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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

Address the Expectations that Were Set - 8/26/25


Before the caller ever got to Marco – the customer service representative, the customer had been working with the company for months.  They had read the marketing brochures, had a conversation with a sales rep, reviewed the new customer information on the website, and read all the information e-mailed Read more

When Technology Fails the Customer - 8/19/25


Technology is a wonderful thing…until it isn’t.  The website is down, the mobile app won’t work, the system keeps kicking them out of their account, or they received a spoofing phone call supposedly from your department. If you’ve ever been manning the phones or managing the department inbox, you know Read more

The Misunderstood Physician - 8/12/25


I was speaking with one of my personal physicians years ago, and when we were talking about my work – particularly customer satisfaction research - he started talking about online physician ratings.  He lamented that a few low ratings were dinging his overall score.  Then he shared that the Read more

Uncover Silent Concerns - 8/5/25


One of the customer service statistics we have quoted many times over the years is:  For every complaint you do hear, there could be 26 other customer issues that you don’t hear. And when we bring up that statistic, we bring it up because we want to make sure companies Read more

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City Gets at the Root of Water Shut-off Issues

Posted on July 17, 2013 in Business Advice, Government Please leave a comment

“If they would just read their mail…”

This is a statement I hear from a lot of clients when talking about their customers (oftentimes, it’s “if they would just read their e-mails…”). The problem with the statement is that it can put the entire blame for an issue on the customer, when businesses need to be asking “What can we control? What can we impact?”

Staff at the City of Marysville were having an issue. The number of water shutoffs was increasing each week – up to 80-100 from half that number. This was driving more work for the staff and obviously irate feelings from City residents. The City initially blamed the economy and an auto-dialer notification system that didn’t work with cell phones, but that was just a theory. And to more permanently fix a problem, you need to determine the root cause.

To get at the root cause, they asked the customers about the issue. Customers thought they hadn’t received the bill even though they had received it. The problem was that the bill looked just like any other document – non-descript. The shut-off warnings were also non-descript. So how do you remedy this? An article on the story notes “The UB Team discussed several options to remedy this, and eventually settled on a cycle of three bills in different colors during the standard bi-monthly billing period: first a white notice, followed by a pink late notice for past due, then a yellow shutoff notice that warned that water would be shut off if payment wasn’t completed or arrangements made with the Utility Billing Department.”

The number of shut-offs now average under 30 per month.

When you have an issue, don’t assume the root cause and solution. Don’t immediately blame the customer, even if you communicated to them. The question is – did they notice, understand, and act on the communication? If not, what’s within your control to improve communications?

You can’t control the customer; but don’t use that as an excuse for not looking at your own options for improvement.

Interested in improving your organization’s customer service? See our other blog posts at: http://serviceadvice.cssamerica.com/category/government/

Learn about our CSS Government services at: http://cssamerica.com/cssgovt.htm


Student Retention Solution – The Four Cornerstones of Retention-based Research

Posted on September 26, 2012 in Business Advice, Education 1 Comment

Western Illinois University wants to retain more of its students. Particularly for first year students, a WGEM.com article notes that “More than a third of Western Illinois University’s freshman last year didn’t come back for their sophomore year.” So their answer is that they implemented a new mentoring program – Building Connections. This program taps into faculty and staff to volunteer to mentor incoming Freshmen.

Now whether the program is highly successful or not depends on many things; consider these questions. What’s in it long-term for the “volunteer” staff to fully participate? How well-trained are the staff? Do the students even want a faculty/staff mentor? About what will they be mentored?

But the most important question is “What’s the root cause of the problem?” The article notes that “over half of last year’s Freshman were first generation college students,” but that’s a fact, not necessarily a root cause. I hope that WIU is really digging into research to identify what are the core characteristics of those who do not return v. those who do. The research needs to be based on their historical data, the perceptions of their incoming Freshmen, their current students, and those that left. These are the Four Cornerstones of Retention-based Research.

In other words, I hope they use data to point them toward the right solutions.

When you’re dealing with retention issues, you most likely have a myriad of data on customers who were retained and those who weren’t. Use that as the starting to point to get at the true root cause.

Listen to our latest podcast episode of “Stepping Up Service” on The MESH Network at http://themesh.tv/stepping-up-service/

Interested in our Education Industry services? See more at http://cssamerica.com/cssed.htm


They Booed You. Should You Boo Back?

Posted on May 23, 2012 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

When Cleveland Indians’ pitcher Chris Perez chastised fans for not showing up at the stadium and for booing the first place team, a Sports firestorm erupted. How dare the player get on the fans?! What right does he have to rip fans?! Where does a rich player come off chastising people who pay their hard earned money for entertainment…and his paycheck?!

In the article Chris Perez calls out Indians fans, Perez’ rant is documented, and the team’s counter to his comments is noted as well. The team distanced themselves from his words, and praised the fans.

When you hear about this story, what it essentially comes down to is last place attendance for a first place team. So Perez’ solution to the issue is to say “Hey! We’re in first! Support us!” It’s an emotional reaction from a guy who apparently wants to win and wants support.

But that’s just the solution; nowhere in the article does it get at the root cause of the attendance problem. Many sports teams (many businesses for that matter) address issues with attendance or sales or revenue or retention with solutions without ever determining the root cause of the problem.

I was once told by the owner of a professional football franchise that the only thing that drives attendance is “wins and weather.” Well if that was true, then we could put a mathematical calculation together that looked at weather forecasts and wins, and determine attendance every year. If that were true, you could fire most anybody in business operations as well as game day staff, and there would be no impact on attendance. So while wins and weather have some impact, they don’t tell the whole story.

For the Cleveland Indians or any organization to truly fix attendance/sales/retention issues, they have to learn how to get to the root cause – what can be controlled in business operations, in particular. They have to think about how to – on an ongoing basis – learn from fans, develop relationships with fans, retain and grow business with fans.

Don’t let your company’s players try to guilt fans into spending their money with you. Find out why they left, and address those root causes to keep them.

Interested in addressing your team’s fan relations/retention? Check out: http://cssamerica.com/csssport.htm


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