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Use AI to Improve Your Performance - 7/23/24


Many companies are integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into some aspect of their business.  This could greatly change how they operate, how they communicate with customers. This AI wave reminds me of a story from 20+ years ago when a stock brokerage firm launched a new website that greatly enhanced the Read more

The New Burger Experience - 7/16/24


Floyd loves a good hamburger. Any chance he gets to try a new spin on an old standby, he takes it. Recently, a burger joint opened near his house, and Floyd was very excited! It was owned by and named for a world-renowned chef, so it had to be Read more

Boost Customer Happiness - 7/9/24


There’s a cooking show that a friend of mine watches, and the premise is all about reverse engineering food.  They may take a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, analyze it, and determine the ingredients just by tasting it.  Then they figure out a recipe.  The cook will try to make Read more

Brainstorm to Better Yourself - 7/2/24


I’ve led enough sessions with clients on continuous improvement topics to have solid experience on how to lead ideation exercises, brainstorming to develop new ideas.  Oftentimes these sessions start with the right question; the first answers may not be the ultimate solution, but they can serve as a jumping Read more

The Power of the Pause - 6/25/24


When I’m facilitating a meeting, and it feels like it’s going off-track or the discussion is going a little longer than it should, I may say something like “let me pause the conversation so that…” or “let’s pause just for a minute and consider…” I don’t like the word STOP. Read more

Handle Interruptions Heroically - 6/18/24


In the middle of a project, Jimbo, the customer service team member, had to stop what he was doing because he received an e-mail from a customer complaining about their experience at a recent event. Later that day, Jimbo was asked by his boss to put everything on hold for Read more

From Employees to Teammates: The Shift - 6/11/24


Be a great teammate. Be a good team player. We’re all part of the team. We’re no longer employees, we’re team members! The phrase “Team” is used in describing co-workers so much more than it was used years ago.  Then, we would be talking about employees, talking about staff, talking Read more

Nurture New Relationships - 6/4/24


Freddie was a new business owner in town.  He was launching a franchise, had acquired some funding from a local bank, and was in search of staff who cared about customer service. All the while, he was in the process of renovating a storefront for his business, so he was Read more

There’s Positivity in Patience - 5/28/24


The employee at the financial services firm was working with a new client on a relatively simple loan.  The documentation was about as clear as it could get to the employee, but the customer had lots of questions.  The employee calmly, clearly, and specifically answered each question.  The meeting Read more

The Goal – A Great Experience - 5/21/24


The following is a narrative of a great experience (people, process, service, facility) at a minor league sporting event – key points that could apply to any business are in bold… Mark and I pulled into the parking lot, excited about the game.  The Slapshots had been on a roll Read more

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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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Are You More Than 64% Responsive? – 9/30/14 TOW

Posted on September 30, 2014 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


I’m sure if we asked every healthcare CEO, every university president, and every sports team COO whether his/her staff are responsive to their current or prospective customers, they’d say “Yes!” And they’d be horrified to hear the truth.

We’ve conducted thousands of mystery shops in public and private sector businesses – from your local school system to pro sports teams, from universities to banks, from municipalities to healthcare providers. Oftentimes we leave voice mails and e-mails requesting a response to a question or need. Almost invariably, the response rates to those messages are abysmal.

The best return call percentage to voice mails has been 55%. The best e-mail response rate we’ve seen is 64%. I’m not describing high quality responses, either; I’m just sharing the percentage who responded at all.

Maybe I give the CXOs too much credit, suggesting they’d be “horrified.” Why? Because it’s not like moving mountains to have personnel respond to over 70% or 80% or 90% of messages received. Three actions of the CXOs are required to increase responsiveness:

  1. They have to continually communicate how important it is to be responsive to customers.
  2. The CXOs must be as responsive to their own staff as they expect staff to be with customers.
  3. The CXOs must ensure that their management and staff have the time, processes, and systems that facilitate responsiveness.

Now one could surmise that the 3rd point is the hardest action to take, and that may be true. But I would argue that the 2nd point is hardest for most CXOs, because even before these actions occur, the CXO has to do one simple thing – care.

They have to care about staff, care about the customer, care about creating an environment where responsiveness can occur, and care about being the model to their staff.

So what’s the best way to ensure that staff “get it” about the need for responsiveness?

To answer this, I’m going to steal a line a client of mine stated last week (I’m paraphrasing). Leaders should ask their staff “Who’s the most responsive person in the organization?”

What if the staff named that leader, that CXO? Now, that would be POWERFUL!

Share this Tip with your leaders. Encourage them to be the most responsive person in your organization.

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