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How the Customer Perceives a Truth as a Lie - 5/27/25


You’re the customer, you’re asking about an unused item that you’re returning, and you hear the employee say: “The refund process takes 7-10 days.”  You’re thinking: “Great!  I can get the refund check as early as a week from today!”  The reality is that the company means that they’ll Read more

Tell Customers What’s Next - 5/20/25


In most businesses that have been around for a while, how a process was originally designed is not how it currently operates.  Sometimes this change is referred to as “practical drift,” where the actual process moves further and further away from the documented steps over time.  Maybe the changes Read more

Questions to Guide You to Empathy - 5/13/25


“If I was him, I would do ABC…” If you’ve ever heard somebody say this - whether it’s a friend or acquaintance, whether it’s some TV reporter or podcaster - you may get as frustrated or as annoyed as I do. I get annoyed because we are not that other person. Read more

Negate the Nervousness - 5/6/25


The customer needed a loan, so he walked into the bank, but he was a little nervous.  He knew that launching his business would be easier if he had some working capital, but that’s about all he knew.  He was anxious because he didn’t know what to expect in Read more

Don’t Rush to Resolve Quickly - 4/29/25


The customer is angry, so you use the CSS LEAD technique as designed.  You, listen, empathize, accept responsibility, and deliver on a remedy.  But it doesn’t work.  The customer is still upset, and maybe even a little more frustrated than when you started…why?! If the use of this technique fails, Read more

Energy v. Apathy - 4/22/25


I asked a couple friends who are much more scientifically-oriented the question: What is energy?  I didn’t mean E=MC2.  I meant physiologically, what is energy? They described a lot of things that sounded really good, yet far too advanced for my non-medical mind. Part of the reason why energy is of Read more

Prep Enough to Personalize - 4/15/25


Everybody loves Howie.  He is an account rep for the local air conditioning and heating company.  When I say Everybody loves Howie, I’m definitely talking about the customers.  His co-workers love him too, but customers are especially fond of him.  They seem to really enjoy their conversations with him, Read more

Get Your Customers to Brag, Not Bolt - 4/8/25


Here are two customer retention concepts that we discuss with some sports clients: BIRG and CORF.  BIRG is Basking In Reflected Glory.  CORF is Cutting Off Reflected Failure. You want BIRG.  You want the customers feeling so good about your organization that they want to be a part of your Read more

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


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 Read more

Avoid the Unfriendly Ghost - 3/25/25


Last week we talked about the qualities of “PERKI Customer Service,” essentially what attitudes and actions are characteristics of those who provide great customer service.  This week, let’s take the opposite approach.  What are some of the mistakes that people make?  Maybe these are mistakes of omission or commission; Read more

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Facial Recognition is the Future of Customer Service – 3/26/19

Posted on March 26, 2019 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


According to a recent New York Times article, facial recognition is the future of retail customer service. A trend in technology for retail businesses is to utilize facial recognition technology in order to better know who is entering your business. The idea is that if somebody within that store can instantly know as much about you based on a picture of your face that is run against a database, they can instantly tailor their sales or service encounter to you.

This “revolutionary” approach to better knowing the customers without them knowing that you know them (hope that wasn’t too confusing) includes utilizing your phone GPS trackers to tap into your social apps to learn about you immediately upon your arrival at the store.

Before this sounds too “Big Brother-ish,” the only thing truly revolutionary about this is the technology piece. Facial recognition is something that every customer service employee in every organization should know how to do for customers that are walking through their door. It’s important to be able to look at someone and gauge whether they are happy or angry, they’re confused and looking around or confident and moving toward a particular area, whether they are disinterested parties following their spouse around or people who are lighting up at the environment that they just walked into in the store.

These are skills that every employee needs to have because every customer is different. Employees need to be aware of the body language, aware of the expressions, aware of the movements of the individual and their gestures – because having some sense of what these mean gives you some insights into how to approach and address a customer.

Before we wait until that time where we walk into any store and immediately every sales representative pulls up a detailed personal bio that makes a ton of assumptions about who we are as a person based on what website we went to 3 days ago, let’s first make sure our employees truly understand how to read somebody that’s standing in front of them. Let’s ensure that we care enough to view the uniqueness of any customer in a way that no app can truly convey.

Technology facial recognition maybe the future of retail customer service, but customer recognition is the past, present, AND future.

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Customer for Life – The Second Step – 3/19/19

Posted on March 19, 2019 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


Two weeks ago, we shared a Customer Service Tip on how to get (and keep!) a Customer for Life. We addressed the First Step, Knowing what you need to know about the other person. Now, we’re sharing the Second Step. To develop a relationship with anyone, there has to be some semblance of ongoing communication. There has to be some kind of dialogue that is not all about you. It’s about listening to the other person, about seeking them out and sharing something of value, or listening to something being shared by them.

For those of us that are trying to deepen relationships with our clients and grow our business with them, oftentimes we can get into a habit of communications being all about selling. Communications become all about pushing information. It gets to the point where, whenever they hear from us, they’re hearing about us and our products and services.

But think about what makes for a good relationship. There is informal as well as the more formal interaction. There are not long periods of dead silence. There are enough ongoing communication touches that the relationship never goes stale.

The Second Step in gaining a Customer for Life is to have a strategy that you implement that ensures that you don’t go too long between communications with the other person. This strategy has a mix of formal and informal touches. You’re not constantly pushing information to them, and sometimes you’re just engaging them in informal discussion.

Sometimes you’re asking them questions to learn more about them. Sometimes you’re requesting information or being inquisitive. And sometimes you’re providing something just because it’s the right thing to do even if there is no direct tie into a new sale.

In other words, care about them as an individual enough so that more than half of your communications with them are either helping them out, generally keeping in touch, or asking them about themselves.

To create a customer for life, take the second step. Make it about them, and never let the relationship go stale.

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Same Product; 2 Totally Different Customer Experiences – 12/15/15 TOW

Posted on December 15, 2015 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


Debra’s home heating unit went out in the dead of winter – LOUSY timing! But it was an 18 year old unit, so it was definitely…well, time.

Two vendors came the next day to give an estimate. Al’s ACME Repair (the name has been changed to protect the guilty) sent two salesmen who spent 15 minutes in the house. They walked around, noted how cold it was inside, took a few measurements, and looked at the old system. They then went back to their vehicle, spent 30 minutes writing up a quote. They gave Debra a quote with three lines of information on the unit type and cost, and they left.

A couple hours later, Jeff from Harvey’s HVAC House came to provide a quote. He spent 50 minutes with Debra, asked lots of questions, took pictures of the old unit, described the process for installation of the new unit, mentioned the experience of the installers, and offered to provide a quote via e-mail later that evening with multiple options for Debra to consider.

Her takeaway? If Jeff’s quote comes in anywhere near Al’s ACME Repair, she’s going with Jeff.

Jeff offered details on 3 options (Good, Better, Best), “Better” was right in line with the other company’s quote, and she went with Jeff.

True story – and truth in the lessons learned: Conveying patience, being inquisitive, educating the customer, building-up co-workers, and offering options are all vital to customer service success.

Be like Jeff – learn from the tale of the two talks.

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