process improvement | Customer Service Solutions, Inc. - Page 2

Home  /  Question Everything, but What’s the Question? – 3/23/21  /  process improvement

Last Impression Faux Pas - 11/4/25


Rightfully so, many customer service experts harp on the importance of the first impression.  It happens quickly, and it can impact the individual’s perception of you and the organization.  We even wrote a Tip of the Week on this years ago called First Impression Faux Pas. What many people tend Read more

Familying with Customers - 10/28/25


In our transactional society, it’s hard to think about customers in the long-term.  But if we want to be as successful as we can as an individual or as a business, we need to view customers through a relationship lens. What do we need to know about them to Read more

Avoid These Techniques - 10/21/25


We had a Customer Service Tip of the Week recently that addressed gaining control of the conversation.  One of the key points was that the focus should be on gaining control of conversations in various circumstances, but trying to avoid making it your goal to gain control of the Read more

View Quality through the Customer’s Eyes - 10/14/25


Geri had been dealing with backups in the downstairs plumbing system of her house on and off for the past year.  The most recent company that she called in to unclog the pipes stated that they could send a camera down the pipes and tell her exactly where the Read more

Be Supportive, Not Defensive - 10/7/25


[An employee on the phone with a customer…] Who told you that you didn’t have to submit that form? … Bob?  Oh brother!  You see Bob is our “special” co-worker.  He seems to always tell customers the wrong thing to do, and we’re having to clean up after him.  Read more

Some Customers LOVE Predictability - 9/30/25


I was facilitating focus groups of businesses that utilize local government services.  The phrase that popped up multiple times was “Time Is Money!”  What these municipal customers were conveying was that their time was valuable, and delays were wasting their time.  But the conversations were not just about how Read more

Find Your Special Sauce - 9/23/25


When I watch a football game and I see a great quarterback (somebody who may be considered a “Star”), he might be an excellent runner, have a big arm, be able to diagnose the defense and get his team into the right play.  But he’s likely not great at Read more

Gain Control of the Conversation - 9/16/25


The customer’s angry or upset or they have a complaint.  They’re very chatty or very wordy or they just want to talk to somebody.  You’re on a time crunch, and the customer obviously is not. There are times when you need to gain control of the conversation.  It’s important for Read more

Complement with a Compliment - 9/9/25


We perform many tasks for our customers every day, and when we’re done with a step in the process, oftentimes we will tell the customer what’s been done.  But if we want to create more of a WOW experience, if we want to make the customer feel a little Read more

When Patience Begets Patience - 9/2/25


Jennifer, the server, walked toward the couple in the restaurant.  The customers had been seated for a minute or two, and they noticed the server was walking briskly toward their table.  Jennifer recognized the couple she was about to serve, because they had been in the previous week. Since the Read more

•••••

Question Everything, but What’s the Question? – 3/23/21

Posted on March 23, 2021 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

The new leader joins the organization, and she decides she wants to question everything.  She wants employees to question everything.  Why have we always done it this way? Why do we continue to do it that way? Is this the best way to work?

Sometimes it’s a great management initiative because it forces us to question the validity in doing things in the future a certain way just because we’ve done them that way in the past.  It can be a beneficial leadership tactic because it gets the organization thinking in a continuous improvement mindset.

But when it comes to customer service, what’s the question?  That depends on our goal.  If we’re an organization that is focused on delighting the customer or wowing the customer or amazing the customer or creating a Disney-like experience, you would ask:  Are employees focused on delighting the customer when they are greeted?  Does our speed of service make the customer go WOW?  Is the physical environment where the service is delivered creating an amazing feel for the experience?

Let’s say your goal is to keep every customer.  Then you would ask:  Are we personalizing every communication with our customer?  Are we proactively touching base with every customer to have an ongoing sense of their feelings about us?  Are we asking enough questions to truly understand why they would stay, why they would go?  Are we asking the right questions to truly understand their needs so we can specifically match up our resources with their needs?

