Customer Service Tip of the Week

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Complement Empathy with Action - 8/4/26


A man falls into a hole, and he can’t get out.  He starts yelling for help, and a doctor walks by and looks down the hole.  The man in the hole yells to the doctor “Please help me.  I’ve fallen into this hole!”  And the doctor takes out a Read more

My 8-Minute Visit at the DMV- 7/28/26


I needed to get a Real ID, which in North Carolina facilitates airline travel and other identity verifications.  My wife suggested I go to one particular DMV that was a LONG way away from home, but where she had experienced great customer service.  I was lucky to find an Read more

When They Might Walk Out the Door…Permanently- 7/21/26


Have you ever had one of those conversations with the customer where they literally tell you they’re about to stop doing business with your company?  This is it.  They may bring up a competitor or found another way to get their need met, or they are just leaving. When we Read more

Transparency in Customer Service- 7/14/26


We’ve worked with a lot of clients in the local government sector, and many of these clients have Customer Service Standards and/or corporate values that include Transparency. Think about an old-fashioned transparency sheet, that malleable see-through page you put on an overhead projector.  You can see everything on one side Read more

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

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Let Dialogue Drive Service Delivery – 10/6/15 TOW

Posted on October 6, 2015 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


In talking with a client recently, they shared their approach to developing future services. Thinking 10 years down the road, they noted how technology, the community, and customer needs all would change.

This is a company with strong relationships with customers, and although they value innovation and creativity, what they value most is the relationship with their customers.

The core of their development of new services was described, and if you pulled out all the fancy terminology and new age infographics, their approach to new service development is simply based on having ongoing dialogue with customers.

The company described an iterative process where they initiate dialogue with current customers and non-customers. They ask about changing needs, preferences, and desires. They ask anticipatory questions about future trends, and they ask about what the company could best do with services and the experience used to deliver the services.

In short, they let customer dialogue drive the approach to service delivery.

Your customers use your services, they pay for your products, they judge your experience, and they stay or leave – they talk you up or down with friends – based on their opinion of your organization.

Uncover what they want and need and how they’d like to receive it, then deliver on those desires.

Let Dialogue Drive Service Delivery.

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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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