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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

Address the Expectations that Were Set - 8/26/25


Before the caller ever got to Marco – the customer service representative, the customer had been working with the company for months.  They had read the marketing brochures, had a conversation with a sales rep, reviewed the new customer information on the website, and read all the information e-mailed Read more

When Technology Fails the Customer - 8/19/25


Technology is a wonderful thing…until it isn’t.  The website is down, the mobile app won’t work, the system keeps kicking them out of their account, or they received a spoofing phone call supposedly from your department. If you’ve ever been manning the phones or managing the department inbox, you know Read more

The Misunderstood Physician - 8/12/25


I was speaking with one of my personal physicians years ago, and when we were talking about my work – particularly customer satisfaction research - he started talking about online physician ratings.  He lamented that a few low ratings were dinging his overall score.  Then he shared that the Read more

Uncover Silent Concerns - 8/5/25


One of the customer service statistics we have quoted many times over the years is:  For every complaint you do hear, there could be 26 other customer issues that you don’t hear. And when we bring up that statistic, we bring it up because we want to make sure companies Read more

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A Tale of Two Texts – 4/2/24

Posted on April 2, 2024 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

Having to get allergy shots once a week is never fun, and for Janet, it became an even bigger frustration.

She had the shots typically scheduled on Tuesday around 10:30 in the morning, figuring she would avoid the morning rush as well as the lunch rush by going mid-morning.  However, that meant she had to leave work mid-morning for the appointment.

Long Wait, Short Staffed

The last two times she went to the doctor’s office, she had a long wait, not getting her shot until 30 minutes after the scheduled time.  This day, she noticed there was only one person working the check-in desk and one person giving the shots (last month, there had been 2 of each), and that person giving the shots was also doing all the allergy testing. The employee was going 100 miles an hour, so Janet was not upset at him.

Janet could tell it was a staffing issue of some sort, so she asked the employee how to get in touch with the manager to discuss the wait.  Janet didn’t want to get the employees in trouble for the delay, but she wanted to voice her displeasure, and she also thought she might help the staff by conveying to the manager the negative impact on the patients with these lower staffing levels.

The employee said that the manager wasn’t available then, but Janet was welcome to text the two managers who shared weekday responsibilities.

Two Ways to Text

So, Janet texted the two managers, noting the delay, how it appeared that staffing was lower than it had been a month ago, and noted that the staff that were there were doing a really good job.  About 45 minutes later, the on-call manager replied: OK, I’ll get the schedulers to help find some help.

A few days later, Janet followed up with that co-manager to see if anything would be changing.  There was no reply.

When Janet went back to the office for her shot the following week, she encountered the exact same issues with lower staffing and longer wait times.  Again, she sent a text to the two managers, virtually the same as what she had sent the prior week except noting that this is the fourth straight week where this situation had occurred.

This time, the other co-manager replied within 10 minutes:  Good morning, Ms. Smith.  Thank you so much for your support and understanding. The staff are trying to do everything in their power to be on top of everything.  We are working on the schedule and the staffing.  For today, I’ve reached out to other team members to see if they can come in early to help with the delays.

True Story, Tip Lessons

These are actual texts from actual co-managers about actual situations that occurred in a healthcare setting.  Yet the empathy conveyed was so different.  The timeliness was so different.  A statement on what long-term action would be taken was different.  The conveyance of short-term action that had already been taken was different.

Maybe behind the scenes, the exact same action was taken or planned.  But in terms of what was conveyed to the customer, the first co-manager’s text could be interpreted as curt and impersonal.  The second co-manager’s text could easily be interpreted as personalized, empathetic, action-oriented, and strategic.

In customer service, it’s not only what we do on behalf of the customer that matters.  Often, it’s how we communicate our caring and the initiative we’re taking on behalf of the customer that matters just as much.

To provide better customer service, communicate your caring and your initiative.

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The Secret Sauce for Great Customer Service – 3/26/24

Posted on March 26, 2024 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

I was working with the League Office for a major American sport several years back, and one of the executives asked me to describe our Secret Sauce that helped our clients improve the fan experience and customer retention.  I gave him a sense of what makes us unique and successful in helping our clients.  Remembering that question recently, I started thinking…

What’s the secret sauce for delivering great customer service?

While it’s not like talking about Delighting Your Customers or The WOW Experience, consistency is truly appreciated by customers.  If the customer understands what they’re going to get, when they’re going to get it, and why something’s happening, it sets and meets their expectation.  They develop comfort and confidence.  And it’s great when you’re confident that a business is going to deliver a positive experience.

But consistency can be somewhat of a nebulous term.  So, let’s talk about 3 concepts you can adopt to provide consistently positive customer service:

Be clear on WHY you’re doing something.  What is your goal for the day?  What are you trying to accomplish short-term and/or long-term?  It’s easier to become consistent if you have that North Star, you have that goal, you know what direction you are heading.  If you don’t allow each individual activity or task or challenge or interaction to pull you away from your goals, it’s easier to be consistent.

Create a consistent cadence.  This is about building some structure into your day or week.  Knowing when you are doing your daily or weekly plans.  Knowing when you take your breaks or hold recurring meetings.  Knowing when you do your check-ins with co-workers or customers.  Essentially knowing when and how frequently you are addressing your priorities, in particular.

Have a standard way or model of working.  I was on a call with a client recently, and they asked me a strategic question, and I gave them a very holistic strategy for addressing their need.  They really liked the model that I shared, and it’s something I’ve used for 20+ years to address certain problems.  The model can be applied to an educational organization, government organization, retail organization, sports, healthcare – you name it!

By having a model, or having a standard process or way of doing things, you create some structure for yourself.  You can create some consistency.  Now, within that model or process, you might have different focus areas for different situations or different customers, but if you can create a standard process you go through or a standard model which serves as the lens through which you look at certain situations, it helps you to be more consistent.

Build your Why, When, and How in order to provide consistently positive customer service.

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The Miracle of an Apology – 3/19/24

Posted on March 19, 2024 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

Unfortunate but true story…

The manager basically lost his mind.  He terminated his employee on the spot.  She had told the customer that there was going to be a delay in the shipment.  The employee called up the customer ahead of time to let the customer know what was about to (or not about to happen), and to see what the customer wanted to do.  The only options were to wait for the late shipment or to cancel the order.

The manager was livid.  His employee had put the sale at risk by telling the customer about the impending delay and letting the customer know they could cancel.

The next day, the manager called the employee, was contrite, apologized profusely, and asked the employee to come back to work.

This employee was one of the best in the office.  She was being proactive with the customer.  She had the customer’s best interests at heart, and she was trying to provide good customer service.

The manager was so focused on the potential lost transaction that he didn’t recognize everything that his team member was doing, and why she was doing it.  He was so focused on that potential lost transaction, that he didn’t consider the magnitude of the loss of one of his best employees, the potential loss of her clients, the loss of trust and credibility with those employees who remained.

Fortunately for the manager, the apology worked.  It was basically a miracle that he could be so knee-jerk in the reaction one day, and the next day have the employee accept the apology and say she would return to work.

There are mistakes, and then there are MISTAKES.  And many of these mistakes are with our team members, our co-workers – not just with our clients.  Often, the best way to address the mistakes is to quickly and sincerely apologize.

To apologize is to humble one’s self.  The humility of an apology can sometimes work miracles.

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