Comments on: Is Your Customer Service Offensive or Defensive?

By: Growing an E-commerce Site: 6 Lessons from 1600% Growth

Growing an E-commerce Site: 6 Lessons from 1600% Growth — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:33:09 +0000

[...] customer service, and yet few are known for the truly remarkable kind. I believe this is due to a defensive rather than an offensive approach to customer care. Too much emphasis is placed on serving customers who initiate contact with the company rather than [...]

By: Justin Palmer

Justin Palmer — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:27:22 +0000

@ Matthijs,

Unfortunately it looks like Shoes.com no longer has this feature! Sorry for the confusion

Justin

By: Matthijs van Gaalen

Matthijs van Gaalen — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:40:28 +0000

Great tips and very practical! I was triggered by the Shoes.com example but can’t find the ‘ask a question to another customer’ tool on that page. What did you exactly mean?

By: Robert Ruara

Robert Ruara — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 06:33:03 +0000

Goodness me.. aren’t your resources quite some gems. I am grateful that I came across your site. We are planning on starting an online store for our African merchandise business and the information on your site will go along way to ensure our venture takes off successfully.

Thanks and Kind regards.

By: FTW Friday - 13 March 2009 | Border7 Studios

FTW Friday - 13 March 2009 | Border7 Studios — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:39:37 +0000

[...] Is Your Customer Service Offensive or Defensive?: We try really hard to be offensive here at Border7. How about you? [...]

By: Anh

Anh — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:18:02 +0000

Great tips on establishing a good offensive customer service. We do give our top customers VIP services. Everyone in the company knows who the VIPs are, and we usually follow-up an email with a phone call. Being proactive is easily to do than most people think. It leaves a good impression on customers when they see you are actively checking in on them. Those good impressions usually lead to word of mouth recommendations to their friends and colleagues.

By: Carri Bright

Carri Bright — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 21:05:28 +0000

Hi Justin,

Great post! Everyone knows how essential good service is, but so few businesses ever put a premium on it which is a shame. I think you covered a lot of good points in this article, but here a re a few more offensive strategies to consider.

Monitor your brand online by setting up Google Alerts for specific keywords including your company name and go out to where people are talking about you (blogs, message boards) to respond.

Set up a Get Satisfaction account as another avenue of information and support (it’s free). Twitter is also another great (free) service where you can monitor your brand and interact with people who are talking about your company or service. But, remember the key here is to converse, to interact, not just to push sales message.

And finally, don’t be afraid to be personal. It’s easy for people to vilify a company, they are large impenetrable structures. It is a lot harder to vilify a person and the more visible and helpful your people are, the better your brand reputation will be (people trust people).

All the Best,
Carri Bright
Communications Lead
IZEA