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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

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

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A Story from Rene – 10/21/14 TOW

Posted on October 21, 2014 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


My friend Rene told a story recently that you may have heard, but it’s worth another read…

A little girl named Sandi was walking on a beach the morning after a rough storm had passed through. Strewn across the beach were hundreds, possibly thousands of starfish. One-by-one, Sandi would pick up a starfish and toss it back into the ocean.

A man was taking a morning walk and noticed what the girl was doing. The man asked Sandi why she was doing it, and she told him that she was trying to get the starfish back to the sea so they could survive.

The man replied, “But there could be thousands of starfish out here. You can’t possibly make much of a difference.”

Sandi’s face turned sad, she looked down, and stared at the ground. Then she slowly walked forward, picked up another starfish, and tossed it into the sea. “Well I made a difference to that one,” she said.

As Sandi continued, the man paused, and then he too started picking up the starfish and throwing them into the sea. Soon others who had been watching Sandi – and now the man as well – joined in. Eventually, all the starfish were back in the ocean.

Why do I relay this story to you today?

People who are great at customer service have some Sandi in them. You may not be able to change the entire world by addressing every customer that exists, by resolving every issue that occurs. But you make a difference with that one person in front of you, that one person on the phone, that one unique individual who sent the e-mail or wrote the letter.

You make a difference, and in doing so – whether you realize it or not – you get noticed. Maybe it’s your boss or a co-worker, it’s a friend or the customer himself – but somebody notices. And maybe because you do what you do so well in taking care of that one customer, someone else is educated or inspired to do likewise.

It’s not just leaders who are models. People who are great at caring for others through customer service are models, too.

Appreciate every opportunity to toss that starfish back to the sea.

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The Customer Service Rep Stuck Inside the Robot

Posted on October 13, 2014 in Business Advice, Government Please leave a comment

Blog 10-13-14Usually I can share an insightful “lesson learned” from customer service stories on the web, but this one is too little weird to evaluate; yet, it’s interesting enough to share.

In the article Robot makes big bang at Indy airport, you can see a picture of a robot that circulates baggage claim at the Indianapolis International Airport with an iPad on top showing the face of a guest services employee. The robot is fashionably dressed in a blue golf shirt and a lavaliere that I assume has his/her/its (?) name badge.

You can’t make this stuff up!

The idea is to bring customer service to the customers instead of their having to go upstairs to the guest services department. I’m reaching for any other benefit, but I’m sure someone creative will begin incorporating printing functionality on the robot, baggage handling, child watching, and coffee dispensing among the many other uses of the robot.

I’m not certain why they couldn’t put an actual person there instead of a robot (except for the “off hours” opportunity where staff could work remotely through the robot while guest services is closed), but the concept is interesting.

Share this post, and offer your thoughts “socially” – How could this robot best be used?

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Patient Experience Pros Don’t Have Unlimited Resources, Therefore…

Posted on October 8, 2014 in Business Advice, Healthcare Please leave a comment

Blog 10-8-14The healthcare industry is seemingly struggling to come up with a common and manageable definition for the “Patient Experience.” Maybe it’s because “experience” is such a broad term just like terms such as “feeling, perception, opinion” – which are often the words used to evaluate the Patient Experience. As an example, when the article Hospitals Focus On Patient Experience Through Design addresses Patient Experience, virtually the sole focus of the experience is the facility – the layout, the furnishings, the look/feel of the physical surroundings.

Therefore, Patient Experience could reference a facility, an employee, a phone call, or a website. It could reference a process, a wait time, other patients, communications, quality of care, cleanliness, food quality, or noise. It’s just too much to consider in terms of the multitude of definitions and aspects of an encounter or relationship that the patient has with the provider.

Patient Experience professionals don’t have unlimited time or resources. They can’t redesign a facility, turn all employees into Disney cast members, and get processes working like a Toyota assembly line to create the optimal Patient Experience. Instead, to make Patient Experience management…well…manageable, ask yourself this one question:

How do we focus “Patient Experience” efforts on that which has maximum impact on the patient’s feelings, perceptions, and opinions?

I’m going back to those 3 words – feelings/perceptions/opinions – because patients make the decision about whether to return if needed or seek care elsewhere based on feelings/perceptions/opinions. The answer to that question helps you to determine what impacts the patient’s willingness to recommend your organization to others. The answer to that question results in your understanding what can make a patient decide to give you the positive or negative rating. And the answer to that question helps you to better understand how they decide to be compliant with their self-care or post-discharge instructions. They decide all of these points based on their feelings/perceptions/opinions.

Through research, you can determine – statistically – what aspects of the experience have the greatest bearing on willingness to return, willingness to recommend, ratings, and compliance. By asking patients what impacts their feelings/perceptions/opinions, you allow them to guide you toward what would move their experience from good to GREAT! Don’t view your role as a Patient Experience professional as one that requires you to fix all the people, process, and facility ills in the healthcare world.

Let the Voice of the Patient guide your plans and priorities.

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