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Last Impression Faux Pas - 11/4/25


Rightfully so, many customer service experts harp on the importance of the first impression.  It happens quickly, and it can impact the individual’s perception of you and the organization.  We even wrote a Tip of the Week on this years ago called First Impression Faux Pas. What many people tend Read more

Familying with Customers - 10/28/25


In our transactional society, it’s hard to think about customers in the long-term.  But if we want to be as successful as we can as an individual or as a business, we need to view customers through a relationship lens. What do we need to know about them to Read more

Avoid These Techniques - 10/21/25


We had a Customer Service Tip of the Week recently that addressed gaining control of the conversation.  One of the key points was that the focus should be on gaining control of conversations in various circumstances, but trying to avoid making it your goal to gain control of the Read more

View Quality through the Customer’s Eyes - 10/14/25


Geri had been dealing with backups in the downstairs plumbing system of her house on and off for the past year.  The most recent company that she called in to unclog the pipes stated that they could send a camera down the pipes and tell her exactly where the Read more

Be Supportive, Not Defensive - 10/7/25


[An employee on the phone with a customer…] Who told you that you didn’t have to submit that form? … Bob?  Oh brother!  You see Bob is our “special” co-worker.  He seems to always tell customers the wrong thing to do, and we’re having to clean up after him.  Read more

Some Customers LOVE Predictability - 9/30/25


I was facilitating focus groups of businesses that utilize local government services.  The phrase that popped up multiple times was “Time Is Money!”  What these municipal customers were conveying was that their time was valuable, and delays were wasting their time.  But the conversations were not just about how Read more

Find Your Special Sauce - 9/23/25


When I watch a football game and I see a great quarterback (somebody who may be considered a “Star”), he might be an excellent runner, have a big arm, be able to diagnose the defense and get his team into the right play.  But he’s likely not great at Read more

Gain Control of the Conversation - 9/16/25


The customer’s angry or upset or they have a complaint.  They’re very chatty or very wordy or they just want to talk to somebody.  You’re on a time crunch, and the customer obviously is not. There are times when you need to gain control of the conversation.  It’s important for Read more

Complement with a Compliment - 9/9/25


We perform many tasks for our customers every day, and when we’re done with a step in the process, oftentimes we will tell the customer what’s been done.  But if we want to create more of a WOW experience, if we want to make the customer feel a little Read more

When Patience Begets Patience - 9/2/25


Jennifer, the server, walked toward the couple in the restaurant.  The customers had been seated for a minute or two, and they noticed the server was walking briskly toward their table.  Jennifer recognized the couple she was about to serve, because they had been in the previous week. Since the Read more

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Fast, but Not Fast Food

Posted on September 3, 2009 in Business Advice, Carolinas Please leave a comment

Customer service is not all about the eye contact, the smile, and the “soft” aspects of the personal interaction. They are very important, but process is also important.

The restaurant world is a tough business from a customer service perspective, because it has many characteristics of a manufacturing environment as you’re processing the food and getting it out, and timeliness is of the essence. One restaurant chain seems to get it when it comes to process. At least the particular location that I frequent of Monterray’s Mexican restaurant is excellent in their service delivery process.

You walk in and you immediately see where to check-in.  You get waited on quickly; typically within 30 seconds, somebody is leading you to your table. As you are being seated, a second employee is walking up behind the host or hostess with chips and salsa, so that the minute the hostess walks away, you are already eating free chips. The drink orders come quickly, the server frequently comes to you in a non-pushy way to check on your readiness to order. No matter what you order, the food comes out fast — all the time it comes out fast. It’s hot, it’s fresh, and it’s very very good. But this blog is about process, not food quality.

When the chip basket looks nearly empty, the next thing you know it’s been refilled. The water is constantly getting refilled. The check comes quickly, and it’s convenient to pay as well.

We never ask about the training, the processes, the systems, or the internal communications that happen over and over and over again between employees during a typical night at the restaurant. But we know they must be standardized, because the service is so consistent. We know they must work, because the service is so quick. We know employees must be confident in understanding their roles, because the flows between encounters with the servers and other employees in the discussions we have are always seamless.

Monterray’s is a great example of how big an impact an effective customer service process can have on the customer’s experience.

Do your processes help or hinder your customer’s satisfaction?

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


What is Your Post-Exit Strategy?

Posted on August 31, 2009 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

Every year, professional sports teams lose season ticket holders.  These season ticket holders exit the organization because of a myriad of reasons.  With the economy like it has been over the last 18 months in particular, professional sports teams are losing season ticket holders at an alarming rate.  Many pro sports organizations deal with these issues by ramping up their advertising and marketing efforts.  Many others chalk up the losses to a bad economy, but few of these organizations really have a strategy targeted at these former season ticket holders.

These ticketholders have left; so what is your strategy post-exit?

Some of the best sales prospects your organization can have are former customers. You already have a great deal of intelligence on your former customers. You already know their likes and dislikes, their preferences, what’s most important to them, key demographic information, and their purchase history. Well, at least you should know all this information.

The two things you don’t know are two pieces of information that can make you a lot of money very quickly. The first piece of information is the specific reason or reasons why they left. This is where you avoid making broad assumptions about the season ticket holder base, and you look specifically at each one to determine why they left. You would probably be shocked to find out why the individual season ticket holders left even though you might be able to guess broadly about the major reasons why season ticket holders left. By knowing why they left, it helps in future conversations to help get them back.

The second piece of information that’s vital is their likelihood of future interest in your products and services, or as pro sports teams focus, on tickets. You have to know what level of interest they have and in what type of individual game ticket, a mini plan, or some form of full season plan. Without this information, you don’t know enough to have an efficient sales pitch with a former client.

So what is your post-exit strategy?

With our pro sports clients, it includes conducting Exit Interviews in a soft form with the season ticket holders to gather intelligence about these key pieces of information. And then to use the results of that research to both apply to current season ticket holders to best retain them but also — in the hopes of increasing revenue — to make targeted sales pitches at the former season ticket holders.

Your lost season ticket holder is one of your greatest sources of future revenue. Have a strategy for getting them back.

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


What’s Your HCAHPS Strategy?

Posted on August 21, 2009 in Healthcare Please leave a comment

As healthcare administrators know, HCAHPS is a comparative database to which they are reporting many different pieces of information about hospital performance, including customer service and patient satisfaction indicators.  Essentially, any individual with web access (i.e., any current or prospective customer) can go to the internet and compare your organization side-by-side with other local hospitals.  It’s a scary thought to have that kind of comparative information readily available to your customers, when you have no control over what’s displayed or how it’s displayed.

When organizations have issues in the patient satisfaction or customer service indicators, they immediately think of the need to do scripting with nurses or rounding on the floors, or training for personnel.  And while these might all be appropriate actions to take, these are typically only a part of a strategic action plan.  If you want to make adjustments and improvements in customer service and patient satisfaction performance, at some point you need to have a strategy behind it.  Most hospitals have marketing strategies. They have advertising strategies.  They do detailed planning when opening up a new wing or building a new patient tower.  But how many of them have a customer service strategy?

An effective customer service strategy focuses on the customer experience, service delivery, the corporate culture, and metrics to measure all of those components.  It focuses on management’s role in preaching and modeling the types of behaviors that lead to high levels of customer and patient satisfaction.  It has tactics listed out in a Gantt Chart format over time that helps to change the culture, get more focused on the patient, and specifically help employees to know what to do right and how to stop doing what’s causing problems.

If you want long-term success in your organization in the areas of customer service and patient satisfaction, develop, commit to, and execute a Customer Service Strategy.

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


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