Customer Service Tip of the Week | Customer Service Solutions, Inc. - Page 53

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Highlight the Hidden Value - 7/1/25


Marketing campaigns often highlight a particular product and ALL the features and extras that the customer will receive… “For 3 low, low payments of only $39.99, you not only get these world-renowned chef knives, but you can also get this free laser-etched spatula!  AND THAT’S NOT ALL!  We will also Read more

Don’t Harp on the Customer’s Mistake - 6/24/25


Seth’s daughter, Sarah, had missed some swim classes, and Seth remembered that the aquatics center had several make-up classes available late in the summer.  So Seth pulled up the class schedule on his phone, found one that worked on his and Sarah’s schedules, and planned to attend a session Read more

Create Customers for Life - 6/17/25


Veronica has gone to the same automotive service shop for at least 20 years.  She bought a new car about a year ago, and this is the third car she’s brought to the shop instead of taking her car to the dealer where she bought it.  She’s had three Read more

Don’t Turn the Customer into the QA Department - 6/10/25


Roberta received a form with information filled in by the company after her conversation with the account rep.  Roberta just needed to review the information, fill in some of the blanks, sign it, and resend it in order to set up a new account. She noticed that the effective date Read more

Imitate to Improve - 6/3/25


Oscar Wilde said that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”  Now this doesn’t mean that plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.  Nor does it mean that great impersonators such as Rich Little, Dana Carvey, or Frank Caliendo are always offering flattering portrayals of those that they imitate. Wilde’s Read more

How the Customer Perceives a Truth as a Lie - 5/27/25


You’re the customer, you’re asking about an unused item that you’re returning, and you hear the employee say: “The refund process takes 7-10 days.”  You’re thinking: “Great!  I can get the refund check as early as a week from today!”  The reality is that the company means that they’ll Read more

Tell Customers What’s Next - 5/20/25


In most businesses that have been around for a while, how a process was originally designed is not how it currently operates.  Sometimes this change is referred to as “practical drift,” where the actual process moves further and further away from the documented steps over time.  Maybe the changes Read more

Questions to Guide You to Empathy - 5/13/25


“If I was him, I would do ABC…” If you’ve ever heard somebody say this - whether it’s a friend or acquaintance, whether it’s some TV reporter or podcaster - you may get as frustrated or as annoyed as I do. I get annoyed because we are not that other person. Read more

Negate the Nervousness - 5/6/25


The customer needed a loan, so he walked into the bank, but he was a little nervous.  He knew that launching his business would be easier if he had some working capital, but that’s about all he knew.  He was anxious because he didn’t know what to expect in Read more

Don’t Rush to Resolve Quickly - 4/29/25


The customer is angry, so you use the CSS LEAD technique as designed.  You, listen, empathize, accept responsibility, and deliver on a remedy.  But it doesn’t work.  The customer is still upset, and maybe even a little more frustrated than when you started…why?! If the use of this technique fails, Read more

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Become a Great Teacher – 7/5/22

Posted on July 5, 2022 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

Are you one of those people who really liked school?  School is always made more enjoyable by great teachers and professors.

Do you love sports?  Many coaches in football and basketball, in hockey and baseball view themselves as teachers…teaching the game they love to their team.

True leadership is about growing your people…teaching them…educating them…providing the wisdom of your experience so that they can improve, maybe even more quickly than you did in your professional life.

The common thread in these comments about teachers, coaches, and business leaders is their role as a teacher, an educator.

Every one of us, regardless of whether we’re in a leadership role in the organization or not, needs to view ourselves, in part, as a teacher.  We are educators of our customers.

For a new customer, if we want them to have the best experience possible, we need to view ourselves as an educator, teaching them how to best work with the organization, navigate our processes, get the information they need, and learn how to have the best experience possible.

When resolving an issue, we need to let the customer know their role in making the resolution happen.  We need them to be clear on what’s going to happen next, what to expect, what we’re going to do for them, and how they can avoid similar situations in the future.

And if we want to grow business with our customer, we need to educate them on other products and services, other ways that they can get value out of their experience with us.  We need to constantly build their awareness and knowledge of how they can grow their satisfaction in being a customer of ours, how they can deepen their relationship with our organization.  And we do so by helping them to understand the products and services and experiences that will bring the greatest value to them.

For the benefit of your customers, become a great educator.

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Don’t Assume Their Motivation – 6/28/22

Posted on June 28, 2022 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

The company was instituting new human resources policies aimed at holding employees accountable for being late to work.  Employee lateness had been rising, and management wanted to make sure they reinforced the need for people to be on time.

At a meeting to roll out the new policies, a leader stood up in front of his staff and said:  The new policy states that if you’re late to work once, you will get a verbal warning.  If you are late to work a second time, you’ll get a written warning.  If you’re late to work 3 times, you have to take a day off without pay.  And for every other day that you’re late, you have to take an additional day off without pay.

One of the young employees raised their hand, and said:  Just to clarify, I only need to be late for work 3 times, and I get to have a day off?  And every other time I’m late, I get another day off?

The leader looked quizzically at the employee, and said:  Yes…uh, that’s correct.

The employee said to himself:  Cool!

One person’s punishment may be another person’s motivation.  One person’s carrot may be another person’s deterrent.

We cannot assume that everybody is wired the same way, with the same things that get them excited, or make them apathetic, or inhibit their behaviors.  Whether we’re talking about people who report to us, peers that we’re trying to influence to change their decision or behavior, or customers who we are trying to get on board and do their part in a process or their part to accomplish a task, we can’t assume everybody’s motivators are the same.

Seek out the other individual’s goal or their preferences or their desires, and let that guide the approach we take to motivating.

Don’t assume their motivation.

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It’s Not Always About the Outcome – 6/21/22

Posted on June 21, 2022 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

We want the satisfied customer.  We want the issue resolved.  We want to be able to fix the error or save the client.  We want to feel good coming out of a conversation, or feel like we have accomplished something special.  We want the “win win.”

But all those great feelings and those accomplishments relate to outcomes.  And all too often, we do not control the outcome.

I did the best I could.

Sometimes we have to give ourselves some grace.  We have to realize that we’re not in control of the customer, our policy, our product, our facility, and oftentimes our process or the attitudes of our co-workers.

But there’s nobody in more control of us, than us.

So, if we do the best we could at preparing for the situation through training and practice and reading and learning and listening to others, we can feel good about that.  If we do the best we could in trying to understand the customer, we can feel good about that.  

If we think of potential solutions and we engage the customer and others to try to figure those out, if we tap into what our systems and our policies and our procedures have to offer, we can feel good about that.

The ultimate outcome or the feelings of others are things that we cannot control.

So, if we want to feel good personally regardless of the outcome, we need to do the best we can.  We can feel good about the effort and the actions, and not feel bad because we couldn’t create the perfect outcome.

Do the best you can to prepare and to engage and to try to help.  And instead of feeling bad about the outcome, try to feel a little bit better about the effort you put in preparing for that moment and putting that preparation into practice.

Feel good that you did the best you could.

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