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One Question to Prevent a Follow-up Call - 3/3/26


The way some performance metrics work, you would think companies would prefer for their staff to talk to the same customer 4 times on the same topic for 8 minutes each rather than talking to them once for 10 minutes.  Many management metrics are too focused on average length Read more

Stay Calm When the Customer Isn’t - 2/24/26


There are all sorts of others’ emotions that you have to deal with as a customer service professional.  The other person could be anxious or upset, they could be angry or agitated.  It can run the gamut of emotions, but for you to deal with them in the best Read more

Don’t Begin with the Dead End in Mind - 2/17/26


Habit #2 of Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People” is “Begin with the End in Mind.”  It speaks to the need to have a clear vision or goal for what you’re trying to ultimately achieve, so you understand the purpose of what you’re doing.  It helps you Read more

Explain without Over Explaining - 2/10/26


The customer has a question, and we have an answer.  They need to learn something, and we’re in the position to be the educator.  There’s a process they have to go through, and we need them to understand. We know so much, and we could impart so much, but sometimes Read more

Look for a Stop Sign - 2/3/26


As a customer service professional, what you say matters.  The information you’re providing is useful.  The direction you’re giving the other person is helpful.  But... As you’re speaking, you also need to be reading.  Reading the other person.  Watching the customer, determining whether and how they’re receiving what you’re sharing.  Read more

When They Want the Supervisor - 1/27/26


Maybe you did your best with the customer, or maybe the customer didn’t even give you a chance.  They want to talk to your supervisor.  They see you, notice your title does not have “supervisor” or “manager” or “director” or “President and CEO” in it, so they want to Read more

Identify Your Point of Empathy - 1/20/26


I was watching a webinar recently on empathy.  The speaker mentioned that empathy - to a large extent - is something that you are born with.  It’s something that’s very difficult to learn.  And while I agree that some people are predisposed to being empathetic and understanding of others Read more

Pressure is a Privilege, but... - 1/13/26


When athletes are asked about the pressure of a playoff match or a late-game situation, many times they will say that “pressure is a privilege.”  In other words, usually pressure exists because you’re in a match that matters most.  It exists because you are a player put in a Read more

While I’ve Got You on the Phone… - 1/6/26


I’m a big planner.  Whether it’s strategic planning or planning out the year or planning my week first thing on a Monday morning, I like to plan.  I do this because it gets all of my action items documented and ensures that I have some understanding of what I Read more

Pass the Quick Impression Test - 12/30/25


Some studies have shown that people create an impression of you in less than a second when they first meet you face-to-face.  Other studies have shown that that initial impression can take up to 7 seconds.  Regardless, first impressions are quick.  First impressions are not always the lasting impression, Read more

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Narrow Your Focus to Seek Excellence – 4/1/25

Posted on April 1, 2025 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

You’ve probably heard companies use phrases such as: “We want to go from being good to great.”  Maybe they’ve said: “We strive for perfection, and although we’ll never reach perfection, maybe we can achieve excellence along the way.”

These organizations find some kind of a catch phrase or slogan, but the crux of what they’re trying to do is to get better.  They’re trying to improve.

When we used to conduct assessments for companies 15-20 years ago, we would identify a laundry list of things they needed to improve.  We’d note the 60, 80, 100 different recommendations.  Some were very tactical in nature, while some needed to be addressed over a period of several months or a year.  Others were very strategic in nature.

What we found was that the more we categorized, organized, and consolidated those recommendations, the less daunting the list appeared to the client, the more manageable the list was to address.

Now, the maximum number of top priority recommendations we typically provide is 20, and more likely we’ll have 5-10 key focus areas.  So, if you want to get better, if you want to become great, if you want to achieve excellence – particularly as an individual – identify some broad but important areas of focus.  Here are 3 quick examples:

Could You Communicate Better?  This could involve improving your communication skills, your business writing effectiveness, being more intentional about the words you use or more cognizant of your body language and tone of voice.

