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Better English 101
Tips For Communicating Better
Vol I, No. 11
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In this issue
-- OKAY DOES NOT EQUAL I'M SORRY
-- WHAT'S A CUSTOMER WORTH?
-- COMMUNICATING WITH ANIMATION

Customer Service Is All About Communicating.

Providing great customer service means treating her as if she is a friend. Do you communicate that idea to your customers?


OKAY DOES NOT EQUAL I'M SORRY
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A customer calls to say that he hasn't received his book. The response: "Okay, let me check."

IT'S NOT OKAY!

The customer wants to hear that first of all, you are sorry for the inconvenience. Now you'll get the details and see what happened to his order.

"Okay" does not equal "I'm sorry." And that's what the customer wants to hear: I'm sorry. Isn't that what we would say to a friend?

Consider the customer. He doesn't have the book he wanted to take to the beach to read this weekend. He has to do research to find your phone number. He has to find time in his day to call you. He may have a long distance telephone charge. He's not in a good mood anyway because the laundry lost his shirt. And then he reaches somebody who begins with "okay."

Try starting out with something like "I'm sorry about that" to respond to customer complaints. Be a concerned friend. I really liked the guy who, while looking up my records, asked, "And how's your day going today?"

Wow, he should have seen the smile on my face.

And for a really irate customer, you could try, "And how's your day going otherwise?"

click here for secrets of winning communication skills!


WHAT'S A CUSTOMER WORTH?
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I just switched my cellular phone service from AT&T--formerly Cingular--to Verizon. It's a classic case of ignoring the value of a customer.

Looking at my bills over the last 12 months, I discover that I have spent $1,400 with Cingular. If I continue at that rate, does the math suggest that I would spend about $7,000 in five years? So am I worth at least $7,000 to Cingular-now-AT&T?

You wouldn't think so. I complained about a $163 data access bill. I had been in the Orlando airport where I thought I was using a free wireless network. Why should I be charged, especially since I had asked Cingular to eliminate my data access plan? I'd been charged (but it was reversed, thank goodness) with $1,200 in data access previously on a trip to Mexico.

"Legitimate charges," says customer service rep Nicholas Steinbreck.

"Legitimate charges," says his associate, Sylvia Garcia. (I tried calling back on another day)

I hang up on her supervisor, Doug, who agrees with all of them.

So instead of giving me a $163 credit, this billion-dollar corporation loses a $7,000 customer. Make sense?

click here for a great resource for speakers

Have you calculated the long-term value of your customer? And as a customer, have you asked your service providers if they appreciate your value?

The Indian Scanning Errors
In another instance, I broke off a relationship with a Kolkatta company who had been supplying services to us for almost ten years. In other words, I had been paying them for almost ten years, giving me some customer value, you would think.

Not so. They had done a sloppy scanning job. I paid them, pushed that project aside and continued giving them other assignments. Maybe a year later, I asked them to correct the scanning job. They didn't remember that project and refused to correct it without my paying them again.

In short, they accused me of fabricating the entire project and the errors. The emails we exchanged were hot enough to ignite a cyber fire. So instead of ensuring income from a steady customer for another ten years by simply correcting a mistake--they declare that I have memory problems--and lose a customer

The Local Window Washers
Was their attitude much different from the window washers? They broke the blinds in the kitchen. I called them back. The supervisor and his associate arrive to inspect

Absolutely not. The supervisor insists that his associate could not possibly have broken the blinds although nobody has touched them in the last 12 hours but the associate. So I put a stop order on the check, and they don't get paid.

But more importantly, at $200 every six months, they have lost a $2,000 customer over a five-year period. By the way, did you know that most small businesses don't survive five years?

In closing, let me suggest that the theory of customer value is not meant only for providers to consider. We as consumers must also remember that those shirts we take to the laundry, those utility bills we pay, and those department store purchases we make all give us value. And we should insist on being treated--and communicated with--accordingly.


COMMUNICATING WITH ANIMATION
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This time I thought I'd take advantage of the invitation. They'd been sending the advance screening passes regularly, but I couldn't remember one for an animated film.

So I went to see "Ratatouille," an upcoming release by Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar.

To be honest, I've been thinking of producing an animated film. It sure would cost less than hiring Denzel Washington or Julia Roberts. And just hanging out a minute ago at this animation site, animation imagination I learned that the "language of animation is universal. It speaks to all ages and transcends cultural barriers. It is a powerful means of communication."

I kept reminding myself of my intention as I discovered that I was the oldest and quietest member of an audience of whining, restless moppets and their parents.

As you might guess from the clever title, the main character, Remy is a rat. No, I mean a rodent rat--who wants to be a great French chef.

The film's slow beginning has put the little tyke next to me asleep. But she awakens at the moment that sparks my query.

An elderly woman (and I mean really elderly) discovers Remy and friend rat in her kitchen and grabs a shotgun. She sprays shells all over, trying to kill the rats. For quite a while. No wonder the little thing next to me sat up.

True, I'm new at the film animation business. But what are we communicating to our children? Are we telling them that guns are a natural solution to ward off unwanted mammals? That old ladies keep shotguns? Maybe we all need to keep guns? What?

Should we be so stunned then at the deadly massacre on that Virginia campus? Hadn't the student been receiving these kinds of messages since he was a tyke watching animated films?

What messages are we communicating to children through animated films about violence and guns?

I won't reveal the plot, but my film will have no guns.


Best wishes,
Barry Beckham


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