If attitude isn’t the key to quality customer service, what is?

Many companies train their employees to treat customers as important individuals or groups to be valued and respected. However, some companies don’t train their employees at all, and as a result, lose more customers than they gain. So what’s the secret? According to customer service expert Richard S. Gallagher, “Think far beyond attitude and treat customer service for what it is: a profession. One that has its own unique set of skills…It is a profession that puts us on the cutting edge of behavioral psychology in how to interact with other people.”

In his book, “Great Customer Connections: Simple Psychological Techniques That Guarantee Exceptional Service,” Gallagher shares his insights for creating successful customer experiences and completed transactions:

[1] Focus on the customer’s expectations (for example: “I certainly understand. Normally we can straighten this out right here on the phone.”)

[2] Give the customer options worded in his or her benefit (for example: “If you can send the request from our website, we can process it as soon as our computers are up. Would you like to do that, or would it be easier to call us back later?”)

[3] Anticipate the customer’s reaction (for example: “I wish there was a way that we could do this because I hate to see you have to call back again.”)

[4] Speak from the customer’s voice (for example: “It’s really frustrating when we can’t help people in a situation like this.”)

[5] The customer needs to feel as if the clerk is taking an interest in him and his needs

[6] A level of trust needs to be established between the clerk and the customer

[7] Ask for the customer’s name and welcome him warmly – and use the name often

[8] Lead with a benefit to the customer (for example, begin the interaction with “How can we help you today?”)

[9] Use a light touch (for example, if the person is a first-time customer, add a dose of humor and say, “I have just a few nosey questions to ask and then we’ll be glad to put you in touch with the right person.”)

[10] Keep focusing on benefits – before asking questions, explain, “We just need to gather some information from you to update our records, so that we can track your issue and make sure you are getting the assistance you need.”

Prior to becoming an author and speaker, Rich had a long tenure as a customer support executive. As director of customer support for a West Coast software startup, he helped lead its growth to become a major NASDAQ firm and later led another 24/7 call center operation to near-perfect customer satisfaction and near-zero turnover. He started his own training and development firm in the mid-1990s and has been featured in media outlets worldwide. Rich has personally trained over 15,000 people in a variety of industries – but with a common denominator, attention to customer service.

Does your company address customer service in a unique way? Chime in with your comments.

Visit Rich’s site: http://pointofcontactgroup.com

Connect on Twitter: http://twitter.com/gallagherPOC

Read Rich’s Blog: http://point-of-contact.blogspot.com

Publications: http://www.pointofcontactgroup.com/index_files/pubs.htm

Watch Rich on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/RichGallagherPOC

Join the GA team and Partners at GAUGE NYC

This is a guest post from Caleb Whitmore from Analytics Pros, a Google Analytics Certified Partner. Caleb is also the Chair of the Google Analytics Users' Great Event (GAUGE) conference. We hope you'll join the members of the GA team and GA Partners in New York for GAUGE.

The GAUGE Google Analytics User Conference in New York City is just around the corner on October 17th and 18th. It's not to late to grab a spot and and catch up on the latest and greatest with Google Analytics, learn from top experts on GA, and meet other users of the product and members of the Google Analytics team! More information and registration is at www.gaugecon.com. Use code GBLOG10 for a 10% registration discount.

Whether you're new to using Google Analytics or a veteran user with years of experience, there's always something new to learn about the product thanks to the rapid change of the Internet and the hard work of the Analytics team at Google to continually improve GA. So, how can you keep your knowledge of how Google Analytics works and what you can do with it? There's a great answer: Google Analytics User Conferences!

Attendees at GAUGE in San Francisco

I have the privilege of leading one such conference: GAUGE, or as we call it, the Google Analytics Users' Great Event. GAUGE is one of many flavors of Google Analytics User Conferences popping up all over the world, led by cohorts of Google Analytics Certified Partners. The New York GAUGE event is presented by: Analytics Pros, Blue State Digital, Cardinal Path, and E-Nor. This event is also co-located with Data Driven Business Week, which includes eMetrics, Conversion Conference, Predictive Analytics World, IMC, and Text Analytics World.

Our goal with GAUGE is to create an event that is by users, for users and insanely practical. I started GAUGE after going to one-too-many conferences where great ideas were presented but little practical "how-to do this with Google Analytics" guidance was given. The GAUGE in New York is a two-day event that includes:

• 24 hands-on sessions and workshops led by top Google Analytics experts
• Two keynote addresses: Mythbusting Google Analytics by Stephane Hamel and How to use GA data by Piyanka Jaine
• "What's New with Google Analytics" presented by Phil Mui of Google
• Q&A session with Google Analytics engineers
• Analytics Helpdesk where you can get direct consultation from a Google Analytics pro
• Exhibits from Google Analytics application developers
• Networking with Googlers and other GA users, and more!

