Conduct a very simple exercise and Google the words “financial success”. The search reveals:

• Ten Easy Steps….
• Seven Keys to Achieve….
• A Five Point Plan….
• The Two Simple Equations….
• Five Early Retirement…..
• One-Hundred and Eight Mantras….
• Four Ways to Save
• Ten Habits…

By now you get the picture!

Fundamentally every single person on this planet is different, and although it is fabulous to have a mentor helping us out, all our needs are ultimately different. For one person financial success could be having the means available through residual income, to travel the world. For another this might be running a successful business, for another, retiring with enough to get by, and for others – just having enough to donate to their favorite charities at the end of the month.

Success is measured by the person enjoying that success, not by standards in advertised media, or the measure of how many vehicles Mayweather owns. It is something deeper than the tangible items and services that money can buy. It has been said that money does not buy happiness, but it sure does grease the wheels of happiness a little, and it is no sin to make a profit. However, how much is enough? Just like there are any number of steps to financial success, any number of money can be enough or not enough. It is a personal choice!

There is a character in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield – Wilkins Micawber – he said “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness.” These are very wise words, after a lesson learned by a character who was eternally running away from debtors, and eventually found himself and his family locked up in a debtors prison.

One requires sufficient income to satisfy needs and stay out of debt, whilst at the same time being able to create wealth. It is identifying the need that can sometimes become complex on a personal level. It seems to be at this juncture that we would like to believe, there is some kind of magic in the number of steps taken to fulfil that need. However, there are some very practical approaches available to start with right away.

Most income comes from salaried earnings, so for the purpose of this article we use earnings as an example. A minimum amount needs to be earned to survive, anything above this amount can create wealth. While there are ways to maximize earning potential, we don’t need to wait for higher earnings in order to have surplus available. Keeping spending below earnings allows for surplus.

If Penny makes $40 000 a year and spends $27 000, she has a $13 000 surplus. If Bob makes $1.5 million a year and spends $1.75, it does not take a mathematician to see who has more fiduciary responsibility – it is Penny. While Bob has the potential to make more money faster, if he doesn’t mend his wicked ways, he could wind up in serious trouble. If Penny continues in this way she has more potential for growth.

It is like we said earlier, there are no number of steps that are going to guarantee success when it comes to finances. The simpler we keep things the better, and the better we know our needs, the easier it will be to get just what we want. Fundamentally, any kind of success is about making the right kind of choices for you.

The best marketing strategies, sales plans, and business tactics all go astray without a professional, positive, happy, well-trained customer service team. Here it pays to remember that the customer is king, and if he cannot be taken care of correctly, sales do not increase, and neither does brand loyalty. If world domination is the deal, and client care doesn’t feature big in that deal, then the best laid plans will go astray. The saddest thing is that many firms already believe they are offering the best care that they possibly can.

Let’s face facts; no-one wants to believe that they are bad at what they do. There is a customer client relationship, and like in most relationships; partners don’t like admitting that they are at fault. It is rare in the extreme for a firm to admit that their clients are not being serviced well. Much like a spouse rarely admits that they themselves are a terrible spouse. It is the human condition for people to believe what is expedient to believe.

These days most service agents are veiled behind powerful web-based tools. The same tools that are used to administer requests from the customer, are the tools that are used to manage the teams’ individual, as well as group success. Savvy web-based tools are just that, they are not human beings, and do not necessarily deliver an amazing customer experience. Conveniently, it becomes easy for management to jump to the conclusion that if the tools are working fine, then customer satisfaction is fine.

All growing, thriving, successful companies place a huge amount of emphasis on the actual customer experience – whether this is delivered in person, in live chat, on the telephone, or using other smart web-based tools. They want to know how and why their customers hare happy, and what their perspective is on the service they receive. Smart tools don’t automatically assume that a customer will be left happy, excited or gratified. The onus is on management to ensure that they assume nothing, and have all facts at hand.

The average online and even normal shopper is looking out for a memorable experience. Mediocrity just doesn’t cut it. Businesses that take cognizance of this, offer a memorable experience, and they do this with very good purpose in mind.

Todays’ successful business understands that offering fabulous customer service costs less than advertising does. They understand that training their team to be top of their game is vital – much more vital than managing damage control. It is much simpler to stop fires from starting, than it is to put out fires when a customer or two blows a fuse.

