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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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The Customer is Always Right? – 6/25/13 TOW

Posted on June 25, 2013 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

The customer was so upset, but about what? The event was “general admission,” so this customer thought that she and her husband could sit anywhere. Logical, right? Well, the e-mail from the arena staff noted that general admission only applied to certain sections. The husband got the e-mail; the wife was the one who got upset. After dialoguing with a customer service representative, the wife realized that her husband forgot to tell her that it was only for certain sections, and they were trying to get into a section which wasn’t general admission. They apologized to the representative and walked away.

At another arena well before game time, a fan arrived, and the seat attendant asked if she needed help finding her seat. The fan said “No, I’ve been here before.” She walked down a few steps and turned left down the row to a seat.

A few minutes later, two couples walked up to the seat attendant, and the seat attendant asked if they needed help finding their seats. The fans said “No, we’ve been here before.” So they walked down a few steps and turned left. They walked right toward the lady. The seat attendant watched as they talked with the lady. She then stood up, and the couples sat down. Then the lady walked toward the seat attendant and started complaining, griping, and blaming HIM for her sitting in the wrong seat.

The customer is not always right. Sometimes they’re really, really wrong. But the best in customer service find a way to treat the customer right, even if they’re wrong. It’s not easy to do; it may not be natural to do, but it’s the right thing to do.

Be the bigger person. Be in a service mindset even when the customer is wrong.

 


Does the Right Hand Know What the Left Hand is Doing?

Posted on August 28, 2012 in Business Advice, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

In many large companies, no, the right hand does NOT know what the left hand is doing.

I had 2 web chats and a telephone call with three different individuals with the same internet service in the past week and got 3 different answers. The last answer was best, so I went with that; it will make me more inclined to “answer shop” next time I have a question or need. That creates more work for the company I call, but they’ve brought it on themselves through their inconsistency.

In the article Time Warner should rethink its approach to customer service, something similar occurs. The writer tells the story of a customer who received a letter that told him to call TWC because the discounted rate period was about to expire. So the customer called and was told that TWC couldn’t do anything until the period expired. So why did they tell him to call in the letter?

When Time Warner was questioned about all the issues that the customer had in multiple communications with TWC, their response was “These two agents had other options for better customer service and need additional training.” Nothing like blaming the employee…but the root cause was not the employee. It was the company.

More than any other company, customers have brought up TWC as an example of a company with poor customer service; it’s the long waits; it’s the technician who cut one person’s cable when trying to disconnect their neighbor’s cable; it’s the inconsistencies; it’s the 4 hour windows for appointments or the long resolutions to problems. The occasional good customer service stories we hear about TWC relate to their social media monitoring of customer service issues, so they’re apparently pretty responsive to Twitter complaints.

But for any larger company with issues, consistent issues are not usually the fault of the employees. It’s the fault of a company without a cohesive strategy focused on customer service. It’s about a company that’s too compartmentalized. It’s about a company where the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.

Get consistent with customer service by first getting the whole organization on the same page.

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

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/


Don’t Fight the Fan

Posted on March 7, 2012 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

Don’t pick a fight with a customer. Don’t throw a baseball at them. Don’t kick a football in their direction. Don’t smack a slapshot over their head.

In the article Flyers touching third rail of fan relations, Phil Sheridan gives multiple examples of players chastising fans for complaining (about the play on the ice or a sign outside a stadium or performance on the field). The crux of the article is that it’s a big risk for a player to attack (verbally or otherwise) fans just because the fans are complaining. Even though many athletes don’t think fans understand what’s it’s like to be in their shoes, many athletes don’t understand the fan’s perspective, but they should be willing to learn.

When fans are passionate, they can impact a game. When they care for a team or club, they’ll spend money on them. And when fans impact a game or they spend money, they impact the organization and its players.

It’s the same thing with any other business. Customers have opinions, and if they care enough to voice those opinions, they’re conveying their passion. But they’re also giving you advice (on what to do differently or how to interact and engage them differently). The customers are sharing their expectations. And if customers care enough to complain, we need to care enough to encourage that dialogue and listen.

Studies have shown that customers are far more likely to stick with you if they complain than if they have an issue and don’t complain. They are far more like to stick with you if you address their issue than if you don’t.

Let the fan talk, vent, complain. Listen and learn. Encourage dialogue. Because if there’s dialogue, that means they’re engaged. When the dialogue stops, that’s when you should start to worry because that might indicate apathy and a lost customer.

Don’t shut down customer complaints.

If you liked this, you might like our podcast episode of “Stepping Up Service” called “Take a Football Approach to Culture Change”

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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