CTOKOS Blog

What is it that makes one customer service rep consistently fantastic and effective, while the person in the next cubicle is merely average, or worse?

It isn’t a matter of a single trait that can be glibly labeled enthusiasm, or sincerity, or caring.

I’ve identified no less than twenty five things that account for customer service success, and they’re all behavioral. For one thing, great reps not only ask, “How may I help you?” but they do this with an ascending tone that conveys the impression that “I really WANT to help you!”

When reps know exactly what to do, when to do it and how to do it, they have one half of the puzzle solved.

But the other half is receiving ongoing feedback from customers, supervisors, and themselves that makes them aware of how they’re doing, moment by moment, that is also essential to success.

Like driving a car well, it’s not good enough to merely point your vehicle toward your destination. Once you’re underway, you have to adjust to the road, to traffic, to your own impulses to jump lanes or pursue detours and short cuts, and even to the time you have allotted to reach your goal.

Yes, you can put your mind on auto-pilot and daydream your way through customer conversations, much like breezing down a highway on cruise control, but you’ll be safer and less likely to get lost if you’re paying close attention to your progress, second by second.

One of the basic problems associated with monitoring, measuring and managing customer service is the fact that reps, and their trainers and managers, are not classifying properly what’s making a significant difference in their conversations.

Moreover, they’re clueless about discerning which customers are strongly versus weakly satisfied as those conversations end. Customer reactions need to be scaled for intensity.

For example, do they “recommit” their business at then end, signaling loyalty and an explicit intention to come back again and do more business with your firm? If so, how strongly do they express it?

Likewise, if they thank you, what is the “magnitude of their gratitude?” Is it a one, two, three, four, or a zero?

Without clearly defined indicators, and accurate and quick feedback, customer servers can’t really improve. Moreover, they’re more likely to perceive their tasks as “thankless” while avoiding responsibility for service outcomes.

Salespeople, surgeons, and sports stars improve their skills and outcomes through feedback. Why shouldn’t customer service folks excel through this device, as well?

When you provide rich feedback, you’ll be on the right path to improving customer satisfaction.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, and the audio program, “The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable,” published by Nightingale-Conant. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC’s Annenberg School, a Loyola lawyer, and an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations from Santa Monica to South Africa. He holds the rank of Shodan, 1st Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com. For information about coaching, consulting, training, books, videos and audios, please go to http://www.customersatisfaction.com.

Do you have a product so good you want everybody to know about it? How about generating more profits from it? If you want the answer, affiliates are the key. Nevertheless, how do you actually get swarms of affiliates to promote your product? Look below:

1. Create An Affiliate Program

The first step of course, is to create your affiliate program. Make sure you have a good affiliate program that works perfectly well. Nobody will want to know that they have lost their commissions due to the malfunction of an affiliate program.

If you don’t have an affiliate program, you can use the service from ClickBank. They provide an easy, one step affiliate program that will send you checks every 2 weeks for your earnings.

2. Prepare The Tools

This is one of the largest mistakes an affiliate program owner ever has. Preparing the right tools for your affiliates is crucial as it can boost the response from your affiliates. When you do, you give your affiliates a big reason why they should promote your products.

They don’t need to start everything over from zero, they can improve, or upgrade your tools and sell more effectively, or they can save their precious time preparing and instead, start selling your products right away.

3. Urge Your Visitors

On your sales page, try and urge your visitors in affiliating your product. Many people just need a push on the back before they will do something. By urging them to do so, you not only get more affiliates, you can generate more profits as well.

4. Request Subscribers

If you have a list of subscribers, send out an email asking them to become an affiliate for your product. Your subscribers know you better than just normal visitors, they’ll be more responsive to your request.

5. Create Viral Reports

This is a very effective way of getting more affiliates to promote your products. A viral report consists of great contents to educate your readers and you’ll be able to request these readers in promoting your products as well.

Viral reports get passed around a lot, they are one of the greatest ways of spreading the word on the Internet. If you haven’t created your own viral report, create one today!

6. Have A High Ticket Product

Many affiliates are searching for products that have very high price tag so that they can earn more commissions upon a sale. Of course, make sure the price is reasonable so people will actually dig their wallets out for it.

7. Offer High Commissions

A high commission is a great motivation for affiliates. If they can earn a big portion of commissions from a product or service upon their sales, it gives them a reason to continue promoting your product or service to people. Be generous on this, because affiliates can earn you twice as much alone, maybe even more! As the saying goes “give and you shall receive.”

8. Embed the Tell-A-Friend Function

Did you place the tell-a-friend function on your sales page? Did you place any of it on your order page either? How about the thank you page? And the page after people subscribed to your newsletter? If you haven’t, you’re a sales killer, you’re an affiliate killer.

Humans are lazy, they need a nudge before doing anything. Many people think that the tell-a-friend functions are not effective but the fact is, they rock hard. Have you been on a page where you feel like telling a friend but it takes so many things to do that so you simply leave the page and forget it?

