Name: David Aloisio
Email:
Bio: I joined the BurrellesLuce team right after graduating from the Pennsylvania State University. I started in our Media Directories (now Media Contacts) department before switching to News Express. In the past I have worked as an account manager and the supervisor for Express. I am currently the Vice President for Client Services. I would like to use my background in account management to provide input and opinion on the best and most effective methods of customer relations in the modern workplace. LinkedIn:daloisio Twitter: BurrellesLuce Facebook: BurrellesLuce
Posts by David Aloisio:
- Keep in touch with your clients and check in with them often and unsolicited.
- Feel free to “take their temperature” as you can best gauge their satisfaction this way.
- Try to prove yourself helpful.
- Show prescience and spot possible needs before they’ve even alerted you to them.
- Image: DailyMail.Co.UK
Don’t Listen To Your Clients, Really?
April 20th, 2010“The customer is always right.” How often have we heard that expression? In fact, it’s become rule number one or an unofficial mantra for good client relations.
If that’s the case, and it is indeed true that the customer is always right, then we should probably just poll our clients and ask them what they want from us, right? Then we can simply deliver on those promises to ensure the ideal client services relationship.
Mark Cuban writes from a different perspective in his post entitled, Why You Should Never Listen to Your Customers. He says that listening 
solely to what the customer wants is risky and you do so at your own peril. It can create a “never ending revolving door of trying to respond to customer requests… Resources and brainpower that can be applied to ‘inventing the future’ instead are being used to catch up with features that (lock you) in the past.”
He proposes that instead of simply responding to your clients’ concerns and being reactionary, the real goal should be to anticipate what your customers are going to want and deliver it to them proactively.
“Someone is always out there who thinks they have a better idea than you have. A better solution than you have. A better or more efficient product than you have,” says Cuban.
He closes by saying that your customers can only “tell you the things that are broken and how they want to be made happy.” However, this is not something to bet the farm (or your business) on.
You still need to determine for yourself what your customers are going to need, want, and desire for tomorrow, the next day, and 20 years down the road. Harry Hoover also touches upon this point in his post entitled, “Stop Listening to Your Customers.” He writes: “You must ask the right questions of your customers and then figure out what it is that they are really saying. Your customers are smart and can provide some excellent input. It’s our job as marketers to ferret out the true meaning of that input.”
As marketing, public and client relations professionals, how are you listening to your clients and incorporating their feedback to meet their needs while balancing those of your company or agency and remaining proactive? Are you utilizing CRM systems, surveys, or social media communities, among others tools to help you get to the heart of what clients really want? Please share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.
The Importance Of Personal Relationships In Client Retention
March 30th, 2010
“It’s a jungle out there.” That’s a phrase most commonly used to describe an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous environment. In today’s business world, the “jungle” could just as easily describe how competitive the modern marketplace has become. Due to a myriad of factors, including the ease of data transfers as well as the decreased reliance on printing and manufacturing, it is not unusual for companies to have ten times as many competitors as they had just ten years ago.
So how can you distinguish yourself in a marketplace where you may no longer be top dog?
One way is through the establishment and maintenance of personal relationships with your clients. This can transcend and insulate your company against the latest industry trend or even a competitive marketing campaign.
In her “Developing Personal Relationships with Clients” blog entry, Alyssa Gregory says that the key to these relationships is communication. She writes, “Just like any relationship, the driving factor behind this is communication, whether it’s online or off.”
Some ways to keep the lines of communication open and develop a relationship with clients:
Theo McLanahan writes in Why Communicating With Clients is an Essential Business Skill: “Keeping an open line of communication with clients is extremely important. This way you can keep them well informed.” He goes on to say that you should “remember that your client can’t physically see you, so communicating frequently will help calm any concerns they might have.”
I propose that making a point of communicating with your clients regularly should be common practice. Do not wait until they reach out to you. Be proactive because not only can you save time and aggravation for them, but you’ll be saving a client for yourself and your company.
Clients Use Hold-Time to Consider Your Competitors
February 12th, 2010
Have you ever been put on hold? Wait, that’s a rhetorical question, isn’t it? How about, “How does it make you feel when you’re put on hold?”
Well, I’m not a fan, to say the least.
Maybe because I work in customer service that I’m more sensitive than most, but I don’t understand how anyone can feel that time spent on hold is anything other than wasted. With all the modern distractions and the ease of accessibility, your time is an invaluable commodity. It’s no different for your clients.
Becky Carroll writes on the blog Customers Rock, “The best wait experience is no wait experience at all.” Stay on the phone with your clients and let them know exactly what you are doing. If you have to transfer them, mention that you will need to do so, as well as explain where they are going and why. Ideally, you would give an explanation for your activity and provide an estimated time of how long it’s going to take.
Carroll says that an estimate of wait time, “…helps set the customer’s expectations so they know whether they have time right now to wait or whether they should call back later.” Carroll goes on to conclude that “the best experience for your customer would be to provide this estimate and give them a choice to either wait or, if it’s more convenient for them, have you call them back.”
This may seem like a common courtesy, but I can think of several recent examples of my own (cable company, insurance company, cell phone company) where I was put on hold without warning, without asking if it’s ok, and with no guarantee that I’d speak to a human at any time in the near future.
In consideration of your own customers, I suggest the following perspective: Every second that your clients are on hold, they’re using that time to consider your competitors and wonder if they’d ever do this with their clients.
Do Modern Businesses Still Appreciate a Phone Call?
January 12th, 2010Today there are so many ways for an individual to avoid human contact. Why bother calling information when you can look up an address on your iPhone? There’s really no need to call Domino’s when you can go online, click on your favorite toppings and pay with your credit card. And let’s face it, it’s so much easier to shoot off a text than to risk getting stuck in a 20 minute conversation with somebody you’re kind of “meh” about anyway.
If the modern world is all about immediacy and accessibility, then why bother using the phone at all?
Well, there’s an integral part of human contact and interaction that’s lost when you 
circumvent the conversation. It may be “easier” to send an email, but you’re leaving the recipient’s interpretation up to chance. Heinz Tschabitscher discusses email communication in his blog post, What Can Be Misunderstood Will Be Misunderstood.
“The lack of nonverbal clues makes it easy to misinterpret something,” says Heinz, “but we’re not careful enough to avoid these misinterpretations because email feels so instant, easy and accessible…”
In client services, not only can you best gauge the client’s mood on the phone, but you can help ensure that they will correctly interpret your own.
The ideal choice is to make the call. In the India PR Blog, Palin Ningthoujam writes that
“You can explain issues and things in proper and in length over the phone than on email.”
On the phone you can explain yourself fully and deal immediately with your client’s needs.
Best of all, you’re in complete control of how you express yourself and by proxy, how you represent your company. Don’t risk the relationships you’ve built with your valued customers just because you choose the “easy” email over the personal phone call. They are your clients; this is your business; and they deserve it.
Do you prefer to send an email or place a call when interacting with your clients? As a client, how do you feel when you receive a call from an account manager or client services representative? Depending on which side of the conversation you’re on, how do think these interactions affect the business relationship? Please share your ideas with the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.
