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When You’re the Educator, What Should You Teach? - 1/21/25


The best customer service professionals are also excellent educators.  Not only within the organization, but I’m talking specifically about the role they play as educator with their customers.  With all the self-service options that technology provides, customers often have the opportunity to do things on their own, to investigate Read more

Wrap It Up Right: Why Follow-Up Communications WOW Customers - 1/14/25


Dena had some questions about her water bill, so she looked for answers on the utility’s website.  She didn’t find specific answers, and she really didn’t want to get on the phone with somebody at the time and risk staying on hold.  She had lots going on, but she Read more

From Conversation to Connection: Defining Customer Engagement - 1/7/25


Maggie was sitting in the Service Excellence Training class, and the instructor kept talking about staying engaged with the customer.  Proactively engaging the customer.  Being fully engaged in the conversation. After hearing this same phrase (“engage”) used in various ways, Maggie raised her hand and asked a question probably several Read more

Self-empower for the New Year - 12/31/24


Jeff joined the company, in part, because he loved their approach to culture.  Leadership tried to create an empowerment culture.  They tried to develop an environment where, within certain parameters, individual team members could make a decision and feel confident that they would be supported by leadership. The reality was Read more

2024 Holiday Poem - 12/24/24


I sometimes hear it said That things have never been like this before. That challenges are unique, That stresses seem like more.   I sometimes hear it said That we're asked to do much more with less. That workloads are increasing, And we're resource-constrained at best.   And others often say That things are really very good. That they enjoy those Read more

Is Their Poor Planning Your Emergency? - 12/17/24


Have you ever heard the saying:  Your poor planning is not my emergency. I’ve heard it said often – not necessarily directly from one person to another.  More typical is that I hear it from the person having to drop everything and do something immediately because someone else didn’t think Read more

Empathy Examples for Everyday Situations - 12/10/24


I’ve often said that empathy is the single most important characteristic of people who are great at customer service.  If empathy is essentially “to understand the other person,” it helps so much to have that ability in order to specifically help someone.  To talk to what’s unique about them.  Read more

Tell Them Why You’re Giving Thanks - 12/3/24


Thank you! Merci! Danke! Doumo! Gracias! It seems like every language has a translation of Thank You.  Even though I only fluently speak English and speak Spanish, un poco, I – and probably most of you – have heard some or all of the translations of "Thank You” noted above.  Read more

Refine Your Decision-making Process - 11/26/24


Every day, you make decisions of what to do and what not to do.  And in the world of customer service, often the affected parties are our customers, our co-workers, and our company.  Here are a few quotes to consider when you’re thinking about evaluating and refining your decision-making Read more

Acting on the Guiding Principles for Great Customer Service - 11/19/24


In last week’s tip, we shared 5 Guiding Principles for Great Customer Service.  This week, let’s address what “taking action” looks like on those key principles.  If last week was about what to do and WHY, this week is about the HOW. Engage with Interest: To engage with interest, proactively Read more

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Retention – They’re Finally Getting It

Posted on December 8, 2009 in Business Advice, Education Please leave a comment

If you would have spoken with 10 administrators 10 years ago in the world of higher education – from community colleges to universities – you could have easily spoken for 2 hours about their priorities without student retention ever being discussed.

My, how times have changed.

It seems that more and more often, retention is discussed whenever goal-setting for enrollment is the topic.  Retention rates are part of the performance dashboards.  Retention strategies are developed with some similar planning focus to marketing strategies.

And why is there all of this focus on retention?  Because these institutional leaders – just like smart businesspeople – understand that retention means dollars.  Retention means less effort in recruitment.  Retention means less hassle in dealing with student complaints and turnover.  Retention means less change to address.  Retention means a faster path to success.

Not all educational institutions get it, however, when it comes to retention.  An organization that truly gets it understands that successful retention strategies require a great deal of research with current students on retention drivers, likelihood to stay, preferences, and satisfaction levels.  Research is required on former students to determine the true loss reasons for controllable exits.  Strategies need to have a component to look at the relationship-building structures and processes which need to be put into place to develop relationships with students and to quickly identify students at-risk of leaving.

