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Bear with Me - 3/31/26


As a customer, you’ve probably called a company and heard the phrase “bear with me.”  At that point, you know there’s going to be some sort of delay.  The CSR is giving you a heads up that there’s going to be additional wait time.  Essentially, they are trying to Read more

Slowing Down the Fast Talker - 3/24/26


Jeffrey had always been told by his manager to figure out the issue quickly and wrap up the conversation as fast as possible.  So, Jeffrey was hyper-focused at finding that one key word that could identify the issue and help him to transition quickly to what might be some possible Read more

Don’t Bury the Lede - 3/17/26


Mary was working at the office, and she received an e-mail alert from the water company.  There was a water outage in her neighborhood.  It looked like it was going to be a couple hours to fix the issue. Sure enough, a few hours later around mid-afternoon, Mary received another Read more

Confirm the Real Issue Before You Start Solving - 3/10/26


Have you ever gone “down the rabbit hole?”  It involves going deep into some topic, some discussion – with analysis that creates complexity as much as it resolves it.  And that dive into the rabbit hole often starts with a simple question. Going down that rabbit hole takes time and Read more

One Question to Prevent a Follow-up Call - 3/3/26


The way some performance metrics work, you would think companies would prefer for their staff to talk to the same customer 4 times on the same topic for 8 minutes each rather than talking to them once for 10 minutes.  Many management metrics are too focused on average length Read more

Stay Calm When the Customer Isn’t - 2/24/26


There are all sorts of others’ emotions that you have to deal with as a customer service professional.  The other person could be anxious or upset, they could be angry or agitated.  It can run the gamut of emotions, but for you to deal with them in the best Read more

Don’t Begin with the Dead End in Mind - 2/17/26


Habit #2 of Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People” is “Begin with the End in Mind.”  It speaks to the need to have a clear vision or goal for what you’re trying to ultimately achieve, so you understand the purpose of what you’re doing.  It helps you Read more

Explain without Over Explaining - 2/10/26


The customer has a question, and we have an answer.  They need to learn something, and we’re in the position to be the educator.  There’s a process they have to go through, and we need them to understand. We know so much, and we could impart so much, but sometimes Read more

Look for a Stop Sign - 2/3/26


As a customer service professional, what you say matters.  The information you’re providing is useful.  The direction you’re giving the other person is helpful.  But... As you’re speaking, you also need to be reading.  Reading the other person.  Watching the customer, determining whether and how they’re receiving what you’re sharing.  Read more

When They Want the Supervisor - 1/27/26


Maybe you did your best with the customer, or maybe the customer didn’t even give you a chance.  They want to talk to your supervisor.  They see you, notice your title does not have “supervisor” or “manager” or “director” or “President and CEO” in it, so they want to Read more

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What You Must Know to Keep Your Customers

Posted on December 19, 2012 in Business Advice, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

Bad economies make companies truly focus on good customer service and the importance of customer retention. And when businesses try to retain more customers, they often fall prey to the desire to create a new benefit, institute a new loyalty program, or launch a new customer retention effort which is – in reality – just marketing gone bad.

So instead of suggesting you create some costly initiative, let’s start with creating a common understanding of the knowledge you need to have to best keep your customers:

  • Know why they would leave, and address it. This means, what do they expect from the experience? From the quality of the product or service? From your level of customer service?
  • Know who you want to keep most – and why (typically because of profitability or longer-term impact) – and target more of your efforts on these customers. No company has infinite resources with which to use the most personalized and labor/cost-intensive methods of keeping customers. So you have to know with whom you make the personal visit (high cost touch), and with whom you send the personalized e-mail (low cost touch).
  • Know who’s most at-risk of leaving, and create strategies to keep them. Target, target, target. Don’t spend the same time and energy and money keeping everyone, if you know a certain percentage of customers are almost certainly going to stay with you. And how will you know? Simply ask them, and also look at historical data to identify common characteristics of former customers.
  • Know how to become vital to their day-to-day lives or success. If they can’t efficiently get their job done without your software or research, if they can’t get their need met well without your product, if you are the supplier of something that’s imperative to their daily personal or professional lives, you have significant leverage in retention.
  • Know how to make it easy to become your customer…and more difficult to leave. Is the customer’s signup with your organization a piece of cake? Can a first time customer navigate your organization and your processes/policies as easy as a long-term customer? If so, you’re golden. On the back end of the relationship, you don’t want to make it impossible to leave (then you’re dealing with ethical concerns), but if the customer needs to replace what you provide, and that effort or time (in addition to the effort and time and cost of going to your competitor) are high, they may not make the move.

