Customer Service Tip of the Week

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How to Avoid “Groundhog Day” - 11/3/26


It’s Groundhog Day, where you’re living the same day over and over and over again. You have heard basically the same complaint from 4 different customers in the past week.  The bill is incorrect or confusing, and you’re having to spend a ton of time explaining things to the customer. You’ve Read more

Beware of Scary Telephone Customer Service - 10/27/26


As we near the Halloween holiday in the United States, it seems appropriate to discuss examples of scary customer service, particularly on the telephone.  Here are a few common issues that frustrate and annoy customers.  These are experiences to avoid delivering, and alternatives to adopt: The customer calls, describes their Read more

The Art of the Successful Script - 10/20/26


You’re the customer.  You go to the store, and they ask if you have a loyalty card.  You call the doctor’s office, and they ask for your birth date.   You walk up to the counter, and they ask if you found everything you were looking for. These are all valid Read more

The Key Building Block for Your Customer Relationship - 10/13/26


An automotive manufacturer gets supplies for their vehicles from all over the world.  They have arrangements, service level agreements, expectations for timing and quality of all the parts.  And when they gather all these supplies, they assemble the cars.  They test the cars.  Then they take pictures of those Read more

Be Flexible to Fill the Gaps - 10/6/26


The non-profit has the expected challenges.  There are only 3 people in the organization, yet, they have the same responsibilities of a larger company.  They have to do finance, sales, marketing; they deliver their services to the community, and they need to keep a pulse on what’s going on Read more

Is This Good Customer Service? - 9/29/26


A friend of mine reached out to me recently as she waited for the electrical technician to show up at her house to do some minor repairs.  She had never worked with this company before, but they sent a text about the tech who was soon to arrive. The message Read more

Ownership when Fixing Others’ Errors - 9/22/26


We were conducting training with a client recently, and one of the participants, Jackie, is in a role in his organization where he goes out to the customer site to investigate issues, address customer complaints, and fix problems.  While he’s at the site, he often gets an earful from Read more

Why “No” is So Important - 9/15/26


The employee told the caller: “I don’t think that is possible.” The customer eventually hung up, and redialed to ask a different employee the same question. The employee responded to the customer: “That’s probably not the best way to do it.”  Then, the customer kept asking question after question, arguing Read more

It’s Not “You,” It’s “I” - 9/8/26


During a business writing course that I took years ago, the instructor had us write an e-mail.  I can’t recall if it was written to a co-worker or customer, but after writing this e-mail, she had us count every “I” and “You.”  We talked about how we need to Read more

It Shouldn’t Make a Difference, But… - 9/1/26


We have this conversation with lots of our sports clients, but the principles apply across all different industries.  Too many service representatives view a conversation with a customer as a transaction.  Just get him off the phone as quickly as possible.  The customer is Joe Public, not Joseph Pendergrass.  Read more

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How to Avoid “Groundhog Day” – 11/3/26

Posted on November 3, 2026 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

It’s Groundhog Day, where you’re living the same day over and over and over again.

You have heard basically the same complaint from 4 different customers in the past week.  The bill is incorrect or confusing, and you’re having to spend a ton of time explaining things to the customer.

You’ve had several account holders in the past month contact you because they were expecting certain benefits – including some free services – and they haven’t gotten any communication about the benefits.

A bottleneck of customers forms in the lobby seemingly every day between noon and 2pm, and you find yourself being the only person at the front desk either addressing their need or directing the customer to another department.

What Groundhog Day Feels Like

You can probably relate to at least one of these situations in some manner, and whether it’s a specific situation or just the fact that you’re dealing with the same issue over and over and over again, this can be a stressor.  This can create more work for you.  This can be as frustrating for you as it is for the customer.

Instead of us feeling like it’s Groundhog Day every day, let’s talk about how to eliminate these stressors.

Addressing the Recurring Issues

First, be clear on the issue.  Is the bill incorrect, or is it confusing?  Are they complaining because they haven’t received the benefits, or they haven’t received communication about the benefits?

