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Gain Control of the Conversation - 9/16/25


The customer’s angry or upset or they have a complaint.  They’re very chatty or very wordy or they just want to talk to somebody.  You’re on a time crunch, and the customer obviously is not. There are times when you need to gain control of the conversation.  It’s important for Read more

Complement with a Compliment - 9/9/25


We perform many tasks for our customers every day, and when we’re done with a step in the process, oftentimes we will tell the customer what’s been done.  But if we want to create more of a WOW experience, if we want to make the customer feel a little Read more

When Patience Begets Patience - 9/2/25


Jennifer, the server, walked toward the couple in the restaurant.  The customers had been seated for a minute or two, and they noticed the server was walking briskly toward their table.  Jennifer recognized the couple she was about to serve, because they had been in the previous week. Since the Read more

Address the Expectations that Were Set - 8/26/25


Before the caller ever got to Marco – the customer service representative, the customer had been working with the company for months.  They had read the marketing brochures, had a conversation with a sales rep, reviewed the new customer information on the website, and read all the information e-mailed Read more

When Technology Fails the Customer - 8/19/25


Technology is a wonderful thing…until it isn’t.  The website is down, the mobile app won’t work, the system keeps kicking them out of their account, or they received a spoofing phone call supposedly from your department. If you’ve ever been manning the phones or managing the department inbox, you know Read more

The Misunderstood Physician - 8/12/25


I was speaking with one of my personal physicians years ago, and when we were talking about my work – particularly customer satisfaction research - he started talking about online physician ratings.  He lamented that a few low ratings were dinging his overall score.  Then he shared that the Read more

Uncover Silent Concerns - 8/5/25


One of the customer service statistics we have quoted many times over the years is:  For every complaint you do hear, there could be 26 other customer issues that you don’t hear. And when we bring up that statistic, we bring it up because we want to make sure companies Read more

Talk Yourself Up to Take Down Their Anxiety - 7/29/25


I believe that most customer service people are pretty humble, so I’m not asking you to lose your humility.  But I do have one ask of you… When that customer is anxious or nervous, when they fear the future because the future is unknown or it could be laced with Read more

Use Little Acts to Make a Big Impact - 7/22/25


A WOW Experience is not always one instance, one act that blows away the customer.  It’s not always an over-the-top-the-employee-saved-the-day act of brilliance.  Sometimes a WOW is the sum total of a series of little things that others don’t do – those actions that differentiate you from others.  The Read more

Avoid Some Stress by Addressing Issues Quickly - 7/15/25


It’s good customer service to resolve issues quickly.  The customer sees the light at the end of the tunnel.  They more quickly bring their anxiety and stress, their negative emotions down.  And they more quickly get to a solution. But this tip is not about them.  This tip is about Read more

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Make Surveys Worth It – 9/29/15 TOW

Posted on September 29, 2015 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


How many customer surveys has your company conducted since you’ve been working at your current employer? Some of you may answer 1,263 – roughly speaking – and others may answer zero.

The results could be many data points, many responses, many comments and analysis and findings and conclusions…or zero.

To make surveys worth conducting, worth the time, worth the money and the blunt feedback, the results have to be used. But even before that, the results have to be worth using.

Before conducting your next survey, think about these key categories of content.

The first is obvious. Find out what’s important to your customer – about the experience, the product/service, the relationship with your business. Find out their satisfaction with those same attributes so you can see where the biggest gap is between importance and satisfaction.

The second may be less obvious. Gauge your customer’s awareness. Many of the reasons for customer dissatisfaction, apathy, exit, confusion, or a poor experience comes down to this point – they just weren’t aware. They weren’t aware of your product offerings, your facility locations, the website functions, the right number to call or person to contact, how they could request a refund or lodge a complaint. They weren’t aware of a process or a service method; they didn’t know about perks and benefits.

The third content category for your surveys is change. Ask the customer about what is changing in their world, with their preferences, and with their desired experience. Have them to tell you the change so you can anticipate and plan for the changes you’ll need to make in your business to change with your customer. Don’t wait for them to leave in order for you to realize that you didn’t change fast enough.

Make your survey results worth using. Ask the right questions.

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Strengthen the Strength – 9/22/15 TOW

Posted on September 22, 2015 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


I was in a meeting recently with a client, and we were discussing continuous improvement. Although continuous improvement in most organizations revolves around identifying and fixing issues that are keeping you from being productive, effective, or great at customer service, this organization takes a slightly broader approach.

Along with addressing issues that need to be fixed, they also focus on using continuous improvement to “Strengthen the Strength.” Essentially, the organization encourages staff to identify their strengths and then work to get better and better and better. Similarly, the organization as a whole strives to build on its core competencies and strengths.

Let’s focus on the individual staff perspective. Maybe you’re somebody who is very organized, and yet you’re not very tech savvy. Identify technology solutions that can enhance your organizational skills. There are many apps and software products that are focused on organizing work, projects, brainstorming, social media management, e-mails – virtually any aspect of business.

Let’s assume you’re someone who is highly responsive. That means that you’re responding to all messages with an e-mail reply typically the same day. So how do you strengthen that strength? Maybe you could ensure that along with responding that you’ve received the message, you also convey what next step will occur and by when. Maybe you’re normally communicating back via e-mail the same day because you prefer e-mail, but you begin learning how your clients prefer to communicate, and you begin using their preferred communication method instead.

At the organizational level, you can also use your strength for the greater good. You may be somebody who is very outgoing; use that positive nature to make connections between different divisions of the organization that may not know each other well but that need to know each other well for the organization to perform better.

You may be very analytical; instead of using your analytical ability just in the normal course of your own work, you could volunteer for continuous improvement teams and provide the type of analysis that gets to root causes and potential solutions.

When you think about continuously improving yourself, down just focus on fixing issues.

Strengthen the Strength.

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Avoid the Overpromise – 9/15/15 TOW

Posted on September 15, 2015 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


Bill called tech support to ask about an issue with one of the company websites. After he gave the representative a brief description of the issue, the representative immediately and enthusiastically said “I can DEFINITELY help you with that!” After ten minutes on the phone, it became obvious that the representative couldn’t help and that his statement was merely a script.

The government employee received the building design plans from the architect and told him that the plans would be reviewed in 20 days. It was the first of the month, so the architect thought the plans would be reviewed by the 21st. On the 22nd, having heard nothing about the status of the plan review, the architect called the reviewer.

“No, they’re not ready,” said the reviewer. “I told you 20 days. It took us a couple days of administrative work to get these into review, then it’s 20 business days for review. Then it will take about 2-3 days to get the comments into the system for you to review and respond. So you should be able to review comments by the 5th of next month.”

These are two real-life examples of a company overpromising and a customer being upset with the result. In the website scenario, the employee conveyed hope – which can be good – but he made it sound so definitive that he set unrealistic expectations based on a brief understanding of the issue before knowing the true cause of the problem.

In the second case, the overpromise was due to communication issues. The statement “20 days” – while it seems straightforward – can mean two different things to two different people. There was no clarification of what that meant. If the employee said “the 5th of next month” from the start, there would have been no risk of overpromise.

When working with customers, convey hope if you think you can help, but temper it with a dose of realism. And when setting expectations for timeframes, be clear on what will happen and by when.

Don’t create the irate customer. Avoid the Overpromise.

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