Webinar: Getting Your Worst Customers to Love You

Most customer support teams are good at handling routine transactions. But what about a customer who is threatening to sue you? Or asks to have you fired? Or an employee who got so fed up with IT support that he smashed his laptop and then ran over it?

All of these are real situations that support professionals reported in a recent survey sponsored by Supportindustry.com and Parature. This interactive webinar, teaming communications skills expert and bestselling author Rich Gallagher with Parature’s VP of Marketing Gary McNeil, looks at how to handle situations like these and more. The open panel discussion format will examine the best practices, tools and technology behind handling your worst-case scenarios.

Congratulations to Rick Bruce, Jason Lorenz, and L Graves, winners of Rich Gallagher’s latest book “How to Tell Anyone Anything: Breakthrough Techniques for Handling Difficult Conversations at Work”.

If you missed the webinar, the recorded version is available here. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.

A copy of this presentation is available in our SlideShare profile. 

"Best Practices in Customer Service" Webinar Series

Delivered by the industry’s leading minds, this thought leadership series is designed to serve as a valuable resource to provide insight into customer service best practices and industry trends. The webinars in this series are ‘must attend’ events for any organization committed to improving the customer experience. We invite you to register for one or register for all depending on the topics that interest you.

Customer service industry experts, Robert Spector – bestselling author, Rich Gallagher of Point of Contact Group, Paige Newcombe of Coremetrics, John Ragsdale of Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA), Dr. Natalie Petouhoff of Forrester Research, Jay Topper of Rosetta Stone, Sahar Hashemi of Coffee Republic, Lorraine Grubbs-West of Lessons in Loyalty and Southwest Airlines, and Lisa Ford – customer service expert will focus on current industry technologies, best practices and trends that are key for organizations to improve their support processes to improve the customer experience.

The Best Practices in Customer Service webinar series:

The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence
Date: January 20, 2010 - 2:00pm EST
Presenter: Robert Spector - Bestselling Author of The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence
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Getting Your Worst Customers to Love You: True Tales from the Front Lines of Customer Support
Date: February 24, 2010 - 2:00pm EST
Presenter: Rich Gallagher - Bestselling Author and Communications Skills Expert
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Metrics that Wow! How Coremetrics Became the Customer Service Model of Success
Date: March 30, 2010 - 2:00pm EDT
Presenters: John Ragsdale - Vice President of Technology Research, TSIA and Paige Newcombe - Senior Director, Global Client Services, Coremetrics
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Why the Customer Experience Matters Most – Rosetta Stone’s Customer Success Strategy
Date: April 21, 2010 - 2:00pm EDT
Presenters: Dr. Natalie Petouhoff - Senior Analyst, Forrester Research and Jay Topper - Vice President of Customer Success, Rosetta Stone
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In the Customers’ Shoes: How Coffee Republic Built its Brand through Great Customer Experiences (UK Audience)
Date: April 28, 2010 - 9:00am EDT/2:00pm BST
Presenter: Sahar Hashemi - Co-founder, Coffee Republic
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How to Build a Culture of Customer Loyalty – How Southwest Airlines Does It
Date: May 19, 2010 - 2:00pm EDT
Presenter: Lorraine Grubbs-West - President of Lessons in Loyalty and former Director of Employment at Southwest Airlines
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Why Customer Service is NOT Enough
Date: June 22, 2010 - 2:00pm EDT
Presenter: Lisa Ford - Creator of How to Give Exceptional Customer Service and author of Exceptional Customer Service - Going Beyond Good Service to Exceed the Customer’s Expectations
Register Now

Parature’s “Best Practices in Customer Service” webinar series is designed to serve as an educational and informational resource for organizations throughout numerous industry sectors to gain insight into customer service best practices and to improve the customer experience.

Watch the webinar "The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence"

“The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence” webinar offers organizations insight into the inner workings of the Nordstrom customer service culture.

