Community Contribution

When you leave work what do you do?  Go home, kick back and relax.  Mellow out and wait for the next working day to come around?

What about contributing to your community?  Volunteer.  Give up some of your time and expertise to help others achieve their goals and dreams.

Here are a few ideas - Toastmasters, local Schools or Kindergartens, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, Sports clubs.

If you are reading this and you are in New Zealand here is a great example website -http://www.volunteernow.org.nz/.

Personally I enjoy helping out with events and organisations that are relevant to our family.  Examples - my daughters netball team, helping out at Toastmasters, helping the athletics club run their event days.  In the past - helping churches, kindy's and scout groups.

Take the expertise that you apply for-profit during the day and apply if not-for-profit in the evenings and weekends. Who knows - you might even enjoy it!

Micro Finance - making a real difference

There are plenty of people in the world who are searching for a breakthrough opportunity to change their lives. They need some funding, some support and some encouragement.

In most parts of the world you can - ask a bank for a loan or seek out an investor.

What about if you live in an under developed country? What then?

How about micro-loans and micro-finance. I personally am a member of Kiva. Kiva is a group of like minded people who lend small amounts of money to people across the globe to help them finance their businesses and to further their opportunities.

I highly recommend that you check it out - Kiva.org

Click here to see someone I have loaned to recently.

And here are some great reads that got me started -

• Hillary Clintons book "Living History"
• Paul Smith and Eric Thurmans book "A Billion Bootstraps".

Customers Needs - Listening

Have you ever encountered a potential client who hasn't been straight up with you?

Sometimes people will ask you a question without actually asking the question.

Case in point - a young lady came in today with some paperwork and asked about a specific line of study. Did she want to know about that line of study? Yes, she did. But what she didn't mention was that she also had a fallback position for another course that she was interested in.

What did I do? I looked at her paperwork and instantly decided that we did not have anything on offer that was suitable for her based on her past learning's. I basically dismissed her and sent her on her way.

It didn't take long for me to realise my error and fortunately for me (and her) she hadn't left the car park yet so I was able to have a proper chat with her about her options. It turned out that she had a fallback position and was really interested in other courses we have available.

The moral of the story -

1. Don't assume you know what a customer wants, how much knowledge they have or what their motivations are.



2. Be open. Listen to the customer and let them speak.



3. Don't dismiss people without knowing what is really going on and what they want to know.



4. If you are wrong - go and find the person and put it right.

It's easy to - assume someone elses motivations and thoughts and lose a potential client without actually exploring the possibilities and other available options.

Stay in Touch - Relevance

I work in the education sector and one of the biggest ongoing challenges we have is ensuring that what the students learn is applicable when they have finished their studies.

This is the same issue that confronts all businesses and companies. How do we stay relevant and suitable to what our customers want and need?

Try these tips -

1. Ask. Ask questions to your customers and stakeholders. Move out of your safe zone and go and see your customers and industry at their place of business. Try a questionnaire, go into the social networking domain and ask. After you have asked, be quiet long enough to listen and collate the answers into a workable solution and strategy.



2. Seek. Look for changing trends and opinions. Carry out professional development. Find others in the field who are working towards the same end that you are and get their professional opinion.



3. Knock. Go and and find knowledge experts. Find people whom you may have never met but come with big reputations and solid wins.

"Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends" Walt Disney.

Customer Service - Contracts

Contracts and customer service go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other.

When a customer decides to enter into a contractual agreement with a service provider - the provider needs to ensure they keep up their end of the bargain. Assuming a customer will always subscribe to the terms of the contract is a myth. Customers don't just sit and wait for service providers to make miracles.

How do you make sure the people who are contracted to you continue to use you?

The easiest way - Excellent Customer Service!!!

• Maintain the conversation. Don't assume that because you emailed a client months ago and haven't followed up with them since then - that you are still the first choice deliverer of services.



• Keep in touch with your clients. Make sure you are at the forefront of their thinking.



• Don't assume because you have a contract you will always be their first choice. If your client doesn't hear from you or can't see you - guess what? They'll move on.



• Treat your client the way you want to be treated - with respect. If they ask a question - answer it! Respond to emails, make telephone calls.



• Create and maintain a communication plan. Emailing quarterly - just isn't good enough.



• Make sure everyone in the organisation understands what the agreement is and sticks to it. Have copies of the agreement handy, refer to it, remind people about it.


• If you make promises - make sure they happen. Customers don't forget. If you tell someone you are going to do something for them - do it!

The relationship between service provider and client is no different than any other relationship.

Both partners need to work together to ensure the relationship works!

Customer Service - Thanks

I was filling up with petrol on the weekend when I noticed a small sign of the pump. It said -

"Thank you for choosing Gull".

Thanking your customers for choosing you is a very small show of appreciation but can mean a lot to others. Saying thanks may be the difference between them choosing to use or communicate with you or not.

When was the last time you thanked your customers? Try these examples - in education - thank your students; at work - thank your employees; at home - thank your wife and kids.

I hadn't noticed the little sign on the petrol pump before, but when I did notice I thought to myself - "I will come here again". I would like to congratulate the person whose idea that was - because it is a good one!

Customer Service - Rarotonga Examples

We had a couple of interesting instances while travelling and staying in Rarotonga.

Virgin Blue Airlines. Cut price airline that used friendly staff. Excellent informal service that everyday people could relate to.

• Guess what? The plane was absolutely full!


• Why? Virgin have figured out what customers want and they give it to them. Cheap holidays and the ability to travel.


• How do they do it? Cut the frills.


• Lesson? Know your customer and what is driving their decisions.

Hotel attendants. At the hotel we were staying at the reception girls had to be asked/told quite specific instructions for them to act on them. We visited another hotel and the levels of service were far better.

Example - calling a taxi.

• Hotel 1 - we asked for a taxi to be ordered and were told to come back later and the person would do something. This was nothing short of being fobbed off.


• Hotel 2 - we asked for a taxi to pick us up a bit earlier. The taxi company wasn't listed in the phone book. What did the reception girls do? Rang directory and locals to get the phone number.

Huge differences in the level of service. Hotel 1 could move from 3 stars to 4 stars with some training of staff to understand their customers better. A little initiative goes a long way.

Social Media for Customer Engagement

Shut up and listen.

Customers ultimately determine the success or failure of your business.

If the customers aren't buying - maybe you're wrong.

The link posted below goes to a study done on companies engaging with their customers through the social media medium. What it attempts to do is find a link between revenues and customer involvement.

Are the two linked? Yes. Strongly? Not so much.

http://www.engagementdb.com/Report

One social media forum I have been musing on is the success of the website - http://www.throng.co.nz/. This is a social community/tribe (see Seth Godin) based on something that most people do - watch TV.

Throng.co.nz fills a gap in the market - people want to discuss, learn about and give feedback to the TV channels in a forum that is not commercially linked (?) to the TV stations.

Does it work? Yes.
Why? People can engage and speak their minds.
Do the TV people listen? I sincerely hope so.

The company or organisation that listens will ultimately succeed!