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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

4 Actions for the Customer - 9/10/24


One way to look at the difference between proactive and reactive is that proactive is something that’s often done before it absolutely has to be done.  Maybe it’s something done that really doesn’t have to occur, but your professionalism takes over, and some action or communication that you know Read more

Don’t Kick the Problem Down the Road - 9/3/24


The error was obvious.  Shania is a clerk at a local government office, and she could tell that something was wrong with the permit request.  She was about to reject the request because the address was invalid. If this would have been handled like the normal process, Shania would have Read more

Reflect the Best of Your Customers - 8/27/24


When Alice walks into a business, whether it’s a restaurant or government building, whether it’s a Goodwill or a grocery store, she has a certain way about her.  She’s the customer, and it’s not unusual to hear her say to the employee:  Thanks for being here today! It’s not unusual Read more

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Make Empathy Your Superpower – 1/2/24

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

I was facilitating a Service Excellence Training class for a Higher Ed client in the Northeast several years back.  As I was walking through the portions of our technique for defusing the angry customer, I talked about empathy.  I talked about accepting responsibility.

Immediately, one of the hands in the room went up.  The employee said: I would never make statements like you’re suggesting.  Once you start saying you’re sorry or once you start acknowledging their feelings, they’re going to sense that you’re weak.  They’re gonna walk all over you.

I was a little bit taken aback initially, but not because somebody was challenging the technique.  Primarily, I was surprised somebody would consider it a weakness to be empathetic.  Somebody might consider it a weakness to accept responsibility.

I’ve always viewed empathy as a strength.  It’s a higher level of awareness, a higher level of caring for another person.  Being willing to look outside yourself to understand the unique needs and situations of another.  It’s a strength to have emotional awareness of others.  These are strong, positive attributes.

Now, I understand the employee’s point was that if you ‘put down your guard,’ if you acknowledge the other person, they may feel that they can berate you, or get you to do things on their behalf that are against policy, not ethical, or not the acceptable procedure.  But what he was suggesting was to maintain a defensive posture.  To not acknowledge the issue or any company responsibility.

What empathy does is to help the customer feel that you care, and to more quickly move you to a next step.  What lack of empathy does is to create a stalemate, to bog down the conversation, to S-L-O-W progress toward a resolution, and to ramp up the negative emotions.

Use empathy to make the customer feel better, to feel heard and understood.  But use it also because it saves you time, it keeps down emotions, and it moves the conversation along.

Use empathy as a strength.  Make it your superpower.

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When Passive Voice is a Good Thing – 8/9/22

Posted on August 9, 2022 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

It’s all your fault, Mr. Customer!

We may want to shout it from the rooftops, but other than venting and absolving ourselves of guilt, this wouldn’t help much in the grand scheme of things.

We have a customer sitting in front of us or on the phone, and maybe they are to blame, but by blaming them, we are often whipping the emotions up.  And when we’re dealing with service recovery, we want to bring the emotions down.  We can waste a lot of time and energy dealing with emotions and never getting to a solution, so we want to find ways to deal with issues without focusing on blame.

Avoiding the You

Avoiding discussions of blame requires that we avoid discussions of You.  At a high level, we basically try to avoid the Who, and focus on the What and the When.  We literally talk about the issue, what happened, when did it happen, how did things occur.  We spend enough time on the issue only to understand the direction to go with the solution.

And with the solution, again, we focus on the What and the When, the How, and – sometimes – the Who.

So how do we avoid talking about who caused the issue?  Sometimes it’s very easy – just talk about what steps were taken without saying who took those steps.  We literally avoid the word You, and we actually use a little passive voice (When this happened… or This occurred after…).  Those are softer ways to describe an occurrence than You did this… You caused this… This problem was created by you.

Getting to the Solution

Again, we want to understand the issue well enough to get to the solution, but we don’t want to be mired in the emotion.  Sometimes it pays not to focus on who is right and who is wrong.  Instead, we need to focus on getting to the right solution as quickly as possible.

The next time you find yourself in one of these service recovery situations and the customer’s clearly in the wrong, focus on the issue and solution, and try to avoid assigning blame.

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Foster Positive Feelings – 1/4/22

Posted on January 4, 2022 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

I bet a lot of you all are like me – when you’re asked to share your feelings, it’s not always something that feels comfortable.  It obviously depends on the situation and who’s asking you to share your feelings.  So, many of us might hesitate in sharing our feelings.

However, when customers are providing a word-of-mouth evaluation of our businesses, what they are mostly sharing is their feelings.  Sure, they’re telling their buddy, their co-worker, their spouse, or an acquaintance about the specifics of their experience in working with our businesses.  But they are also sharing their feelings.  How they paint the picture of their experiences is often based on the feelings they take away from their interactions with us.

So, if word-of-mouth can generate business for us, if word of mouth – when negative – can keep potential new customers from even considering our businesses, then the question becomes:  How do we engender positive feelings from customers?

Feelings We Want Our Customers to Have

Most of us want our customers to feel comfortable in working with us.  We want them to have enjoyed the experience, to be confident in what we’re doing, to feel respected, to feel like we valued their time.

If these are some of the feelings that we want our customers to have, some of the positive feelings that they could share in conversations with others, then we need to determine how to engender these feelings.

Foster Positive Feelings

Consider these points:

  • Strive to make your customers feel comfortable – with the environment, the process, and the plan.
  • Be consistent, knowledgeable, and effective enough to gain their confidence.
  • Be efficient enough, patient enough, and communicate well enough so that they feel you valued their time.
  • Tell them they are important, and convey it with your actions and your responsiveness.
  • Use your body language, your tone of voice, and how you engage them with your words to convey true respect.

To foster more positive word-of-mouth, work hard to foster positive feelings in the heart of your customers.

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