customer retention

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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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Business Retention & Expansion – The Process That Drives Your Top Line

Posted on July 28, 2011 in Business Advice, Government Please leave a comment

In news articles that come out on a daily basis, business retention and expansion successes are touted. Oftentimes, these articles announce an expansion of a plant, consolidating functions from other locations to the local facility, or moving into a larger local facility.

But for all these good things to happen, they don’t simply occur on their own. Most local municipalities today have (or fund) an economic development organization to help drive these successes. Many of these EDOs have a dedicated Business Retention and Expansion program. We work with several BRE organizations and have identified some of what makes for a great BRE program. Review these keys, and apply them to your business:

· BRE organizations need to be great at quick issue resolution. Can you efficiently link your customers with somebody who can resolve them, or how quickly can you resolve issues yourself?

· The best of BRE Programs view their role as relationship-building. They define and execute 12 month Touch Point Plans to continually pull/push information to local business to learn about them, understand their retention drivers, and look for growth and partnering opportunities.

· BRE organizations need a focus on efficiency. Just like most account representatives in business today, BRE representatives have too many clients to truly know all deeply and personally. They have to prioritize communications, touches, and retention efforts for maximum staff time efficiency and maximum retention and growth of jobs

Learn from the Business Retention and Expansion leaders, and use these keys to continually develop client relationships and grow your community and your business.

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/


Shuttering Self-Checkout?

Posted on July 14, 2011 in Business Advice, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

No more self-checkout at the grocery store?

According to the Dallas Morning News, several grocery store chains are going that direction. Some are eliminating self-checkout entirely (like Albertsons) while others are going to a Euro checkout style (like Krogers) where one main customer line feeds the multiple checkout registers.

While we’re not going to suggest that these stores are simply nuts for eliminating self-checkout (I haven’t yet seen the true, financial rationale they used to make this decision), there are some potential issues with shuttering self-checkout. The main issue is that some customers prefer self-checkout. It’s about choice. It’s about control. It’s about usually having a shorter wait. It’s about privacy.

There are LOTS of reasons why people like self-checkout, so my question comes down to “Are the financial benefits of not offering it (e.g., efficiency gains and potentially reduced theft) outweighing the potential in lost business from customers who will go elsewhere for this self-serve option?”

When making decisions impacting the bottom line, make sure your business doesn’t just focus on cost savings. Make sure it takes into account the revenue impact of customer loss.

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/


One Company’s Path Toward Greater Customer Service…

Posted on June 28, 2011 in Business Advice, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

Chart the course. It’s easier to get to where you need to go if you have a path, a map, direction, a guide.

But when starting in the muck, achieving the vision is that much more difficult.

That’s where Charter Communications is/was according to a recent CED article. They hired an individual with success at a telecommunications company to come in and revamp their customer service. Here’s some of what John Birrer did and is doing for them:

· Helped them create/refine their metrics that measure customer satisfaction and retention.

· Emphasized the importance of teaching “soft skills” to front-line staff since they’re the ones engaging the customers.

· Has supervisors role play customer service situations with staff.

· Created ongoing employee and customer feedback systems focused on continually improving customer service.

· Training staff to build their product/process knowledge as well as those customer service skills.

· Involving partner companies in the customer service initiatives.

· Instituted follow-up calls with customers served in the past 48 hours.

And what have they found from these efforts? Improved customer satisfaction and reduced operating costs.

If you want to improve customer service, satisfaction, and loyalty, find an expert, address metrics/processes/people, and make sure your staff are empowered and enabled (through training and technology) to succeed.

Need an expert (FYI – you can e-mail me at edward.gagnon@cssamerica.com !)

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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