Corner Store Style Customer Service

Does your business deliver corner store style customer service? Corner stores often have great customer service, because its a small family business, and every customer is very important to them. Often, the staff get to know their customers personally, and are very friendly. The staff realize that every customer is important and are the reason they are in business. 


There is a great emotional bond that is built  with their customers, because of the personal relationship that is built up between store and customer. When you go to a corner store, you are not just some nameless customer, often they will get to know you by name, or for sure by face. Now remember the corner store friendly service when you want to improve your customer service at your business.


Now here are a few things that can be applied to larger businesses, to improve customer service. First off, have staff simply work on being more friendly by smiling and chatting with customers to build that emotional bond. Then you could have staff practice having a great proactive attitude when it comes to customer service. Once staff get to know customers, they can proactively offer customers helpful suggestions as they are shopping. As a final word about this, its important to convince staff that every customer is important and is the reason they have a job.


Once you train your staff in corner store style customer service, you will have a loyal customer base, that is great for business.

IVR And The Customer Relationship

Almost everybody at some point will have to deal with customer call centers. A lot of companies have toll free customer service centers to handle various requests. These centers are the face of the company they represent. They are often the first point of contact between a company and customer when there is a bad customer service issue.


However, to save money most call centers use  automated voice systems to try and limit how many calls actually come thru to the live agents. Now these so called IVR systems can save money, because the company needs fewer employees, but it causes a lot of customer frustration. The customer must navigate a voice machine maze and correctly use the system, or they can not complete the task correctly. Also, it is very difficult for the customer to find out which number to press to get a live agent. This is done on purpose by the company, because it prevents many calls from going to the call center agent. 


However, when calls go to live agents, this can create many advantages for the company, such as creating opportunities to build a stronger customer relationship or sell customers other products. Another important aspect is that the company will be able to collect more data on customers through the live interactions, which will help refine the service or product to better meet customer needs. Also, the customer will appreciate not having to fight through the IVR maze.


A call center can design a IVR voice system so that it can not only help with self service for a customer, but also offer a very clear option for the customer to press so they can get through to a live agent. This way if a customer wants to complete a task themselves, they can, or if they want to get a live agent, its very easy to do so. Companies need to begin to see the advantages of having more calls go to live agents, as this will help build quality customer relationships and produce a stronger customer base.