Teresa Allen

Common Sense Solutions

Teresa Allen is a nationally recognized customer service speaker and customer service author. Allen is owner of Common Sense Solutions, a national training and consulting firm focused on bringing common sense to business and life. Allen is author of Common Sense Service: Close Encounters on the Front Lines and is co-author of The Service Path: Your Roadmap for Building Strong Customer Loyalty.

Proactive vs. Reactive Customer Service

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Posted on 2012-04-10

In preparation for a presentation to a client recently, I was asked to stress proactive vs. reactive service. They complimented their account reps on being very good at reactive but saw the need to go to the next level and be more proactive.

What are some steps for an organization wanting to be proactive?
1. Know your customer
This would seem obvious but you cannot be proactive in servicing a customer if you don't know much about them. Understand their wants and needs and how this specific customer type will use your product or service and it will open up all kinds of proactive customer service and sales opportunities

2. Pay attention to the customer's communication style
Does your customer like to think and reflect or are they a Nike Just Do It person. Being proactive with the former type may require sitting on your hands a bit and letting them have time to think about the customer service solution you have proposed. The Just Do It customer wants you...

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Have You Called Your Office Lately?

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Posted on 2012-02-14

Every now and then we all need a reality check. This month I would suggest a customer service reality check in the form of a call to your own office and a visit to your own website. When you do this, here are a few things you should look and listen for:

The Telephone First Impression

1. Is the business name clearly and consistently identified?

2. Does the VOICE of your business emit the tone that you want to set?

3. Is the process of reaching a LIVE person and easy one or frustrating one?

Your Website First Glance

1. Can a customer/prospective customer immediately see how to contact you by phone?

2. Is the navigation simple and direct?

3. Does the front page set the tone of your business?

Too often our customers and potential customers can see the holes in our first impressions much easier than can we. As a matter of fact, we are so familiar with our own business that it is hard to see...

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Easily Integrating Sales with a Social Cause

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Posted on 2012-02-08

I bought several domains on GoDaddy today. When I got to the shopping cart, there was a message that I could round up my order to the next dollar total and that GoDaddy would make a matching contribution to the charity of my choice. Spending 77 cents more when already charging over $100 to my credit card seemed like a pretty good idea so I clicked on my approval. At this point three charities appeared. The one that appealed the most was Hope for Haiti so I clicked on that.

This is an example of corporate giving linked to customer generosity that is made easy - seemingly pretty easy for the company and definitely easy for me the consumer. There are, of course, more complex giving initiatives such as that of TOMS where the company gives away a pair of shoes for every pair purchased. Great if your total company strategy is focused on giving, but the point I took away from the GoDaddy initiative is that it is also great if you do something small...

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How to Handle Insitututional Complaints

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Posted on 2012-02-03

As a customer, have you ever been frustrated by the way a company does business?

Case in point would be the times you are standing in line behind 10 other customers at Walmart! As you wait not so patiently, you notice that only 5 of their 20 registers are open. Reaching the counter you express your angst to the cashier. "Why don't you have more registers open?!"

Why did you ask HER that question? Certainly you are aware that this young lady has not been put in charge of staffing for the Walmart Corporation! She now turns to you and in a rather exasperated tone says, "I'm doing the best I can!"

Certainly this customer service representative WAS doing the best she could . . . until that moment! Service failure occurred the second she uttered those words because that was NOT the response...

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Avoiding a Costa Concordia Styled Service Recovery

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Posted on 2012-01-25

Costa Concordia has supposedly offered passengers a 30% discount on future cruises. Now I don't know about you, but had I been a passenger on the ill-fated cruise this would make me wonder how much Costa and Carnival are worth so I could sue them for EVERY penny of it. In recent PR moves, the company has denied this saying that this offer was only for passengers booked on future cruises... really?

You don't have to be a customer service or damage control consultant to know that this was not a great strategy, yet this company is just one in a long line of many businesses who have made similarly ridiculous offers to customers who have been wronged. This offer mearly stands out because of the worldwide attention to the situation and its gravity in terms of loss of life.

