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Is Their Poor Planning Your Emergency? - 12/17/24


Have you ever heard the saying:  Your poor planning is not my emergency. I’ve heard it said often – not necessarily directly from one person to another.  More typical is that I hear it from the person having to drop everything and do something immediately because someone else didn’t think Read more

Empathy Examples for Everyday Situations - 12/10/24


I’ve often said that empathy is the single most important characteristic of people who are great at customer service.  If empathy is essentially “to understand the other person,” it helps so much to have that ability in order to specifically help someone.  To talk to what’s unique about them.  Read more

Tell Them Why You’re Giving Thanks - 12/3/24


Thank you! Merci! Danke! Doumo! Gracias! It seems like every language has a translation of Thank You.  Even though I only fluently speak English and speak Spanish, un poco, I – and probably most of you – have heard some or all of the translations of "Thank You” noted above.  Read more

Refine Your Decision-making Process - 11/26/24


Every day, you make decisions of what to do and what not to do.  And in the world of customer service, often the affected parties are our customers, our co-workers, and our company.  Here are a few quotes to consider when you’re thinking about evaluating and refining your decision-making Read more

Acting on the Guiding Principles for Great Customer Service - 11/19/24


In last week’s tip, we shared 5 Guiding Principles for Great Customer Service.  This week, let’s address what “taking action” looks like on those key principles.  If last week was about what to do and WHY, this week is about the HOW. Engage with Interest: To engage with interest, proactively Read more

Guiding Principles for Great Customer Service - 11/12/24


It’s hard to know every procedure, every policy, every technique possible to handle every situation correctly.  After all, maybe our procedures are standard, but our customers are not.  Maybe our policies stay pretty consistent, but our customers’ needs and issues, their attitudes and actions can change from customer to Read more

From a Simple Question to an Exceptional Experience - 11/5/24


Phyllis loves her job.  It’s not just because she loves being a customer service representative, not just because she really likes her co-workers, and not just because she enjoys her company.  It’s because she really appreciates her customers, as well. A customer had ordered a register book off the company Read more

Fix One Problem without Creating Another - 10/29/24


If you’ve ever had an issue with your dishwasher, this will sound familiar.  I’ve dealt with so many dishwashers over the years, and they always seem to have some kind of an issue.  Maybe it’s because of the mix of water and technology, but for whatever reason, these never Read more

Delight Your Customers - 10/22/24


Buddy the Bug Man was different.  His company was new, and the only reason why Janet tried him out was that the service she had used for years just wasn’t working.  Whether it was mosquitoes in the yard, ants in the kitchen, or cockroaches flying through on their way Read more

A More Complete Definition of Responsiveness - 10/15/24


I was purchasing something recently that was being custom-developed.  At one point, the company’s employee and I had a good 20 e-mails going back and forth - 10 from each of us.  Unfortunately, I broke my own rule, and I did not pick up the phone after 2 or Read more

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The Higher Ed Student Retention Strategy – The Upfront Approach

Posted on March 22, 2012 in Business Advice, Education Please leave a comment

If more students stay for four years, then more will graduate. Hmmm. It’s so simple…it’s brilliant!!

But there’s one problem – how do you get students to stay?

In the article Better student retention will help graduation rate, it’s noted how Oklahoma University’s President, David Boren, is trying to increase its graduation rate by increasing year-to-year retention of students – particularly from the Freshman to Sophomore year when the greatest loss occurs.

While this is a smart strategy, the meat of any strategy is based on understanding the true root causes of student loss. So here are four items to determine if you want to get at the causes of student loss and the strategies for retention:

  • Determine if you’re accepting the right students for your college/university. Review characteristics (financial, demographic and otherwise) of past students who have graduated and note differences from those who did not graduate. Make sure you’re accepting those with profiles that tend toward graduation.
  • Determine students’ technical/educational preparedness for success. Understand the cognitive/educational/learning skills vital for success so that a plan can be developed upfront to address any barriers to success.
  • Determine students’ personal/social preparedness for success. Learn about the social “baseline” of incoming students to ensure that – where a plan or resources are needed – students are helped to assimilate into the college culture.
  • Determine students’ expectations of the experience. Ask what they expect, manage unrealistic expectations upfront, and create plans that enable students to have the best chance of getting those expectations met.

Gauge each student’s likelihood for success, so that their time and yours are well-spent on their collegiate journey.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more at our new website! http://www.cssamerica.com/


Schools Should be in the Business of Providing Customer Service

Posted on February 15, 2012 in Business Advice, Education Please leave a comment

In a New York Times School Book article titled “Parents Deserve the Best Customer Service…,” a New York City Charter school principal – Jim Manly – tells parents “you deserve the best customer service on the planet.” (I should just say “Amen,” but that would be too short a post).

We’ve performed customer service training and even mystery shopping for K-12 schools, community colleges, and universities, and the reason is that some educational organizations do “get it.” They realize that – when parents base decisions on where to send their child, or what attitude they’ll have with an employee, or the opinion about the school that they’ll share with a friend – they base those decisions, attitudes, and opinions on the people they interact with, what’s it like to work with a school, and the quality of the education itself.

So the quality of the education is important, but the respect conveyed, responsiveness to needs and inquiries, timeliness of action, and ease of doing business with the school also matter to most parents. Therefore, schools, community colleges, and universities must have a competitive attitude of “I need to earn the parent’s trust” and “I need to earn the right to teach their child” and “I need to earn their respect by how I interact with them, work with them, and teach their children.”

These tenets of great customer service apply to most any business. If more businesses felt like it was up to them to earn the trust, the business, and the respect of their customers, then we would all be providing truly GREAT customer service.

Use customer service to earn your customer’s respect and repeat business.

Listen to our latest podcast episode of “Stepping Up Service” on The MESH Network at http://themesh.tv/stepping-up-service/

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more at our new website! http://www.cssamerica.com/


You Want to Talk to a Person

Posted on April 28, 2011 in Business Advice, Education 1 Comment

You want to talk to a person. Not get a text; not receive an e-mail; you want to talk to a person – live.

That’s the summary of a recent American Express survey released. In a recent Wall Street Journal article about the survey results, approximately 90% of those who responded wanted to have their inquiries addressed by people on the phone. About 75% would like a face-to-face encounter, and 67% would utilize a website to get their question answered. Approximately 70% of customers are willing to spend more with a business providing good customer service.

So people still want to talk to…well, people. And if that employee is providing good customer service, the majority would be willing to pay more for that higher level of customer service.

What this means strategically for your business is that your decisions about what method of service delivery to use, what method of responding to inquiries to select – those decisions should not be made based on the pure “cost per transaction” question. They should be based on who are your customers, what do they prefer, how much are they willing to spend to have personalized interactions and higher levels of customer service.

Income Statements have a Revenue section along with the Expense section, so when companies make decisions that impact how they interact with customers, they need to think of the revenue impact – not just the cost per unit.

An Education industry client said that university students prefer to receive updates of upcoming events via text, not e-mail. So I’m not suggesting you always go the telephone or face-to-face route. But what I am suggesting is to first do the research to understand what your customers want and for what they’re willing to pay a little extra.

Don’t make assumptions. Ask the customer what they want, determine the FULL impact on your organization of delivering that, and then make the right decision.

Read our New Book – “Ask Yourself…Am I GREAT at Customer Service?” http://www.amigreatat.com/

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more at our new website! http://www.cssamerica.com/


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