Last week Cashman Equipment opened the doors to their LEED Gold Certified corporate headquarters in Henderson, NV to host our annual The Daniel Group’s ExperienceConnect Client Conference. It was all about improving customer service.
Our focus was “Breathing New Life Into Your Service Culture”. We spent two days dissecting customer service and discussing ways to integrate best customer service practices into their organizations. A few of the things that stood out to me as I reflect back on our time together:
Give 10 to Earn a 10 – Cashman Equipment kicked off the conference by sharing their best practices on customer service. My favorite idea was the “Give 10 to Get a 10” keychain. This keychain listed out ten simple ideas that employees can do to make an impact on their customer. Providing good customer service is not a formula that can be programmed but there are steps employees can take to make a difference with customers.
B2B is not that Different from B2D – Marilyn Elledge was our keynote speaker. She provided tangible evidence of how listening to your customer can make a huge difference on the success of a large organization’s fundraising efforts (in this case, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital). I learned that a complaint is a gift because it provides you with the opportunity to correct the problem. The biggest takeaway I had from her presentation is that sometimes it may be years before you see tangible results from your efforts with a customer. Don’t stop doing what’s important to your customer.
Focusing on Customer Service – It’s important to find ways to incorporate the value of excellent customer service into your workplace culture. Some dealers are incorporating customer service into their culture the same way they integrated safety. The importance of customer service is kept front and center for employees in various ways such as staff meetings, company newsletters, and their intranet.
Verbatim Comments – In addition to looking at what the numbers represent we also evaluated the verbatim. By looking at the comments, we were able to assign sentiments and concepts to the voice of the customer. We discovered that high ratings could come with negative sentiments and vice versa. One thing I thought was interesting is that the overall sentiment “very poor” was associated most often with communication.
Those are my top four takeaways from The Daniel Group’s ServiceConnect Client Conference. However, my favorite part of the conference was being able to spend time getting to know the individuals who value our work and find ways to incorporate change based on the findings into their workplace. They are an amazing group of dealers who want to provide the best experience for their customers.
Lisa Lyle
Research Projects Specialist