Know what you need to know to keep your customers.

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/


A Face Lift…for Your Patient Satisfaction

Posted on December 5, 2012 in Business Advice, Healthcare Please leave a comment

When measuring patient satisfaction, healthcare organizations often make two key errors. First, they focus on measuring how often something happens? For example, How frequently did the nurse check on you? How often did they ask about pain? How many times did they clean the room? While these functions are important, the quality of the interaction and care provided are just as important if not more so. Also, some patients want to be checked on continuously and others want to be told how long the wait will be until the next step and only checked on when there may be a delay. So measuring frequency alone limits what you can learn, and it can point an organization down the wrong road in their improvement efforts.

The second error? Focusing too much on employee attitudes. Yes, these attitudes have a huge impact on patient satisfaction, but the best attitude in the world cannot overcome inordinately long waits, redundant paperwork, lack of responsiveness, poor quality food, lack of cleanliness, and unacceptable patient care. Attitudes are but a piece of the patient satisfaction puzzle.

In the article, Dr. Patti Flint Touts Importance of Surveys to Improve Patient Experience, an Arizona plastic surgeon is highlighted because of her improvement in patient care – which she notes as having been driven by the results of patient satisfaction surveys. But what’s interesting about the surveys is that much of the focus was on measuring patient perceptions of key touch points in the care process. According to the article, “Because every interaction from the first phone call to the last follow-up appointment factors into a patient’s overall satisfaction, each point of patient contact is scrutinized for ways to improve the patient experience. Creating a positive atmosphere for her patients involves the entire staff at Patti Flint MD PC, and survey responses lead to constant innovation in practice procedures.”

When asking patients to evaluate their experience, address employee Attitudes, Processes, and the Quality of the Services provided. But don’t just look for overall evaluations. Get the patient and their family to evaluate key contact points through the entire process.

Understand where communications flowed well and didn’t. Learn how hand-offs of the patient and their information from one step to another worked…and didn’t. Identify what needs improvement in the entire service delivery chain…and doesn’t.

To give your patient satisfaction a face lift, first start by understanding all the steps involved in the patient experience through the customer’s eyes.

Listen to our latest podcast episode of “Stepping Up Service” on The MESH Network at http://themesh.tv/stepping-up-service/

Check out our Healthcare Patient Satisfaction Evaluation and Improvement Services at http://cssamerica.com/csshealth.htm


Zappos Customer Service – Measure to Make it Great

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

Want some shoes? Want some great customer service? Many people who answer “yes” to these questions, head to Zappos.com. And although Zappos has a reputation for great customer service, its customer service reputation is not built on hype (although I’m sure there’s some of that) and subjective self-evaluations.

Sustaining great customer service is built on sound business practices, data, decision-making, and a focus on continuous improvement.

In the article A Zappos Lesson in Customer Service Metrics, CRM blogger Ashley Furness details some of the metrics Zappos uses to measure customer service success. Here are four metrics on which a customer service representative’s performance is measured:

  • “Did the agent try twice to make a personal emotional connection?
  • Did they keep the rapport going after the customer responded to their attempt?
  • Did they address unstated needs?
  • Did they provide a “wow experience?”

If you dig deep into why they’re measured, you see that the first three metrics suggest that creating and sustaining a personal connection is important, emotion is important, and being inquisitive is important.

The fourth metric about the “WOW experience” is more difficult to measure. We created a podcast episode on the WOW experience because a WOW experience is not easy to create each time, but it is something that can be somewhat planned. And the WOW experience is also customer-dependent – what might WOW one customer might not WOW the next.

So focus on the first three metrics, and ask yourself, do you create personal connections with customers? Do you sustain them throughout the conversation? Do you see or feel emotion from the customer? And are you asking enough questions to identify and address unstated needs?

Design the WOW, but make sure you consistently deliver on these other keys to customer service success.

Listen to our latest podcast episode of “Stepping Up Service” on The MESH Network at http://themesh.tv/stepping-up-service/


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