Most businesses invest in marketing and advertising each month but overlook another vital investment that they are already making. That investment is their employees. I've said before that your employees can make or break your company, and recently I ran into a very poinient example of that fact.
I was on the telephone with UPS trying to track down a shipment that had to be intercepted so that we could get it to a client sooner. I spoke to a woman at UPS about this and she took all the necessary steps to make it happen. After two hours had passed and I had not received a phone call saying where we could meet the driver to get the packages, I called UPS back. This time I spoke to a gentleman who seemed to be new. He insisted on telling me all the reasons that this could not be done. Fortunately I had dealt with this situation before and knew that it could. After a great deal of frustration I ended the call and called back, this time speaking with another woman. This woman was one of the best customer service reps that I have ran into in a long time - she handled everything and went far above and beyond to fix the situation and make everything work for us. Before long, we got the packages and delivered them to our client.
The attitude of the gentleman that I spoke to, unfortunately, seems to be the norm in customer service these days. UPS is in a fairly unique position due to their almost monopolistic position in the market, but most companies would quickly loose customers if they handled them this way. The attitude of the last woman that I spoke to however was completely different and actually solved my frustrations on the situation. The best marketing campaign in the world will fall flat if your employees do not treat your customers right while the best employees can often multiply the effectiveness of an average marketing campaign. To get the most out of your marketing dollars you should make sure that your employees are properly trained on how to deal with customers and occasionally use "mystery customers" to spot test them.
Jeremy L. Knauff is the founder & CEO of Wildfire Marketing Group, a full service Marketing Firm specializing in helping small companies compete with larger companies. |
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