In the modern business world, the standards for customer service just keep getting higher and higher. And that’s a good thing. It gives us the opportunity to strive to provide our customers with a positive, memorable experience.

But sometimes we need help to take our customer service strategy to the next level.

Let this collection of quotes from business leaders and writers inspire you.

"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." Bill Gates

"Deep down, we believe that the problem put simply, is THEM. They, of course, believe WE are the problem." Anon

"One customer well taken care of could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising." Jim Rohn

"Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm." Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Customers will want to talk to you if they believe you can solve their problems." Jeffrey Gitomer

"Unless you have 100% customer satisfaction… you must improve." Horst Schulz

"There is place in the world for any business that takes care of its customers – after the sale." Harvey MacKay

"Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers." Ross Perot

“There is only one boss:  the customer.  And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” Sam Walton

"Most of your competition spends their days looking forward to those rare moments when everything goes right. Imagine how much leverage you have if you spend your time maximizing those common moments when it doesn’t." Seth Godin

"Rule 1: The customer is always right. Rule 2: If the customer is ever wrong, re-read Rule 1." Stew Leonard

"Customers may forget what you said but they'll never forget how you made them feel." Anon

"Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless." Jeffrey Gitomer

“The customer’s perception is your reality.” Kate Zabriskie

"The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary." Sam Walton

"If we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to keep getting what we're getting." Stephen Covey

"If you’re not serving a customer, you better be serving someone who is." Jan Carlzon

“One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others.” Lewis Carroll

“Your customer doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Damon Richards

"Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it." Peter Drucker

“When the customer comes first, the customer will last.” Robert Half

"In the world of Internet Customer Service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away." Doug Warner

"Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet." Kevin Stirtz

"Make a customer, not a sale." Katherine Barchetti

"Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong." Donald Porter

"Every company’s greatest assets are its customers, because without customers there is no company." Michael LeBoeuf

"Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence – only in constant improvement and constant change." Tom Peters

"There are no traffic jams along the extra mile." Roger Staubach

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Earlier in the week I wrote about why Instagram is a great new addition to the social media marketing toolkit. Today I wanted to follow up on that by introducing a few free tools that will help you to make the most of your Instagram strategy.

Statigram

One of the most popular Instagram tools, Statigram is a web viewer, analytics and management programme. As well as allowing you to view your Instagram photos online rather than on a mobile device, Statigram allows you to create and share detailed profile reports.

Stats available: You can track the number of followers, likes and comments on your account, which filters you’ve used most, which filters received the most likes and which tags you’ve used.

Other options: Statigram also provides more in-depth photo sharing options for Facebook, such as a feed tab.

Nitrogram

An analytics tool, Nitrogram allows anyone with an Instagram account to sign in for free and monitor a number of profiles, not only those that belong to them. So if you’d like to check out the stats for a celebrity account or even one owned by a competitor, you can do it using this tool.

Stats available: Nitrogram will track the number of photos you’ve uploaded, likes, comments, audience locations, engagement, total reach of your photos and analyse hashtags to identify those most relevant to your brand.

Other options: You can also create custom galleries to embed on Facebook, blogs or websites.

Webstagram

Primarily a web viewing tool, Webstagram does have a few interesting features and some basic analytics.

Stats available: Webstagram analytics focus on Instagram as a whole rather than individual user accounts. You can find out what the most popular filters are (interestingly, Normal is far and away the most used), the top 100 hashtags and the top 100 most followed/following users.

Other options: Include a follow me button on your website or create an Instagram gallery for your blog or website; all you need to do is copy and paste a small piece of code.

Simply Measured

A dedicated analytics tool that works across social networks, not just Instagram. You can download free reports or sign up for a free trial, but there is a cost for some of the more in-depth reports and functions.

Stats available: All the basics, plus you can measure engagement outside of Instagram, on Facebook and Twitter, best time for engagement and keyword analysis.

Other options: Download very detailed reports in Excel to get a better understanding of how your strategy is working.

Can you recommend any other great tools to improve your Instagram marketing?

Image courtesy of adamr / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Although it’s still a relatively new presence in the social media marketplace, by now most of us are familiar with Instagram, the ultra trendy app and social network that can transform anyone from average to artsy photographer just by applying a filter.

Instagram arrived on the scene in October 2010 as an iOS app and has since expanded to Android and grown into a fully fledged network with its own web presence. Last year the company was bought by Facebook for $715 million.

Since it launched, Instagram has been the home for creative types and many companies are now taking the opportunity to diversify their social marketing strategies by adding the photo sharing network. One of the reasons Instagram works so well is because visual content generates more engagement than other types of posts.

But does Instagram work for everyone?

