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A Simple Phrase to Transform Your Customer Feedback Approach - 2/18/25


I went to a restaurant called Big Ed’s (no relation) in Raleigh, NC recently.  It’s basically country cooking with fantastic breakfast options!  On the menu there was a quote that said: If you enjoyed your meal, tell a friend.  If not, please tell us. That was an excellent statement that embodies Read more

What Phones and Football Have in Common - 2/11/25


Congratulations!  You made it through weeks/months of hype for football’s Super Bowl!  You made it through hundreds of pregame shows and podcasts, endless debates on things endlessly inconsequential, 10 hours of pre-game shows on Sunday, what seems like 100 commercials designed specifically for the “Big Game,” and the longest Read more

Create Awareness of Alternatives - 2/4/25


Sandy was hungry, and she was on the move.  Driving between meetings, she saw the restaurant sign and pulled in.  The fast-food restaurant had two drive-thru lanes.  One was for any customer who wanted to place an order on the spot. The other was for mobile orders only.  The Read more

Listen with Your Eyes - 1/28/25


Out of the corner of his eye, Patrick saw the customer enter the lobby.  The customer was carrying a large shoulder bag with several papers in her hand.  The customer was shuffling the papers and looking down; then she stopped, looked up, and saw the staff navigator sitting at Read more

When You’re the Educator, What Should You Teach? - 1/21/25


The best customer service professionals are also excellent educators.  Not only within the organization, but I’m talking specifically about the role they play as educator with their customers.  With all the self-service options that technology provides, customers often have the opportunity to do things on their own, to investigate Read more

Wrap It Up Right: Why Follow-Up Communications WOW Customers - 1/14/25


Dena had some questions about her water bill, so she looked for answers on the utility’s website.  She didn’t find specific answers, and she really didn’t want to get on the phone with somebody at the time and risk staying on hold.  She had lots going on, but she Read more

From Conversation to Connection: Defining Customer Engagement - 1/7/25


Maggie was sitting in the Service Excellence Training class, and the instructor kept talking about staying engaged with the customer.  Proactively engaging the customer.  Being fully engaged in the conversation. After hearing this same phrase (“engage”) used in various ways, Maggie raised her hand and asked a question probably several Read more

Self-empower for the New Year - 12/31/24


Jeff joined the company, in part, because he loved their approach to culture.  Leadership tried to create an empowerment culture.  They tried to develop an environment where, within certain parameters, individual team members could make a decision and feel confident that they would be supported by leadership. The reality was Read more

2024 Holiday Poem - 12/24/24


I sometimes hear it said That things have never been like this before. That challenges are unique, That stresses seem like more.   I sometimes hear it said That we're asked to do much more with less. That workloads are increasing, And we're resource-constrained at best.   And others often say That things are really very good. That they enjoy those Read more

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

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Fan Loyalty is a Sun Devil of an Issue to Address

Posted on August 1, 2012 in Business Advice, Sports 1 Comment

To build fan loyalty, is it just about wins, or is it also about fan relations?

I talked with the owner of an NFL team years ago about building fan attendance, discussing with him the issues that the organization faced at the time. I asked about what initiatives the organization was taking in the area of fan relations. His response was that “only wins and weather drive fan attendance.”

Well if that were the case, then you could do mathematical calculations each year to determine how many fans would attend games. You wouldn’t need to do fan surveys, have security at games, offer concessions, have game day customer service staff, have account representatives, have sales staff (except to take orders), and generally do anything beyond open the doors to the stadium.

The real truth is that the game day experience matters. Relationships matter. Being valued as a fan matters. So do wins and weather, but there’s so much more to building loyalty than those aspects of the experience.

At Arizona State University, the athletics department is trying to build fan loyalty and relations. According to the article ASU athletics undergoing face-lift, changes in culture, fan relations, the new Vice President of Athletics, Steve Patterson, is trying to change the culture of the organization. He’s building personal accountabilities; he’s working to improve the game day experience; he’s ensuring facilities are conducive to communications and relationship-building with prospective and current student-athletes (and their families). He created a championship vision, and he’s trying to create a championship environment for the students, coaches, and fans. He’s trying to create an environment where success is facilitated.

To facilitate means “to make easy.” But there’s nothing easy about becoming a champion. However, individuals on the business side of athletics can have a significant impact on the ultimate success of a program in the minds of the fans. These individuals can impact relationships, word-of-mouth, reputations, and loyalty. They can impact the business side and help foster enthusiasm on the sports side.