Therefore it is not state-of-the art web-based tools that are used to keep customers happy, but the experience of doing business with a company that pays attention to getting it right. Being amazing matters, where brand loyalty is the knock-on effect of making sure that the client feels good with the choices they have made.

Fundamentally, a rapidly changing world as well as workforce has ordered a revolution in management styles. Management styles are therefore evolving continually to accommodate changes in technology, as well as the way people think. The days where autocratic, command and control management was the order of the day have long gone the way of the dinosaur, and best practice now uses the “team” approach in order to lead effectively.

The point of persuasion and influence in leadership is to empower the workforce, and involves effective communication, amongst other skills. Workers are being encouraged to operate independently, and question “why?”, while leaders are learning quickly how to become more influential. The sooner a leader learns the art of being more persuasive, the more likely a business’ goals will be met with far less frustration and resistance internally, or externally.

The word “persuasion” in Merriam-Webster is described as follows: “per·sua·sion noun pər-ˈswā-zhən: the act of causing people to do or believe something”.. And despite popular belief – this is not an immoral act. People sometimes mix meanings, and believe the word is the same as “manipulation”, when nothing could be further from the truth. The major difference between these two words is the objective behind the action. Manipulation is generally self-serving, and harbors serious ill-intent.

On the flip side of the coin, and in terms of the use influence and persuasion for organisational success, the principle skill used by leaders is as we said earlier – communication. This means either verbal or non-verbal communication, or both, used to powerfully connect with the workforce to achieve a mutually beneficial result. The main focus is placed on activating reciprocity to master fellowship.

There is a ton of psychological evidence available that has proven good leaders to be more effective when they influence with positive effect. For example the transparent sharing of information within an organisation! This keeps workers at all levels in the loop, as opposed to the old way of treating them like mushrooms – fed s*@t, and kept in the dark. Other positive means of persuasion include focussing on the strengths of a workforce, rather than looking for negative attributes, and picking them out. This kind of positive intent keeps workers moving forward, helps to engender trust, and inspires motivation to reach for the stars.

Business success depends a great deal on our ability to influence and persuade people; the teams who work within the organization, and the customers who support its products or services. Leaders therefore need to learn how to use their influence up, down, and across the entire landscape of the organisational scope, even where they have no direct authority. Have we persuaded you of that yet?

The evolution of CRM – Customer Relationship Management – started late in the 1990’s, in response to more “customer-centric” times. A real need had been recognised for businesses to be able to offer proactive customer service of the highest possible standard; at the same time using this process for the purpose of building a database of customer profiles for future use. This data for future use was for the benefit of all departments – from upper-echelon management, through sales, marketing, and obviously customer service.

The short version is that over the years “spending” on CRM has compounded in growth, into billions of dollars annually. Exceeding $75 billion in 2005, so, we can only imagine what this spend is today?! Being so spendy; CRM implementations should ensure that every employee – the entire hierarchy, through to customer service teams, are all kept with their eyes on the prize.

What has been found however is that when change management is not used in the implementation of CRM systems. No amount of investment achieves a predetermined ROI (return on investment). So this combination of strategic management, and information systems that was devised to increase customer satisfaction, whilst checking out basically what the customer wants, with the aim of brand building, and customer retention – ultimately better profits – was simply not working. Now we know that the key to achieving CRM success; is syncing its implementation with the process of change management.

Change management addresses four processes:

• leadership practices
• infrastructure change
• training practices
• performance metrics

It is these four processes which help to expedite far more superior CRM executions. Take leadership practices for example – whenever a large CRM spend is initiated, there is bound to be a great deal of change in any corporate culture. The trick is that corporate culture changes need to take effect in a non- unsettling, or non-threatening way. All of a sudden the business is becoming “customer-centric”, and therefore any changes need to be marketed within the structure of the business too.

This internal marketing force is required to be as intensive as any external marketing force might be. Where change is concerned, internal marketing starts with top management and all the way down to end-user buy in. Communication throughout the organisational structure is therefore intensively fostered, aligned, and formalised which helps any changes to work with success. While there is a great deal more to be said about change management and how its use, or non-use, can make or break a CRM implementation. Let’s leave it at that for now, and perhaps deal with infrastructure change, training practices, and performance metrics at a later date.