What if your goal is simply to deliver a consistent, accurate, and timely service experience?  First of all, “simply” is probably not the best word to use.  Creating an experience that is consistent, accurate, and timely is anything but simple.  But let’s discuss what questions you would ask:  How are we ensuring that – no matter who delivers a service – it is done in the same manner?  How do we ensure and track accuracy?  How do we define “timely” or have a customer define timely, and how are we meeting the timeliness goal?

To be continuous improvement-oriented, to try to foster positive change, consider questioning everything.  But before you start questioning, first understand what your goal is as an organization, and let that drive what you ask.

Question everything, but first know what’s the question.

Signup for FREE Tips!    Contact Us    More Resources for You    Visit Our Home Page


Customers Want Easy, but Easy is Difficult – 1/12/21

Posted on January 12, 2021 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

New employees go through days of training to learn products and services.  They have formal workshops to learn how to use their office applications, web functions, and whatever programs are specific to their department.  They test new technology, and they get quizzed on knowledge of policies.  This is hours or days or sometimes weeks of training so that the employees can do their work consistently and effectively.

Customers of our companies typically go through no training.  There are no half-day workshops to learn how to lodge a complaint or request a refund or ask a clarifying question or check on a status.

Customers are not and should not be expected to be experts in our business.  Customers want EASY – Easy to find, easy to access, easy to understand, easy to use.

But Easy is difficult.

I once worked for an administrator in a hospital, and I noted how in certain aspects of operations, we needed to simplify some processes – make it easier on employees to deliver consistently high-quality service.  The administrator responded that his peers don’t think Easy is challenging. I replied:

Making something easy is actually one of the most difficult things you can do in business.

It’s not difficult to have a new procedure or policy, a new function or feature, and just add it on top of what currently exists.  It’s not difficult to just add 5 pages at the back of the standard operations manual.  It’s not difficult to just let incremental complexity grow on a day-by-day and year-by-year basis.

What is difficult is taking a step back, seeing everything through the lens of a customer or an employee, and trying to make it as easy as possible for the employee to deliver great service, or as easy as possible for the customer to have a great experience.

If your organization wants a challenge that will benefit your customer, take on the challenge of Easy.  Find ways to make it easier on the customer to find you or your service offerings.  Make it easier for them to access the information and the solutions they need.  Make the information as easy to understand as possible.  And once they are accessing that product or service, make it as easy as possible to use.

If you need a challenge for the new year, try to make it Easy on the customer.

Signup for FREE Tips!    Contact Us    More Resources for You    Visit Our Home Page


Tap the Employee to Better Treat the Patient

Posted on July 3, 2015 in Business Advice, Healthcare Please leave a comment

Blog 7-3-15 - 2nd postIn the article Hospital shows improved patient satisfaction, the author highlights a hospital that is using key strategies to drive up patient satisfaction. And in hearing Ivision Memorial Hospital leaders describe the approach, one starts to draw conclusions. Here are some quotes:

What we do is we get a group of people from all aspects related to that process, get them in a room for four days and really give them the leeway to fix the problem.

We’re firm believers that the people who know the work are the best ones to fix it.

Next year’s score card goals are set to change, some of which are based on staff suggestions.

What we’re really going to push in this next year is something we call our bright idea program. The idea is that we give staff a way to improve their work.

Did you catch the theme? The CEO and Chief Quality and Strategy Officer are constantly talking about using the voice of the employee to drive improvements. Whether it be on an improvement team or through an employee suggestion system, the best ideas to improve the patient experience are coming from those closest to the patient on a daily basis.

Leaders must chart the vision and set the strategy in most organizations, but the employees are the ones often with the best ideas on how to execute the ideas and improve patient satisfaction.

Create a patient satisfaction improvement strategy where the employee’s voice rises up for the benefit of the patient.

Did you like this post? Here are other Healthcare-related posts:


« Previous   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... 21 22   Next »