Outstanding customer service – the key to successful organizations, a competitive differentiator and a facilitator of customer loyalty – is synonymous with one of the nation’s leading fashion specialty retailers. Nordstrom, known for providing the ultimate customer service experience, has become the national standard for customer service. How did they earn this reputation? What is their philosophy? The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence will feature Robert Spector, bestselling author of The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence. Mr. Spector will break down the elements of the Nordstrom philosophy and explain how they can be adapted for virtually every kind of organization by detailing the nine management principles that have made them the gold standard for customer service.

Parature’s “Best Practices in Customer Service” webinar series is designed to serve as an educational and informational resource for organizations throughout numerous industry sectors to gain insight into customer service best practices and to improve the customer experience. To register for any webinar in the series or to view previous webinars visit www.parature.com/webinars.

If you missed the webinar, the recorded version is available here. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.

A copy of this presentation is available in our SlideShare profile.

Unfortunately, we have not been able to post the Q&A yet due to another event and Mr. Spector taking a well-deserved vacation, but we still hope to get those up at some point.

Download the White Paper

In today’s environment, the customer has never been more important - customer satisfaction and retention are critical to any organization’s success, and customer service is essential to that end. The most efficient and successful customer support departments are versatile; providing their customers with a preferred method of support. Today’s customers are tech-savvy and require so much more than simple phone support. Integrated multi-channel service options, such as self-service via knowledgebases and downloads, live chat sessions, mobile applications, ticket systems, social networks, and easy issue escalation paths via the Web must be implemented to empower support teams to provide the level of service that customers expect. 

The white paper entitled “Multi-Channel Service: Enhancing the Customer Experience” is available for download now.

The webinar features John Ragsdale, vice president of technology research for the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA). His area of expertise is in creating strategies for improving the overall customer experience and services operation through technology.

If you missed the webinar, the recorded version is available here. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.

A copy of this presentation is available in our SlideShare profile.

Watch the recorded version here

In this recession-driven environment, companies are clamoring to increase revenue and save costs; customer retention has never been more important.  Oddly enough, most organizations spend more on marketing to gain customers rather than to retain them.  A published study by the American Society of Quality Control asked the question “Why do customers leave companies?”  Sixty-eight percent of the respondents answered the question with the following “because of the company’s indifferent attitude to the customer.”  So how can organizations change this apathetic attitude and improve customer retention? The white paper “How to Improve Customer Retention by Building Emotionally Engaging Customer Experiences“explores building an emotional connection with your customers to not only retain them, but have them become customer advocates, recommending and staying loyal to the organization.

In the webinar entitled “How to Improve Customer Retention by Building Emotionally Engaging Customer Experiences,” Colin Shaw – international bestselling author and customer experience guru, demonstrated how organizations can focus on the areas of a customer experience that provide the greatest value and enable them to use their resources to the greatest effect. He also introduced the new area of the ‘subconscious experience’ that drives customer behavior and how the understanding of this experience can save costs. 

If you missed the webinar, the recorded version is available here. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.

A copy of this presentation is available in our SlideShare profile.

Download this white paper to discover how to not only retain customers, but have your customers become advocates for you, recommend you and stay loyal to you.

The fun and unique Zappos office environment

Discover how customer phenom Zappos.com grew their gross merchandise sales from $1.6M in 2000 to over $1 billion in 2008 by focusing relentlessly on customer service.

Rob Siefker of the Zappos Customer Loyalty Team discusses the Zappos commitment to WOWing their customers through service, how they retain repeat customers, and what they do internally to inspire the Zappos culture & core values.

During this webinar you will learn:

• How Zappos WOWs customers every day
• The power of repeat customers and word of mouth
• Why the Zappos culture = delivering happiness
• Seven steps for building a brand that matters

Watch the recorded version here

If you missed the webinar, the recorded version is available here. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.

A copy of this presentation is available in our SlideShare profile.

