confirm

Home  /  Don’t Skip the Recap – 5/12/26  /  confirm

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

Use What the Customer Gives You - 8/25/26


Scenario #1: The customer sent an e-mail to the general inbox at the company.  The message noted that the customer needed to get a family member added to their account, but they couldn’t tell from the website how to do so. The next morning an employee opened up the e-mail, Read more

•••••

Don’t Skip the Recap – 5/12/26

Posted on May 12, 2026 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

The playoff hockey game goes on for almost 3 hours.  There’s non-stop action, with plenty of penalties and takeaways and hits against the boards…and a few goals, as well.

You didn’t get to watch the whole game because you had other plans, but you wanted to know what happened.  So, you pull up a summary online and scan through the article.  In a minute, you’ve gotten a good feel for the ebbs and flows of the game, you know who won, and you know when the next game is going to be held and where it will be televised.

In the world of customer service, the recap helps here, too.  We might have a customer conversation that lasts 2 minutes or 25.  I had an online chat recently that lasted an hour.  It was as painful as it was long.

And none of us can be expected to remember every detail of every conversation, nor does that serve a great purpose.  But in the world of customer service, if we’re going to spend this much time with the customer, if we’re going to hear all the questions and concerns, if we’re going to do all the investigation, if we’re going to map out what happened and why, what needs to go next and when, then it helps to close with a recap.

What are those 2-3 key takeaways?  What are the key next steps?  What’s the timeline that both you and the customer need to be aware of and committed to?

As a customer service professional, our interpretation of everything that happened during that conversation might differ from the customer’s interpretation.  Are we clear on the customer’s details?  Are they clear on our answers to their questions?

We don’t want a difference of interpretation, misunderstood points, unanswered questions to result in a difference of understanding about what’s going to happen next and when it’s going to happen.

Take time at the end of the conversation and confirm the key points, particularly those that are upcoming.

Don’t skip the recap.

Signup for FREE Tips!    Contact Us    More Resources for You    Visit Our Home Page