Okay, over here you got customer relations, over here you got customer
service. Marianne DeNovellis right here with the Six Figure Mastermind. We're going to
define what each one of these things are and how they're separate and how we put
them together.
Let's talk customer relations versus customer service. There are two very
different things but you need both for your business. First of all, let's talk
customer relations. Customer relations is you reaching out to your customers and
this may be a little bit more important than customer service. I know that sounds
weird but go with me on this. Every single interaction that you have with
your customers is vitally important because each interaction says something
about you and it says something about how your business from beginning to end,
it says something about how you show up with people and it's also going to reflect
on your brand. How does your brand show up? How does your company show up? These
are good questions to answer like, take a moment and pause this, answer these
questions. How do you show up and how does that reflect on your brand? When
you're reaching out to carry your customers, how often are you reaching out
to them and what are you reaching out to do? If you're reaching out every single
time just for the upsell or just to sell another product then you're going to lose
your customers and your customer service is going to spend a lot more time dealing
with those kinds of cases so every time you reach out to your customers, make
sure that you're adding value to their experience. That's either through an
email with a tip on how to use the product they just bought or maybe you're
reaching out with some idea that they need to cultivate or maybe you're just
adding some kind of element into your life that says here's a free gift or
here's a free bonus for your subscription. When you're reaching out to
your customers, you're creating customer relations so create positive customer
relations, act as if for a moment you were the customer and you want it to
experience value from your company without trying to be up sold and pitched
every time we they got together with you. Customer relations is you reaching out
to your customers. Customer service is your customers
reaching for you. Your customers have a question or a concern and let's face
it, the real stigma we have with customer service is really negative you know, it's
I only reach out when I have a problem, I only reach out when I have something
that needs to be solved. You know what, that's the way it is and that is why
we're here. Customer service has this really funny
ring to it. Imagine being someone that worked in customer service,
how would you feel? You're the person that goes, oh, I work in customer service.
Why is that? What if we were to change the perception of serving our customers?
Change the perception of customer service as we know it. Customer service
is when your customers reach out to you, again, every single interaction with your
customers matters so when your customer reaches out to you, you have got to be
responsive, you've got to be positive and you've got to be supportive. In order to
be responsive, you need to respond quickly which means however they're
reaching out to you, you've got to have a notification going off on your phone to
let you know that you're on the ball to respond to your customers.
It's time to reach out to them and answer their questions and respond to
their messages and answer whatever concerns that they have. Maybe they've
bought the product, maybe they haven't but more often than not, they actually
have that's why it's called customer service not potential customer service.
They're calling you because yeah, they've got a problem,
they've got a concern. Sometimes they'll call you with positive feedback
but more often than not, customer service comes with a lot of problem solving
skills that are going to need to be in place in order for the customer to have
a proper experience. Customer service is effective when you don't pass the
buck. I used to work in a retail establishment and we sold books, lots of
books. Throughout this whole experience, we had a set of rules with which we did
our work and one of those sounded like this and those of you that have worked
that's by the same company I have, you'll recognize this but it's a mantra that I
live by and this mantra goes like this, "I push
decisions to the lowest level possible. I know the ones I should make, I decide
quickly and move on." And what does that mean to push decisions to the lowest
level possible? Level means level and management so up here we've got the head
manager, the head honcho, the CEO then you got the assistant manager and
then we've got the supervisor and then we've got the employee, okay.
The lowest level possible means the frontlines, the lowest level possible
means I'm in the person in the trenches with the clients. The head manager, the
head CEO, they honestly don't see as many of the clients as the associate does on
the sales floor so whether on the sales floor or you're
selling a service just one-on-one as a mentor, you need to be the one in the
frontline of the client and have as many answers as possible. If by chance you
don't have an answer right away, you need to find out who does and inform the
client every step of the way. Whenever you order something online, you have this
fun little tracker that says your client has just been labeled, not
your client, that says your product has just been labeled, it's ready for
shipment and now it's on delivery, now it's on the truck and it was delivered
this morning. The same thing needs to happen with the notifications to your
client, they need to know where they're at in the problem-solving process.
Your problem has just been addressed over here, now it's been taken
to a manager because I didn't know the answer to it. I contacted my manager this
morning he says he'll get back to me in an hour. It's been another hour, even
either I have heard or I haven't heard from my manager, I'm going to keep you
updated every step of the way and take the advanced step forward so that you
are in total clarity with where we're at on solving your problem. If by chance the
problem can't be solved, whatever it happens to be, find the best solution
possible. If a product got lost and it can't be found, resend another product,
have the customer have the all star experience when they call your customer
service. Customers also want to feel like they belong and they belong in a
community, they belong in a tribe, they want to belong, they want to experience
some kind of feeling of unity with everyone else that's participating in
their product, that's why you'll see so many times whenever you download a new
app on your phone or you buy the latest Fitbit or you use the latest product or
even use the latest do that or whatever you have that there is a community
online that supports the use of that product. It really leads into a lifestyle
so for example if you brought a new pair of shoes and there are special kind of
shoes, maybe they're the Heelys with the wheels on them, I bet you if you go
online right now you'll find the Heelys community but maybe there are some
people doing tricks with Heelys or maybe there's some people that are doing
you know, customer service or art with Heelys, who knows but there's a whole
community and people want to belong to that community so what does that mean
for you as a business owner? Create the community because people want to know
that they're part of something bigger even if it's just buying a pair of shoes.
Take for example the Toms movement. Toms became really really popular not
only were they comfortable, not only were they a quality product but
they also had a community surrounding them. Every time you buy a pair of Toms,
the company gave a pair to a child in Africa.
What a cool culture, what a cool community to build, what an amazing thing
to have everyone together, everyone that's wearing a pair of Toms, that's
what your mind automatically thinks of, it's that, wow, those are cool shoes, those
are stylish shoes, they're unique to their brand and they're also giving a
pair of shoes to someone in Africa and when you wear those Toms, you feel like
you have done something good, you feel like you've taken a step above and
beyond, no pun intended, to create a community or be part of
community. So as a business owner, create that community which leads me to my last
point. Everyone that purchases your product is involved now in a lifestyle.
Any product that's ever advertised on TV or in social media has a lifestyle to
it. People that use the certain laundry detergent live a certain lifestyle,
people that use, you'll see it all the time, people that use the laundry
detergent, all of their kids play soccer for some reason, I don't understand why,
maybe they just have a lot of grass stains but every company that sells
laundry detergent has a family with kids who play sports of some kind, usually
a soccer. Think about the community around Nike and fitness, they've really
branded themselves as a community where anyone can be fit and anyone can workout
and you can start no matter where you're at. If you're
200 pounds overweight or if you're 20 pounds overweight or if you just want to
recompose your body and change your muscle mass, Nike is for everybody, it is
a lifestyle. Just do it, it's a commitment, it's a commitment to their brand and a
commitment to being in new and better you. Think about all the brands and all
the slogans that they have, the reason any brand anywhere has a slogan is
because they're not only trying to sell you on the brand, they're trying to sell
you on the lifestyle so guess what your job is, your job is to create a lifestyle
out of your business. I have a friend who's an awesome awesome blacksmith and
he just was able to leave his accounting job and start making rings and jewelry
out of his blacksmith materials and techniques. I have never seen someone so
fully jump out of what was yucky and no fun for them and fully embraced getting
to do what they love 24/7, he's in there in the Forge
and all of these things with these amazing talents and amazing gifts and
now they've created a lifestyle based on that brand. These stoic greens that
they're putting forth, they have rings, they have bracelets, they have jewelry,
it's a brand, it's a lifestyle and they're creating this brand around this
lifestyle that says we are rugged, we are strong, we are durable,
we're Vikings, we've got integrity, that's our brand and that's how they do all
their photography, that's how they market all of their products is because they've
created a lifestyle. Anyone that that lifestyle resonates with, they're going
to find this ring company and find out how to get involved with that, maybe come
out and buy the jewelry, maybe try the jewelry online maybe even come out and
enjoy a little bit of the forge. Their whole branding technique is around
creating a lifestyle so imagine what lifestyle you're creating and for a
moment on this video, I want to pause it and take note, write down what kind of
lifestyle that you want to create what will you say about your lifestyle? What
kind of lifestyle do you live? What do you do with your free time? How do you
spend your money? How do you spend your time? Are you happy? Are you joyful? Do you
love your lifestyle? Design a custom lifestyle plan that fits your product
and that way you can build the community around it. You've got your customer
support, you've got your customer relations,
you've got this amazing community that you're building, you've got accessibility
and you've got a place where few people feel like they belong. Once you've got
that, all of your customer support and customer relations are going to sing in
perfect harmony. Customer service, how are you?
Gosh, you guys know better than that by now. Drop me a comment below, hit the
subscribe button so we can have another amazing conversation tomorrow on how to
explode your results in your business.