Without Concierge Customer Service, your business can lag behind. I had a conversation with an academic colleague not too long ago (he actually had been my undergraduate mentor). He said, “Jeanne, everywhere I go, customer service people are doing tasks. They’re going through the motions. They’re reading scripts. There’s no ownership.” This is your chance [...]
With Concierge Customer Service, you can give your best customers the edge they’re looking for and improve your profits in the process. Concierge Customer Service (CCS) achieves that goal by giving your most profitable customers a level of service that not only makes their lives and jobs easier but also improves their efficiency. That’s why [...]
As we've covered in the past, the best way to learn about your customers' wants is through the use of surveys. They won't work, however, if you aren't getting responses to your surveys. How do you ensure that you get a sufficient number of responses to your surveys in order to have good data to [...]
It sounds simple. Learn your customers' needs, and start giving your customers the service they want. How does it work in practice, though? Although the core principles of Concierge Customer Service and customer-centric innovation do apply to all businesses, becoming customer-centric means, by definition, that you must adapt the Concierge Customer Service system to your [...]
In the companies with whom we work, the shift to the Concierge Customer Service system goes hand-in-hand with increased specialization of sales. Bureaucracy often has negative connotations, but two of the hallmarks of bureaucratic organization—two of the characteristics that make bureaucracies efficient—are specialization and division of labor. But in most wholesale distribution companies, the sales [...]
Because Concierge Customer Service is so extensive, it is an investment. That’s why funding this service requires that you offer it only to the customers who generate the most profit for your business. In the wholesale distribution industry, roughly 30% of the customers generate nearly all of the profit in that business; about 20% of [...]
The objective in establishing Concierge Customer Service (CCS) is to deliver a differentiated, distinct, exceptional customer experience to your most profitable customers— and really good service to all customers—by giving customers more. In fact, the elements of Concierge Customer Service can be broken down as just that -- M.O.R.E.: mindset, ownership, referability, and experience. It [...]
In this age of uncertainty, one thing remains certain: Things are as tough and confusing for your customers as they are for you. Like you, they’re looking for an edge. They’re looking for a way to make things easier, to cut through the clutter, to do their jobs and stay in business, and maybe even [...]