Google Analytics blog readers can use code GBLOG10 for a 10% registration discount.  We also have a 15% discount for WAA members, a 25% discount for teams of 3 or more from the same company as well as a 50% discount for government and non-profit employees. You can contact gauge@analyticspros.com with registration questions.

If you're not able to attend GAUGE in New York, consider attending our San Francisco event in early 2012, or watch for other Google Analytics conferences and training events happening around the world (here's a page listing some recent/forthcoming events).

I hope to see you in New York or at another GAUGE event in the future!

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Google Analytics team

Turning Oops into Opportunity

After a hailstorm, I had my roof replaced a few weeks ago and it could easily have been a tale of two experiences.

During the replacement, the workers dropped a large roll of roofing paper onto my deck - shattering a portion of my handrail.

When the job was complete, they had used a metal valley (the seam between to roof lines) that we did not previously have ñ and that my wife hated!

Shortly after the roofers left, I mowed the lawn and ended up with a flat tire on my rider thanks to a roofing nail.

And with all that said - I would highly recommend my roofing company to anyone.

Surprised?

The rest of the story is that they:

• Rebuilt a new handrail to match the destroyed one on the next day
• Replaced the metal valleys with a more aesthetically pleasing treatment within a week
• Took $100 off the roofing cost to replace my flat tire

The unfortunate reality is that accidents happen ... statements can be wrong ... debit cards can mail late ... tellers can miscount bills.

The important thing is to proactively turn these "oops" moments into opportunity. Make the situation right ... by any means necessary ... and then some if possible.

4 Simple Rules

1. Employees cannot be afraid to call mistakes to management attention as soon as they are discovered.
2. All staff must feel empowered to correct an issue as quickly as possible (parameters can be set for significantly costly issues ñ but common sense should dictate what needs to be done here).
3. "I'm sorry" are very powerful words!
4. Give a little extra for the inconvenience.

By doing what is right, you can turn possible tragedy into a referral opportunity.

Take care,

Eric

Webmaster Tools in Google Analytics for everyone

Back in June, we announced a pilot program to allow users to surface Google Search data in Google Analytics by linking their Webmaster Tools accounts. We’ve been busy making some improvements and tweaks based on user feedback, and today we’re excited to make this set of reports available to all users.

The Webmaster Tools section contains three reports based on the Webmaster Tools data that we hope will give you a better sense of how your site performs in search results. We’ve created a new section for these reports called Search Engine Optimization that will live under the Traffic Sources section. The reports you’ll find there are:

• Queries: impressions, clicks, position, and CTR info for the top 1,000 daily queries
• Landing Pages: impressions, clicks, position, and CTR info for the top 1,000 daily landing pages
• Geographical Summary: impressions, clicks, and CTR by country

Queries report

To start using the reports you first need to link your Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools accounts. You can get step by step instructions and additional information on the reports in this Help Center article. If you’re not already using Webmaster Tools, we highly recommend you start. It’s a free tool that helps you understand how Google sees your site. Sign up on the Google Webmaster Tools homepage. Enjoy the new reports, and let us know how they’re helping your analysis.


Posted by Kate Cushing, Associate Product Manager, Google Analytics team

Ads quality improvements rolling out globally

When searching on Google, users appreciate results that are relevant and deliver a great experience after they click. In August, we announced trials in Brazil, Spanish-speaking Latin America, Spain, and Portugal1 that increased the weight given to relevance and landing page quality in determining Quality Score and how ads are ranked on Google. The goal was to improve the user experience with search ads. Based on the results we’ve been seeing, we’re now rolling these changes out globally over the coming weeks.

As the changes roll out, some campaigns will see variation in keyword Quality Scores and typical ad position. Within a couple weeks, things should stabilize and we expect most campaigns will not see a significant change in overall performance.

Just like today, campaigns with better-performing ads for user queries will continue to see higher Quality Scores, lower average cost per click and higher position on results pages. The 1-10 Quality Score in the AdWords interface will continue to represent the general quality of your keyword when exactly matching a search on Google. Increases in bid and Quality Score will continue to increase Ad Rank. And the same basic approach to improving your results with AdWords applies.

Posted by Adam Juda, Group Product Manager, Ads Quality

1Google Translate versions of the local Inside AdWords announcements: Brazil, Spanish-speaking Latin America, Spain, Portugal.

Ads are just answers

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

When CafePress first started printing shirts in 1999, online retail was still a nascent industry and Google had yet to sell its first ad. Soon CafePress started selling products through search ads on Google, and their business took off. Today, CafePress hosts millions of shops online where customers can choose from more than 325 million products on nearly any topic, from wall art to phone cases.

