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Don’t Bury the Lede - 3/17/26


Mary was working at the office, and she received an e-mail alert from the water company.  There was a water outage in her neighborhood.  It looked like it was going to be a couple hours to fix the issue. Sure enough, a few hours later around mid-afternoon, Mary received another Read more

Confirm the Real Issue Before You Start Solving - 3/10/26


Have you ever gone “down the rabbit hole?”  It involves going deep into some topic, some discussion – with analysis that creates complexity as much as it resolves it.  And that dive into the rabbit hole often starts with a simple question. Going down that rabbit hole takes time and Read more

One Question to Prevent a Follow-up Call - 3/3/26


The way some performance metrics work, you would think companies would prefer for their staff to talk to the same customer 4 times on the same topic for 8 minutes each rather than talking to them once for 10 minutes.  Many management metrics are too focused on average length Read more

Stay Calm When the Customer Isn’t - 2/24/26


There are all sorts of others’ emotions that you have to deal with as a customer service professional.  The other person could be anxious or upset, they could be angry or agitated.  It can run the gamut of emotions, but for you to deal with them in the best Read more

Don’t Begin with the Dead End in Mind - 2/17/26


Habit #2 of Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People” is “Begin with the End in Mind.”  It speaks to the need to have a clear vision or goal for what you’re trying to ultimately achieve, so you understand the purpose of what you’re doing.  It helps you Read more

Explain without Over Explaining - 2/10/26


The customer has a question, and we have an answer.  They need to learn something, and we’re in the position to be the educator.  There’s a process they have to go through, and we need them to understand. We know so much, and we could impart so much, but sometimes Read more

Look for a Stop Sign - 2/3/26


As a customer service professional, what you say matters.  The information you’re providing is useful.  The direction you’re giving the other person is helpful.  But... As you’re speaking, you also need to be reading.  Reading the other person.  Watching the customer, determining whether and how they’re receiving what you’re sharing.  Read more

When They Want the Supervisor - 1/27/26


Maybe you did your best with the customer, or maybe the customer didn’t even give you a chance.  They want to talk to your supervisor.  They see you, notice your title does not have “supervisor” or “manager” or “director” or “President and CEO” in it, so they want to Read more

Identify Your Point of Empathy - 1/20/26


I was watching a webinar recently on empathy.  The speaker mentioned that empathy - to a large extent - is something that you are born with.  It’s something that’s very difficult to learn.  And while I agree that some people are predisposed to being empathetic and understanding of others Read more

Pressure is a Privilege, but... - 1/13/26


When athletes are asked about the pressure of a playoff match or a late-game situation, many times they will say that “pressure is a privilege.”  In other words, usually pressure exists because you’re in a match that matters most.  It exists because you are a player put in a Read more

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Don’t Bury the Lede – 3/17/26

Posted on March 17, 2026 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

Mary was working at the office, and she received an e-mail alert from the water company.  There was a water outage in her neighborhood.  It looked like it was going to be a couple hours to fix the issue.

Sure enough, a few hours later around mid-afternoon, Mary received another e-mail with the Subject “Water outage is fixed.” It was a long e-mail, but the Subject seemed to say it all, so she went back to her work.  When Mary got home and got a snack, she brought a glass to the kitchen faucet to get a drink of water.  Out of that faucet came some of the most disgusting looking and smelling brown water you’ve ever unexpectedly seen sputtering out of a faucet.  Nasty!

After the initial shock, it clicked with her that this was probably because of the water outage and whatever work they were doing to fix the pipes. So, she let the water run in the sink for about 5 minutes, but it still wasn’t clear and still smelled pretty bad.  She called the utility’s information center, but they were closed for the day.

Frustrated, she got something else to drink, made a quick dinner, and watched TV.  After dinner, she went back to the e-mail to see if there was some other way she could get in touch with somebody to let them know about the water quality issue.

