More About Our Programs

My certification in Business Etiquette from the Protocol School of Washington and my certification in Children’s Etiquette from the International School of Protocol in Baltimore will bring some new dimensions to the “Etiquette Ladies” comprehensive children’s programs. These age appropriate programs will provide your child/young adult with the building blocks necessary for a solid future through confidence, integrity and leadership in a fun and entertaining environment. Your child will learn social, dining, and communication skills to enable him or her to feel comfortable and confident in any situation and achieve maximum potential by building confidence in his or her social skills.

Our social etiquette programs for adults including: social, dining, tea and etiquette and wedding etiquette provide excellent opportunities in this exciting and developing business.

If you are passionate about civility and interested in starting your own etiquette business or know someone who would be, please call me at 1-866-696-1666. Our associate program includes all materials and training required to begin a business teaching children’s and social etiquette.

IN THIS ISSUE...

How are Your Customer Service Skills?

Click here to check your answers.

1. Learning about your customer's business is a good way to provide better service.
   True. By knowing enough about your customer's business to expand the need and opportunity for service you can increase your business with that customer.

2. Your front line service provider should have a general knowledge of your products or services.
   False. They should be experts. Customers want and expect this expertise.

3. The first thing a front line service provider should do is listen to the problem and then pass it on the correct department.
   False. He should be trained to take ownership of the problem, develop an action plan and stay with the problem until it is solved.

4. The first rule of providing quality customer service is satisfying customer needs.
   True.

5. You can gain 2%, 12%, 6%, or 4% a year in market share by providing good service?
   6%

6. You should tell a customer with a problem "Please give me your number and someone will call you back to help you with this."
   No. You should say “I will check and call you right back.” Customers don’t like to be passed along and having to repeat their problem time and again.

7. It costs five to six times more to acquire a customer than it does to do business with the customer you already have.
   True.

8. To have a successful customer service system you need to get total management commitment.
   True.

9. The greatest profits result from retaining customers rather than acquiring new customers.
   True.

10. Writing a thank you note is a good way to show customer appreciation.
    True. Cards are the best postage stamp marketing investment you can make.

Tip of the Month

The first 3 seconds influence customer satisfaction more than any other act. Clients and customers love to feel welcome. Master the welcome.
    ~ Harry Beckwith

Why Customers Complain

Any employee in your organization can be the cause of a customer’s complaint, since everyone is part of the customer service chain. Here are some reasons why your customers may complain

1. Your customer was treated rudely by you or your employee.
2. A promise was made to your customer but not kept.
3. Your customer feels embarrassed because they were made to feel responsible for the mistake.
4. Your customer's honesty or integrity has been questioned.
5. No one was willing to take ownership of your customer's problem.
6. Someone acted like they didn't care ("it's not my job" syndrome).
7. Employees were too busy or unavailable to help your customer resolve his or her problem.
8. Your customer was told he or she had no reason to be angry.
9. Your customer was told that he or she was to blame.
10. Your customer's time was wasted.

Dealing with Unhappy Customers

Startling Customer Service Statistics

• Only 4% of your customers complain.
• For every complaint your business receives, there are 26 other customers with unresolved complaints that you will never hear from and 6 of those customers have serious complaints.
• A dissatisfied customer will tell up to 10 other people about it. Approximately 13% of those will tell up to 20 people about it.
• Most customers who complain to you will do business again with you if you resolve their complaint satisfactorily.
• It costs 5 to 6 times more to attract new customers than to keep old ones.
• Customer service is governed by the rule of 10. It costs $10,000 to get a new customer, it takes only 10 seconds to lose one, and 10 years to get over it or for the problem to be resolved.
• The lifetime value of a customer, or the amount of purchases that customer would make over 10 years, is worth more than the cost or your returning their purchase price of one item.

Here are Some Tips for Dealing with Unhappy Customers

• Listen to the caller's problem or concern and understand exactly what his or her problem is. Let the caller vent. Remember it is not important to fix blame for the problem, it is more important to fix the problem.
• Relate to the problem by apologizing in a general way or broad sense. You can apologize without taking blame.
• Provide a plan of action. If it is a problem you can’t personally solve, get the person who can solve the problem. Make sure any action plan is one you can deliver.

Ruder Than Rude

We have all encountered rudeness in everyday life. Sometimes, however, there are situations which are so bad they are almost unbelievable. Here is your chance to tell the world about your most outstanding experience with rudeness.

Office Confidential

I have often spoken about improving conversation skills and the importance of small talk in developing relationships with customers and avoiding what I call CDD, compulsive disclosure disorder; the habit some people have of “telling all” when they are nervous, don’t know what to say, or are attempting to be more personal. It is important to remember that everything you say has an impact on your customer’s perception of you and the company. When a customer hears negative comments from employees about themselves, their workplace, company or co workers, she begins to develop a poor image of the organization.

Sometimes we may inadvertently say things without realizing how it might affect our customer. Some examples could be:

• The representative shares some privileged information about customer A with customer B in order to make a point. The customer loses trust.
• When the customer calls, he always hears how overworked or busy everyone is. It is your job to be busy; the customer really doesn’t care.
• A customer complains and is told another department is to blame for not doing their job. The customer doesn’t need to hear about internal problems.
• One employee shares personal information about another employee. This inappropriate behaviour embarrasses the customer.
• The customer hears one employee criticizing another in his presence. The customer loses respect for the critical employee.

Recently a former colleague, who was a receptionist in a large company and always very careful about what she said at work, told me an embarrassing experience with potentially disastrous consequences. She was attending a casual social function sponsored by the soccer club her son belonged to and got into a conversation about some of the best companies in town to work for. Her company was currently struggling with restructuring and reorganization and employees were experiencing some problems adjusting. She shared some of her frustration with the others. Later she was approached by a woman she didn’t know well who told her she had enjoyed talking with her and hearing about things from the inside point of view. She learned this woman’s company was negotiating a contract with her company. The lesson here is straightforward; you never know who is listening so keep all internal information private. Share it with no one, including your spouse.

Keep the following tips in mind:

1. Don’t discuss company business in public.
2. Never share information about your customers.
3. Don’t discuss personal information about your coworkers.
4. Don’t share the organization's problems with customers.
5. Support you company and coworkers at all times, especially with customers.

Upcoming Events

I have a number of media appearances coming up for Rogers Cable and an appearance on “Style by Jury.” I will advise on the exact dates at a later time.

May 3, Maximize Your Business Potential, Toronto (closed event)
May 12, Outclass the Competition Dining Etiquette (closed event)
May 12, Mother’s Day Tea and Etiquette with Louise Fox on Rogers Cable – Day Time Live

June 5, Outclass the Competition Business Etiquette (closed event)
June 14-16, Train the Trainer, Toronto

Etiquette Ladies Canadian Tour appearing in a city near you…
June 2-9, Calgary, Edmonton
September 16-20, Vancouver
October 9-12, Saskatoon, Regina
October 19-21, Train the Trainer Ottawa
November 7, Ontario Association of Bed and Breakfasts

Next in Protocol Power...

Our next issue of Protocol Power will focus on tea and wedding etiquette with some special tips on Children’s Etiquette. Also, don’t miss the announcement about our winner of "The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Etiquette" by Michael MacFarlane for Ruder Than Rude submissions.