Customer service is taking place in an increasingly loud, exponentially growing marketplace, so, excellence is the key to standing out from the crowd. Learning to be grateful for the mistakes both we and others have made means learning what not to do in order to reduce the incidence of obstacles. There are a whole host of killer key words, and phrases that have proven to literally drive customers away in hoards.

Would it help for customer service teams to have a list of these words on hand even after training? You bet it would. It’s a start, and what is even better is if a team keeps compiling lists of their own –> what NOT to say. Some of these words and phrases are so obvious that even the most basic customer service training will cover them. But it is human to make a mistake, so if we have a list is in front of our eyes that says – “DO NOT SAY – It is not our policy” in large red letters, and then follow with a list of what not to say, we will be less likely to say it, would we not?

Distraction is dangerous when dealing with customers and potential customers. Certain words and phrases immediately distract them away from a real point of conversation. So, we eliminate these, but it isn’t easy. Rewording is required, because as we know, all businesses have policies. For example the list would read – DO NOT SAY – “it is not our policy”, DO SAY – “let us see what can be done”. This sort of buffering works to improve customer interaction.

Have you or anyone you know, ever told a customer to “calm down”. If you have, what was the reaction? An immediate lack of calm ! These two words have the ability to make a customer metamorphose into a demon from the darkest pits of hell. The first thing they will respond with is “don’t you dare tell me to calm down”, generally in a highly agitated manner, with a raised voice for better effect. Add the words “CALM DOWN” to your kill list. Customer service agents are there to allow a customer to vent if necessary. Agents are supposed to be trained not to take venting personally, but rather treat it with empathy, and benevolence.

“No problem” seems to be a big problem indeed, and it makes the customer seem to believe that they have been a problem. They simply do not like it, and it hits the hate charts right at the top. Get it on the kill list, and train agents to use –  “my pleasure”, “you are very welcome”, “I am happy to have been able to help”. There are many more synonyms available, and it’s “no problem” to find more of these.

Now, is it time to start growing your KILL LIST?

Top on the to-do list of all the best brands today, is taking care of their client base, where responsive, reliable customer service, results in some serious standards of satisfaction. The knock-on effect of this kind of care is more sales, better positioning in the market, and a virtual army of volunteer brand ambassadors. Word of mouth advertising has always been considered to be the most powerful payoff of loyalty.

Creating a company culture with customer care at its core often means revving up customer service. We want as many people as possible to talk about our brand, spread their own personal accounts of how well we were able to address all their needs. This means that from the front-line to the top floor – every employee understands where both they and the patron stands.

There are a number of recognised ways in which to orientate company culture – the first place it starts is at the top. Business owners are looked up to by employees, so they need to set the tone. Value both the employee as well as the customer, and listen to both their needs. Employees will then value their jobs, which will make the client valuable to them too.

This value includes empowerment, and to empower an employee, we continually need to refine, and redefine policies. Every business has protocols, but if these stymie the empowerment of the team, it will frustrate them. Protocols need to be continually updated to keep up with fast-moving times.

It is the employee who is out in the trenches with the shopper, and if policies dictate that they cannot meet customer needs, empowerment goes out of the window. With customer care held in such high regard these days, the service agent needs to know they can go above and beyond the call of duty.  Obviously within a predefined structure, but defunct “red tape” systems are not the way of the world today. Redefinition of protocols needs to take place with input from relevant employees.

Reward excellent service, there is nothing wrong with offering a public perk. A placard, a promotion, or the potential for a promotion, something to work even harder for, is as good for employees as it is for a business, and the customer too. Encourage them to know their customer, and use technology to make sure you do. CRM data is a brilliant tool.

It is important that we should realize, a shift in corporate culture never takes place overnight. It takes time for changes to filter through the hierarchy, and get to the customer. Educating employees from the ground up is vital, but what is even more vital is creating a reputation for customer care excellence that comes from the core, and forms the core of a company.

It is a given that the consumer has an immeasurable amount of power – within the social media space they seem to have even more power. The social media zeitgeist has therefore brought about new employment opportunities, as well as entry into a completely new stream of revenue generation for business. Customer service agents, like consumers, are no longer confined to call centres, retail stores, and/or tangible help-desks; many work from where-ever they happen to be at the time.

