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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

Guiding Principles for Great Customer Service - 11/12/24


It’s hard to know every procedure, every policy, every technique possible to handle every situation correctly.  After all, maybe our procedures are standard, but our customers are not.  Maybe our policies stay pretty consistent, but our customers’ needs and issues, their attitudes and actions can change from customer to Read more

From a Simple Question to an Exceptional Experience - 11/5/24


Phyllis loves her job.  It’s not just because she loves being a customer service representative, not just because she really likes her co-workers, and not just because she enjoys her company.  It’s because she really appreciates her customers, as well. A customer had ordered a register book off the company Read more

Fix One Problem without Creating Another - 10/29/24


If you’ve ever had an issue with your dishwasher, this will sound familiar.  I’ve dealt with so many dishwashers over the years, and they always seem to have some kind of an issue.  Maybe it’s because of the mix of water and technology, but for whatever reason, these never Read more

Delight Your Customers - 10/22/24


Buddy the Bug Man was different.  His company was new, and the only reason why Janet tried him out was that the service she had used for years just wasn’t working.  Whether it was mosquitoes in the yard, ants in the kitchen, or cockroaches flying through on their way Read more

A More Complete Definition of Responsiveness - 10/15/24


I was purchasing something recently that was being custom-developed.  At one point, the company’s employee and I had a good 20 e-mails going back and forth - 10 from each of us.  Unfortunately, I broke my own rule, and I did not pick up the phone after 2 or Read more

Have a Game Plan to Address Their Anxiety - 10/8/24


It seems like we all get deliveries - whether it is UPS, USPS, FedEx, Amazon, the local courier, or all the above.  We order.  They deliver.  Or do they? It’s times like these, when we’re expecting that package, that item that we’re looking forward to or need urgently or are Read more

How Persistence Saved the Day - 10/1/24


Sherrie saw the customer walk into her store holding his cell phone, and Sherrie immediately knew that was William.  She had spoken to William on the phone about an hour ago, he said he would be at Sherrie’s cell phone store in less than an hour, and there he Read more

Notice the Little Changes - 9/24/24


“My, how times have changed.” Yes, times have changed.  As a matter of fact, one of the biggest reasons why an organization’s customer service deteriorates is that times have changed…customers have changed…and the company has not… If we think about customer service delivery today v. decades ago, changes in technology alone Read more

Don’t Hurry…Be Quick - 9/17/24


No, this is not a take off on the Bobby McFerrin song:  Don’t Worry Be Happy. It’s actually a take off on the John Wooden quote:  Be quick, but don’t hurry. When I read Wooden’s book with this title, I liked the concept, and not just because John Wooden was a Read more

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Customers Want Easy, but Easy is Difficult – 1/12/21

Posted on January 12, 2021 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

New employees go through days of training to learn products and services.  They have formal workshops to learn how to use their office applications, web functions, and whatever programs are specific to their department.  They test new technology, and they get quizzed on knowledge of policies.  This is hours or days or sometimes weeks of training so that the employees can do their work consistently and effectively.

Customers of our companies typically go through no training.  There are no half-day workshops to learn how to lodge a complaint or request a refund or ask a clarifying question or check on a status.

Customers are not and should not be expected to be experts in our business.  Customers want EASY – Easy to find, easy to access, easy to understand, easy to use.

But Easy is difficult.

I once worked for an administrator in a hospital, and I noted how in certain aspects of operations, we needed to simplify some processes – make it easier on employees to deliver consistently high-quality service.  The administrator responded that his peers don’t think Easy is challenging. I replied:

Making something easy is actually one of the most difficult things you can do in business.

It’s not difficult to have a new procedure or policy, a new function or feature, and just add it on top of what currently exists.  It’s not difficult to just add 5 pages at the back of the standard operations manual.  It’s not difficult to just let incremental complexity grow on a day-by-day and year-by-year basis.

What is difficult is taking a step back, seeing everything through the lens of a customer or an employee, and trying to make it as easy as possible for the employee to deliver great service, or as easy as possible for the customer to have a great experience.

If your organization wants a challenge that will benefit your customer, take on the challenge of Easy.  Find ways to make it easier on the customer to find you or your service offerings.  Make it easier for them to access the information and the solutions they need.  Make the information as easy to understand as possible.  And once they are accessing that product or service, make it as easy as possible to use.

If you need a challenge for the new year, try to make it Easy on the customer.

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Use Millennials’ Favorite Words – 10/3/17

Posted on October 3, 2017 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


Okay – you got me. This tip doesn’t JUST apply to Millennials or JUST their favorite words, but I’m going to use that title as a jumping off point.

In recent research conducted by Prosper-Insights & Analytics, the 5 key terms that Millennials most frequently use to describe excellent customer service are: Helpful, Quick, Returns, Easy, (Fix/Resolve) Problems.

Essentially this is how Millennials define excellent customer service. There are 2 ways we’re going to suggest you use this information.

Self-Analysis
The first is self-analysis (for you or your organization):

  • Are you helpful? Yes, you may provide facts or information, but do you help the customer address their goal or need? This is second level customer service – going beyond the response you provide to the result the customer desires.
  • Is your service quick? Do you respond to the e-mails, calls, chats, needs, and issues expeditiously, and do you ask for the customer’s timeframes so that you know how they define “Quick?”
  • How do you handle returns? Is it as simple for them to return as to buy; are the employee attitudes as pleasant when customers return and want the refund as they are when customers buy and make the payment?
  • Do you make it easy for them to do business with you? For them to understand their responsibilities v. the company’s? For the customer to communicate with you?
  • Finally, what do you do when things go wrong? How are you at fixing/resolving problems? With many customers, your response to the issue tells them far more about your level of customer service than your response to the sale.

 
Phrasing with Customers
The second way we suggest that you use this information is to incorporate it into your daily phrasing with customers – particularly the words helpful, quick, easy. “I want to help you. We want to make this a quick and easy process for you. How else can I help? What’s the easiest way to keep in touch with you?”

When customers tell you what’s important, use that information to improve. And use those words in your customer conversations.

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For Some, It’s All About This – 1/20/15 TOW

Posted on January 20, 2015 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


We often say that companies need to make it “Easy” on the customer to do business. It needs to be easy to schedule a doctor’s appointment. It needs to be easy to renew season tickets. It’s got to be easy to reserve a park shelter. We’ve got to make it easy for parents to register their children for school.

By let’s look at “Easy” as it relates to logistics. We did a brief research study for a grocery chain many years ago, and we asked where customers shopped and why. The #1 reason why people shopped at a particular grocery store was its proximity to their home. It was all about…convenience.

You have to make it convenient for the customer to get to your products/services, your policies/procedures, your processes, and people.

How close – literally – are you to your customers? Can those customers who prefer or need the face-to-face get to you quickly?

How about those that prefer the phone? Can they call one basic number as the window to access all your services, all the answers to their questions? How accessible is the number to the average first-time customer?

Think about those loving the web and smart phones for communication – is contact with your organization available at a click or a voice command? Is your business (again) literally at their fingertips?

Before working to make your organization incredibly easy to deal with once the customer gets to you, first make yourself convenient to them.

For Some, it’s All About Convenience.

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