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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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Let the Customer Decide Where to Share – 6/5/18

Posted on June 5, 2018 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


When we work with clients on their Voice of the Customer strategy, there’s obviously a proactive research component included. And while many companies immediately consider a web survey as the sole source of customer feedback, when designing your Voice of the Customer strategy, first think about how your customers would prefer to share their feedback with you.

Some people prefer the face-to-face focus group because they can dialogue with others, and they prefer that personal interaction. Others prefer the web survey that is clickable and quantifiable, and it can be done any time of the day-of-week or time-of-day.

Some prefer the telephone, and not necessarily your calling them – which is becoming more and more rare – it’s also providing opportunity for them to dial into an anonymous conference call or to leave a voicemail for someone with their thoughts and opinions. Consider social media, where many are digitally engaged customers who spend a lot of their time and effort engaging companies through those more new-age methods.

Another benefit of gathering the Voice of the Customer using methods the customer would prefer to share information, is that your results can be biased if you don’t take that approach. What if 50% of your clientele who experience the organization onsite prefer to give the feedback onsite, but all you request is a web survey?

What if you prefer to use focus groups, but the majority of your customers don’t have the time nor inclination to drive somewhere, park, sit in a focus group, and then drive home? What if you preferred to get feedback via social media, but 80% of your clients are rarely on social media except as an observer of others?

To truly and accurately get the voice of your customer, develop a strategy that taps into the communication methods that your clients prefer most.

Let the customer decide where to share.

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The 4 S’s of the Customer Experience – 10/13/15 TOW

Posted on October 13, 2015 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


I mentioned in a previous TOW years ago about the 4 S’s of Expectation Management – Key guiding principles to effectively set and manage customer expectations – Simple, Specific, Supporting Documentation, and Summarizing.

But there is another set of 4 S’s – and these are all about the Customer Experience. We worked with a government client last year that had significant customer issues. The customers didn’t – in general – like having to deal with a regulatory and enforcement body, but they really didn’t like it when the regulations were surrounded by a poor customer experience.

So through research including a multitude of customer focus groups, we narrowed down the customers’ preferences for their experience into four guiding principles – The 4 S’s of the Customer Experience:

  • Staffing – Ensure that your staffing mirrors the Customer Volume – by time-of-day, day-of-week, season, etc. You could have the best people, processes, and systems in place, but if you don’t have the staffing levels to handle the volume, the experience will suffer.
  • Solving Issues – When issues and complaints arise, be collaborative across the company’s silos to resolve issues. Be as timely as possible, managing customer expectations when needed. Ensure staff OWN the issue – don’t push the responsibility of researching or fixing issues to the customer, particularly when the problems were caused between staff or departments.
  • Statusing – This one may not have been top-of-mind, but it’s VERY important when service and issue resolution are not immediate. When those fixes take time, be transparent with the information and the issue-resolution process. The more customers understand and see what’s going on to rectify issues or address needs, the more appreciative and understanding they’ll be of the effort. Offer statuses of where their issue/need is in the process, ensuring that the current status is clear, specific, and easily-accessed by the customer. The better they can find and understand the status, the less likely they are to contact you for updates.
  • Simplifying (the Catch-all) – Whether it’s your terminology or systems, make it easy for the customer to do business with you. Avoid the confusion and complexity that lead to long discussions with staff and extra work for your business. When needed, have a single point of contact so they can get to the right person the first time – saving the customer and your company time. Finally, at every communication, be clear on next steps and timeframes.

 
To deliver a great experience, incorporate the 4 S’s.

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Let Dialogue Drive Service Delivery – 10/6/15 TOW

Posted on October 6, 2015 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


In talking with a client recently, they shared their approach to developing future services. Thinking 10 years down the road, they noted how technology, the community, and customer needs all would change.

This is a company with strong relationships with customers, and although they value innovation and creativity, what they value most is the relationship with their customers.

The core of their development of new services was described, and if you pulled out all the fancy terminology and new age infographics, their approach to new service development is simply based on having ongoing dialogue with customers.

The company described an iterative process where they initiate dialogue with current customers and non-customers. They ask about changing needs, preferences, and desires. They ask anticipatory questions about future trends, and they ask about what the company could best do with services and the experience used to deliver the services.

In short, they let customer dialogue drive the approach to service delivery.

Your customers use your services, they pay for your products, they judge your experience, and they stay or leave – they talk you up or down with friends – based on their opinion of your organization.

Uncover what they want and need and how they’d like to receive it, then deliver on those desires.

Let Dialogue Drive Service Delivery.

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