Second, don’t assume you know the solution just because you know the problem.  The easiest way to waste time fixing a problem is to address the symptom without knowing the cause.  Why are customers streaming in just as employees are streaming out for lunch?

Finally, address the underlying cause.  If the bill is confusing, identify what makes it confusing, and the solution will be more apparent.  For example, if they can’t find the owed amount on the bill, add a big box that makes it abundantly clear what’s owed and why that amount is owed.

If they don’t know when they’ll receive the benefits, when the sale or account renewal occurs, immediately give customers a schedule of when they are to receive benefits and how those benefits will be communicated and provided to them.

If customers are usually arriving at your office from 12p-2p because they don’t realize there are times of day with shorter waits, add information to the website so customers know the best times to go to your office.  If the backlog occurs because staff all have lunch scheduled at the same time, adjust staff schedules to better match customer walk-in volumes.

When you find yourself living Groundhog Day, be clear on the issue, find the true root cause, and specifically address it.

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Beware of Scary Telephone Customer Service – 10/27/26

Posted on October 27, 2026 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

As we near the Halloween holiday in the United States, it seems appropriate to discuss examples of scary customer service, particularly on the telephone.  Here are a few common issues that frustrate and annoy customers.  These are experiences to avoid delivering, and alternatives to adopt:

  • The customer calls, describes their need, and gets transferred. The second employee makes the customer restate their entire story.  Because the company doesn’t communicate well internally and do a warm transfer, the customer’s encounter with the company is redundant, longer, and frustrating.  Do a warm transfer.
  • The customer provides their contact information to the automated attendant, and the system uses the information to route the caller appropriately, but then the customer has to repeat the information to the customer service representative (CSR). Many companies suboptimize, they design their phone menus separate from their human interactions with the customer.  Design systems and processes from the customer’s perspective so that the technology effectively hands off information from system to employee.
  • The customer navigates through phone menus, gets to the final menu, presses the appropriate button, and hears: “The person you are trying to reach is not available. Goodbye!”  Sometimes the systems don’t work as designed.  Test, test, and test again!
  • When the customer calls in and none of the menu options address their need, there’s no option to speak to a representative, and pressing 0 or # or saying “representative” or saying nothing at all…doesn’t help. Most customers that call expect to have the option to talk to an employee.  Provide a clear option for access to a CSR.
  • The customer leaves a voice mail on the main company line, and nobody calls back. Make sure somebody is monitoring voicemails going into the main line and has the responsibility and accountability for contacting the customer.
  • The customer is talking to the representative, and there is non-stop background noise from the other 50 CSRs talking loudly to 50 other customers. Nothing says “you’re just a number” like feeling like one of the herd when talking to a CSR.  Be cognizant of how the call is impacted by the environment surrounding the representative.

 
Beware of delivering scary telephone customer service.

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The Art of the Successful Script – 10/20/26

Posted on October 20, 2026 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

You’re the customer.  You go to the store, and they ask if you have a loyalty card.  You call the doctor’s office, and they ask for your birth date.   You walk up to the counter, and they ask if you found everything you were looking for.

These are all valid questions, and they’re all scripted.  And there’s nothing wrong with a scripted question.  It usually has a purpose to help you save a little money by using your loyalty card, help the employee pull up your account by getting your birth date, ensure that you found everything you need.

Scripts are not always a bad thing.  They help to standardize the information shared or the information requested.  But they have to be complemented with phrases that convey appreciation for the customer.  They have to be complemented with words that personalize the encounter.  They have to be complemented with a tone and body language that denote sincerity and an interest in the other person.

Therefore, the success of a script is not just based on the specific words used and making sure that they are structured and consistently applied to achieve your organizational goal.  The success is also achieved by the words that are not part of the script, by the way that that script is delivered.

So, focus on the customer when they first come up to you or call you on the phone.  Initiate the greeting, and be self-aware of your body language and your tone of voice.  Utilize their name, and communicate with them in a simple, clear, and effective manner.  Be positive, personalized, and professional in how you deliver your message.  And sprinkle a “Thank You!” or “I appreciate that…” or “It’s great that you…” throughout the conversation.

Master the art of the successful script by mastering what surrounds those phrases.

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