Could You Become a Better Planner?  You could identify what needs to be done by when, what your priorities may be.  Then, lay out your work over a period of days or weeks or – for big projects – over months in order to ensure you’re not having to scramble at the end of a project to meet the deadline.

Could You Better Prepare Your Customers?  Do you send information to the customer expecting an immediate review or quick turnaround?  Instead, lay out what the process is going to look like for the customer, what you expect of them, what they can expect of you, when those activities will happen.  Lay it out so the customer’s not put in a position of having to be ultra responsive to you without any forewarning.

Identify a few broad but important areas where you can be better.  Then use them as an ongoing focal point to continuously improve, to seek excellence.

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Make it a “Good Busy” – 9/28/21

Posted on September 28, 2021 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

When I’m speaking with colleagues or clients, I’ll often ask how their day is going. The response I get almost once a week is something like:  I’m incredibly busy!

When I get that response, sometimes I’ll ask whether it is a “good busy” or whether they are “fighting fires.”

I’ll ask that question to gauge how they’re feeling.  Being “good busy” with important work helps you feel positive and fulfilled.  Spending days just fighting fires – urgent tasks that pop up unexpectedly or at the last minute – can result in anxiety, stress, and poor quality work.  That can trickle into customer engagement where we’re too busy to be responsive to customers, are short in speaking with them, or make mistakes in service actions.

While fighting fires is something that we could deal with because other people fill our inbox at the last minute, some of the activities that are urgent and require us to drop everything else or cause us to work into the late hours every evening are things we can control.

If we find ourselves constantly working on the urgent to meet a deadline at the last second, if we find ourselves constantly stressing about not having enough hours in the day, if we find ourselves feeling unsettled with all the plates that are spinning around us at the same time, realize that this situation is something we can take more control over in the future.

Particularly where you have deadlines, document the key steps that need to be addressed and how much time others will need to do their part through the process.  Put those timelines on your daily To Do List.  Reflect back on how much time it takes to do these tasks so that you’re allocating enough time today on something that needs to be completed three days from now.  You have enough understanding of how many activities you can do in one day, so, where you have control over those activities and when they’re done, you can massage your schedule for the week so that the workload is a little more evened out.

We’re all going to be busy at times if not almost all times, but the type of busy we’re dealing with is often affected by how well we’re planning to meet the deadlines.

Make it a Good Busy.

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General George Patton on Customer Service – 4/3/18

Posted on April 3, 2018 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


Here’s a quote from General George Patton: “Plans must be simple and flexible. They should be made by the people who are going to execute them.”

We’ve worked with enough companies to know that employees get irate when they’re told about plans too late or they’re not involved in any way, shape, or form in the decision-making process. Therefore, they’re given last minute instructions and plans that – oftentimes – they know will not work as designed. This lack of frontline employee input can easily lead to a lack of success.

But not all plans are strategic in nature or need to be executive-driven. Many plans – especially those that are more situational – can be developed by individual employees. You are the ones who are going to be executing these plans. You are the ones who are going to tailor them to the situation or the individual that you are interacting with at the time.

Therefore, create plans to cover some of these important but common situations:

  • You’re asked a question, and you don’t have the knowledge or experience to answer.
  • The customer complains and then demands immediate resolution.
  • You’re given a last minute project by a supervisor, when you already have competing deadlines on other projects.
  • The other person is making a request that you know cannot be addressed the way they want it addressed, or in the timeframe they want it addressed.
  • The customer asks about a product or service that you don’t have or don’t deliver.
  • The customer complains about your co-worker, your company, or some issue that occurred years ago.

 
These are all typical issues that many of us may run into occasionally (or frequently!). Instead of putting yourself in a position to have to come up with the perfect answer on the spot, create plans for how you would address each of the situations.

Yes, the customer and the specific concern may to be unique in every case. However, if you have a plan, your comfort and confidence level will rise, and you will eliminate one variable of the equation when determining how to address the situation.

Create simple and flexible plans for common (but important) situations.

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