Brands like MTV, Starbucks and Red Bull are all popular on Instagram and know how to use the service well. These brands have fantastic social strategies in place and were early adopters of the Instagram craze. But smaller brands can generate a following too. These tips are a great place to start:

1. Share photos of new products. Instagram is ideal for creating still life photos, so if you run a retail business or a restaurant, you have the perfect medium to share sneak peeks of your latest product.
2. Reveal what life is like behind the scenes. The focus doesn’t have to be on your products, you could choose to capture your staff at work and give your customers an insight into day-to-day life at your company.
3. Get to know the popular hashtags. Like Twitter, Instagram allows users to add hashtags to their posts. By including the most popular, you are opening your posts up to a much wider audience. Some of the most commonly used tags include #love #me #cute and #instagood, plus #photooftheday is a tag that I always find works well.
4. Run competitions. Encourage your followers to communicate with you by hashtagging a photo or commenting on something you’ve posted.
5. Interact with users who have posted a picture of your product or service. Think about creating a dedicated hashtag for your business and ask your customers to use it. For example, many users will post photos of their latest purchase or the meal they’ve ordered at a restaurant. Your content could already be out there, but by engaging your users they are effectively promoting your service for you.
6. Post photos of events. Another way of providing a glimpse into your business. If you run an event that is attended by your customers, make the most of the brand new tagging feature and the reach of your images will increase.
7. Share your images across other social networks. It’s easy to share your Instagram photos to Facebook, Twitter and even Pinterest, so one image can become a great piece of marketing collateral across networks. Be creative and use the image in different ways, depending on the site.

Have you started using Instagram for marketing yet?

A couple of years ago, social media marketing was still a new thing and many businesses were yet to buy in. Fast forward to 2013 and times have changed; social is now emerging as one of the biggest arenas for marketers and the pressure to deliver results is higher than ever.

 

As we enter May, just what changes have we seen so far this year?

 

This infographic from Twin Engine predicted a number of social trends - here at Respondez we're particularly interested in seeing how the rise of social gaming will affect the gaming industry as a whole and what changes social commerce will bring to retail.

 

What do you think about the changes in social media marketing? 

 

A recent report from Forrester Research has found that only 39% of companies earned an ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ customer experience index rating. This figure has changed only slightly in the past six years.

So what is the problem?

Forrester’s index measures the ease, usefulness and enjoyment of doing business with a particular company. These results indicate that many just aren’t doing enough to keep their customers satisfied in a time when expectations have greatly increased.

Part of the problem is the rise in multichannel customer service. Many companies now provide support across telephone, email, web, IVR, forums, live chat, social networking and SMS. But does maintaining a service across so many channels dilute the quality of the support provided?

Whilst traditional contact methods remain at the core of many customer service strategies, newer technologies often suffer as some businesses still can’t get a firm grip on the best way to utilise them and feel pressured into offering a service channel that they haven’t adequately planned for.

To work properly, each channel needs to be built into the strategy individually, with consideration given to the staff and skill sets required. For example, customer advisors assigned to deal with online and social issues need to have excellent written communication skills and the ability to filter their own responses to properly represent the company in what may be a public forum. However, it is important for all agents to have the same knowledge of the company’s products and services in order to efficiently answer customer queries, regardless of the channel.

Don’t forget to include your company website in your service strategy. If you often receive similar queries about your products or services, put together a detailed answer and post it somewhere visible on the website. Over time you can build up a comprehensive FAQ section as you develop a detailed understanding of your customers’ needs.

Ultimately, the customer experience should be maintained across channels, with social or forum customers receiving the same standard of service as those who have contacted the company by telephone or email. It is important to recognise that each customer is different and as such they should be able to choose their contact method, whilst remaining confident in the support they will receive.

Image courtesy of Jeroen van Oostrom / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Over the last couple of years, social media has become a huge part of the marketing mix but it’s something that many companies still struggle to get right.

Just how deeply should you invest in social media? It’s no longer enough to set up a Facebook page and a Twitter profile for your brand and pop up the occasional message. To do social well, a brand has to be involved in the conversation, seeking out customers and their comments, whether good or bad.

There are a lot of tools available to help you monitor your brand across social media, but is this something you really need to pay for or can you manage it yourself?

Before you make a decision, consider the following things:

How big is your brand? A large, customer oriented business such as Virgin or Orange will experience a huge volume of mentions across social media, blogs, forums and more. However, a smaller company doesn’t have the same reach and as such won’t generate the same level of comments from customers.

What is your budget? Some social media tools can be very expensive, but the price usually increases the more you tailor your requirements. Many tools offer a month’s free trial, or you might prefer to sign up for a basic reporting or management service.  

Do you have a dedicated social media team? If not, how much time can you allocate to social networking? Using a tool can be a real time-saver, as it’s much easier to search out brand mentions across multiple platforms and networks. This is especially useful if you expect to find a lot of comments that you will need to respond to.

Would you be happy to outsource your social media management? A specialist provider can often be a great way to ensure your business is maximising its social presence. The solution will generally offer customer service, monitoring, management and analytics all in one expert package.

Do you require in-depth sentiment analysis? Many tools will analyse the percentage of positive and negative comments for your brand, but accuracy can be improved further by working with a specialist team.

How wide is your focus? Do you want to monitor your customers or would you like to target a specific group or industry?

Every business has different requirements for social media management, but if you are going to get the best out of your online efforts it’s important to find the most suitable system or tool to support your strategy.

 

Have you been considering starting a blog for your business, but keep coming up with reasons not to? Initially, the idea of starting a blog can be intimidating, especially for those who run a business that isn’t focused on digital marketing and social media.

But there are a lot of benefits to creating a blog. Let’s address some of the most common concerns.

1. I don’t have enough to write about. Having a blog doesn’t mean that you can only write about your business. If you’re struggling for content, look at the latest trends or discussion topics in your industry and add your own spin or opinion. This is a great way of marketing your company, as you are highlighting what it is that makes you different from your competitors.
2. I don’t have the resources to start a company blog. If you’re going to start a blog, it’s important to update it regularly, but how regularly is up to you. You could update your blog once a day or once a week, but try to stick to a regular schedule, for example creating a new post every Wednesday. Blog writing duties can also be assigned to anyone within the company; it doesn’t have to be the sole responsibility of the CEO or Head of Marketing. You can even outsource some of the work to a content marketing agency or a freelance writer, if you have the budget.
3. My website doesn’t attract enough traffic. Having a blog is a fantastic way to increase the number of visitors to your website and the content is very social media friendly. Writing a great article and sharing it on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn increases the chances that someone else in your network will share, thus exposing your business to a wider audience. Regular blog posts will also improve your SEO, as the search engines have more content to crawl and more inbound links will help to improve your rankings. Blogging also allows you to concentrate on targeting the relevant keywords for your business in an organic and search engine friendly way.
4. I’d rather concentrate on attracting new customers to my business. A blog can generate new business leads, but not only that, they are likely to be better quality as you can target your audience by tailoring your content to their needs.
5. There are already so many blogs out there, how will I get noticed? Concentrate on whatever it is that makes your business unique. Whether it’s your industry, the expertise of your staff or the nature of your products, you do have something worth sharing. Having a blog is a useful way of positioning yourself as an expert in your field. Do some research and find out what problems your customers are having and address these issues on your blog. Read as much as you can to inspire new ideas and recognise trends; writing about a particular subject before it becomes popular will increase your standing as an expert and increase the trust in your brand.

If this isn’t enough to convince you that starting a blog can benefit your business, consider this survey carried out by HubSpot, which found that companies with blogs received 55% more visitors to their website than companies without and they have a huge 97% more inbound links.

So what are you waiting for?

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There are times when any business, regardless of size, needs to outsource services to facilitate growth.

In today’s fast-paced consumer driven world, warehousing and fulfilment are vital to providing a successful customer experience. As such, it’s important to choose a warehousing provider who can not only meet the needs of your business, but who can fulfil your service targets and ensure high levels of customer satisfaction to maintain your brand’s reputation.

What should you look for from a service provider?

1. Location. Check that the warehouse is well placed and can take advantage of good transport links. Consider a warehouse that is strategically located to meet your customer’s needs.
2. Security. Make sure the warehouse is well secured and uses CCTV.
3. Efficiency. Discuss your requirements and ask about the company’s warehouse management system and other processes. If you have specific requirements, can they meet them? Are they prepared to tailor a solution to your needs?
4. Scalability. Does your business experience higher demand at certain times of the year? If so, you might require a seasonal rather than year round solution. Check if the warehouse can offer room to expand should your business grow.
5. Cost. Any solution should be cost effective and it may be that outsourcing your warehousing needs to another company with a range of clients will result in a more cost effective distribution service than your business alone could secure.
6. Staffing. If possible, you should visit the warehouse to ensure that the facility meets your needs. Take the time to speak to the staff and get a feel for the way the business is run.
7. Equipment. Does the warehouse use the latest technology or equipment that will allow their service to expand quickly, should you require it?
8. Tracking. Does the supplier offer transparent methods of reporting so that you can ensure your business needs are being met?
9. References. Speak to other clients and independent sources within the industry about their experiences and opinions of the company.

Making the decision to outsource your customer service support can be difficult. Actually implementing a new outsourcing solution can be even more challenging.

The biggest problems facing businesses involve change management and governance, which can arise due to poor planning and a lack of understanding of the key requirements and goals.

Other problems include:

• Ensuring an outsourcing solution provides value for money
• Loss of operational control
• Poor understanding of the service agreement and roles of both the client and outsourcing provider
• Lack of knowledge transfer
• Inadequate training
• Operational culture clash

So how can you confront these factors before they become a problem and guarantee the success of your new customer service solution?

1.       To get the best from any outsourcing solution, all parties must be fully committed to implement the new processes, ensuring full compliance and buy in.

2.       Examine any previous operational issues to eliminate them from future processes.

3.       Define clear operational performance indicators to monitor the benefit to your business of the new relationship.

4.       Ensure the proposed solution supports the strategic goals of your business.

5.       Prioritise operational training and implement a policy for retention of key staff.

6.       Select a BPO solution that provides high-level reporting and has a focus on operational visibility.

By choosing the right outsourcing provider, a business can not only reduce the financial outlay required in the long-term but also work towards increased customer satisfaction and retention.

Image courtesy of adamr / FreeDigitalPhotos.net