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Build Goodwill with Co-workers and Customers - 11/10/26


All relationships are different.  We want to have good relationships with co-workers, after all – those are the people we spend the most time with each week.  We want to have good relationships with customers since they’re the ones that provide the revenue and inflows that allow us to Read more

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

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You, Your Car, and Customer Retention

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

A recent J.D. Power study on retention among automobile manufacturers noted that Hyundai has the best customer retention – a 64% rate. The industry average was only 49%. So that means that only half of you (and me) buy the same brand of car that we’re replacing. Yikes! If that’s not a red flag to businesses, I don’t know one.

Take this perspective (more numbers…). Hyundai sold 645,691 vehicles in 2011. At a 64% retention rate, that’s equivalent to a 36% loss rate. So when those 2011 vehicles are turned in by owners for their next vehicle, 232,449 of them will not be a Hyundai.

If I wanted to create a revenue-generating job at Hyundai, it would be “Chief Retention Officer.” The CRO would be in charge of trying not to lose as many of those 232,449 customers as possible. If he saved just 1% of them, he’d generate over $30 million for Hyundai. Keep in mind that we’re talking about the BEST automotive manufacturing company there is at customer retention.

Now, look at your own company, your own business. Who is your CRO? Who has the authority to do the research and create the strategy to generate your additional revenue by reducing customer loss? Who has the capability to design the training and customer relationship development approach to increase loyalty?

Find a CRO so you can crow about your retention.

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/


2012 Customer Service Trends – Sneak Preview

Posted on January 18, 2012 in Business Advice, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

I recently participated in a podcast on the 2012 Trends in Customer Service (see the MESH Network’s Stepping Up Service 6 Episode or visit iTunes). Here’s a sneak peek at the key trends to look for this year:

Social Media Learns How to Play Well With Others

Look for intentional integration of Social Media with other traditional customer service vehicles. Facebook and Twitter will no longer be standalones in the customer service world; you’ll see internal knowledge management systems, customer service standards, and communication protocols more consistently applied across all service delivery channels.

You’ll also see the Social Media systems more tightly integrated with other customer service vehicles (i.e., telephone, face-to-face, e-mail, self-serve, live chat, etc.) to streamline customer information flow – and the flow of the customers themselves – to where they will best get their needs met.

Customer Serve Thyself

We’ve heard the saying “physician heal thyself.” Well this trend is an increased focus in self-service customer service. With knowledge management systems growing stronger and SaaS (software as a service) proliferating, it will become more timely and effective oftentimes for the customer to get their question answered/their need met via self-service. And we all know that self-service is usually a highly cost-effective service method for businesses, so expansion of self-service (done right) can be a win-win for customers and businesses.

What’s Out is Now In

I’m seeing lots of bell bottom jeans, tie-dyed t-shirts, and peace signs lately. The band Journey is making a comeback. Is it the 1970s? 1980s?

Remember about 10-15 years ago when outsourcing exploded (particularly outsourcing call centers overseas)? Well insourcing will become a bigger trend in 2012. With the mix of customer service changing (fewer calls, more self-service, live chat, etc.), the cost-benefit of outsourcing will continue to drop. Also, productivity/utilization of contact center staff in the U.S. will continue to increase as they have less downtime with the proliferation of the other service channels, and – again – the financial benefits of outsourcing contact center functions will drop.

On the Road Again

With all due respect to Willie Nelson, this is about…Mobile Customer Service. With over 400 million smart phones sold last year, mobile computing and communications will continue to increase. It used to be that you’d have a telephone with you on the road, so you’d call from the road. When you’re at home or work, you’re close to a computer, so you’d often check websites for support. Now, the phone and computer are – in effect – with you at all times due to smart phones. So customers have more choice, and click-to-call apps or customer service apps will proliferate. Customer service is going highly mobile in 2012!

Let me know what you think will happen in 2012. And don’t forget to check out the full podcast on the 2012 Trends in Customer Service at the MESH Network’s Stepping Up Service 6 Episode or at iTunes.

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/


Social Customer Service, and Customer Expectations

Posted on January 12, 2012 in Business Advice, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

In the article 20 minutes is too long for Twitter Customer Service, Michael Pace notes that the “@HyattConcierge Twitter response time goal (service level) is 20 minutes.” He then talks about whether that is the right goal – particularly from the customer’s perspective. Mr. Pace offers several standards based on the type of social media that customers are utilizing – interesting data, so check out the article.

So this begs several questions for your business – whether or not you’re in the Twitter world. What expectations do you have for the timeliness of responsiveness to customers? How do your organization’s expectations match up with the customer’s expectations? How do you find out your customer’s expectations? How do you share your organization’s expectations with your employees? How do you address your processes and systems to help employees meet those expectations? How do you measure expectations vs. reality? Finally, how do you communicate those expectations to customers so their expectations are more realistic?

This is a lot about expectations, but remember that studies have shown that 40% of customer dissatisfaction is because the company didn’t meet customer expectations. Maybe they overpromised, or they just didn’t do the bare minimum of what a customer would expect.

So get with the customer service and marketing leaders at your business, and talk about customer expectations. What is realistic? How do we communicate realism in a positive manner? What needs to be improved? How do we improve? How do we become GREAT?

There’s a lot that businesses try to do every day to improve customer service – but those efforts need to include a clear focus and strategy around setting, meeting, and striving to exceed customer expectations.

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/


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