In today's economy, one key element for surviving is excellent customer service, points out Rosanne D’Ausilio, PhD, an industrial psychologist and president of Human Technologies Global, which provides customer service skills trainings and executive/leadership coaching. Today’s marketplace is a huge opportunity, she says, for firms to significantly improve their customer service, and in doing so stand out among their competitors.

 

To help companies accomplish just that D’Ausilio has written The Expert's Guide on Customer Service, a handy robust report consisting of 27 articles in 64 pages. Some of the issues, insights, and questions addressed include:

 

*          Are you taking care of your employees? More than 50 percent of employees view job stress as a major problem: double from a decade ago

 

*          Are you taking care of your customers? Customer service has consistently missed the grade, and services continue to top the list in terms of customer dissatisfaction

 

*          Do you know your customers? While customer focus might be an intricate part of your mission statement, the larger the company, the more insulated you are from your customers

 

*          Do you measure customer churn? Do you know your deflection rate? In some industries the percentages has increased nearly 20 percent. Are you one of these statistics?

 

*          Do you provide ongoing customer service skills training?

 

*          Do your feet follow your mouth? Training is key to improve employee satisfaction and loyalty, increase customer satisfaction, positively impact the bottom line and please the investors

 

*          Do you know the 5 factors that influence employee retention? The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists customer service jobs as 4 of the top 20 fastest growing occupation

 

*         Is ‘presenteeism’ rampant in your organization?

 

This guide is the latest in a stream of helpful and popular books from D’Ausilio. She is also author of Wake Up Your Call Center: Humanize Your Interaction Hub, Customer Service and the Human Experience, How to Kick Your Customer Service Up a Notch: 101 Insider Tips, and Lay Your Cards on the Table: 52 Ways to Stack Your Personal Deck (which includes 32-card deck). She is a Certified Call Center Benchmarking Auditor through Purdue University’s (News - Alert) Center for Customer Driven Quality and has spoken at and has been well-received at many contact center conferences.

 

The new book is affordable, at $19.97, and downloadable: no shipping/handling, and waits. The information and advice can be put to work as soon as it shows up on-screen and/or off the printer.

 

“We just did a survey of over 17,000 customer care people and the overwhelming response was for articles, and at the same time they were reporting limited or nonexistent budgets at this time,” explains D’Ausilio. “We heard and we listened.  We created the Expert’s Guide to Customer Service in response. But instead of charging an arm and a leg, we have made them reasonable, accessible, and easily available.”