Watch the recorded version here

Those who manage people know that it is often challenging to provide ‘constructive criticism’ or feedback without causing their employees to become defensive. All too often human nature and an instinctive need to defend ourselves takes over, resulting in resentment or resistance to suggestions for change.

This webinar features Rich Gallagher - Author of What to Say to a Porcupine & How to Tell Anyone Anything: Breakthrough Techniques for Handling Difficult Conversations a Work – exploring a fresh new approach to coaching customer service professionals. An approach based on recent developments in the psychology of how we communicate with each other focusing on strength-based coaching versus deficit-based coaching.

Rich told our audience:

• Avoid the mistake of focusing on what’s wrong and transform interactions that might become verbal tugs-of-war into collaborative problem-solving sessions
• How a painless, blame-free approach for coaching can create real performance and behavior change

If you missed the webinar, the recorded version is available here. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.

A copy of this presentation is available in our SlideShare profile. 

** Take a look at the How to Tell Anyone Anything White Paper – No registration required.

Watch the recorded version here

iWin, leading online developer, publisher and distributor of casual games for the mass market, enabled on-demand customer service software to empower their players with self-service support, 24/7 from anywhere in the world; providing efficient and effective support through targeted knowledgebase articles and the use of video.

In the webinar David Schroeder, Director of Customer Care discussed:

• How to persuade users to try self-help options before contacting your support staff
• How to use video to increase support portal adoption rates and reduce operating costs
• How to make your support portal easy to understand through the use of video

How have you empowered your community? If you missed the webinar, the recorded version is available here. Continue the webinar discussion here.

A copy of this presentation is available in our SlideShare profile.

Watch the recorded version here

With the downturn in the economy, should companies be spending on Customer Service? Unequivocally, yes. It’s the number one initiative that directly affects a company’s most valuable asset: customers.

What should companies invest in? Customer Service Social Media – It reduces operational costs and improves first call resolution, customer loyalty as well as provides a host of other benefits to marketing, sales, product development, and other critical departments. Companies that want to transform their relationships with customers need to move Social Media to the top of their priority list. It should be the number one customer service initiative in 2009.

The webinar provided the basis for developing an ROI for social media and the customer service center. If you missed the webinar, the recorded version is available here. Continue the webinar discussion here.

A copy of this presentation is available in our SlideShare profile.

Watch recorded version here

SupportIndustry.com’s 2009 Service and Support Metrics Survey Results: A Look Behind the Scenes in Today’s Support Organization, which was sponsored by Parature Inc. and surveyed senior-level service and support professionals, revealed the top motivators for moving to a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. These motivators include eliminating the need for staff to maintain in-house systems (27%), increased efficiency (25%), increased profitability (16%) and greater customer satisfaction and loyalty (14%).

It is benefits such as these that have CRM and support departments turning to on-demand models to benefit the enterprise. According to the survey, 43% of respondents have leveraged SaaS-based models for at least some of their service-related technology deployments, while 32% say they plan some kind of SaaS-based deployment in the coming year.

Why the move? SaaS solutions offer a variety of robust features without the headache of maintaining the system and server. Many companies offering these services have now been around for awhile, taking away some of the fears about vendor longevity and effectively addressing concerns such as security and scalability.

Market data also supports the move to the SaaS model. According to analyst group Gartner, Inc., the worldwide market for SaaS is forecast to reach $9.6 billion in 2009, which represents a 21.9% increase over 2008 revenue of $6.6 billion. Growth will continue over the next several years with projected revenue to reach $16 billion by 2013.

To view the full results of the 2009 Service and Support Metrics Survey, click on any of the following options:

• Watch Webinar 2009 Service and Support Metrics Survey Results: A Look Behind the Scenes in Today’s Support Organization
• Download White Paper

About SupportIndustry.com
SupportIndustry.com provides senior level service and support professionals direct access to information on the most relevant areas in customer support, including enterprise strategies, people issues, technology, trends and research. This data enables support professionals to benchmark and improve their customer support operation. More information can be found at http://www.supportindustry.com.