It all started about 5 years ago. A few of my fellow geeky friends were hanging out (like we always did), having drinks, jammin’ to some tunes and talking code (SQL, perl, .Net, whatever). A lot of the guys there were actually playing in the bands that we were listening to. It was a private backyard gathering thing. As the night went on we were talking about how we are all geeks and we were at “GeekAid” (a play on “Farm Aid“). We started joking around about how GeekAid is here to heighten public awareness about the plight of the Geeks in our community (total joke, we all made decent money, no real issues going on). Anyways, joke after joke, we kept talking….

But then, at some point, it got SERIOUS.

A few days later we were talking about how the enrollment into colleges for Engineering, Computer Science and other Technology related areas have been consistently going down and/or not growing. And we all agree that the future of West Michigan is going to be in the technology arena. So we thought that maybe we could do something.

We were already meeting up at the bar once every week or two anyways, we figured lets continue drinking our beers and having fun, but let’s start focusing on a single topic. How could we make GeekAid happen… for real? We all have friends that play in bands, we are all geeks, and we are all about helping out our local community. The next time a few of us hung out, we started writing ideas down. And that was pretty much the start. Writing it down, figuring out next steps, assigning responsibilities and holding each other accountable on deadlines and tasks. And yes, we still had a ton of fun.

 
…skipping full history and all of the changes and hurdles and so on….

 

FAST FORWARD… 5 years later)

After a few iterations, GeekAid now exists! We are in our 5th year and our event has been growing each year. So, What is GeekAid? The quick description: As of right now, we hold a concert at Riverside Park, Grand Rapids, MI. We have 5-7 bands play for free. Admission is free, $5 suggested donation. We have a beer tent (we make money there). We have food and art vendors (the give us a small percentage back from sales). Throughout the year we raise money from corporate sponsors who see the value in investing in our youth’s technology passion and skills. Oh yes, that reminds me. The most important thing about GeekAid is our Goals:

1. Get people excited about being a Geek. (aka Geeks are COOL!)
2. Award scholarships to local high school students that are passionate about tech, but may not have been able to pursue a technology degree due to financial constraints.
   ALL DONATIONS TO GEEKAID GO TO SCHOLARSHIPS

It is awesome, we have come a long way. From a circle of friends having a few brews together. To actually affecting the lives of kids and the community we live in. I won’t go into all of the details of it, but we are very excited about it and very busy putting it together right now. The event happens soon, check out full details here:

• GeekAid on Facebook: Saturday August 28th, 2010
• GeekAid Website

Was it perfect from Day One? Heck no. As with anything, there will be obstacles and learning along the way. And everything will not be perfect. It will not be what you originally planned. Somethings will end up better, some will be less than what you wanted. But it can happen. It can be fun. It will evolve into it’s own thing. Goals will change, missions will change, people will change. You will find people outside of your circle that are extremely passionate about your ideas. It will end up becoming it’s own “thing”.

Ok, I am done. The most important thing is to get out there and do it. Do it for everyone. Do it for yourself. You KNOW you have the time. It will make you feel GREAT. You will have something to leave behind.

Oh, and by the way: If you live in Grand Rapids, MI…. Come out to GeekAid

Other News Articles about GeekAid:
GeekAid v5.0 paves the way for kids to follow their dreams
GeekAid music festival raises money for GRPS students

While it all seems very straightforward, there are so many companies that just don’t do this properly. So many companies treat Customer Service as a peripheral part of the company, when in reality it is probably more important, and has a bigger impact on your bottom line than your sales and marketing departments.

This is where you have a chance to interact with your Tribe. This is where you can make your company’s biggest allies and/or biggest enemies. Customer Service experience is what people talk about to other people. This is the place to make or break your company.

I would like to run you through a quick tutorial on how to do Customer Service the right way. By following these simple rules, you could seriously push your company and it’s tribe to a new level.
 

Top 6 ways to provide Excellent Customer Service

1. Respond quickly.
2. Treat them like a person.
3. Put yourself in your client’s shoes.
4. Don’t make them feel stupid.
5. Keep it positive.
6. Thank them.

1. Respond quickly.

All you have to do is listen to your customers and respond to them as quickly as possible. I am not saying you have to resolve their issue immediately, as that isn’t always logistically possible.

But what you can do is acknowledge them as soon as a request comes in to you. Simply letting them know that their request has been received and is in the queue. Or maybe even giving them a quick estimate of when you might be able to resolve their issue is enough to make them feel like they have been treated properly.

It is so often the case that they deal with vendors that leave them hanging for days or even weeks. It simply being polite to respond to someone in a timely manner. It is important to understand that while you may deal with many issues a day, from many different customers, all having a different level of severity.

Your customer, is currently having one issue with your company and/or product and to them it is top priority. They could be the person in their company that is in charge of your product and people are waiting on them for information. If you give them no information, they have nothing to tell anyone else.

From their point of view, it looks bad for the person managing your product and it looks bad for your product. Simply giving them a little information about when the issue might be resolved or the request will be fulfilled can make them look like and feel like a star to their company. That person will only say good things about you from that point forward.

Think about it. Your other option is to “leave them on hold” for days. While people at the client’s company are constantly asking “So when is this going to be fixed” and every time that person has to say “I don’t know”, they are getting just a little more annoyed with you and your company.

2. Treat them like a person.

To clarify Tip #1 “Respond Quickly”, I would like to point out that an automated reply from a help desk/issue tracking system does not count.

While using a system like that is great to quickly establish a case number, this does nothing for customer satisfaction. We are all used to automated-reply systems these days. We know that it did not come from a person. People should receive a personalized response from a person.

