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How to Avoid “Groundhog Day” - 11/3/26


It’s Groundhog Day, where you’re living the same day over and over and over again. You have heard basically the same complaint from 4 different customers in the past week.  The bill is incorrect or confusing, and you’re having to spend a ton of time explaining things to the customer. You’ve Read more

Beware of Scary Telephone Customer Service - 10/27/26


As we near the Halloween holiday in the United States, it seems appropriate to discuss examples of scary customer service, particularly on the telephone.  Here are a few common issues that frustrate and annoy customers.  These are experiences to avoid delivering, and alternatives to adopt: The customer calls, describes their Read more

The Art of the Successful Script - 10/20/26


You’re the customer.  You go to the store, and they ask if you have a loyalty card.  You call the doctor’s office, and they ask for your birth date.   You walk up to the counter, and they ask if you found everything you were looking for. These are all valid Read more

The Key Building Block for Your Customer Relationship - 10/13/26


An automotive manufacturer gets supplies for their vehicles from all over the world.  They have arrangements, service level agreements, expectations for timing and quality of all the parts.  And when they gather all these supplies, they assemble the cars.  They test the cars.  Then they take pictures of those Read more

Be Flexible to Fill the Gaps - 10/6/26


The non-profit has the expected challenges.  There are only 3 people in the organization, yet, they have the same responsibilities of a larger company.  They have to do finance, sales, marketing; they deliver their services to the community, and they need to keep a pulse on what’s going on Read more

Is This Good Customer Service? - 9/29/26


A friend of mine reached out to me recently as she waited for the electrical technician to show up at her house to do some minor repairs.  She had never worked with this company before, but they sent a text about the tech who was soon to arrive. The message Read more

Ownership when Fixing Others’ Errors - 9/22/26


We were conducting training with a client recently, and one of the participants, Jackie, is in a role in his organization where he goes out to the customer site to investigate issues, address customer complaints, and fix problems.  While he’s at the site, he often gets an earful from Read more

Why “No” is So Important - 9/15/26


The employee told the caller: “I don’t think that is possible.” The customer eventually hung up, and redialed to ask a different employee the same question. The employee responded to the customer: “That’s probably not the best way to do it.”  Then, the customer kept asking question after question, arguing Read more

It’s Not “You,” It’s “I” - 9/8/26


During a business writing course that I took years ago, the instructor had us write an e-mail.  I can’t recall if it was written to a co-worker or customer, but after writing this e-mail, she had us count every “I” and “You.”  We talked about how we need to Read more

It Shouldn’t Make a Difference, But… - 9/1/26


We have this conversation with lots of our sports clients, but the principles apply across all different industries.  Too many service representatives view a conversation with a customer as a transaction.  Just get him off the phone as quickly as possible.  The customer is Joe Public, not Joseph Pendergrass.  Read more

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You Want to Talk to a Person

Posted on April 28, 2011 in Business Advice, Education Please leave a 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/