Welcome to the February 06 edition of The Dynamic Dispatch, the email newsletter of Dynamic Advantage.
We bring you better customer service.
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This Month’s Dispatch Data
- Service call: competition shopping
- The Tip Jar
- Tips & tools: dealing with difficult customers
- Exemplary shopper of the month
- Client congrats: Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
Service call: competition shopping
Want to know how your competition stacks up? Ask us and we’ll tell you. 
You already know that we can monitor your customer service. But you may not realize that we can provide you with data on how your competition are doing, too.
Competitive monitoring is just what we’re setting up for a new client in New Mexico. Sure, he wants to know how well his own people are treating customers and prospects – but he’s after insights into his competitors, too. Measurable data that allows him to compare and contrast his own offerings against those of his competitors will provide him with a key marketing advantage.
Want to know how the other guy is doing? We can gather the information you need to reveal your competitors’ strengths and weakness – and how you can market against them. Contact us.
Waiters and waitresses, bellhops, valets – a lot of people in service industries work for tips. So do we – but the tips we collect are for improving customer service. As you can see, The Tip Jar is stuffed with great ideas for keeping customers coming back. Even with this many ideas, we know there are plenty more out there. Have a tip we could pass on? We’d love to hear it. Improving customer service makes a better day for everyone.
Speaking of the tip jar, here’s a really useful tip we just fished out:
Tips & tools: dealing with difficult customers
We’ve all had difficult customers. At some point or another, we might have been a difficult customer ourselves. What’s the best way to deal with a difficult customer?Smile, listen, and solve problems.
Nothing is more disarming than a smile, as we talked about last month. Sometimes a friendly greeting is the start to helping someone turn around a difficult day.
“How may I help you?” takes a relationship a long way, too. Most unhappy people just want to be heard at that particular moment – they didn’t set out to be miserable this morning, it just happened. As customers, they usually want:
• information. They can’t find something they’re looking for, whether it’s the product or its price or even the location of the bathroom.
• recognition. They need something – attention so they can get information, or even acknowledgement that they exist. Most people want a cashier to look at them and smile – after all, they are buying something.
• resolution. They have a problem – an item needs to be returned, or they weren’t helped elsewhere in the store. Work with the customer to resolve their problem by listening, empathizing and asking questions. When problem solving with a difficult customer, always remember not to take it personally and to focus on what you can do (and not on what you can’t).
Most people who are treated well and are given information, recognition, and resolution, turn into repeat customers. (Would you want to go back to a place that didn’t tell you what you needed to know, didn’t pay attention to you and didn’t help you?)
The first step to dealing with difficult customers, then, is to ensure that you aren’t accidentally creating their difficulty. After that, turning difficulty into delight increases repeat business – and brightens everyone’s day.
Need help transforming difficult people into delighted customers? Contact us. We are professionals at keeping customers coming back.
Exemplary Shopper of the Month
All of our shoppers read and follow shop guidelines, stay unidentified, know what to look for, are attentive and detail-oriented, and report only true, accurate information with objectivity and fairness and on time.
So when they’re all exemplary – providing an example to others – how do you pick just one?
After applying a complicated algorithm developed in-house using the best minds in customer-service monitoring and maintenance… we pick a name out of a hat.
Here’s what we can tell you about this month’s cash prize winner: He’s been shopping Oceanside, CA and San Diego for us since May of 2005, finds the work personally rewarding and fun, and was happy to be recognized as Exemplary Shopper of the Month.
We can’t tell you much more – after all, his identity must remain a mystery.
We can send out exemplary shoppers for you. Contact us.
Client Congrats: Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
When you go to an amusement park, you want to be amused. That’s why providing great customer service is essential to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. As California’s oldest amusement park (plus a State Historic Landmark), helping the public have fun is an ongoing mission for The Boardwalk. As part of ensuring that, we’re now in our second year of helping them monitor and maintain great customer service.
The results have been significant for the park and its attendees. In one six-month period, overall customer satisfaction scores climbed 12%. 
Since then, they’ve added additional locations for us to monitor and have asked us to set up an automated employee recognition program. Previous clients using our recognition system – a service we’re happy to add on for free – have seen jumps as high as 10% in scores.
Immediate plans for Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk as it gears up for Spring? Longer hours and their 24th annual Clam Chowder Cook Off and Festival. Immediate plans for us? Getting up there personally to ride the 1911 Looff Carousel and 1924 Giant Dipper roller coaster. Why leave all the fun to our shoppers?
Since then, they’ve added additional locations for us to monitor and have asked us to set up an automated employee recognition program. Previous clients using our recognition system – a service we’re happy to add on for free – have seen jumps as high as 10% in scores. Immediate plans for Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk as it gears up for Spring? Longer hours and their 24th annual Clam Chowder Cook Off and Festival. Immediate plans for us? Getting up there personally to ride the 1911 Looff Carousel and 1924 Giant Dipper roller coaster. Why leave all the fun to our shoppers?
Let us know what you think! Email us at info@dynamic-advantage.com. We’d love to hear from you.
Dynamic Advantage | 866.870.1251 (toll free) | info@dynamic-advantage.com
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| Dynamic Advantage 356 East Olive Ave #118 Burbank, CA 91502 Phone: 866.870.1251 (toll free) 818.238.1251 Online: Dynamic-Advantage.com |