Fundamentally customer service means the same no matter where it is coming from. But that having been said, traditional measurables don’t completely seem to apply. Currently customer service performance appraisal in this space seems to have been difficult to devise. It is not receiving the same kind of attention, as say for example – conversion to sales.

The revolution in this form of communication; its momentum is massive, and growing exponentially. Consumers are consuming by the megaton on the run, which has warranted the need for business to evolve their customer services teams, into teams on the run. Bearing the flexibility of the social space in mind, a new set of metrics should be established to measure the effectiveness of these teams.

Metrics pundits believe that a new type of teamwork needs to devolve within businesses. Previously there were very few firms where marketing and customer service tasks overlapped, but this has changed in the social space. A distorting of demarcation lines calls for different measures to evaluate how effectively a team is responding.

For example in the social sphere, a marketing agent may receive a request for support, while an order related question might end up in the lap of a member of the support team. It pays here to remember, that these agents are few, need to be trained to handle all queries, and virtually almost in real time.

Today, large organisations are making massive monetary investments in the social media space. They therefore need to know if they are operating efficiently. Return on investments is relative to value proposition. A very simple explanation might be – if the firm prides itself on responding to a social post within an hour, the key performance indicators of the agent should reflect this. Then the agent would need to be tracked to ensure that this was in fact taking place.

Various types of businesses operate on various value propositions. Some compete on satisfaction measures, while others compete on cost. These value propositions determine whether satisfaction measures are primary, or if efficiency and productivity are. The firms’ objectives are the factors that customer service teams use to measure their goals. So their key performance indicators are designed to reflect these goals; thereby forming the benchmark of metrics for the team.

Obviously business online is different from anything else this world has ever seen. It is business without borders, which makes it unique from say; walking into Macy’s NYC and buying a pair of sheepskin boots. Now we can buy a pair of sheepskin boots from Macy’s, using our mobile phone, and very cold thumbs, from a Mount Everest situated base-camp. So, choosing metrics for the delivery of a mega-wad of data that might be used to boost our business into the stratosphere actually needs to be kept simple. While customer service efforts do need to be measured, streamlining is also important.

That is a large slice of the pie for all businesses that are intent on making profits (and why else be in business?) Expanding into new market places is an integral part of growth – in other words – making money. As a result of this, what is also being seen; is that customer service budgets for social media garnered sales, are also increasing in keeping with that consumer-base growth.

Social Media customers are not only demonstrating a larger financial commitment, they are far more deeply committed to brand loyalty. So, on an emotional level, there is also more depth in their commitment to these brand(s). However, there is also many more related risks for the business. The nature of the beast that is social media; means small mistakes can escalate out-of-hand fast.

Take for example a relatively recent fiasco when Mattel deleted posts to Habitats loose# on Facebook, and the slow response of Dell to images of an exploding laptop. These are prime examples of something going wrong. But today approximately 73% of all companies have at least three members of staff active on social media, promoting their products or services, and thereby – dealing with customers. They need to know how to respond fast.

Despite the fact that the social realm is a space which shows remarkable results by making use of highly flexible marketing strategies, firms are realising that snug internal control systems are highly desirable too. The fear of someone doing something “wrong” is a very real fear. Systems ensure that responsibilities are made clear, which prevents (hopefully), having to fight fire with fire.

Social media is a mega-force that a company can couple with to create cognizance, increase sales, enthuse brand loyalty, and much, much more. But from the very sentence used in conjunction with a firms’ identity, solid governance is required. It is a solid internal control system, and policies, that determines the ROE, and will help the firm, as well as its social media agents, succeed in this space.

Understanding the rules of engagement, means that social media teams need to be trained, and given guidance – these are pretty obvious fundamentals. The team requires integration regarding the brand, and a solid understanding of the strategy behind their function, so, a strategy must be in place first. By the way, a firm also needs to fully understand the whims of social media, before coming up with a strategy.

Errors in this space currently feature massively in the news. Someone is just waiting with baited-opposable thumbs to Tweet some-one else’s mistake. Tweeters (and others) get tons of pleasure out of trashing brands online! Many of the mistakes that make the news can be simply avoided with appropriate strategies. Appropriate strategies, together with a solid system of rules of engagement, will provide social media agents with a more astute understanding of the customs of this space.

