best practice | Customer Service Solutions, Inc.

Be Supportive, Not Defensive - 10/7/25


[An employee on the phone with a customer…] Who told you that you didn’t have to submit that form? … Bob?  Oh brother!  You see Bob is our “special” co-worker.  He seems to always tell customers the wrong thing to do, and we’re having to clean up after him.  Read more

Some Customers LOVE Predictability - 9/30/25


I was facilitating focus groups of businesses that utilize local government services.  The phrase that popped up multiple times was “Time Is Money!”  What these municipal customers were conveying was that their time was valuable, and delays were wasting their time.  But the conversations were not just about how Read more

Find Your Special Sauce - 9/23/25


When I watch a football game and I see a great quarterback (somebody who may be considered a “Star”), he might be an excellent runner, have a big arm, be able to diagnose the defense and get his team into the right play.  But he’s likely not great at Read more

Gain Control of the Conversation - 9/16/25


The customer’s angry or upset or they have a complaint.  They’re very chatty or very wordy or they just want to talk to somebody.  You’re on a time crunch, and the customer obviously is not. There are times when you need to gain control of the conversation.  It’s important for Read more

Complement with a Compliment - 9/9/25


We perform many tasks for our customers every day, and when we’re done with a step in the process, oftentimes we will tell the customer what’s been done.  But if we want to create more of a WOW experience, if we want to make the customer feel a little Read more

When Patience Begets Patience - 9/2/25


Jennifer, the server, walked toward the couple in the restaurant.  The customers had been seated for a minute or two, and they noticed the server was walking briskly toward their table.  Jennifer recognized the couple she was about to serve, because they had been in the previous week. Since the Read more

Address the Expectations that Were Set - 8/26/25


Before the caller ever got to Marco – the customer service representative, the customer had been working with the company for months.  They had read the marketing brochures, had a conversation with a sales rep, reviewed the new customer information on the website, and read all the information e-mailed Read more

When Technology Fails the Customer - 8/19/25


Technology is a wonderful thing…until it isn’t.  The website is down, the mobile app won’t work, the system keeps kicking them out of their account, or they received a spoofing phone call supposedly from your department. If you’ve ever been manning the phones or managing the department inbox, you know Read more

The Misunderstood Physician - 8/12/25


I was speaking with one of my personal physicians years ago, and when we were talking about my work – particularly customer satisfaction research - he started talking about online physician ratings.  He lamented that a few low ratings were dinging his overall score.  Then he shared that the Read more

Uncover Silent Concerns - 8/5/25


One of the customer service statistics we have quoted many times over the years is:  For every complaint you do hear, there could be 26 other customer issues that you don’t hear. And when we bring up that statistic, we bring it up because we want to make sure companies Read more

Become a Best Practice – 11/26/19

Posted on in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

When evaluating the service that our clients provide to their customers, we look at all sorts of things – from employee attitudes to knowledge, from service skills to procedures, systems, and technology.  We look at navigation to and within the facilities, and we look at layout and signage and how they help to direct.  We notice when expectations are set, and how expectations are met.

The reason we’re looking at all these different factors is that different customers evaluate their service experience in different ways.  Consider the Millennial view v. the Boomer view.  This could be a first-time customer evaluation v. a long-term client perspective.  This could be the perspective of somebody who’s never utilized anyone in your industry v. those who have experienced your particular line of business in other parts of the country.

And although there are varied customers with varied evaluation points about their experiences, oftentimes Best Practices have certain key characteristics.  Evaluate yourself, your team, or your organization against some of these key qualities of Best Practice Customer Experiences:

  • The experience is consistently good, regardless of time-of-day, day-of-week, who the employee is, or whether it’s a call, meeting, e-mail, web visit, or online chat.
  • Staff are proactive, and there is an air of positivity and pleasantness from the staff.
  • Staff are patient, and processes are quick; when they’re not quick, there are frequent updates provided to customers.
  • There’s more of a focus on what can be done than what cannot be done.
  • Customers don’t need to know the process or know the business or know the employees to have a really good experience.
  • Everything from the web to the facility to the paperwork is intuitive to customers.
  • There is personalization and appreciation for the customer.

 
If you want to be the best you can be, then look at these characteristics of Best Practice experiences.

Make them a part of your everyday and every interaction.

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