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Customer Service vs Customer Experience

Posted by Ben Drury on 2 Mar 2012 in Customer Service | 2 comments

Customer service is absolutely necessary! Get it wrong and you’ll lose clients. Not only that, but you’ll lose potential clients as well, because the client that you lost will tell others not to use you! The bad news is that even if you get it right you could still lose clients, if you get the customer experience wrong. You see, customer service is about ensuring your customer is dealt with in a way that is polite, timely, appropriate and acceptable (to the customer!). Where as customer experience is the whole package! The entire...

Spend your days playing!

Posted by Ben Drury on 28 Feb 2012 in Miscellaneous | 0 comments

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both.” – James Michener (American Author). Do you get up in the morning really excited about going to work? Do you spend your working day...

My Dearest British Gas

Posted by Ben Drury on 9 Jan 2012 in Communication, Customer Service, Miscellaneous | 0 comments

My Dearest British Gas! Quite frankly I want to cry! You’ve made me cry – a grown man! It’s not a pretty sight. I feel like you’re stalking me. Everywhere I turn there you are. It all started in September 2011, when I received a cryptic and interesting correspondence suggesting that you and I were going out again! That I’d come back to you after all this time. But it was news to me because I’d moved on. I’d grown. I’d changed. I’d found someone that made me happy – EDF...

Want an awesome 2012? Answer these questions!

Posted by Ben Drury on 31 Dec 2011 in Miscellaneous | 0 comments

If you want 2012 to be your best year yet, you need to start working in areas that energise and fulfill you; areas where you excel. You need to be serving others, not just yourself; and you need to build deeper more meaningful relationships. Here are some questions, borrowed from author Michael Port, to help you get started: 1. How can I be fully self-expressed in my work to create meaning for me and those I serve? 2. How can I work only in the areas of my greatest stengths and talents? 3. How can I better listen to and serve...

Escapism vs Freedom

Posted by Ben Drury on 19 Oct 2011 in Miscellaneous | 0 comments

One of the biggest mistakes we can make in life is to confuse escapism with freedom. I recently spoke with a number of individuals who use drugs. When discussing why they choose to use drugs all of them say that one of the benefits of using drugs is that they help you feel better for a short while. They make everything that you worry about go away for a brief moment. That’s escapism. Now escapism is great sometimes. It helps us to unwind. It is good to watch a really great movie or read a fantastic book and get so absorbed in a well told...

Does your business have a mission? (Or how to make more money and not be evil!)

Posted by Ben Drury on 17 Oct 2011 in Leadership, Org Culture | 2 comments

I’ve been watching the Occupy Wall Street demonstration and other protests around the world over the last few weeks with a sense of excitement. Not because I dislike capitalism. I actually think capitalism works and can be very beneficial for communities and society – just look at the micro loan successes in developing nations. Nor am I excited because I like to watch a good heated disagreement, which, let’s face it, everyone does! I’m excited because I see the beginning of a brave new business world that I believe...

Ten reasons to attend the GLS

Posted by Ben Drury on 13 Oct 2011 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

An outstanding venue: The CastleGate is one of only a handful of iconic buildings in the heart of Newcastle. If you’ve never been, this would be a great event to visit! Great value: Two days of exceptional training for less than a good meal out! The best training: A two day conference with some of the world’s best leaders & speakers in one place! Amazing resources: Access all the conference materials and additional training resources via the GLS website all year round. To get focused: It’s a great opportunity to take...

Give Them A Story To Tell!

Posted by Ben Drury on 7 Jul 2011 in "How To..", Customer Service | 1 comment

Going Going Gone! I recently attended a lecture on marketing and I heard a statistic that as shocking as it was didn’t really surprise me. According to a recent study at Durham University, 68% of customers move to a different supplier/provider purely because of the way their first provider treated them. That’s over two thirds of YOUR customers moving to a competitor, not because of your product, but because of the way it was “packaged”. Gone because of something that is totally within your control. Gone, so have to find a new...

Counter-Management™

Posted by Ben Drury on 30 Jun 2011 in Leadership, Org Culture | 0 comments

Ever phoned a company and been put through to someone else, who puts you through to someone else, who puts you through to someone else, until you either get cut off or end up talking to the person who originally answered the phone? Why does this happen? Why is service so poor? And how do you get YOUR employees to perform for you? Many managers try to ensure employees don’t do the wrong thing by stopping them doing anything. They put rules and regulations in place to strip employees of the ability to make any decisions or...

Does my business look big in this?

Posted by Ben Drury on 28 Jun 2011 in Customer Service | 0 comments

Remember the good old days? You know the days when all you needed was a great product and people who needed it would buy it. The days before marketing was invented! No? That’s probably because they never existed Whatever you do you create an impression to others around you – that’s marketing! What you wear, how you behave, the way you speak all create an image by which others judge you and make decisions about how they wish to deal with you. Your business is exactly the same! Positioning your business correctly depends on understanding...

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