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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

Use What the Customer Gives You - 8/25/26


Scenario #1: The customer sent an e-mail to the general inbox at the company.  The message noted that the customer needed to get a family member added to their account, but they couldn’t tell from the website how to do so. The next morning an employee opened up the e-mail, Read more

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Yakima Says Yes to Retention

Posted on January 11, 2011 in Business Advice, Education Please leave a comment

Retention is vital to business growth. And retaining a customer can refer to the season ticket holder for the pro basketball team, the resident for the cable television company, the local employer for the community, and…the community college student in Yakima, Washington.

In the Yakima Herald Article, Yakima Valley Community College (YVCC) was recognized by a national non-profit organization for its great student retention rates. The semester-to-semester retention rate increased from 75% to 81%. According to Tomas Ybarra, vice president of Instruction and Student Services, "Our new student orientation is definitely bearing fruit right now. In addition to fall-to-winter retention, also seeing increases in fall-to-fall retention (a full academic year). That’s encouraging."

So once again, we’re seeing an example of organizations successful in retention focusing hard on the new customer. In most businesses, retention is most at-risk for new or first year customers. To address this, YVCC delivers an orientation course that makes students more comfortable and confident in navigating the facility and processes and enjoying the experience. The orientation helps to create the ability for a new student to have as positive an experience as a long-term student.

So what’s your retention rate? Do you know it? If not, calculate it; if it’s 80% as an example, calculate the financial impact of not having the business from that lost 20% for the next year or two or three. That will make retention much more important from a financial perspective.

So how do you quickly try to create comfort and confidence in your first time customers? View them differently from your repeat customers. Create a plan to get the first timers knowledgeable of and pleased with the experience as quickly as possible.

Learn why Yakima says “Yes” to retention, and how it makes success from the Yes.

Read our New Book – “Ask Yourself…Am I GREAT at Customer Service?” http://www.amigreatat.com/

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