of us working in a job where good customer service skills are required. Even the most skilled customer service representatives have bad days and should therefore keep a copy of this article close by for support. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1134 http://customerservicezone.com/1134.html Learn how low-trust environments can harm your customer service reputation and your organization's bottom line. When you read this article you will be convinced that gaining your clients' trust will give you that extra edge that will put you over the top in terms of customer service. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1133 http://customerservicezone.com/1133.html The author talks about how to learn the best lessons in customer service. Solid advice that won't cost a cent. You don't have to hire an expert when you follow his advice. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1125 http://customerservicezone.com/1125.html This article provides some insight as to why verbal abuse in the workplace happens. Find out how verbal abuse should be handled if you are a victim or a witness to the verbal abuse. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=992 http://customerservicezone.com/992.html As more and more companies strive to make their operations "lean and mean," you increasingly face the risk of a major customer becoming a corporate bully. The bully customer believes all success in business comes from "buying low and selling high, collecting early and paying late." Your bully customer demands ever better pricing, longer payment terms, better quality, and better service with the sinister threat that you'll lose their business if you won't give them exactly what they want. They want what is good for them with complete disregard for the impact on you or your business. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1124 http://customerservicezone.com/1124.html As a mindful employer you should be willing to take steps to prevent your employees from customers who are verbally abusive. Learn the basic steps. This article is also recommended for employees who are subjected to customer abuse so that they can recommend these steps to their employers. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=993 http://customerservicezone.com/993.html Bullying does not stop at the school gates. Workplace bullying is said to cost the UK anything from £2bn to £4bn a year in sick leave, law suits, lost productivity and replacing staff who have left after being bullied. What can you do if you are being bullied at work, or use bullying tactics yourself to get the job done? This workplace bullying article will help you recognise and deal with bullying at work. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1150 http://customerservicezone.com/1150.html My goal with this customer service article is to do nothing less than provide the blueprint for business-to-business (B2B) companies to change the world. Why? Because customer service is the single biggest issue in American business-to-business relationships today. If you are an organization selling services or products to another organization, the customer service lessons below are directly applicable to you. These lessons are true regardless of the size of your organization, or the size of your customer. Read more: http://dotconnectorblog.com/customer-service/#ixzz0t6gGM9ip http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1151 http://customerservicezone.com/1151.html Companies in the B2B market are missing basic customer service capabilities that can drastically improve online customer relationships and build trust, according to research by Jupiter Media Metrix. The research found that only 41 percent of B2B companies respond to customer email inquiries within six hours -- and of those that do, only half offer an accurate resolution. Data from Jupiter Customer Service WebTrack Survey show that only 2 percent of B2B companies have Web sites that feature an easy-to-search knowledge base for customers to use on their own. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1155 http://customerservicezone.com/1155.html Like anything else, social media marketing is easier, more efficient and more effective if the marketer has the right set of tools. While hundreds (if not thousands) of tools and services exist for social media marketing, many are still primarily aimed at either consumers or B2C marketers. Fear not B2B marketers — there are still plenty of great tools out there than can best address the unique needs of the B2B space. We’ve raided our own toolkits to come up with some of the best tools and services for B2B marketers that want to get the most out of social media http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1152 http://customerservicezone.com/1152.html Many B2B companies understand the idea of the sales funnel and track their leads using a CRM system like Salesforce.com or a module integrated into their ERP system, but they are not using the same organized process to handle customer service. According to a May 2009 study, only 40% of companies stated that their employees have the tools to handle customer service. With the explosion of the use of social media for customer service in 2009, the landscape for B2B customer service has become more complicated, and needs structure that can account for a variety of incoming inquiries http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1154 http://customerservicezone.com/1154.html IBM's hot-off-the-press 2010 CEO Study confirms again what solutions marketers already know: getting closer to customers is a strategic priority. An overwhelming 88% of large enterprise CEOs told IBM that getting closer to customers is a top business strategy for the next five years, placing it at the top of the list. An even higher number of the best performing CEOs, 95%, stressed the point. Is this really news? Isn't this just Marketing 101? Well, sort of. The idea is basic, but making it happen, especially in large organizations, is not so easy. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1166 http://customerservicezone.com/1166.html A new report from digital agency White Horse shows that while social media is gaining traction with B2B (business-to-business) marketers, there’s still a way to go for it to be on the same level as B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing. Entitled B2B Goes Social, the report offers some interesting insights into how social media continues to struggle somewhat at making inroads into business-led marketing. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1159 http://customerservicezone.com/1159.html How are B2B business using Facebook? Here's some examples to look at http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1170 http://customerservicezone.com/1170.html Since I've written on building the B2B business case for social media and penned key tips for breaking through the knowledge barrier, it's only fitting that I take a post to focus on the main B2B objections to social media, and some strategies for overcoming them. Because even in this all-digital, always-on world I hear objections a great deal. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1165 http://customerservicezone.com/1165.html B2B organizations have largely accepted online social media technologies as useful marketing tools, and they're working to adopt the best practices of their B2C peers. This new channel isn't just a way to diffuse news and find out about customers preferences; it's also there to serve as a medium for a two-way dialogue. To be truly effective as a tool to build customer loyalty, social media can't exist in a silo. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1167 http://customerservicezone.com/1167.html B2B social media can be as effective and enjoy as much success as B2C social media. In fact, the strategic approach between B2B and B2C social media is similar. The differences lies in the tactics used because the approach and tone of B2B social media can be more formal. (For more thoughts on the strategic vs. tactic angle, check out this post by Jay Baer.) So what are the benefits for B2B social media? http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1168 http://customerservicezone.com/1168.html B2b firms spend an great deal of time and mental energy debating whether to participate in social media. These debates usually occur on the sweeping battlegrounds of marketing strategy and branding strategy. Perhaps the focus should be on making life easier for the folks who do the actual work. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1164 http://customerservicezone.com/1164.html According to a new study involving more than 1,700 small business leaders, companies marketing to small businesses would be well advised to focus on social media tactics requiring little IT investment, such as webinars, podcasts and establishing a presence on top social networking sites, before pursuing more IT resource intensive initiatives such as creating a company-managed online community. The study, conducted by Business.com, finds that that four of the top five most effective social media tactics for engaging small business decision makers do not require significant IT investment or involvement. The exception – company blogs – should be backed by both a strategic content strategy and the resources necessary to create this content on an ongoing basis before it allocating IT resources to blog creation or management. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1161 http://customerservicezone.com/1161.html Everyone gets caught up in the trends, the shiny applications, and all that social media has to offer, but sometimes it doesn’t work. Today is the day to talk about those times. Social media isn’t some kind of communications cure all that can fix any problem. I have spent my time making the case for how social media is applicable in the B2B space; however, today I am going to outline five situations when social media doesn’t work for B2B. In these situations sure some aspects of social media will work and help support other inbound marketing objectives like search and branding, but the truth is, when it come to driving transactions, there are better options http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1169 http://customerservicezone.com/1169.html B2B use of social media is progressing, but we need to pick up the pace. Younger generations – people who now and will be making key buying decisions – are at home on the web and have little use for such relics as telephone calls, brochures, and Yellow Pages. B2B firms have a litany of hurdles to overcome to make the transition from traditional marketing to a mix of traditional and new marketing methods. Here’s a list of those hurdles which come from my own experience consulting with b2b firms. Some of the items on the list are mere excuses; others are valid concerns or at least real problems within the organization. What can you add to the list? http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1171 http://customerservicezone.com/1171.html I get a lot of questions about the “appropriateness” of using Social Media techniques for Business to Business (B2B). Arguments against tapping Social Media in B2B circles range from “we already know all of our customers” to “we have a very technical, specialized product” to “our customers are very conventional,” etc. But let’s simplify this: are your customers online? If your customers are online, you should be considering Social Media strategies. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1160 http://customerservicezone.com/1160.html Everyone gets caught up in the trends, the shiny applications, and all that social media has to offer, but sometimes it doesn’t work. Today is the day to talk about those times. Social media isn’t some kind of communications cure all that can fix any problem. I have spent my time making the case for how social media is applicable in the B2B space; however, today I am going to outline five situations when social media doesn’t work for B2B. In these situations sure some aspects of social media will work and help support other inbound marketing objectives like search and branding, but the truth is, when it come to driving transactions, there are better options http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1189 http://customerservicezone.com/1189.html I thought I'd find the answer here, but I guess the Customer Service Training Institute doesn't know. No numbers, no real costs, and I guess they claim it saves money, but no numbers to back it up. Wonder if they think their customers are stupid. http://customerservicezone.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=1188 http://customerservicezone.com/1188.html This is a typical post that repeats the "wisdom" of customer service advocates, and not surprisingly isn't titled accurately. It doesn't deal at all with the cost of customer service, although it attempts to deal with the costs of bad customer service (it doesn't do that either).