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Talk About Yourself to Build Customer Confidence - 4/16/24


When you’re dealing with somebody who is anxious or nervous about a situation, a customer who feels like they don’t have much control, an individual who is unsure and uncertain, it’s important to put the customer at ease.  It’s important to build their comfort level.  It’s important to help Read more

The Proven Value in What You Do - 4/9/24


Forbes wrote an article last year based on a compilation of the results of research on customer service and the customer experience; it was titled:  100 Customer Experience Stats For 2023. In reading the article, you’ll note that many of these key research findings are about you – the value Read more

A Tale of Two Texts - 4/2/24


Having to get allergy shots once a week is never fun, and for Janet, it became an even bigger frustration. She had the shots typically scheduled on Tuesday around 10:30 in the morning, figuring she would avoid the morning rush as well as the lunch rush by going mid-morning.  However, Read more

The Secret Sauce for Great Customer Service - 3/26/24


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 Read more

The Miracle of an Apology - 3/19/24


Unfortunate but true story… The manager basically lost his mind.  He terminated his employee on the spot.  She had told the customer that there was going to be a delay in the shipment.  The employee called up the customer ahead of time to let the customer know what was about Read more

It’s Not About the 5-Minute Wait - 3/12/24


Robert went into his supervisor’s office to update her on a situation at the payment desk.  Robert said that a customer was about fourth or fifth in line, waiting to be served, and the customer was complaining loudly about the wait.  He was there to make a property tax Read more

Lessons from the Greats - 3/5/24


I was recently facilitating a workshop on the customer experience, and I made the point that it’s usually beneficial to look at your personal life for great experiences; identify what really resonates with you in a positive way in order to uncover ideas to improve your own customer service. So, Read more

The Empathy Roadmap - 2/27/24


For some people, empathy comes naturally.  There’s an innate desire to learn about the other person and to sincerely convey that sense of interest and caring.  But for many of us, sometimes it helps to have a communication plan.  It helps to know what to do in order to Read more

“You’re the Boss” - 2/20/24


Terrence is excellent at what he does.  From a technical standpoint, he knows how to keep the facility clean.  He’s the lead custodian, and he knows that keeping things straight does not necessarily mean keeping things sanitary.  He knows what chemicals to use and not to use, how to Read more

Customer Understanding Leads to Relationship Growth - 2/13/24


We’ve worked with educational organizations at all grade levels over the years.  One special and unique characteristic about the staff who work in these organizations is that there’s a clear intent to know about the students as individuals, to focus on them rather than purely focusing on what’s delivered Read more

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Do You Know if They Know?

Posted on June 8, 2010 in Business Advice, Government Please leave a comment

We’ve designed a great number of surveys for municipalities and their agencies, focusing on customer satisfaction, perception, and awareness. What is so important with these government-based research instruments that is often downplayed or overlooked entirely is the focus on awareness.

Awareness questions typically focus on two areas: (1) Gauging the resident’s awareness of services and programs offered by the municipality and its agencies and (2) Gauging the resident’s awareness of processes – essentially how to do things.

These questions are vital because all the radio public service announcements, flyers, and government TV channels cost money; but the goal is not to implement a strategy to push information to residents. The goal is for the residents to understand, to remember, to be aware. So that awareness has to be measured – municipalities want participation (i.e., people using their parks, getting access to support services, attending events, and utilizing their recreation centers), and they want whatever revenue is associated with that participation.

But in this age of customer service being balanced with customer “self-service,” residents must also be aware of HOW TO do things. What’s the process to apply for Medicaid, to reserve a park shelter, update my business listing online, get a new recycle bin, or report that the neighbor puts oil down the sewer drain? The more educated residents are on how to do things themselves, the more efficient a municipality can be in providing that service since the resident either goes through the process on their own or they contact the right employee to help them the first time.

These principles are universal in business – customer awareness is a huge asset to any business wanting to grow (i.e., increasing awareness of products/services) and any business wanting to improve efficiencies (i.e., increasing awareness of service processes).