Fan loyalty isn’t just about “Wins and Weather.” Fan loyalty is about the fan.

Check out some of our Sports industry services! http://cssamerica.com/csssport.htm

Listen to our podcast on Customer Service in Professional Sports


Use Hospital Data to Drive Patient Loyalty

Posted on July 26, 2012 in Business Advice, Healthcare Please leave a comment

What’s most important – Satisfaction or Loyalty? In healthcare, it’s not necessarily an either/or proposition. To get to loyalty, you typically need satisfaction. Building satisfaction is facilitated by multiple visits reinforcing positive experiences. But whereas data has been vital for decades in treating patients and measuring patient satisfaction, data is much more recently being tapped to track, predict, and facilitate patient loyalty.

In the article Where do Patients’ Loyalties Lie? Building Revenue by Improving Satisfaction, the author interviews a Texas data provider to address the use of data to drive loyalty in healthcare. The author quotes a data provider that stated “they should measure their performance on [satisfaction] drivers and develop strategies to close gaps and improve performance. Hospitals should first focus on the areas with the least satisfaction and where improvement is feasible.” The article then notes that “Another way to build loyalty among patients is to ensure easy access to the organization’s services.”

So a couple of the key points – that apply to any business – include:

  • Know Satisfaction Drivers – Your organization may measure satisfaction, but does your organization statistically correlate satisfaction of individual attributes to overall Satisfaction, Willingness to Return, Willingness to Recommend, and Loyalty? Identify satisfaction and retention drivers.
  • Prioritize Improvement Efforts on Satisfaction Drivers Performing Poorly – Your organization may try to improve on poor aspects of the customer experience, but is it improving on attributes of the experience that truly impact loyalty? In other words, try to improve on what really matters.
  • Ensure Ease of Access to Services – What barriers exist to customers accessing your services, your information, your answers? Assess your website’s ease of navigation, your phone system, your directional signage to the facility, and your employees’ responsiveness to needs and requests to make sure they facilitate customer contact, not impede it.

Target improvement efforts, and eliminate barriers to loyalty.

Want to improve your own personal customer service skills? Go to: http://www.amigreatat.com/


Federally-Driven Health Insurance and the Future of Customer Care

Posted on July 12, 2012 in Business Advice, Healthcare Please leave a comment

Who would want the Federal Government telling them what to do? Well…for a price…a lot of businesses. Many observers wonder why the insurance industry is behind the Federal Government mandating insurance coverage for all. The quick answer is this – if your product was mandated, how much would you fight Government involvement? If you’re Dunkin’ Donuts, and every individual in the country is required to eat a glazed donut every day, would you object? If you were Schwinn, and every person in America had to buy a new bike every year, would you object?

Yes, with that requirement will come a lot of oversight, but the insurance companies are looking in the short-term more at the increase in demand, not the increase in oversight.

And why are we discussing this? Because the structure of the legislation should result in at least one good thing for citizens – improved customer service from insurance companies. According to an article in Forbes magazine titled Why Customer Service Matters in the New Healthcare Insurance Landscape, insurers will “have to deal with challenges such as competition, price and margin pressure, and consumer education. In this environment, cost-effective, yet, reliable direct-to-consumer customer service before, during and after the initial “sale” will be a critical competence for success.”

The tips provided for the insurers in the article include the following:

1. Hire/retain great staff.

2. Make it easy for the customer to do business with you.

3. Go to the customer to serve them.

I made these tips a little more generic to illustrate the broader point of the article. No matter what kind of business you’re in, great customer service involves three core pieces: Your people, your processes, and your customers. Take all the strategies in the world on customer service, and boil it down to these three. Consider the following questions:

1. What are the characteristics of your best employees? Identify them, build those skills, and look to acquire others that have these best practice qualities.

2. How can you make things quick, self-evident, and simple on the customer do business with you? How can you make it equally as easy for your employees to deliver great service?

3. Determine where your customers make decisions, where they use your services, where they get information about your company and your competitors. What can you do to be more present with your customers?

If your business (or the health insurers themselves) answer these questions and take action, maybe the future of customer care may be a little brighter.

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

Check out our Healthcare Customer Service Consulting Services: http://cssamerica.com/csshealth.htm


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