Going Back to the Notification

She started reading the e-mail, going through paragraph after paragraph, and all of a sudden she read that the water could be brown after a repair such as this, and she needed to use a high-volume outlet – like either run the garden hose or run water in the bathtub – to get a lot of water cleared out of the pipes quickly so that water quality could get back to normal.

The information she needed was in the e-mail, but it was buried late in the message.  It wasn’t highlighted; there was no bolded header.

Highlighting the Points Most Important to the Customer

What could the utility have done better in this situation?  It could have realized that what was most important to the customer was having water quality and knowing her part to get clean water again.  The organization could have highlighted those points up front instead of expecting the customer to read through several paragraphs to see if there was anything important they needed to know or do.

When something is important to convey, don’t assume the customer’s going to read every detail.  Put the pertinent information up front.

Don’t bury the Lede.

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Confirm the Real Issue Before You Start Solving – 3/10/26

Posted on March 10, 2026 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

Have you ever gone “down the rabbit hole?”  It involves going deep into some topic, some discussion – with analysis that creates complexity as much as it resolves it.  And that dive into the rabbit hole often starts with a simple question.

Going down that rabbit hole takes time and energy.  In customer service, sometimes that extensive effort is needed, but sometimes it’s not.

Since effort is required to get at the answer, we want to avoid going down that rabbit hole whenever possible.  And if we need to dive in, let’s ensure we’re at least going down the right rabbit hole to help the customer.

They had a poor experience at your office, but what aspect of the experience turned them off?  Was it the people or the process or the layout or the temperature in the room?

They had issues with your website, but what were the types of issues that they encountered, and what device were they using to access the website?

They had a question about the status of their application, but are they concerned with: Estimated time to resolve, or whether their application was received, or who had it, or what stage it was in the process?

For each of these examples, we could make the assumption for what the issue was, at the office, with the website, with their application.  And we could go down a rabbit hole of investigation that didn’t address their core need.

Or…we could ask a few clarifying questions to make sure we knew exactly what they were seeking or curious about.  Then, we could confirm the real issue before we determined how to get them an answer.  We could know whether we really needed to go down a rabbit hole, and – if so – which one to jump into.

Before you start solving, confirm the real issue.

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One Question to Prevent a Follow-up Call – 3/3/26

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

The way some performance metrics work, you would think companies would prefer for their staff to talk to the same customer 4 times on the same topic for 8 minutes each rather than talking to them once for 10 minutes.  Many management metrics are too focused on average length of call rather than reducing the number of callbacks or increasing first call resolution.  It’s a transactional mindset from management that can trickle down to a transactional mindset from staff – where representatives become more focused on getting off the phone quickly than trying to avoid the even more inefficient follow-up call.

But we want to be smarter than that.  We want to be willing to extend a call by 1-2 minutes if it means avoiding 1-2 future calls on the same topic.  So, if there’s One Question you could ask to prevent a follow-up call, what would it be?  Well, I’m going to give you several examples of that “One Question” to ask:

  • Did you get your question answered?
  • Is there anything else I can help you with while we’re talking?
  • Did you get your need fully addressed?
  • What else can I do for you today?
  • Is there anything else you want to know about before we wrap up our call?

 
There’s nothing magical about these questions.  They’re all variations of the same theme.  Even though you think you have fully addressed their need, before you wrap up, convey a little patience.  Uncover whether there’s anything else related to your response that would be good to cover while you have them on the phone.

This One Question could avoid them having to figure out who to call when that other need pops in their mind.  It avoids them having to wade through your call queue and wait to get on the phone with one of your co-workers (or YOU!) again.  It could avoid your teammate having to open the call and close the call and ask all the discovery questions in the middle; it would avoid having the customer repeat themselves to refresh your co-worker on prior discussions. This One Question could avoid your co-worker having to read through all the detailed notes on the prior call for them to get up-to-speed.

Convey patience before the close.  Ask one more question to prevent the follow-up call.

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