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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

How Better Customer Service is Better for You - 8/18/26


Oftentimes, we have employees in training or workshops who really want to understand what’s in it for them to deliver better customer service.  How does the employee benefit from a better customer experience? Noted below are 5 different aspects of a great experience desired by the customer.  What if... The customer Read more

Manage New Customer Expectations - 8/11/26


The fan had never been to a motorsports event before, but they had been to concerts.  They had been to big conferences.  At those other events, they could park right next to the venue, many of the activities were indoors, and weather was a non-issue.  So, they were not Read more

Complement Empathy with Action - 8/4/26


A man falls into a hole, and he can’t get out.  He starts yelling for help, and a doctor walks by and looks down the hole.  The man in the hole yells to the doctor “Please help me.  I’ve fallen into this hole!”  And the doctor takes out a Read more

My 8-Minute Visit at the DMV- 7/28/26


I needed to get a Real ID, which in North Carolina facilitates airline travel and other identity verifications.  My wife suggested I go to one particular DMV that was a LONG way away from home, but where she had experienced great customer service.  I was lucky to find an Read more

When They Might Walk Out the Door…Permanently- 7/21/26


Have you ever had one of those conversations with the customer where they literally tell you they’re about to stop doing business with your company?  This is it.  They may bring up a competitor or found another way to get their need met, or they are just leaving. When we Read more

Transparency in Customer Service- 7/14/26


We’ve worked with a lot of clients in the local government sector, and many of these clients have Customer Service Standards and/or corporate values that include Transparency. Think about an old-fashioned transparency sheet, that malleable see-through page you put on an overhead projector.  You can see everything on one side Read more

See the Customer’s Journey from Their Perspective- 7/7/26


That customer is face-to-face with you right now, and you are fielding their questions or delivering your service to them.  And oftentimes and understandably, we are so immersed in the moment that we don’t think about what came before or think enough about what comes next. But in the life Read more

Gaining the Benefits of the Greeter- 6/30/26


Most likely, we’ve all entered some establishment – a retail store, restaurant, or service center - when there is a greeter at the door.  The most famous greeter position is probably the Walmart greeter.  I often thought that my father-in-law would have been a fantastic Walmart greeter, because he Read more

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Bet on Great Customer Service

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

A casino’s repeat business is purely dependent on whether the customer feels the exhilaration of the win…right?

Well the recent article Casinos Urged to Invest in Customer Service, Gaming Experience to Meet Multiple Challenges in 2012 says that it’s more than winning that drives loyalty and revenues.

The head of a casino consulting firm notes “Bare-bones state budgets, taxation, new casinos, social media and online gaming – these are all factors that will contribute to a challenging year for casinos.”

Essentially he says that if you’re a business with customers who are having financial struggles (like a sports team trying to keep season ticket holders), have competitors (like a hospital), are impacted by the proliferation of social media and alternative delivery changes for your service (like a college or university – or almost any business for that matter), then you might be having a tough time.

So if his premise applies to the situation of casinos, it probably also applies to the majority of other businesses today.

And what’s the proposed solution? Create a culture of customer service. The article notes that “The first step toward creating that culture is establishing service standards. The next step is training that helps employees meet those standards.”

So why is this suggested? This is where the author falls short…he doesn’t say why you need the culture of customer service, but I’ll fill that part in – it’s because the state of customer service is so poor today, that this is one area where you can differentiate yourself from competitors. It’s one place where Social Media doesn’t have a solid footing. It’s one place where you can build value when customers care more about the dollars they spend and with whom they spend.

Stop. Look at your competitors. Look at your customers. Look at your company.

Create a culture of customer service to build value with the customer and build a wall between your customers and your competitors.

Interested in assessing and improving your company’s customer service? Click here…


Find a Fun Benchmarking Organization for Lessons on Service and Retention

Posted on April 11, 2012 in Business Advice, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

Why did Apple benchmark with the Ritz-Carlton? Are computers the same thing as hotels?

Why did Southwest Airlines benchmark with NASCAR pit crews? Are airplanes the same things as cars?

Benchmarking is usually more about how you do something than what you do. In the article How the Ritz-Carlton Inspired the Apple Store, the author notes how Apple Stores went to the Ritz-Carlton to learn lessons on customer service. Similarly, many years ago Southwest Airlines went to work with NASCAR pit crews to learn how to turn planes at the gate more quickly.

Continuous improvement in any organization involves thinking beyond your world, growing your organization’s collective knowledge by learning from others. What’s more, it can be lots of fun learning, particularly from those in other industries.

To most effectively benchmark, think about how you deliver a service, interact with customers, communicate, process, produce. Try not to think of this in industry terms; instead, think of this in functional terms. For example, as a bank, don’t think “What bank does a great job of increasing the number of accounts with current customers?” Think more broadly such as “What organizations are great at retaining and selling more services to existing account holders?” Instead of benchmarking with another bank, they might consider benchmarking with a pro sports team.

Instead of a local municipality asking “What City/County governments do a great job with their website?”, they should ask “What organizations effectively engage their customers online and leverage those sites to drive interest and traffic to their programs and facilities?”

Benchmarking is a fun way to get creative ideas, to continuously learn, grow, and improve.

So what industry (other than yours) is interesting to you? Go and learn from them.

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

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/


To Improve Customer Retention, Make Products Free?

Posted on April 5, 2012 in Business Advice, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

To increase its customer retention, Sprint announced that it’s discounting fees on their pay-as-you-go service. In the Fox Business article Sprint Looks to Boost Customer Retention With Lower repaid Bills, it’s noted how Sprint’s new Boost service “is $5 less than the starting price of the brand’s current lowest-priced plans.”

According to the article, “Sprint has had some success drawing customers to its Boost brand through a program that lets users lower their bills by $5 per month following every six on-time payments. Sprint’s prepaid customer rolls grew by 20% last year to 14.8 million, while its contract business shrunk.” In business school, that’s referred to as cannibalizing yourself. But I digress…

The interesting point here is that the company is trying to increase retention with a price drop (and also by pulling customers away from its other products).

Companies who truly understand customer retention strategies understand that a price drop is the absolute LAST thing you should ever have to do. This price drop retention strategy is for companies who have allowed customers to view them as a commodity, and some companies are thereby viewing themselves as commodities.

In virtually any industry, customers will stick with companies for many reasons, not just price. And those other reasons (product quality, wait times, customer service, responsiveness, relationships with the employees, affinity for the company, making customers’ lives easier/better/more hassle free, and on and on and on) provide the value piece that plays into decision-making far more in many customers’ eyes than price.

Before you do your next price drop to increase retention…before you start heading in the direction of free products…before you willingly cut your own profits in an effort to become more prosperous (if that even remotely makes sense), find out the specific factors that drive loyalty for specific customers, and do the best job possible of incorporating those into a 1-to-1 retention strategy.

Avoid the easy and (for the long-term) ineffective path to customer retention – avoid the price drop.

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

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/


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