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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

Energy v. Apathy - 4/22/25


I asked a couple friends who are much more scientifically-oriented the question: What is energy?  I didn’t mean E=MC2.  I meant physiologically, what is energy? They described a lot of things that sounded really good, yet far too advanced for my non-medical mind. Part of the reason why energy is of Read more

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The Sports Agent…Ethics and Customer Service

Posted on July 23, 2010 in Business Advice, Sports, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

The sports agent was moving into his new downtown office and was especially excited about the day. A friend of his had arranged for the agent to meet with a professional football player who was disgruntled with his current agent. The player wanted to meet the agent at his new office even though the agent was still in the process of moving. Not wanting to miss out on this opportunity, the agent told his friend to have the player meet him at the office in the morning.

The agent was sitting in his high-backed leather chair when he heard someone walking toward his door. “That’s him!,” thought the agent. So he picked up his phone, swung it around so he couldn’t see the door and began talking loud enough for anyone to hear.

“That’s right,” said the agent, “give my client a $2 million signing bonus or he tests the free agent market. We’re serious.”

After pausing for a few seconds, the agent said “then it’s a deal…$2 million. My client will be very happy.”

The agent turned his chair around and hung up the phone, but he didn’t see anybody in his office. He called to the lobby, “is somebody there?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the person in the lobby, “I’m here to install your phone.”

The sports agent wanted so badly to make a good first impression, that he crossed that ethical line. If that prospective client had been standing next to the phone technician, he would have turned around and walked away.

Now most salespeople have strong ethics. But the key point is that the entry point into your organization for a first-time customer sets the expectations for the company’s retention efforts. In your customer service role, you need to be VERY aware of the processes and people that acquire the customers for your business. What expectations do these individuals set? What image do they portray? What information do they gather that’s useful to your retention efforts?

Understand what the sales staff do and how it impacts your retention efforts.

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

Check out our new customer service book at http://www.amigreatat.com/


The Power of Thinking Big and Bigger – Steinbrenner and Welch

Posted on July 16, 2010 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

With the recent passing of George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees, fresh on our minds, it’s beneficial and timely to take a look at a couple core philosophies and actions that he undertook which would apply to any business.

If you start by looking at the outcomes of what he did, you identify tremendous revenue streams and many World Championships won.

But there was a lot that happened before that revenue and those championships were won. There were many managers hired and fired. There are many players who played for him. There was the rejection by his hometown of Cleveland when he wanted to own the Indians. He was suspended by Major League Baseball. But in the end, he persevered; he changed as a person and as a leader. And throughout this time, he was willing to spend money to get the best and brightest. He was willing to create his own entertainment network to promote his main product – the Yankees. And while the grandiose scale and financial resources of Steinbrenner are hard for us to imagine having ourselves, that mindset is not so hard to imagine.

So imagine we own a business, and our business is a sports franchise. And whether we want to increase our season ticket holder base, retain more season ticket holders, increase fans’ passion, or create our own internal “Raving Fans” in the minds and hearts of our employees, we have to think big. We get very little success in life if we look for and think about and expect very little. But we have the greatest opportunities to achieve big things if we think bigger.

I remember a story of how Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, went into some of the GE businesses to talk to the leadership in those businesses, and he congratulated them on their high market share. The leaders were pleased with the praise, but they had plateaued in their growth because they had such huge market share, and the markets just weren’t growing.

So Welch told them to redefine what their market was so that they would only be a small player in this newly redefined market. And once they did, the innovation, the creativity, and the growth all started to happen again.

Look at what you’re trying to accomplish as an organization, then take a step back to think big. Maybe you can or can’ t accomplish every idea you come up with, but just by viewing the possibilities, you’ll uncover new ways to think and to act and to succeed.

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

Check out our new customer service book at http://www.amigreatat.com/


Don’t Hibernate on Your Customers

Posted on July 6, 2010 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

Summer is the downtime for many sports – NBA, NFL, NHL, etc. But for the staff of those organizations, there is no downtime. This is a time to sell for the upcoming season, having completed renewals. But those organizations need to realize this is also the time to learn, to view their existing season ticket holders (STHs) as suppliers of the information needed to gain referrals, gain information on share partners, gain intelligence on the information needed to retain them in Spring 2011.

For sales to new STHs, this is the time to think renewal as well. At the initial sale, that’s the best time to know why they signed up for tickets, who are the share partners, what do they expect from the game day experience and their relationship with your organization, how do they prefer to communicate with you, and how/when do they expect to use their tickets.

There is no downtime in customer retention.

Don’t let retention efforts go into hibernation this summer.

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


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