When you conduct your customer surveys, make sure you’re researching your customer’s awareness.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more information at: http://www.cssamerica.com/


Technology Helps to Keep Customer Relationships Healthy

Posted on May 12, 2010 in Business Advice, Education, Healthcare, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

With the passing of Healthcare Reform, medical practices are bracing themselves for significant increases in appointments and workload as tens of millions more Americans anticipate acquiring health insurance. Having insurance eliminates a key barrier to utilization of healthcare services, so volumes should increase; yet there’s no guarantee that revenues flowing into medical practices will increase at the same rate as their workload.

So the question is how do they operate more efficiently? One key productivity driver in most businesses is the use of technology. Any many practices will use technology not only to become more efficient, but they’ll also use it to improve their customer relationships.

Technology can provide this dual role (increasing efficiencies and customer satisfaction) for virtually any business.

The practices will rely more and more on technology to send out appointment confirmations via e-mail. Reminders will be sent of the appointments as the date draws near. Satisfaction surveys will be launched post-visit via e-mail invitations. The practices will get more automated in their communications with their customers to ensure patients are prepared for their appointments, arrive, arrive on time, and provide feedback after the visit.

Think of how this applies to any business. The local courier service could use technology to keep their customers up-to-date on the stages of the order, pickup, and delivery – thereby eliminating most incoming/outgoing phone calls requesting status. The car dealership could use technology to ensure that the customer shows up on time and gains feedback on their experience while it’s fresh on the customer’s mind. The university’s admissions department could use technology to ensure that the prospective student and her parents know how to navigate the campus, understand where to access financial aid forms, and are kept up-to-date on the financial aid evaluation and admissions status.

Technology can be a great driver of efficiency, but it can also be a great communications tool with customers to keep them up-to-date and to keep your organization looking responsive to their needs.

Use technology to keep your customer relationships healthy.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more information at: http://www.cssamerica.com/


The University versus the NBA

Posted on May 10, 2010 in Business Advice, Education, Sports Please leave a comment

There’s a lot that higher education and the National Basketball Association have in common. Yes, you read that correctly.

One of the biggest priorities that they have in common is their need to focus on their first year customers. The universities’ biggest risk of drop out or transfer occurs with freshmen. The NBA teams’ biggest risk of loss of season ticket holders comes with the first year season ticket holders. Both of these customer groups come in with certain expectations, certain dreams, certain perceptions that either they themselves have developed or that the organization has created with their marketing and recruiting and sales efforts. But the question is, how well are those expectations being met?

For organizations to do a great job in retaining first year customers – whether they be the student for the four-year university or the season ticket holder for the professional sports franchise – they need to make sure they have a “Year One Strategy.”

Much of what a Year One Strategy involves is research. Since you’re going through a sales process with a season ticket holder or going through a recruitment process for the new student, you need to take that opportunity to gather a great deal of intelligence on why they are coming to your organization and why they would go. You need to know what they understand and expect of their experience as a new customer, so you have an understanding of how well that will match with the reality that they are about to experience.

Setup an ongoing research strategy that involves an early survey of these individuals to gauge what their experience is like and what issues they might be having. As part of that Year One Strategy, you also need to have an ongoing intelligence-building set of research efforts taking place to gather more and more information about what is unique about these individuals, what they want to get out of their experience, and how satisfied they are with your organization.

The other key component of your Year One Strategy needs to be education. And that educational focus is not just for educational institutions, but it’s for any organization wanting to grow by retaining their existing customers. Part of the educational process needs to focus on getting your first year students, your first year customers, knowledgeable about your processes so they are comfortable working with your organization. You need to foster education of their knowledge of your products and services so they know how they can benefit from their relationship with your organization. You need to have an educational program in place to make sure you build comfort, confidence, and set realistic expectations in the minds of your customers.

Learn from the universities and the sports organizations of the world. Have a Year One Strategy that focuses on research and education.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more information at: http://www.cssamerica.com/


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