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Be Amazing - 4/23/24


Watching Michael Jordan steal a pass and then dunk a basketball is amazing.  Taking a rocket to the moon is amazing.  The taste of my mom’s homemade beef soup is amazing. We all have our personal examples of what is amazing.  Usually, it’s something that we cannot comprehend, that we Read more

Talk About Yourself to Build Customer Confidence - 4/16/24


When you’re dealing with somebody who is anxious or nervous about a situation, a customer who feels like they don’t have much control, an individual who is unsure and uncertain, it’s important to put the customer at ease.  It’s important to build their comfort level.  It’s important to help Read more

The Proven Value in What You Do - 4/9/24


Forbes wrote an article last year based on a compilation of the results of research on customer service and the customer experience; it was titled:  100 Customer Experience Stats For 2023. In reading the article, you’ll note that many of these key research findings are about you – the value Read more

A Tale of Two Texts - 4/2/24


Having to get allergy shots once a week is never fun, and for Janet, it became an even bigger frustration. She had the shots typically scheduled on Tuesday around 10:30 in the morning, figuring she would avoid the morning rush as well as the lunch rush by going mid-morning.  However, Read more

The Secret Sauce for Great Customer Service - 3/26/24


I was working with the League Office for a major American sport several years back, and one of the executives asked me to describe our Secret Sauce that helped our clients improve the fan experience and customer retention.  I gave him a sense of what makes us unique and Read more

The Miracle of an Apology - 3/19/24


Unfortunate but true story… The manager basically lost his mind.  He terminated his employee on the spot.  She had told the customer that there was going to be a delay in the shipment.  The employee called up the customer ahead of time to let the customer know what was about Read more

It’s Not About the 5-Minute Wait - 3/12/24


Robert went into his supervisor’s office to update her on a situation at the payment desk.  Robert said that a customer was about fourth or fifth in line, waiting to be served, and the customer was complaining loudly about the wait.  He was there to make a property tax Read more

Lessons from the Greats - 3/5/24


I was recently facilitating a workshop on the customer experience, and I made the point that it’s usually beneficial to look at your personal life for great experiences; identify what really resonates with you in a positive way in order to uncover ideas to improve your own customer service. So, Read more

The Empathy Roadmap - 2/27/24


For some people, empathy comes naturally.  There’s an innate desire to learn about the other person and to sincerely convey that sense of interest and caring.  But for many of us, sometimes it helps to have a communication plan.  It helps to know what to do in order to Read more

“You’re the Boss” - 2/20/24


Terrence is excellent at what he does.  From a technical standpoint, he knows how to keep the facility clean.  He’s the lead custodian, and he knows that keeping things straight does not necessarily mean keeping things sanitary.  He knows what chemicals to use and not to use, how to Read more

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Poll the Kids?

Posted on October 5, 2010 in Business Advice, Education Please leave a comment

In a recent article on azcentral.com (http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2010/09/23/20100923glendale-deer-valley-district-poll.html), the Arizona Republic notes how a local school district polled students on such aspects of the school experience as safety, friendship, and the likelihood to graduate.

Our firm conducts these studies for many of our clients as well as providing mystery shopping services at the primary education, community college, and university levels. And while you can argue with some of the methodologies used for delivering the survey, what makes the information in the article particularly interesting is the fact that the survey asked about the student as a person – it asked about their personal feelings.

Think about your customers; when you conduct surveys, you’re often asking about demographics, preferences in products, certain aspects of the customer service you provide or your facilities and processes. But many customers create an affinity for the businesses they patronize based on how that company makes them feel, about how the experience makes them feel.

So why not ask them about their feelings?

One of the last things you want from a customer is apathy; so the best way to identify those that are apathetic is to ask about their feelings. Remember that 2/3rd of lost business is because the customer feels like you don’t care. So if their feelings contribute to their loss, you need to get in the habit of asking about their feelings.

Look at your surveys, and ensure they address how your customers feel about their relationship with your company, how they feel about the experience they have in interacting with your business – the people, processes, facility, and website.

To get a feel for your customer’s true satisfaction, ask how they feel.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more information at: http://www.cssamerica.com/

Check out our new customer service book at http://www.amigreatat.com/


Act During Customer Service Week – This Week!

Posted on October 6, 2009 in Business Advice Please leave a comment

The clock is ticking. We are in the middle of Customer Service Week, and there are few times during the year when the gods of customer retention look down on us and place a gift right in our lap. The gift is having a week set-aside for us to focus on two key customer groups: 1) Those clients of ours that buy our products and services and help us to stay afloat, and 2) Our key internal customers — the employees.

With Customer Service Week here, we all have the perfect excuse to reach out to our clients to thank them for sticking with us, to convey appreciation for their referrals, to ask about what we can improve, and to reignite relationships that had gone flat because you’re so busy searching for the next new customer. We have the perfect excuse to interview them, survey them, ask them questions, use them as a supplier of information to make us better. We have the perfect excuse to say “hello” without putting them under pressure to buy our services.

So much of customer satisfaction is driven by the employees. Employees convey the attitudes of whether we care or are indifferent. The employees execute the processes that result in quick turnaround or long delays. The employees do the work that makes things happen right the first time or results in errors and rework. And employees act on the communications that convey that we are responsive or that we are lax in our customer dealings. The employees have such a huge impact on the end-customer’s satisfaction that we need to model, as managers, the behaviors that we expect of these employees by treating them as we would expect them to treat their customers.

So this is a great time to recognize employees for the tremendous value they provide in our ongoing operations and our trek toward our long-term vision for success. Reward employees for staying with you and growing with you, so you don’t have to spend so much time working your HR people to death, trying to find warm bodies to replace highly skilled individuals.  This is a time to simply thank employees for making your organization look good, since to many customers the employees ARE your company.

Take action this week to appreciate your internal and external customers.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service?  See more information at:  http://www.cssamerica.com/


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