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Why NOT Do What the Customer Asks

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Posted on 2012-01-13

The customer is not always right and you should NOT always do what they ask.

Hopefully you know your products and services better than your customers. For this reason, you must remain the expert when it comes to recommending how and when these products and services should be used. Sometimes a customer will ask for and possibly even demand a product or service that you know is not the best choice for them. This can pose an interesting dilemma. There can be a tendency to avoid rocking the boat by telling the customer that a different selection would be better, especially if you feel you could be putting your sale in jeopardy.

I was recently reminded of this lesson in two sales close encounters of my own. As with many companies, my customer saw my product selections (in my case my seminars and keynotes) on the web. They decided on a program title they liked. From past experience I knew that another program was better for their group. I told them such but when they said...

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What I Learned Car Shopping

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Posted on 2011-12-12
I recently helped my daughter shop for a car. Next to having teeth pulled, I would rate this as one of my favorite activities. To my pleasant surprise, we encountered many very professional salespeople. Kudos to an industry that is obviously stepping up their game.

While many of the salespeople were professional, there was one that truly stood out of the pack. Cameo Buckner is a sales representative at a local dealership. I had met him when I purchased a car several months ago and even though I didn't purchase from his dealership at that time, I remembered his positive and professional approach and thus brought my daughter by and asked for him.

Cameo has several qualities that could be instructive to anyone in a sales position.
1. A warm and sincere smile
2. A conversational and friendly sales style
3. Exceptional product knowledge even on used cars not in his dealership's main line
4. Incredible follow up and follow through
5. ...
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Are You Giving Customer Service Tricks or Treats?

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Posted on 2011-10-25

With a birthday the week of Halloween, you can believe that I have lots of memories of Tricks and Treats over the years… (we won't mention how many years... that would be too SCARY!!)

So what are YOU giving customers these days? Tricks or Treats?!? What in the world do I mean? Well, it would seem that a very simple way to distance yourself from competitors would be to do what you promised. Whether you are talking about shareholder returns or returned phone calls, doing what is promised is a simple yet rare commodity in today’s business world. The old axiom under promise and OVER deliver can be your success strategy.

Let’s look at a few examples at various levels of the organization!

FRONT LINE STAFF:

The...

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The 3 Time Zones of Customer Service Training

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Posted on 2011-09-21

When training staff on customer service improvements, we often only talk about what is done during the sale in front of the customer. It can be useful to separate tasks and objectives into three time zones: BEFORE the transaction or service starts, DURING the purchase or service, AFTER the sale or service takes place

To illustrate how this concept can be translated into almost any sales and service environment, I am going to use three very different businesses and customers. The first will be an automobile dealership, the second will be a bank, and the third will be an upscale local jeweler.

BEFORE:

Before - Automobile Dealership: The customer starts forming opinions the moment the prospective customer approaches the dealership. Are representatives outside, in a uniform that identifies them as a part of staff and is that uniform/dress representative of the brand they are representing? Is the customer approached and greeted warmly and...

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What is Your Wait Tolerance?

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Posted on 2011-09-09

Yesterday I sought to clog my arteries by getting a 'FAST FOOD' lunch from a Burger King drive-thru. It was anything but fast. The total process took 19 minutes. Not about 15 minutes... NINETEEN minutes. Yes, I am an A-Type personality and that is why I know it was nineteen minutes. I entered the line at 12:25pm thinking it would take about 5 minutes and would leave plenty of time for my 12 minute drive home where a repair man was meeting me at 1:00pm. By the time I grabbed my bag with burger and fries at 12:44, I was a nervous wreck thinking I was not going to make it in time. I am sure the others in the line who had to make it back on time to work from lunch break were equally frustrated. By definition fast food is expected to be fast. When it is not, customer service is judged as poor and this poor rating is mentally filed away in the consumer's future choice memory box.

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