.: IT Helps Small Businesses Enact Big Ideas
By:John Terry
Category:Home / Business / Customer Service
Good customer service is crucial to success in business; there's nothing high-tech about helping customers get exactly what they need. But technology can make the process easier and more efficient.
For most small businesses, investing in information technology (IT) can pay dividends in more ways than one. Not only can technology help companies establish a corporate identity and lower the cost of doing business, it can also help level the playing field.
The Dell/National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Small Business Excellence Award, established in 2004, honors small businesses that instill the spirit of innovation and apply IT to improve the customer experience.
Think big, win big
The winner will receive $30,000 in technology and professional services from Dell; a Day with Dell program with Dell executives, including Michael Dell, to share best business practices; a lifetime membership to NFIB; and other prizes. Nine other companies will receive a Dell Latitude notebook and a one-year membership to NFIB. The finalists for the 2006 award are:
• AMAD Logistics, an international freight forwarder and logistics company.
• DataCert Inc., a fast-growing supplier of electronic invoicing and corporate legal spend-management solutions.
• Errand Solutions, which provides customized errand-running and concierge services as an employee benefit and customer relationship enhancement to health care, hospitality, residential property and corporate organizations.
• Harrison's Roof Truss, L.L.C., a manufacturer of engineered wooden roof and floor trusses.
• Micro Technology Services Inc., which develops and manufactures electronic products.
• National Association of System Administrators Inc., provides a 24-hour, Web-based customer portal through which clients can track service calls and on-site parts storage.
• Ntelicor L.P., an information-technology consulting and staffing firm.
• Pipal Research Corp., a team of strategists and investment bankers who provide research and analytical services.
• Sew What? Inc., a theatrical drapery manufacturer and custom sewing service.
• TRS Consultants Inc., a multidisciplinary engineering and construction management firm.
Article keywords: IT Helps Small Businesses Enact Big Ideas
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To learn more about the Dell/NFIB contest and your chance to win in 2007, visit www.dell.com/ceaward.
Rather than removing the personal touch, technology can actually make a company more customer friendly.
.: New Customer Service Articles
1). Using Guest Checks To Make More Money
Explore ways a waiter or waitress can properly use guest checks to increase their income and improve restaurant customer service.
2). Why Provide Good Customer Service
If there are no customers, then there is no business. If there is no business then you do not have a job. It does not even matter if yours is not a customer-facing job. Customers are needed.
3). Staying In Top Condition to Serve Customers with Excellence
The essence of excellent customer service
is going beyond the expected. Here is some information to help you stay proactive.
4). Customer Loyalty - Our Choice to Create
What does it means for us to be loyal to our customers? First of all it seems to be easier to take for granted customers loyalty to us and bemoan what we think is a lack of loyalty to us. Each repeat order from a customer can be a sign of their loyalty.
5). A Little Pride Goes A Long Way
In the competitive world of today, the small things sometimes measure the fine line between success and failure: The caring smile of each employee, the extra effort to meet a deadline, one final check of a job before it goes to the customer, and the moment you take to add one last touch to your best effort.
6). Generating Customer Loyalty
Becoming and staying customer-intimate requires more than building client knowledge and having expertise in reengineering our customers business processes. We must offer more than just service. We need to maintain a broad product line that can be configured to the specific needs of a customer.
7). How To Start A Call Center Home Business
The trend nowadays is for people to work at home, even in their pajamas. Some people start work even before they have breakfast. But these are the lucky few, who were able to find their ideal home business.
.: Top Customer Service Articles
1). The Top Ten Client Feedback Questions
As program chairperson of my SCORE * chapter I am always looking for new presenters to address the group. I frequently ask my fellow business counselors to give me some ideas for topics of interest to them.
In August one member approached me with an idea. He suggested inviting some of the clients that the counselors had worked with this year to one of our meetings to give us some feedback on our counseling techniques -both the highs and the lows.
2). Angry customers - what can we do with them
"You are the worst company I have bought from!" - writes the client. Oops, bossss! What should I write back?
It is very hard to select words when some of your customers is angry and complains about your company. Read more for an insight into it.
All is well when it ends well. And until it ends be sure not to panic; no matter how bad it looks. Your customers only want you to do your best when they complain.
3). When Customers Complain
You probably won't have been in business too long before you get your first complaint. It just can't help but happen: low-end customers pay nothing and expect the Earth, while high-end ones pay a lot but expect an inhuman effort in return. You just can't please all of the people all of the time, even if you run yourself ragged trying -- there will always be someone who's not happy with what you've done.
4). Reducing Customer Resistance to Your Product or Service
Resistance has to do with putting up blocks that prevent us from doing, being, or accomplishing what we want for our business. There are many reasons for feeling resistance including fear of new things or change, fear of failure or success or even fear of not being perfect.
When we resist things, sometimes we miss out on opportunities - opportunities to work with new people, attract new customers, or even pursue a new product or service idea which could catapult us to new levels of success.
5). The 5 W's of World Class Customer Service Training
The preamble to the United States Constitution begins, ‘we, the people.’ I feel strongly that we, the people, are what make the difference in life, both personally and professionally.
The interaction anyone has at any level with your employees, including you, gives a customer-- whether current, potential, internal or external--an opportunity to make a judgment about you, your company, all companies like yours.
6). Delivering Great Customer Service - 10 Tips
It almost goes without saying that good customer service is essential to sustaining any business. No matter how wonderful a job you do of attracting new customers, you won’t be profitable for long unless you have a solid customer retention strategy in place – and in action. It’s the actions that count – not what you say you’ll do, or what the policy says.
7). Customer Service Strategies on eBay
Copyright © Michael Hehn, Online-Profit-4-You
Customer service is important on eBay. Buyers rate their satisfaction with sellers, and your rating can make a difference on whether potential customers are willing to buy from you.
Customer service strategies on eBay start by providing an accurate product description. Displaying clear pictures and describing any imperfection shows the buyer what to expect.