In an attempt to look at the lighter side of customer service, we thought you might enjoy a peep into a slightly different angle on this subject. During a 2011 research project conducted in the UK on customer care, part of the research involved the “public’s perception of customer complaints management”.  This exercise had more than two-hundred professionals in the customer service industry submitting what they believed were the most outrageous, unusual or funniest recent complaints. The following are a few of the purlers that came to light.

Animals

• After the delivery of a curtain (drapes) rail, one customer phoned to complain as they had not been home when the delivery arrived. The driver in his infinite wisdom decided not to risk having to return, and the UK being what it is, there is a letter flap in most front doors. The pole was duly inserted into the letter-box. However, when the customer arrived home they found their dog pinned to the wall. Fortunately the dog was only pinned, and not impaled.
• A high street retailer had a blouse returned but not only for a refund. The demand was that they also compensate the customer for her veterinarian fees. Apparently the pattern on the blouse caused her dog to bite itself. It must have been one seriously ugly blouse?!

Darwin Awards

• On complaining that his supermarket bill was incorrect – the assistant informed the customer that this was due to a number of in-store discounts being applied to the bill. But – and we have spoken about the poor customer before – this did not placate the customer. He still complained and insisted on speaking to the store manager. Despite the fact that the fact that he would be saving money, he complained until such time as he was “allowed” to pay the higher total amount, and was only then appeased.
• One brilliant computer user complained that her monitor could only be viewed if she lay her head on the desk. The internal helpdesk was compelled to rush to the rescue, in the process rotating the monitor, her problem was thereby miraculously solved.
• On menacing to escalate his complaint, one customer adamantly reiterated that his cell-phone should have been able to withstand a complete wash cycle. After all, the label which was sewn into his jacket pocket stated decisively that that the pocket was “fully waterproof”.

On Good Customer Service

•  After receiving a call to say that a contact lens order had arrived early and may be collected if the customer wished. The customer got on the phone to the head office complaining that their ‘overzealous’ ordering system should be re-thought, as this was akin to high pressure selling?
• A customer called their utilities company to complain that less money should be spent on customer service training, and put to use to reduce bills. Their actual complaint was aimed at an exceptionally high quality of customer service. Go figure?

There are many kinds of customer service agent, both, good and bad, and many kinds of customers. But the consensus on taking the majority of these short tales into account – is that there is direct evidence to suggest that the bad customer does exists.”

1. There are always a few items that are relevant to all angry customers – these are:
2. What brought on the anger – in other words, the issue at hand.
3. The anger and how to deal with the interpersonal aspect of this.Resolution – how and can we rectify the issue satisfactorily
4. Moving on – what can we do going forward to ensure the same problem does not arise.

In a situation where the customer service agent has told the customer – “you are stupid”, used a swear word or two, hung up, or told the customer that there is “nothing more we can do”. Even the calmest of souls might be expected to get angry. These are blatantly obvious CS mistakes, and are used as teaching tools of what not to do. But people are a different, they all have different tolerance levels, and temperatures at which blood boils.

The job of the CS rep is dealing with the four points we mentioned above, not necessarily to evaluate whether or not the anger is appropriate. The job entails taking the complaint seriously, listening, and coming to a solution as fast as it is possible to do so. Research indicates that the majority of customers who have had a good outcome to a problem, remain fiercely loyal to that brand.

No-body enjoys dealing with angry people, this is a decidedly awkward situation, and it requires a thick skin. Sensitive people should not become customer service reps, and it is always best to let the customer rip. Blow the energy out of their anger, never try to cut it off at the pass. This is not personal, so, we don’t take it personally, and we can only work on a solution once we understand the details of a problem.

Resolution may not come easily, but generally speaking, the only thing the customer wants is that product or service they have paid for, and they are entitled to this. Solve the problem, most customers will be happy, but throw in a little freebie if you can, this always makes people feel special. This is an acknowledgement that the customers inconvenience has been recognised. Free upgrades, discounts, free delivery, are of value, not a useless cap or a pen, and they also ensure that the customer will use your service again to take advantage of a good deal.

Be frank with them – ask him/her how you can make things right. Be prepared to put your money where your mouth is, that is how business works. Stepping up to the plate, and taking hit could mean a lifetime of loyal buying from your business, no matter how mad that customer is. It is a fact of life that customers will get angry now and then. But this is a fact of life of owning a business, and knowing how to deal with these guys, could be the one thing that puts you ahead of your competition.