Use their name, and make sure you spell it right. It is a small thing, but everyone likes to hear their own name but make sure it is spelled properly and or pronounced properly. Doing this incorrectly could have a negative affect.

They key is to put the customer at ease. Make them as comfortable as possible. Let them know that they are in good hands and assure them that their issue is being addressed. Ask them if there is anything you can do for them in the meantime.

3. Put yourself in your client’s shoes.

It really comes down to the age old Golden Rule that we all learned in elementary school. Treat other as you would like to be treated.

It’s very simple to live by and most importantly, it works!

Always, always, always put put yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself “What would I want to hear back about this if I was experiencing their issue?”.

After writing your reply to an email, read it back to yourself. Does it answer the questions that you have about the issue? Does it make you feel like you will be notified at regular intervals if the issue cannot be resolved immediately? Will you be in the loop for all updates? Does it talk about any work-arounds you could be doing while the issue exists? Make sure you answer anything that you think the client may be expecting.

Another key thing to be conscious of is avoiding the use of company-specific/insider jargon, lingo or policies. Use English that anyone will understand. If you don’t use plain English, you will probably make your customer feel stupid because you are assuming they should know all of this stuff.

There is no need to reply with a bunch of technical mumbo-jumbo that the average person wouldn’t understand. That does not make you looks smart. it just highlights that you do not have any communications skills. There is a time to show off your technical skill and there is a time to explain things to make someone feel comfortable. In a time of crisis (which to your customer, it probably is), it’s time to put them at ease, not annoy them with words that are meaningless to them.

From your customer’s point-of-view, they just want to know that you can take care of their issue, and if you can’t resolve it now, they can be assured that you will be available to be contacted in the future. Here is a great example of this.

4. Don’t make them feel stupid.

There is no reason to make them feel bad. There is no reason to tell them they are wrong, or they made a mistake that was obvious to you. It goes back to treating them like a person. Just because it is simple to you does not mean it is simple to them. If they are wrong, there is a right way and a wrong way to say it. Let them down easy. If it is a common issue, let them know it is a common issue.

By making them feel stupid, you run the risk of making them hate you and your product/company. Remember, you are the image of the company whenever you are talking to a client. Making them hate your product is the complete opposite of what customer service should be about.

Another reason you should not make them feel stupid and tell them that they are wrong is that if at some point in time you or they find out that in reality, you were wrong. You not only made them feel bad, but you end up looking terrible because you were completely wrong.

Oh, and it’s just not nice to do. So don’t do it

5. Keep it positive.

There is nothing good that will come out of going negative. Keep the tone positive in all of your communications. While I agree, most customers should follow these rules when asking for help, a lot of them are so used to dealing with bad customer services from others, that they typically have a pretty negative tone in their support requests (at least during the first few times in dealing with you). Replying with a positive response is a lot more powerful than continuing the conversation in a negative tone. People typically mimic moods and tones. If you change the tone from negative to positive, you can get the customer on your side. I know it is not always easy to reply ridiculously positively when you just got dumped on from a client, but you need to do it and you need to be sincere about it. If you have to, figure out a way to get happy before you call or email (smile or sing a happy song, whatever works for you).

The result of doing this is great for you and for them. If you can give them some assurances and follow through on your promises, you will be golden. This builds trust with the client and I guarantee that next time they need help, the conversation will start out on a positive note. And again, most importantly, they will only have good things to say about you and your company.

6. Thank them.

Again, it seems so simple, but many fail to do it. A lot of people get in the mode of “completing customer requests” and they forget how to be polite with simple please and thank you’s. And the thing is, you really should be thankful. You do want to make your product better don’t you? I know we do. We are truly happy to hear from our customers.

You have to realize, the average person does not pick up the phone or write an email to let you know about an issue with their product. So you have a bunch of people out there using a sub par product that could probably be fixed pretty easily if only you knew about it. We are seriously happy to have people that are willing to let us know what’s wrong. And when we turn around with a quick fix, it makes them even happier and the story they are now telling every body is how quickly we respond to issues and how great we are to work with.

At the end of every email or phone call, you should thank them for their feedback. And let them know that you are always happy to hear from them. Let them know that you want to know everything, the good, the bad AND the ugly. They are the experts on the product, not you. They are the ones using it in the real world, they have unbelievably valuable information about your product. And you truly appreciate them sharing it with you.

A note about the author: Hi, my name is Mark Schmidt. As the founder of BizStream, a small software company that prides itself in smart software and customer service, we are blown away on a daily basis by how much praise and appreciation we get from our customers. Our customers love using our products and they really do enjoy working with our support team. While they typically dread calling a software vendor for support, they constantly tell us how great their experience is with our team. The cool thing is that they are not just telling BizStream about it, but they are telling anyone they know that is in need of software or custom application development.

Remember, especially in the tech world, you can provide almost any technical service to a client, but they are not going to always be able to appreciate the complicated things that you do for them. You could be the best at what you do, but if your Customer Service/People Skills are terrible, that is what they are most easily going to be able to see. So you need to make sure that those skills are top-notch.

I truly feel BizStream has become the successful company it is today, due to our Excellent Customer Service. BizStream is a Customer Service company. We could be doing anything, let’s say landscaping, and we would still be successful. We just happen to be software developers that provide excellent customer service. Though if I must say, we are pretty awesome at providing software solutions too. But I think that has something to do with passion, and that is an entirely different blog post.

Thanks for reading,
    Mark Schmidt
    Proud member of Team BizStream