How can you achieve customer service so fine that clients actually comment on it and spread the word about your company? Learn from the benchmark experiences of other companies, and benefit from the latest technologies to facilitate your work. So, what are client management tools? , a leading provider of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), has been offering a variety of robust, cost-effective EDI solutions since 1991. Projects of 123 EDI are typically complex and require coordination between sales, accounting and programming departments to ensure the company meets and even exceeds customers' expectations. According to Bernie Murciano, President at 123 EDI, the following principles, supported by Wrike's features, help to achieve top-notch customer service: Attention to detail Being thorough in performing clients' requests, minding the details, no matter how small they are, is crucial on the road to customer satisfaction. But can you take the load of remembering too many things off your brain and still deliver everything and more to your clients? Yes, you can! Wrike project management software stores all the short-term and long-term commitments of 123 EDI, providing "a view of the big picture without losing sight of the many details" says Bernie. Thus, 123 EDI stays ahead of the game and ensures that even minor customer needs are not overlooked. "Positive customer feedback doubled in a couple of months after we adopted Wrike," shares Bernie. Seamless collaboration To achieve excellent customer service, a unified effort of all the organizational departments is required. 123 EDI chose Wrike for teamwork with its enhanced collaboration features: real-time discussions, handy ways to follow tasks, and a cross-project newsfeed to track progress with ease. What makes Wrike especially convenient for collaboration is easy data-sharing on project progress with everyone involved. If you wish to connect remote teams, external partners and clients to the project, you can easily do so – the number of external viewers is unlimited. Bernie confirms: "Wrike's user-friendly web application keeps everyone on the same page." Commitment to timelines When you deliver a project on time, customers appreciate it and come back for more. With Wrike's automatic reminders about tasks and updates, you never miss a deadline. Scheduling tasks is simple and can be done from list, table and timeline views in real time. Bernie Murciano values this ability "to more effectively prioritize tasks by revising due dates." Thus, 123 EDI quickly reacts to the ever-changing business conditions, so that no customer is disappointed by a missed deadline.
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In Nic's post, you'll learn a little bit about the optimal turn-around time to give an answer to a question, the importance of well-written FAQ pages, and our experience with support via social media. "When you have great real-time support, customers will talk to you more often because they have confidence that they’re going to get great service. When customers are contacting you proactively, customer success is a natural byproduct." — Nic What is client relationship management software? For us, an always-on support team has made the difference between being a good tool and being a great tool. Here's what some of your Wrike peers have said recently about our Customer Success crew: I love @wrike - great customer service and great platform.— Krystian Szastok (@krystianszastok) March 21, 2014 // Post by Daniel Colucci. If you want to take your customer support to the next level, read Nic's full guest article to learn our best practices today.
I'd like to say I never experience customer frustrations on any of my projects, but the truth is I've experienced some degree of customer frustration on nearly every project at some point during the process. It may be a big issue or it may be something miniscule, but at some point it usually happens. Customer frustrations can arise from any one of a number of things. From unanticipated change orders, to error-filled deliverables, to rude project team members, to project budget issues, to just conflicting personalities. Anything – literally – can set it off and it may not be a showstopper, but it should be addressed. The potential issues can be endless – so I definitely can't address all the possibilities here. But we can take the time to understand what is client relationship management. Let's discuss a few possible proactive or responsive measures we can take to try to alleviate customer frustrations if we sense that things aren't going as well as hoped…at least from the customer's point of view…. Step up communication practices Effective, efficient, and timely communication remains, in my mind, the number one responsibility of the project manager. All task assignments, all feedback, all customer interaction, all issues resolution, and all collaboration in general, begins and ends with good communication. In fact, with more than 50% of all projects failing, one survey showed that project managers cite 'poor communication' as the second biggest contributor to project failure – right behind 'bad or incomplete requirements.' If a failure point at the beginning of the project was to skip the creation of a project communications plan and now you're seeing communication breakdown, it may be the right time to go back and create the plan so everyone has the same communication expectations going forward for the rest of the project. Revisit weak areas There may be weak areas of the project that are causing the customer concern like how risk is being handled or possibly the delivery of error-prone deliverables. Revisit those weak areas and add more effort where needed. For example, begin reviewing risk topics and issues regularly on a weekly basis as part of the weekly status call or meeting with the customer. If deliverables have been a problem area, incorporate peer reviews on every future deliverable. Having the entire team review every deliverable will greatly reduce the likelihood of presenting the customer with a document or deliverable with issues or errors. React to team member concerns If the customer is frustrated with someone on the team, meet with the customer to find out why, meet with the team member to work out some corrective action, and then jointly meet with the customer to discuss. Personnel issues rarely work themselves out on their own and if there is friction between the customer and one of your team members it may not even be obvious to your team member. Bring it to the forefront and take the necessary corrective action BEFORE your customer has to request a replacement. If you let it get to that point, then your leadership will definitely be called into question as well. Circle back If necessary, go back to the kickoff presentation and notes to analyze where you are vs. where you should be in terms of process and promises and assumptions. It's never too late to try to get the project back on track and make the customer feel comfortable again. It's possible that you discussed processes, actions and policies that would be implemented or followed and they never happened or were never implemented. If that is the case, it may be frustration point for the customer to see that it was an expectation that was never fulfilled. Often the customer sees it as something they paid for but never received. Call for input Customer satisfaction is one of the three key indicators of project success, so responding to and resolving customer frustration should always be a top priority. When you've experienced customer frustration, how have you responded? What actions have you taken to resolve these issues? What general approaches have worked the best for you? Thanks – we'd love to see your feedback!
What is customer relationship management and how can project management tools help you take it to the next level? This post covers everything you need to know about elevating and building client relationships and the benefits of customer interaction management.