This post was published at, and has been shared by the APHA Blog.
It is provided so you can find it in a search here at myAPHA.org, but you’ll need to link to the original post to read it in its entirety.
Link to the original full length post.
The Search Meter, Customer Service, and Fulfilling Your Need to Know
In your pre-advocacy lifetime, you may never have thought you would be dealing with “customer service.” And yet, now that you’ve started working with clients, that’s what you’re required to do every time you interface with a customer (client) in any way: in-person, through phone calls, or email, or even postal mail. Your website represents customer service. Even the signature on your email is a form of customer service. Most new business owners who have never before lived in a customer service world believe that all they need to do is listen and respond. But that’s really only a start. Today we’re going to look at finding ways to provide customer service that provide an experience with you and your practice that may be expected, or may instead be totally UNexpected, or provide a delightful surprise. Of course, in these posts I’m all about providing examples… Do as I DO and not just as I say! Here’s an example of how we, through the myAPHA membership website, provide that customer service in a way you might not have expected. Cue the Search Meter Whenever you need to find a piece of information, fast, there are two ways to do a search in the myAPHA.org membership site: One search bar is at the top and bottom of every page. Input here will search every article, podcast, post, blog post, etc available to members. The other is a search of the Discussion Forums to find topics previously discussed. Hundreds of searches take place on the site each month because our savviest members have realized that whatever needs to be found, is most quickly found by using the SEARCH function. In most cases – maybe 99% – they find what they need and possibly MORE than they need. But sometimes they don’t find what they are looking for! Enter APHA customer (member!) service: What most members don’t know, and may find to be a delightful surprise, is that we track those searches to be sure we are providing material and information our members want and need, as long as it’s appropriate to provide…