What if there’s a tell-a-friend function right in front of your eyes? You’d just fill in the form in 5 seconds and send it all to your friends. That’s how Tickle, MySpace, Friendster and all the other high traffic website works - the word of mouth!

Therefore, if you haven’t applied any of the steps above, take action now and do it today. To your success.

Seth Chong is the owner of IMViral, one of the largest, biggest viral Internet Marketing Newsletter which is being spread around the world, you can sign up for the Newsletter(worths $197) for Free at http://www.IMViral.com

Each year ten of thousands of meteorites hit the earth. They are
worth big dollars to the finders. In fact they are worth more
than gold. You might say they are black gold. This is your
chance to find one. You also will be able to say that you have
entered the Twilight Zone.

Did you ever go on a strange vacation? Well this one is out of
this world. When you come to Truth or Consequences to see the
new space station that will launch tourists into space, do a
little walking to find space junk…meteorites on our ranch.
Hunting for meteorites does not have to be a bone chilling
adventure to the Antarctic where the temperature is 50 below
zero F and 50 mile per hour winds. Meteors enter the earth
atmosphere everywhere. They impact everywhere. The trick in
finding them is to look where they have had a good chance of
impacting or where they have been concentrated by natural forces
of the earth and HAVE NOT BEEN DESTROYED BY WEATHERING. This
means deserts are a good place to search for meteorites. Deserts
can change over the centuries. But deserts don’t alway have
major weathering. Thus if you want to find meteorites you may
want to come to our Truth or Consequences Ranch. It is located
in New Mexico adjacent to the Chihuahuan Desert. There are
trillions and trillions of terrestrial rocks for each meteorite
that could be in this area. Metal detectors are used by many
professional meteorite hunters around the world. Metal detectors
can easily distinguish between ferrous and non ferrous rocks.
Since not all meteorites are ferrous only the ferrous meteorites
will be found by the metal detector. Modern metal detectors can
balance out dominant background rocks. This inhances the
detector to find the meteorites. Metal detectors creat a
constant hum. The volume and pitch of this hum increases as the
detector passes over the metallic object. There are hot rocks
which produces a signal but is a false positive. Thus detecting
requires concentration and you will see lots and lots of hot
rocks. You must also keep a visual eye for other interesting
rocks which can be meteorites. It seems that the best way to
find meteorites from this area is to use a combination of metal
detecting and good old-fashioned shoe-leather foot searching.
The weather is not hard to predict for the Truth or Consequences
area. Don’t bother to bring a rain coat, it only rains 10″ per
year. The winters are mild as it is Southern New Mexico. It
could get to 10F, but not for many days of the year. A clear sky
with a gentle breeze is the norm.

You can see Bill’s web site for unusual travellers at
http://www.huntingrelics.com

In the exciting world of online poker gaming, players are able to pit their wits against others from anywhere in the world at any time of the day. The game, which has traditionally been associated with skill, mind play and tactical integrity, has evolved to maintain the same skills but to incorporate quicker, faster flowing games. Players have adopted all of the trickery of the standard game and integrated into that of the online version. Bluffing, re-raising and slow playing are all part of the new virtual game. Players still have the same card configurations, the same rules apply, but with the restrictions of the physical game removed, online poker has evolved into a more exciting, fast paced game full of new options and opportunities.

As the game of poker has evolved, so have the opportunities associated with it. Like so many of the online industries, the online poker business has turned to affiliate marketing to spread the message of the individual sites. In a multi-billion dollar industry like that of online poker, the rewards for being an affiliate can be monumental. The affiliate-marketing program not only generates extra custom for the poker sites but also distributes a percentage of the wealth amongst a wider range of online users. With the non-prejudicial way in which website owner are able to become affiliates, there is a space in the market for any user no matter how small their site, or how low the number of hits to join a scheme, and potentially earn some money too.

As with any affiliate program, the affiliate sites only earn money if a person visiting their site clicks on the links within the site and either signs up or purchases an object. In the case of online poker, affiliates must wait until a player follows the link and deposits their first cash into the site. Because not everyone who visits a site is going to want to visit external links, it is in the best interest of the affiliate to promote the site and themselves in order to maximise their own chances of getting custom. Of course this favours larger affiliate sites that can afford to advertise themselves to a far larger audience. But for the everyday Internet user it is not impossible to earn a small percentage of a poker room’s revenue. With each customer attracted earning an affiliate 20 - 35%, it is not hard to see how just a few players can generate enough cash to put a smile on your face. Without overheads and costs that vast advertising campaigns incur, every penny made is essentially profit. Herein lies the beauty of this particular affiliate program. Because it is available to anyone, it is a true online entrepreneurial venture, site owners can earn enough to expand their operations and try new forms of advertising. Just like the surge in online poker rooms has created a boom in that market, it has also made affiliate marketing an attractive proposition. No matter what your area of expertise, your budget or your knowledge the possibility to make money in online poker affiliation programs is available to everybody.

Discover how to become a super poker affiliate by promoting the best poker affiliate programs at http://www.epokeraffiliate.com/