Wednesday, June 27, 2012

"The Customer Service guru"

John has over 40 years' experience in speaking and training on customer service skills. His new website provides a lot of food for thought when you are working on your service improvement plan.

Fresh ideas for your customer service strategy

John Tschohl, President of Service Quality Institute, has the customer service expertise to keep your company cutting edge. Learn how to modernize your customer service by attending one of his upcoming seminars!

Cultivate a Service Culture that Ignites Profits
Have John speak at your next company or leadership event. Learn how to:
  • Create a customer service strategy that works in the modern world.
  • Build a customer-driven workforce that retains customers
  • Make empowerment a way of life
  • And more!

Download the eBook
Learn How Social Can Help You Create Loyalty For Life!

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Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Lessons Learned From Mystery Shopping

By Dan Denston, Mystery Shopping Providers Association – North America

Gas prices rise and fall almost cyclically in and around summertime, but they remain unpredictable due to myriad other forces. How does a convenience store protect against a customer who is predisposed to aggravation based on the soaring prices, and guard its own bottom line?

Superior customer service is clearly a factor. Mystery shopping -- the only honest, transparent view of actual customer service measured against the factors important to your brand -- has helped c-stores protect their bottom line by ensuring attentiveness to the shopper.

"Quality service still sells," said Al Goldsmith, vice president of Maritz Research Virtual Customers, a Mystery Shopping Providers Association – North America (MSPA-NA) member. "We see it in every industry, but particularly in the dynamic and competitive retail petroleum sector. Since most petroleum products are commodities, an effective differentiation strategy must rely heavily on quality service and consistent delivery at retail to achieve sales and customer loyalty objectives."

A major retail petroleum company that's a customer of Goldsmith's Maritz Research has the numbers to prove that scoring your customer service -- and making adjustments on the fly -- directly benefits the bottom line. The client's mystery shopping program scores its channel partners three times year and what's been revealed is that locations attaining high marks on mystery shops and audits sell more gas, regardless of fuel prices. In the first year of the program alone, the client's channel partners experienced a double-digit increase in average monthly volume.

Gas prices are an important factor in customer decisions, but other factors play as important a role. A recent survey by MSPA-NA member Corporate Research International, a division of Stericycle, revealed that three of the top five factors that drive customer choice relate to employees.

When asked, "What is important to you when determining where to shop?" gas prices scored an 8.48 (out of a possible 10), barely outscoring team members' professional and clean appearance (8.41), employee willingness to help customers (8.38) and their knowledge and courtesy (8.24). Convenience naturally was the king, topping the survey with an 8.55 score.

What that tells us is if the convenience store is next to or near another gas station and its prices are typically competitive with its neighbor (and seemingly just as convenient a location), then the service given by the employees will directly determine which store's cash register rings more consistently. Other factors, such as soda and coffee selection and pricing, loyalty programs and candy prices, scored much lower in the survey.

SavOn, a chain of 13 c-stores in upstate New York, has seen an increase in the skills of its associates and the ability of managers to coach employees through its mystery shopping program with College Station, Texas-based Customer Impact, another MSPA-NA member.

"We realized years ago that it takes more than low prices to create a positive experience for our guests," said Sean Brown, operations director of SavOn Stores. "Guest service is the key in gaining and retaining customers, and our mystery shopping program through Customer Impact helps us maintain that service at an unmatched level, no matter how far fuel prices rise."

Brown said SavOn employees have come to be "excited" to receive the results of their mystery shops. The constant mystery shops built into SavOn's program allow employees to stay on their toes and receive great satisfaction when they receive high scores.

And one factor we cannot ignore is the single factor customers tell us they can't ignore -- a bad restroom. According to a recent research survey by Cintas Corp., 95 percent of customers avoid patronizing a business in which they have had a negative restroom experience. Given the general reputation for the restrooms in gas stations and convenience stores, this represents a golden opportunity.

"Consumers are becoming very selective of where they buy their gas and where they choose to do their business," said Steve Heintzelman, vice president of sales and marketing at RitterAssociates, a MSPA-NA member. "Providing the consumer with a great overall experience that includes a friendly staff, a varied selection of convenient products, as well as a clean restroom, can make the difference -- even when your gas prices are higher than your competitors."

So, while consumers are never happy with the frequent spike in gas prices, your bottom line will rise and fall largely on other factors. Unless you are offering a significant savings on gasoline compared to a neighboring station, your employees clearly make the most substantial impact on customers.

Mystery shopping, for years, has helped delivered a clear view of your 24-hour delivery of customer service. If you don't have a handle on that issue, it might leave a bad taste in a customer's mouth -- even more than coffee brewed hours ago.

Dan Denston is executive director of the Mystery Shopping Providers Association -- North America, a position he's held since 2011. He has extensive history with associations and association management throughout the country, as well as other varied business and educational experience. MSPA-NA is the trade association representing the customer experience metrics (mystery shopping) industry throughout North America.

Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in this column are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Convenience Store News.

