Customer Service

Customer Service: A Priority

Pay money to quit. A company wants employees who believe in the overall mission and purpose of the company. For Zappos, they want people who believe in and fit a certain culture that prioritizes customer service as the number one focus. Everyone goes through the same training as a call center rep. They want the same level of customer service across the board. They offer the entire class in training $2000 to quit and then it ups to $3000 if they quit. The biggest benefit is from the people who don’t take the offer because they have to really think about if this company is a company they really want to invest their time in. The second set of interviews is only on having a culture fit. Even performance reviews assess if employees are living the Zappos standards.

Paying people to quit should weed out those who don’t truly believe in the mission of the company. When people believe in a mission, a culture, a purpose they will stay with it even if they are offered money to quit. The business mission/culture should be so important to them that they don’t quit for a little money on the side.

Customer Approaches

A great way to approach a customer is to ask if they have ever been in your store before. This gets you on the path to see how you can best meet their needs. Find out the customer’s wants, desires, needs, and preferences. Remember that it is far easier to keep a customer, than to gain a new one. That is why customer satisfaction should be a top priority. The three ways to grow revenues are getting your customers to purchase a larger volume, more often, and to increase the number of customers. I would think that the best way to increase the number of customers is by word of mouth from happy prior customers. An important business model is to treat the customer as if they are always right.

Putting money into things that matter

In Jet Blue they decided to put money into things that really mattered. Food was something they decided not to included. They encouraged people to bring their own food and they serve inexpensive snacks. They did choose TVs because that would be memorable. What really matters? The TVs were a fraction of the cost of food. They also decided that they want people need to get on top as quickly as possible, so they cleaned quickly and offered to help put bags away to move the process more quickly.

Bud Brigham – action hero

Bud Brigham developed the belief and value to be the best he could be. As a youth he was raised in a broken home with divorced parents, six kids, and an alcoholic dad who died at an early age. Bud got married and learned the importance of philosophy and strong values. In his career, he built one of the most successful oil companies in America. He attributed his success to learning the business and surrounding himself with the best and brightest people. We won’t know everything and when we see that the competition is better or smarter, we need to compensate by surrounding ourselves with people who are also smarter. Our network should include people with a similar value system. Bud studied philosophy focusing on learning rational thinking, reason, and of living. His core values taught him the importance of being his best self. He encourages others to develop a strong value system to believe in and follow.

Customer Loyalty

The longer customers are loyal, the more profitable they are. Retention: This is because they spend more the longer they are retained. Related Sales: Related sales will more likely come from longer customers. Positive referrals are the best kind of marketing. Satisfied customers are likely to tell people about service. When finding customers, you need to determine who your target market is. Additionally, who is NOT your target market.

$100 Challenge – The Perfect Cookie

This week I sold one cookie. I might be making some this next week pending a possible order. I also made a sign-up sheet for my husband to bring to work.