customer service week | Customer Service Solutions, Inc. - Page 2

Home  /  Poll the Kids?  /  customer service week

Narrow Your Focus to Seek Excellence - 4/1/25


You’ve probably heard companies use phrases such as: “We want to go from being good to great.”  Maybe they’ve said: “We strive for perfection, and although we’ll never reach perfection, maybe we can achieve excellence along the way.” These organizations find some kind of a catch phrase or slogan, but Read more

Avoid the Unfriendly Ghost - 3/25/25


Last week we talked about the qualities of “PERKI Customer Service,” essentially what attitudes and actions are characteristics of those who provide great customer service.  This week, let’s take the opposite approach.  What are some of the mistakes that people make?  Maybe these are mistakes of omission or commission; Read more

PERKI Customer Service - 3/18/25


After having worked on hundreds of projects over the years with thousands of thousands of individuals, some things become pretty clear. There are certain traits held by people who are great in customer service.  Look at this list, and do a self-assessment.  Which apply to you? Positive and Patient Do you Read more

It Helps to Downshift - 3/11/25


One of the first tips I heard when I was learning how to drive related to what to do when the brakes fail - downshift.  Shifting into a lower gear can slow down a moving vehicle.  I would explain this in technical terms to you, but considering I’m not Read more

Patience is… - 3/4/25


Patience is a…pain in the neck.  Why is it so hard to be patient?  Those of us who work in customer service know that we constantly have to show patience with our customers.  We’re ready to move to the next step or the solution because we’ve heard this issue Read more

Everybody Doesn’t - 2/25/25


Joey received the compliment, but he was confused.  Paula, his boss, and Joey had their monthly one-on-one meeting, and Paula noted that, although he was new, Joey was already doing a great job!  While there were learning curves on some of the organizational policies and the technology that he Read more

A Simple Phrase to Transform Your Customer Feedback Approach - 2/18/25


I went to a restaurant called Big Ed’s (no relation) in Raleigh, NC recently.  It’s basically country cooking with fantastic breakfast options!  On the menu there was a quote that said: If you enjoyed your meal, tell a friend.  If not, please tell us. That was an excellent statement that embodies Read more

What Phones and Football Have in Common - 2/11/25


Congratulations!  You made it through weeks/months of hype for football’s Super Bowl!  You made it through hundreds of pregame shows and podcasts, endless debates on things endlessly inconsequential, 10 hours of pre-game shows on Sunday, what seems like 100 commercials designed specifically for the “Big Game,” and the longest Read more

Create Awareness of Alternatives - 2/4/25


Sandy was hungry, and she was on the move.  Driving between meetings, she saw the restaurant sign and pulled in.  The fast-food restaurant had two drive-thru lanes.  One was for any customer who wanted to place an order on the spot. The other was for mobile orders only.  The Read more

Listen with Your Eyes - 1/28/25


Out of the corner of his eye, Patrick saw the customer enter the lobby.  The customer was carrying a large shoulder bag with several papers in her hand.  The customer was shuffling the papers and looking down; then she stopped, looked up, and saw the staff navigator sitting at Read more

•••••

Poll the Kids?

Posted on October 5, 2010 in Business Advice, Education Please leave a comment

In a recent article on azcentral.com (http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2010/09/23/20100923glendale-deer-valley-district-poll.html), the Arizona Republic notes how a local school district polled students on such aspects of the school experience as safety, friendship, and the likelihood to graduate.

Our firm conducts these studies for many of our clients as well as providing mystery shopping services at the primary education, community college, and university levels. And while you can argue with some of the methodologies used for delivering the survey, what makes the information in the article particularly interesting is the fact that the survey asked about the student as a person – it asked about their personal feelings.

Think about your customers; when you conduct surveys, you’re often asking about demographics, preferences in products, certain aspects of the customer service you provide or your facilities and processes. But many customers create an affinity for the businesses they patronize based on how that company makes them feel, about how the experience makes them feel.

So why not ask them about their feelings?

One of the last things you want from a customer is apathy; so the best way to identify those that are apathetic is to ask about their feelings. Remember that 2/3rd of lost business is because the customer feels like you don’t care. So if their feelings contribute to their loss, you need to get in the habit of asking about their feelings.

Look at your surveys, and ensure they address how your customers feel about their relationship with your company, how they feel about the experience they have in interacting with your business – the people, processes, facility, and website.

To get a feel for your customer’s true satisfaction, ask how they feel.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more information at: http://www.cssamerica.com/

Check out our new customer service book at http://www.amigreatat.com/


Act During Customer Service Week – This Week!

Posted on October 6, 2009 in Business Advice Please leave a comment

The clock is ticking. We are in the middle of Customer Service Week, and there are few times during the year when the gods of customer retention look down on us and place a gift right in our lap. The gift is having a week set-aside for us to focus on two key customer groups: 1) Those clients of ours that buy our products and services and help us to stay afloat, and 2) Our key internal customers — the employees.

With Customer Service Week here, we all have the perfect excuse to reach out to our clients to thank them for sticking with us, to convey appreciation for their referrals, to ask about what we can improve, and to reignite relationships that had gone flat because you’re so busy searching for the next new customer. We have the perfect excuse to interview them, survey them, ask them questions, use them as a supplier of information to make us better. We have the perfect excuse to say “hello” without putting them under pressure to buy our services.

So much of customer satisfaction is driven by the employees. Employees convey the attitudes of whether we care or are indifferent. The employees execute the processes that result in quick turnaround or long delays. The employees do the work that makes things happen right the first time or results in errors and rework. And employees act on the communications that convey that we are responsive or that we are lax in our customer dealings. The employees have such a huge impact on the end-customer’s satisfaction that we need to model, as managers, the behaviors that we expect of these employees by treating them as we would expect them to treat their customers.

So this is a great time to recognize employees for the tremendous value they provide in our ongoing operations and our trek toward our long-term vision for success. Reward employees for staying with you and growing with you, so you don’t have to spend so much time working your HR people to death, trying to find warm bodies to replace highly skilled individuals.  This is a time to simply thank employees for making your organization look good, since to many customers the employees ARE your company.

Take action this week to appreciate your internal and external customers.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service?  See more information at:  http://www.cssamerica.com/


« Previous   1 2