Customer Service Tip of the Week | Customer Service Solutions, Inc. - Page 183

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See the Customer’s Journey from Their Perspective- 7/7/26


That customer is face-to-face with you right now, and you are fielding their questions or delivering your service to them.  And oftentimes and understandably, we are so immersed in the moment that we don’t think about what came before or think enough about what comes next. But in the life Read more

Gaining the Benefits of the Greeter- 6/30/26


Most likely, we’ve all entered some establishment – a retail store, restaurant, or service center - when there is a greeter at the door.  The most famous greeter position is probably the Walmart greeter.  I often thought that my father-in-law would have been a fantastic Walmart greeter, because he Read more

Seamlessness - Why the Customer Thanked You - 6/23/26


This doesn’t happen enough nowadays, but the employee received a long thank you e-mail from the customer.  A financial services account manager had taken care of the client during a period of time that was stressful for the customer. Life was unexpectedly changing quickly, and personal emotions, additional financial responsibilities, Read more

When to Avoid the Escalation - 6/16/26


The customer calls with a complaint, and the easy thing to do is to escalate it to your supervisor. That may also be the right thing to do, but how do you know when to avoid the escalation? Why You Would Escalate The first thing to consider is why you would Read more

Let’s be Clear on Clarity - 6/9/26


When trying to manage expectations, it’s vital to be clear with the customer.  But what specifically does it mean to be “clear?” Clarity is in the eyes and ears of the beholder, so what may be clear to one customer may be unclear to another.  However, there are some basic Read more

Allow Yourself to Solve a Couple Puzzles Every Day - 6/2/26


Frank had never been a dog owner before, and when he first got Bosco at the shelter, Frank didn't really know what he was doing.  He would try to be a good parent - feed the dog, play with it, take it on walks - but he was doing Read more

Improve with a Purpose - 5/26/26


If you’re reading these customer service tips, you likely want to get better.  You want an idea, a technique, a reinforcement, or a question that helps you improve. But why improve? At some point you may waver on the commitment to improve, because it can take effort, introspection, time, and change.  Read more

Reciprocate the Thanks - 5/19/26


Jasmine had a great experience with the company, and the company sent her a link to provide an online evaluation following the visit.  So, she clicked the link, gave a rating, and made a comment about her experience. The company monitored their online reviews, saw the positive response, and replied Read more

Don’t Skip the Recap - 5/12/26


The playoff hockey game goes on for almost 3 hours.  There’s non-stop action, with plenty of penalties and takeaways and hits against the boards…and a few goals, as well. You didn’t get to watch the whole game because you had other plans, but you wanted to know what happened.  So, Read more

Finalize the Solution with the 6 Step Checklist - 5/5/26


In last week’s Tip, we showed why and how to Use the 6 Step Checklist before Resolving the Issue.  We noted the importance of taking 15 seconds to mentally walk through the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How to feel confident that you know what’s needed to fix 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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