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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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Create a Personal Vision for the Year – 1/3/23

Posted on January 3, 2023 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

This time of year is all about the New Year’s resolution.  We’re going to exercise or eat differently!  Then…2 months later, who knows what’ll be happening, but at least you set a goal.  For many of us, that’s progress.

For businesses, that New Year’s resolution often has to deal with something…well…New!  It’s a new direction or a new way of doing business.  Maybe it’s looking for new customers, developing a new product, or creating a new culture.

With many of our clients, it truly is about that new Vision.  They want to paint a picture of what the future could be, of what success could look like, of the impact and benefit the organization could have on its customers and its community.

Oftentimes, this visioning leads to strategic planning.  Sometimes it leads to more focused annual planning; it leads to effective alignment throughout the organization based on the common vision.  And sometimes – at a minimum – it creates a litmus test within which decisions can be made.  In other words: Will Option A better position us to achieve our vision, or will Option B?

Create Your Personal Vision Statement

This is also a perfect time of year for us to individually think about our own vision.  As you know, our days can go by quickly if we’re spinning a lot of plates – engaging and supporting the customer, the company, the co-worker.  It’s a lot to just try to get done.  But if we want to end the year in a better situation or with a better set of skills or with more success stories to tell, consider taking a few minutes to paint your own future picture.

Where do you want to be by the end of the year in your role or your career?  What kind of relationships do you want to have with your customers?  Where do you want your experience level to be greater, or your skills better?  How much enjoyment do you want to have in your role, and what are a couple of the things you need to start doing, stop doing, or do differently to bring more joy and enrichment to your own job?

If you create a personal vision of what you want this year to become, you have a much better chance to achieve it.

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Critique Yourself before Others Do – 10/11/22

Posted on October 11, 2022 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

When we’re criticized, we can get defensive, push back, deflect blame to others, and focus more on defending ourselves than really listening to what the other person is saying.  And some of us who get defensive, once we allow our emotions to settle, take time to reflect on what the other person said.  We sometimes are willing to see those kernels of truth.  We are willing to learn from them and possibly make a change moving forward.

While it’s not great to be defensive, it’s often a natural reaction.  It’s also a sign of maturity and wisdom to be able to overcome that initial defensiveness and try to get some lessons learned from what the other person said.

But what if we critiqued our own mistakes before the customer or co-worker complained?  Not everything we do imperfectly or incorrectly or not on a timely basis or not in the best way possible is something that’s going to draw a complaint.

If you’re like me, you probably make little mistakes every single day.

We make many decisions every day, so it’s natural that some of those decisions are going to be wrong.  The resulting action or inaction could be wrong.

Self-critiques that can lead to Self-improvement

But when we know in our gut or it’s clear based on some reaction/data/feedback that we didn’t do our best, we have to learn from our own mistakes:

  • I really should have called that person back when I first thought about it.
  • I knew I should have had somebody check my work before I moved it to the next step.
  • I should have paused and thought through what might happen on that call before I responded to the customer.
  • I really should have listened one more minute or asked one more question before sharing my thoughts.
  • That meeting took a lot longer than it could have, and if I had just gone in a little bit more prepared, we probably would have ended on time.
  • That would have gone much better if I stopped sending e-mails and just picked up the phone and called the person.
  • That call would have been a lot cleaner if I would have looked away from the computer screen and focused totally on the caller.

If we make these comments to ourselves and put lessons learned into place, then maybe we would have fewer reasons for the co-worker or the customer to critique us.  And if they did critique us, we probably would have already had that conversation with ourselves about a very similar issue, and we might understand their critique more because we heard it from ourselves first.

Therefore, we might not respond so defensively, we might not get so emotional, and we might actually understand where they’re coming from a lot sooner.

If you critique yourself before others do, the critiques of others won’t affect you as much.

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Challenges Create Opportunity, People Create Change – 4/20/21

Posted on April 20, 2021 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

There are so many great things that have been said over the years about overcoming challenges, pushing aside the roadblocks of life, dealing with difficulties.  And these are important points of discussion because challenges are all around us.  There are challenges with our personal health or in our personal lives.  We could have the challenges of dealing with mean or angry individuals at work.  It could be the challenge of trying to support a customer but not getting the support of your co-worker.  The challenges could be inconsistent communications or ineffective systems and processes.  Maybe our challenge is due to our own personal burdens or biases or lack of professional development.

We have these challenges, but to overcome them or push them aside or deal with them, people have to take some action:

  • You’re dealing with essentially the same complaints from customers in your office every day. What can you do to reduce the number of those complaints that you have to deal with each day?
  • You’ve been given bad directions to a customer’s home 4 times this week – it wasted your time! What can you do to make sure it doesn’t happen 4 times next week?
  • You deal with an issue where you’re just not comfortable or confident. What can you do to become more comfortable and more confident?
  • The system is not intuitive for you. It takes you much longer to accomplish your work than it should.  What can you do to become more proficient?
  • The frustration of that angry customer gets to you. You get flustered and you get defensive, and the next thing you know you’re in a 10-minute conversation that never seems to go anywhere.  What can you do to manage your own emotions better?

We’re always going to have challenges.  We are human, and the people we work with are human, as well.  The systems that we work with are FAR from perfect, too!

Identify 1 or 2 of the challenges that cause you heartburn.  Then determine 1 or 2 actions you can take so that these situations happen less frequently or you’re more effective at dealing with them in the future.

Challenges create opportunity.  Be one of the people that creates change.

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