Customer service can be a great way to both gain as well as retain customers. While we often think of service only after a transaction, it actually starts long before and goes on forever. It is a key marketing tool.

1. Glenn Muske
Rural and Agribusiness Enterprise Development Specialist
Glenn.Muske@ndsu.edu
October, 2016
Service:
A Tool for Gaining and Retaining Customers
Bowman, ND

2. 5 Things Customers Most Often
Discuss with Friends, Relatives and
Just About Anyone
5. Low quality of goods and services
4. Price
3. Hidden information and costs
2. Inaccessibility
1. Service including:
• Not listening
• Unresolved issues
• Rude staff or no staff
• Not keeping promises
• Poor signage
• Messy store

3. Traditional Marketing Online Marketing
PR
Paid
Promotion
Distribution
Channels
Customer
Service
Visual
Mix
One-on-one &
Networking
Word-of-
mouth &
Reviews
Reputation
YOU
Marketing

4. Customer Service = Customer Satisfaction
•Gaining the Customer
• Good service gets talked about – Your customer is your ambassador
• Good service will bring the first-timer back to see if this was a one-time event
or if it continues.
• The “WOW” experience good but fades if only a one-time event
• Mark Twain – “Always do right! This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”
•Retaining the Customer – Why?
• 80/20 rule
• Expense
• $20-$50 to gain a new customer
• $1-$3 to retain an existing customer
• Ability to learn more about them
• Make new ambassadors

5.  Write down an example of
a missed customer service
experience you have
experienced.
 Write down an example of
one great customer
service experience.

6. Steps in the Consumer Buying Behavior
Need recognition/Problem identification
Information Search
Alternative Evaluation
Purchase Decision
Post-Purchase Behavior

7. Consumer Buying Behavior Steps
Need recognition/Problem identification
Information Search
Alternative Evaluation
Purchase Decision
Post-Purchase Behavior

8. Customer Service includes:
• After purchase support
• Warranty/Guarantee
• Refunds
• Tips and ideas how to use
• Product updates
• Staying in touch
• Delivery/pick-up/disposal/wrapping
• ?????????

9. Details
Do Matter!
As a consumer, do
you pay attention to
details?
What are some
examples?

10. What We Know

11. Service Statistics
• Only 4% of customers ever complain.
• For every complaint there are 26 other customers with unresolved
complaints
• Six have serious problems.
• A dissatisfied customer will tell up to 10 people. Approximately 13%
will tell up to 20 people. (And these numbers were pre-Internet)

12. Service Statistics
• Happy customers will tell between 3 and 5 people about their positive
experiences.
• Costs 5-6 times more to attract customers than to keep old ones.
• 89% of consumers will go to a competitor following a poor customer
experience
• 75% of customers who leave cite “rude staff.” And 50 % indicate a lack
of a timely response

13. Act fast!
82 to 95 percent
of dissatisfied customers will come
back if a problem is resolved quickly
and sincerely.
95 percent
will come back if a problem is
solved on the spot.

14. Service and Social Media
• Nearly 50% of people expect a response in 60 minutes
• 32% expect a response in 30 minutes
• Response expected 24/7
• The possible audience is immense for failure
• United Airlines and broken guitar – 12 million views
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo&feature=youtu.be
• 22% will post a positive comment when they get a positive response
• It can happen immediately

15. Why Customers Stop Doing Business
• 1% Die
• 3% Move away
• 5% Other reasons
• 9% Competition
• 14% Don’t like the product or service
• 68% Indifferent attitude of sales people
About 95% of the customers that quit will not tell you when or why they quit,
they just leave.

16. Developing the
“Service” Mindset

17. "Attitude precedes service. Your
positive mental attitude is the basis
for the way you act and react to
people. – Jeffrey Gitomer

18. Examples of “Service” Found
in Mission Statements:
“We are committed to helping people identify and meet their needs
by offering quality services in a caring, professional manner,
providing a profitable outcome for everyone.” - Bank
“Satisfy the customer, satisfy the customer, satisfy the customer.”
---Henry Ford
“Have it your way.” ---Burger King

19. Is 99.9% good enough?
• 5,516,200 cases of flat soft drinks
• The IRS losing 2 million documents
• 811,000 faulty rolls of film
• 12 babies given to wrong parents – each day
• 1,312 calls per second misplaced

20. Face to Face
55 percent
38 percent
7 percent
100 percent
Body language
Tone
Words

21. Telephone
Tone
Words
84 percent
16 percent
100 percent

22. Building a Customer-service Focus
• Build the type of service response that you like to get
• You can’t always be there. Give people:
• Training
• Flexibility
• Responsibility and authority
• Your support
(Miracle on 34th St - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKfBUUhFueI )

23. Building a Customer-service Focus
• The phone – Do you get a real person? How quickly? Does that
person listen?
• Your website – Is your contact information easy to find? Do you
clearly outline how a person should file a complaint?

24. How do I learn more? LISTEN!!!!
Barriers
• Listening with “half an ear”
• Acting as the judge and jury
• Tuning in and tuning out
• Little empathy
• Pre-judge
• Turning off ideas you don’t agree with
• Jumping to conclusions

25. Reinforce the:
5 Keys to Quality Service
• Reliability
• Live up to promises, dependable
• Assurance
• Offer sense of confidence in you & your skills by answering
questions & offering product knowledge
• Look at the tangibles
• Seen & felt, equipment, staff, physical facility
• Empathy
• Responsiveness – listen, provide a fair solution, & do it
quickly

26. Understand Service Gaps – Expectation vs Reality
• knowledge:
• retailers’ perception of customer’s expectations
• standards:
• retailers’ standards that do not match customer
expectations
• delivery:
• difference between standards and reality
• communication:
• promises in promotional campaign vs. reality

27. Caution!
Service must
increase sales
enough to
offset costs

28. The Moment of Truth
The point at which your actions
cause your customer to form an
impression about you and your
business.

29. There are NO second
first impressions!

30. How do you know how you are doing?
•Ask
•Listen
•Survey
•Pet Peeve – Don’t tell me what to say
•Check with others (Secret Shopper)

31. Service and Community

32. Welcome to Our Town
“How may I help you?”

33. What you will gain?
• An understanding of why tourism is important
• Knowledge about the “secrets of service”
• Skills in giving directions
• Skills in answering visitor questions
• Knowledge about local attractions, events
and resources
• An appreciation of the front-line professional’s role

34. REMEMBER:
How service impactS your business?
A happy customer is:
• Satisfied
• Stays longer
• Spends more money
• Tells family and friends

35. Glenn Muske
Rural and Agribusiness Enterprise Development Specialist
NDSU Extension Center for Community Vitality
Glenn.Muske@ndsu.edu
Questions??
Resources:
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/smallbusiness
http://powerofbusiness.net
http://www.extension.org/entrepreneurship