Just as CafePress has broadened its offerings over time, we've also worked to improve and expand our search advertising products. What started as three lines of simple text has evolved into ads that are multimedia-rich, location-aware and socially-amplified.

Today CafePress uses Sitelinks to direct people to specific pages of their website, helping customers find what they’re looking for faster. On average, ads with three rows of links, or three-line Sitelinks, are more than 50 percent likely to get clicked on than ads without Sitelinks. More than 200,000 advertisers have joined CafePress in using Sitelinks in at least one campaign.

Monday at Advertising Week in New York City, I’ll be talking about how advertisers have been quick to adopt these new formats since we first began experimenting nearly two years ago. Businesses from the smallest retailer in Idaho to the largest Fortune 500 company in New York have seen how these innovations in search advertising can help grow successful businesses. In fact, roughly one-third of searches with ads show an enhanced ad format.

Here are a few ways these new ad formats are helping people find valuable information faster:

Visual. Not only can you find theater times for a new movie, you can watch the trailer directly in the ad. Media ads put the sight, sound and motion of video into search ads. With Product Ads, people can see an image, price and merchant name, providing a more visual shopping experience. Because this format is often so useful, people are twice as likely to click on a Product Ad as they are to click on a standard text ad in the same location, and today, hundreds of millions of products are available through Product Ads.

Local. More than 20 percent of desktop searches on Google are related to location. On mobile, this climbs to 40 percent. Location-aware search ads can help you find what you’re looking for more easily by putting thousands of local businesses on the map—literally. More than 270,000 of our advertisers use Location Extensions to attach a business address on at least one ad campaign, connecting more than 1.4 million locations in the U.S. via ads. And, with our mobile ad formats, not only can you call a restaurant directly from the ad, you can also find out how far away the restaurant is located and view a map with directions.

Social. With the +1 button people are able to find and recommend businesses with their friends. Since introducing the +1 button earlier this year, we now have more than 5 billion impressions on publisher sites a day. If you’re a business owner, the +1 button enables your customers to share your products and special offers easily with their network of friends, amplifying your existing marketing campaigns.

We're continuing to experiment with search ads to help businesses like CafePress grow by connecting with the right customers. Starting today, you can drop by our site to check out what’s new with search ads and learn about all the improvements we’ve been working on recently.

We’re developing ads that provide richer information to you because we believe that search ads should be both beautiful and informative, and as useful to you as an answer.

Posted by Nick Fox, Vice President of Product Management

How do you MOTIVATE your employees?

Consider this statement made by Lee Iacocca, the American businessman who is best known for reviving Ford and re-inventing Chrysler, “When I must criticize somebody, I do it orally; when I praise somebody, I put it in writing.”

Now ask yourself, when was the last time you recognized an employee for doing great work – not at a scheduled review – and put your comments in writing? You probably can’t remember the last time. Instead, supervisors spend a great deal of time criticizing employees for missing deadlines, making mistakes, or not performing according to undefined standards. But the problem is, most supervisors don’t take the time to train their employees to meet their expectations.

The secret to solving this conflict is training. Sharlyn J. Lauby wrote a primer for Motivating Employees, published by Infoline/ASTD Press. Sharlyn is president of ITM Group, Inc., and has held senior-level HR positions in the hospitality, transportation, entertainment, and business services industries. She has designed and implemented successful employee retention programs and was named one of the “2004 Heavy Hitters in Human Resources” by the South Florida Business Journal.

According to Sharlyn, “If you aren’t getting the motivational mileage that you should as a manager, you may be making one of the five management mistakes.” These mistakes are:

1. Misplacing ownership: motivation doesn’t belong to the HR Department – employees find that informal recognition from their managers for a job well done means more to them than a formal company program.
2. Misaligning incentives: don’t give all employees the same incentives – since each employee is unique, determine the unique motivators for each employee.
3. Saving recognition: Since it’s inappropriate to save recognition for special occasions, recognize employee success when it happens.
4. Playing favorites: Managers lose credibility when they play favorites or give recognition when it isn’t warranted.
5. Misspeaking praise: The words “good job” are insufficient – always be specific so that employees know exactly what they did to earn recognition and praise.

There are numerous ways to show employees that they are appreciated and valued. Here are a few ideas to motivate your employees:

1. Provide time off for attendance at professional industry conferences or seminars.
2. Provide one-on-one time with company leader.
3. Provide time off for family events during the holiday season.
4. Give a subscription to an industry publication.
5. Provide a starring role – or leading role – in an important project.

For more inspiring ideas to motivate your employees:

• Visit Sharlyn’s website: http://www.itmgroupinc.com
• Connect on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/sharlyn_lauby and http://twitter.com/#!/HRBartender 
• Follow on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/hrbartender
• Become a fan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITMGroup