Mobile Marketing Success » Leadership

You Ready to be Validated?

Tim — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 07:32:31 +0000

Watch This, and then just try to wipe the smile off your face!

What is your experience of this video?

Who do you want to share it with?

10 Surefire Ways to Ensure Customer Exuberance
Ref. http://workingmomsonly.com/issues/protecting-the-lifeblood-of-your-business/

“1. Cool off: Never deal with a customer problem immediately after reading or listening to nasty correspondence. Take a moment to cool down. This way, once you start to investigate the situation, you can do so from a professional and objective perspective rather than reacting emotionally or being defensive.

I know it is extremely hard to simmer down after you or some aspect of your company have been attacked. We take pride in what we do. When someone questions one of our products, one of our employees, or our integrity… it is personal.

However, you must be able to acknowledge the underlying complaint or problem… Separate yourself from the situation… And respond in a professional manner. That way, you will come out of the situation knowing your actions were above reproach.

2. Listen: Let your customer tell you her issue without interruption. When you try to correct or interrupt your customer, you will make matters worse.

3. Apologize: If you are the person the customer is speaking to, always apologize and take responsibility. Let him know you intend to get to the bottom of the situation once you have all the facts.

If you cannot resolve the situation during that initial communication, let the customer know you will get back to him within 24 hours. Make sure you follow through on the conversation!

4. Assess the situation: There is an old saying that goes like this: “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.” As corny as it is – it’s correct.

Don’t make assumptions. Always get ALL the facts before trying to resolve a problem. If your employees are involved, talk to them. Ask them to give you their side of the story. If a joint venture partner is involved – even if she resides in a different time zone – wake her up or have an email ready for her in the morning.

Your customer may (and usually does) have a legitimate issue that may be a simple misunderstanding. When you know the facts and refrain from jumping to conclusions, you will usually be able to find a quick and mutually beneficial resolution.

5. Communicate via phone: How many times have you received an email and thought, “Boy was that rude! When I speak to that person I will give him a piece of my mind!”… only to speak to that person and find him to be polite and respectful? It is so hard to detect tone of voice in an email! A phone call is much better – especially when you’re dealing with an upset or dissatisfied customer.

But conveying tone of voice is just one reason to correspond by phone. The other is that a phone call is immediate – and it takes more effort than dashing off an email. Picking up the phone shows respect and a sense of urgency. You make it clear that you care about the customer’s experience and want to solve the issue as soon as possible. If the customer does not answer, leave her a message and then follow up with an email.

6. Never dispute a refund: All of your products should come with a money-back guarantee. If a customer wants to return a product for a refund – either within or outside the refund period – give him his money back. This shows that you are more interested in your customer’s satisfaction than in his money. It’s a good way to keep yourself in that person’s good will.

By the way… Don’t worry about people taking advantage of this. While some customers will ask for a refund at any time, most customers will honor your refund timeframe.

7. Send a surprise follow-up gift: We all love getting surprise gifts in the mail. Well, so do our customers! There are wonderful online services from which you can order little gifts for under $10. If you’ve just saved a $500, $1,000, or $5,000 sale, isn’t spending $10 on a gift worth it?

While it doesn’t need to be expensive, make sure the gift is personal and thoughtful. Do not send your customer a digital ebook via email or anything else that shows little effort.

8. Never ignore a complaint: So many entrepreneurs make the mistake of ignoring customer comments and complaints… especially if the complaints come from only one or two people. They brush it off as an anomaly. In reality, for every one comment you hear, there are 33 people who feel the exact same way or have the same problem but just choose not to tell you. And you can be sure that if they chose not to tell you, they will not buy from you again.

9. Meet with your team: I am not big on meetings for the sake of meetings. However, you should hold a team meeting every week. This way you will hear about any and every potentially damaging situation. This is where members of your team should bring up issues that need to be addressed right away.

10. Survey your customers: Communicating with your customers – and asking them for their thoughts – shows that you really care about them. Ask them to tell you not only what they like about your organization but also what they don’t like. Chances are that you already know what you’re doing right. But you may not be aware of some of the things that are bothering your customers.

Do not blow off the complaints or negative comments just because you disagree or do not want to face reality. Every complaint is an opportunity for you to improve your business!

All of these tactics can help you save relationships with your customers. But no matter what – whenever you deal with a customer, happy or angry, satisfied or dissatisfied – remember this:

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes.

This is the easiest way of all to create a strong, lasting bond with your customer. Simply ask yourself how YOU would feel if YOU were in the customer’s situation. And not just how you’d feel if you had the problem she may be having… But how you would feel if someone did not take you seriously… or kept interrupting you… or responded to you via email instead of the phone… or failed to respond to you at all. Then treat your customer the way YOU would like to be treated.

Do this and your business will flourish.”

Thank you MaryEllen Tribby for these great reminders and insights! We highly recommend that you sign up to receive her newsletter over at http://workingmomsonly.com/

Do you have a story of receiving fantastic customer service?

Share it with us! Leave your comment below!

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Free Self improvement

Tim — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:32:45 +0000

You get what you pay for right?

Well not always, every once and a while a free offer surprises me.

That was the case with my recent experience of Simple-ology 101, “The Simple Science of Getting What You Want.”

I encourage you to see how much of a difference this free self improvement software can make for you and your business.

Let us know what you think of it!

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what needs to be done right now in your business?

Tim — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 13:35:33 +0000

“The Zen-inspired painter seeks the ‘truth’ of a landscape, like that of religion, in sudden enlightenment. This allows no time for careful detailed draftsmanship. After long contemplation, he is expected to be able to seize inner truth in a swordlike stroke of the brush….”

Working as hard as you do it’s easy to become so focused on what you’re doing that you forget why you’re doing it.

Peter Drucker, often considered The Father of Management, formulated many concepts about business that we now take for granted.

In this particular case I’m refering to what he called “the activity trap,” and Drucker proposed “management by objective” as a way to avoid it.

So how do you maintain focus on your objective, the “what” rather than the “how,” and thereby keep innovation alive?

Are you confident that you really do know what needs to be done right now, for your investment of time, effort and money to not become insignificant?

Before jumping into my own day of “hurry hurry, rush rush” I began by taking a bit of time to Think.

That thinking motivated my sharing this post with you.

If this post has caused you to take a pause and Think, my time sharing this with you has been well spent.

Personally, what I’ve come up with about my own business, involving you now reading it is this:

“My job is to get both of our “wheels of thought” rolling by asking questions.”

“Your job in our masterminding the sharing of thought is to provide answers.”

For both of us this begins a journey of self-exploration, Peter Drucker would suggest,

“A journey of Self-Exploration with Five Essential Questions:”

1. What is your mission?

2 Who is your customer?

3. What does your customer value?

4. What are your results?

5. What is your plan?

Organized Planning, Step 6, will be the next step detailed in our sharing with you each of the Be All You Can Be 13 steps to Freedom.

Part of today’s research toward its writing had me read the following introduction to Peter Drucker. Who’s influence upon modern day business is now legendary.

It gifted me with some powerful thinking time.

As part of your own innovative thinking today give it a read, and take some notes of what about it inspires you.

I look forward to you sharing your comments to this post.

What are your results, having inspired each other by sharing our thoughts today, and taking these first steps of masterminding together?

Ref. “The Wisdom of Peter Drucker from A to Z” http://www.inc.com/articles/2009/11/Drucker.html

A quick “brush stroke” of it’s Z:

“Zen: In 1998, when the writer Harriet Rubin interviewed Drucker at his home for Inc., he showed her this passage from a book on Japanese art: “The Zen-inspired painter seeks the ‘truth’ of a landscape, like that of religion, in sudden enlightenment. This allows no time for careful detailed draftsmanship. After long contemplation, he is expected to be able to seize inner truth in a swordlike stroke of the brush….” Similarly, Drucker achieved enlightenment through quiet observation, waiting patiently until he saw an idea whole, then rendering universal truth in the swift space of a sentence. Thus was the essence of the master.”

Let us know what you think of the full article up at Inc.com

“The Wisdom of Peter Drucker from A to Z” http://www.inc.com/articles/2009/11/Drucker.html

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What do you think is the biggest mistake that leaders make?

Tim — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:43:38 +0000

Photo of Tim and our son “Neo.”

Sam Deep’s recent blog post enlightened me with his insightful understanding of what I would call true-leadership (highlights and link to read the full article can be found at the bottom of this post).

It opened my eyes to a recent experience I had in the birthing room of a hospital when my wife gave birth to our son “Neo.”

What do you think is the biggest mistake that leaders make?

I look forward to you sharing your personal experience of being a leader and/or follower with your replies and comments.

Here is what I shared in response to Sam’s article:

“Deep and Insightful post Sam thank you.

It may not be a 12th major leadership mistake being similar to “5. Relating to people as objects,” but a distinction I’d like to add in any case.

Making the leadership mistake of…

“Being a Power over others, in place of a power to them”

…Though, I learned profoundly in a hospital birthing room just days ago it’s a mistake that can be made both ways!

As an American now living with my viking-wife on the fjord here in Norway and having just become parents to our son “Neo” provides the setting of my story. At almost 44 years old it certainly is not my first experience with “power over vs. power to” but 5am in a birthing room with my wife and professionals wielding very large needles certainly required me to draw upon all my past experiences with leadership.

Placing the epidural needle into my wife’s spine was not going well as she looked to me at a time when I felt powerless to lead anything but my own hand which must have stroked her head hundreds if not thousands of times by then. She was laying on her side and in ever increasing pain pleading with me to help her understand what the anesthesiologist was doing to her back!

Zero communication from the professionals in the room left me to guessing why the procedure had not been completed yet. After what seemed at least 4 attempts to place the needle into my wife’s spinal fluid failed…my being in the role of being a power to the anesthesiologist flipped when FINALLY she communicated to us that she’d like to “try” the procedure again.

Silly what comes to mind at certain times in our life, all I could think of then was Master Yoda in Star Wars saying to Luke Skywalker “…no try, do or don’t do…”

Applying my vocabulary, understanding and compassion to the situation required that I then and there become the leader of it.

Was I mistaken in my own personal leadership allowing someone to stick large needles into my wife’s back while attempting to lead us as “objects?”

It took me a while to realize it…but ultimately my answer was a resounding “Yes” when I stood up to a professional who had violated our trust.

Is it possible that being a power “over” ourselves is the prerequisite to extending power “to” another?”

What are your thoughts?

I’m looking forward to you sharing your story of leadership experience.

(Sam’s list of the 11 Biggest Mistakes the leaders make is:

Succumbing to fear.
Failing to hold people accountable.
Refusing to learn.
Not seeing themselves as others do.
Relating to people as objects.
Not delegating enough.
Burying their heads in the sand.
Valuing “what” over “how.”
Acting unethically.
Leading in a spoke network.
Being a failure-preventer rather than a success-insurer.