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Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Walk In Your Customers’ Shoes: Doing So Will Give You The Information You Need To Grow Your Business


How easy is it for people to do business with your organization? If you don’t know, you’d better find out—and fast.
It is the customer experience that determines whether or not you will attract and retain customers. It is the customer experience that determines your sales, your profits—and your success. If you don’t provide your customers with the best possible experience every time they do business with you, they won’t stay with you for long.
I suggest that you walk in your customers’ shoes, so you can see first-hand how they are treated by your employees and what obstacles they must overcome in order to give you their business. What you learn will help you to identify where your organization must improve in order to provide customers with service that is so superior they wouldn’t dream of doing business with anyone else.
You can learn something by watching “Undercover Boss,” a popular TV program in the United States that tracks CEOs as they go undercover and spend time in the field, working in various positions with their employees. It’s a real eye-opener for those CEOs, who see what their people encounter on the job and how they respond to the challenges of serving their customers.
While I was in Russia recently, I went into one of my client’s retail stores. His employees ignored me. They offered no greeting, no assistance, as I perused various cell phones and computers. Using my cell phone, I took a picture of them. They immediately became very attentive, but not in a nice way. They wanted me to delete the pictures, and they threatened to have me arrested. What did I do? I sent the pictures to the owner, who apologized at great length.
How do your employees treat your customers? More importantly, how does your organization, as a whole, treat your customers? Do you handcuff your employees with policies and procedures that prevent them from providing customers with the best service possible? Do you train and nurture your employees? Do you provide them the skills that will aid them in serving your customers? Do you treat your employees the way you want those employees to treat your customers?
I recommend that you walk in your customers’ shoes. Using a phone other than your cell, or that is at your home or office, call your company. How long does it take for your call to be answered? Is it answered by a live person, or are you faced with an endless stream of options—push 1 for company hours, push 2 for company locations, and on and on and on?
Pretend to be a customer or potential customer. Ask about a particular product. Ask about a service. Say that you are having a problem with a product you purchased. Then sit back and see how employees respond. Are they helpful? Do they respond to your questions in a knowledgeable manner? Do they empathize with you? Do they have the authority to solve your problem, quickly and to your satisfaction?
Call at various times of the day and days of the week. Recently, while attempting to wire money from my daughter in China to Metro Bank in the United Kingdom, I had a problem. I called Metro Bank at 4 a.m. on a Sunday. A real person answered the phone and gave me the information I needed to complete the transaction. Now that’s service.
I also recommend that you log on to your organization’s web site. Is it easy to navigate? Ask for a response to a question. How long does it take for an employee to respond? This is important, because many potential customers contact several organizations via the Internet before making their purchasing decisions.
If you walk in your customers’ shoes, you will get the information you need to ensure they have a comfortable walk through your doors, either physical or virtual. When you do so, you will increase customer loyalty and positive word-of-mouth advertising, which in turn will increase market share—and profits.

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Wednesday, June 6, 2012

WHEN THE CAT IS AWAY, THE MICE WILL GIVE GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE…YOU HOPE!


June, 2012

To whom do you trust the future of your business?  Do your employees treat customers the same way you do: exceptional service every time?  Are their experiences with your company so outstanding they rave about you to all their friends?

While you think about those questions, consider the following reports from real customer experiences:
  1. “When the other consultant came over to help, she tried to find the item I wanted but was unable to locate it.  She then recommended that I go to a competitor’s store.”
  2. “I made my selection and walked up to the register.  The employee looked up but continued to sweep the floor, basically ignoring me for a good 30 seconds.  He then sighed, put down the broom and walked over to ring me up.  He never spoke a word to me other than the price.”
  3. “When I called the company, she answered with “name of company” only.  I asked my question about a specific product’s availability.  She said, “Yeah, we have it” and then she hung up on me!”
What is happening at your company?  Do any of your employees provide the type of service shown above?  How do you know??

There are numerous ways to measure service quality.  But the key to success is to identify weak areas and then show your staff the value of good customer service…  Show them how it should be done and then make sure they know you expect them to do it properly every time

How could the three samples above have been better?
  1. To be fair, this consultant DID help the customer find the product!  But your staff should have options when a product is unavailable:  Offer a substitute item, locate the item at another store (if possible), offer to order and ship or hold the item, etc.  Don’t send the customer to your competitor without at least trying to get what they need.  And if you do order the item for the customer, be sure to follow-up:  call them when it arrives; make sure they receive it, etc.  The customer will be greatly impressed with any type of follow-up call.
  2. Pretty much a no-brainer here:  Never ignore a customer!  Stop what you are doing immediately, greet them warmly, handle their purchase and thank them for their business.
  3. Again, pretty simple:  Don’t hang up first!  A warm greeting with an offer to help always makes a great first impression.  Answer the customer’s question in a friendly manner.  Offer to hold the item, check the price or answer any other questions they might have.  Invite the customer to come in and thank them for calling.
You can’t be with every customer yourself so make sure you have a process in place to train, measure and reward great service from your staff.   That way, you’ll know those mice are doing great things all the time and your bottom line will show the difference!


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