Strategies need to be created to address internal cultural issues and priorities that currently run counter to the goal of retention.  And measurement strategies need to be adopted to ensure that issues and solutions are identified early enough to be addressed.

An education-based retention strategy needs to have the concerted effort and focus that balances internal culture with external relationship building, where all the key impact drivers of retention are measured.

Do you have a truly comprehensive retention strategy?

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


Small Errors in Service Recovery

Posted on December 7, 2009 in Business Advice Please leave a comment

 If “Service Recovery” means that we need to “save” situations where the customer is upset, irate, or complaining, then there are right ways and wrong ways to do it. While there is no one rule to deal with Service Recovery situations, many times employees can think that they are doing things the right way, and in fact there are small errors that are causing the recovery to be unsuccessful.

Think of the following actions during Service Recovery and the issues with each:

  • The employee responds to an e-mail from an irate customer by sending an e-mail back.  Whereas this may be very effective at times, particularly when the customer prefers e-mail communications, in a Service Recovery situation you want to talk to someone 2-way, on the phone or face-to-face. Because that ability to see the body language and to hear the tone of voice enables you to deal with the emotion of the situation better. Remember that e-mail does not convey emotion well.
  • The employee responds to the customer that if they have a concern, then the customer is welcome to call back. While this may seem like a positive offer, in effect what the employee’s doing is dumping the responsibility for follow-up back on the customer. Particularly in Service Recovery situations, the employee needs to take ownership over the follow-up, to convey that they care and ensure that the follow-up happens.
  • The employee hears the complaint and gives the appropriate solution, and yet the customer is still upset. This typically happens when the employee is providing an effective solution, but they are ignoring the emotional aspect of the conversation. Most customers want to be understood and to feel like they are cared for at least as much as they are having their question answered during a Service Recovery situation. Employees need to make sure they’re not so focused on the issue and the solution that they totally ignore the emotion that comes with the issue.

When determining the best way to deal with Service Recovery situations, look at the little things that employees can do wrong to determine how to tweak the technique to make sure everything turns out right. 

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


To Be the Best, You Have to Know the Best

Posted on October 23, 2009 in Business Advice, Government Please leave a comment

Mr. Floyd had always been an effective program manager in his local county government. However, as the financial stresses and strains resulting from the poor economy started to hit his area, he was being pushed harder and harder and harder to improve productivity and better manage costs. Even though these performance areas were expected to be addressed in a positive way, the expectation was that customer satisfaction would not deteriorate.

So Mr. Floyd had to look at his metrics, and figure out new ways to do things. He was being forced to look at data he had never been too concerned with before, including call center performance, average handle time, abandoned call rates, and customer wait times. When he looked at this data, the performance looked like it had not gotten much better or worse over time. He felt good about it. That was before his heart-to-heart talk with his boss.

Mr. Floyd’s new boss felt that although these statistics looked good to Mr. Floyd and had not deteriorated over time, his boss’ question was what is the level of performance that should be achieved? In other words, what is the goal? Mr. Floyd determined that continuing the current performance in the future would be a great goal, but his boss disagreed. His boss said that the goal should be based on what the customer wants and expects. In private industry, the customer expects the call be picked up in 60 seconds, or they’ll abandon the call.  In private industry, therefore, the companies expect a 2 to 4% abandon call rate. So regardless of past performance in Mr. Floyd’s department, future performance metrics will be based on customer expectations.

Mr. Floyd made a common error that people in many industries make every year. They focus more on performance trends than on setting goals that drive you towards best practice performance. When you’re setting those performance goals, don’t set them purely based on how you performed historically. Don’t base them on other entities exactly like you — in Mr. Floyd’s case, this would be other County municipal departments which are just like his department. Instead, base your goals on the best.

Maybe he should have step goals that will lead to the best practice level performance, but he needs to know best practice if he wants to continuously improve and — someday — be the best.

Look outside your business, outside your industry to identify what is best. Then start moving in that direction.

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


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