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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

PERKI Customer Service - 3/18/25


After having worked on hundreds of projects over the years with thousands of thousands of individuals, some things become pretty clear. There are certain traits held by people who are great in customer service.  Look at this list, and do a self-assessment.  Which apply to you? Positive and Patient Do you Read more

It Helps to Downshift - 3/11/25


One of the first tips I heard when I was learning how to drive related to what to do when the brakes fail - downshift.  Shifting into a lower gear can slow down a moving vehicle.  I would explain this in technical terms to you, but considering I’m not Read more

Patience is… - 3/4/25


Patience is a…pain in the neck.  Why is it so hard to be patient?  Those of us who work in customer service know that we constantly have to show patience with our customers.  We’re ready to move to the next step or the solution because we’ve heard this issue Read more

Everybody Doesn’t - 2/25/25


Joey received the compliment, but he was confused.  Paula, his boss, and Joey had their monthly one-on-one meeting, and Paula noted that, although he was new, Joey was already doing a great job!  While there were learning curves on some of the organizational policies and the technology that he Read more

A Simple Phrase to Transform Your Customer Feedback Approach - 2/18/25


I went to a restaurant called Big Ed’s (no relation) in Raleigh, NC recently.  It’s basically country cooking with fantastic breakfast options!  On the menu there was a quote that said: If you enjoyed your meal, tell a friend.  If not, please tell us. That was an excellent statement that embodies Read more

What Phones and Football Have in Common - 2/11/25


Congratulations!  You made it through weeks/months of hype for football’s Super Bowl!  You made it through hundreds of pregame shows and podcasts, endless debates on things endlessly inconsequential, 10 hours of pre-game shows on Sunday, what seems like 100 commercials designed specifically for the “Big Game,” and the longest Read more

Create Awareness of Alternatives - 2/4/25


Sandy was hungry, and she was on the move.  Driving between meetings, she saw the restaurant sign and pulled in.  The fast-food restaurant had two drive-thru lanes.  One was for any customer who wanted to place an order on the spot. The other was for mobile orders only.  The Read more

Listen with Your Eyes - 1/28/25


Out of the corner of his eye, Patrick saw the customer enter the lobby.  The customer was carrying a large shoulder bag with several papers in her hand.  The customer was shuffling the papers and looking down; then she stopped, looked up, and saw the staff navigator sitting at Read more

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Where are all the fans?

Posted on March 8, 2011 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

There’s a reason why fan retention is so low among many sports teams, and it’s not just bad play on the field or a bad economy.

It’s about a core lack of understanding about what drives fan satisfaction and loyalty. Too many individuals who are charged with keeping up revenues are purely marketing or sales-driven. The key word is “purely.” Executives in these roles don’t often enough have training in client retention, understand a strategic view of retention, or think “long-term” when they map out retention plans.

Maybe it’s because MBA schools rarely teach customer service and customer retention principles. Maybe it’s because serving someone isn’t as sexy as closing a new deal. Maybe it’s because they don’t understand the true financial impact of retention strategies, research, and structures. Maybe it’s all of the above.

But if organizations want to be successful long-term…consistently…they need to understand external retention strategies and the internal structures and culture to drive those strategies.

They need to have dedicated leadership in charge of retention, incented on retention, trained on retention, and motivated by relationship-building and retention.

Rethink retention.

Read our New Book – “Ask Yourself…Am I GREAT at Customer Service?” http://www.amigreatat.com/

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


NFL’s Super Bowl Customer Service – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Posted on February 8, 2011 in Sports Please leave a comment

We’ll start with the Good.

In the bleacherreport.com article Roger Goodell and The NFL: Is Good Customer Service Still Alive and Kicking?, Jeff Cockery describes how the NFL dealt with 1,250 fans who had bought tickets for the Super Bowl only to be told they couldn’t sit in their seats due to fire code violations. The NFL found a way to relocate 850 of the fans, and then gave the other 400 a triple refund (they got paid $2,400 for $800 seats), got to watch the game in the stadium in a club behind the Steelers bench, received free merchandise, free food, and tickets to next year’s Super Bowl.

Wow! Almost makes me wish my seat won’t be up to code when I go to my next sporting event! Of course, that assumes that other sports organizations get customer service and loyalty like Goodell and the NFL league office did.

Now let’s go to the Bad and the Ugly.

Why did this happen in the first place? What was the root cause of the problem? How in the world could you successfully build a $1 Billion+ stadium and not be able to add 1,250 seats that meet code? And how do you not get it inspected early enough to rectify any problems if they arose? Is it poor planning, decision-making without the customer in mind, poor selection of a contractor, poorly designed agreements with contractors, or just plain greedy decision-making?

I don’t know the answer, but I hope somebody in the NFL or the Cowboys organization will find out. If they care about continuously improving, about getting better, about the customer, they’ll learn from this in a way that permeates the organizations. This error that impacted barely 1% of their stadium fans has generated more negative publicity than the additional revenue could ever have provided. And what saved the day (at least for now)? Customer service.

Let customer service guide your decision-making and actions up front, so you don’t have to use customer service on the backend to try to create something Good out of something Bad and Ugly.

Read our New Book – “Ask Yourself…Am I GREAT at Customer Service?” http://www.amigreatat.com/

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



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