telephone

Home  /  Beware of Scary Telephone Customer Service – 10/27/26  /  telephone

How to Avoid “Groundhog Day” - 11/3/26


It’s Groundhog Day, where you’re living the same day over and over and over again. You have heard basically the same complaint from 4 different customers in the past week.  The bill is incorrect or confusing, and you’re having to spend a ton of time explaining things to the customer. You’ve Read more

Beware of Scary Telephone Customer Service - 10/27/26


As we near the Halloween holiday in the United States, it seems appropriate to discuss examples of scary customer service, particularly on the telephone.  Here are a few common issues that frustrate and annoy customers.  These are experiences to avoid delivering, and alternatives to adopt: The customer calls, describes their Read more

The Art of the Successful Script - 10/20/26


You’re the customer.  You go to the store, and they ask if you have a loyalty card.  You call the doctor’s office, and they ask for your birth date.   You walk up to the counter, and they ask if you found everything you were looking for. These are all valid Read more

The Key Building Block for Your Customer Relationship - 10/13/26


An automotive manufacturer gets supplies for their vehicles from all over the world.  They have arrangements, service level agreements, expectations for timing and quality of all the parts.  And when they gather all these supplies, they assemble the cars.  They test the cars.  Then they take pictures of those Read more

Be Flexible to Fill the Gaps - 10/6/26


The non-profit has the expected challenges.  There are only 3 people in the organization, yet, they have the same responsibilities of a larger company.  They have to do finance, sales, marketing; they deliver their services to the community, and they need to keep a pulse on what’s going on Read more

Is This Good Customer Service? - 9/29/26


A friend of mine reached out to me recently as she waited for the electrical technician to show up at her house to do some minor repairs.  She had never worked with this company before, but they sent a text about the tech who was soon to arrive. The message Read more

Ownership when Fixing Others’ Errors - 9/22/26


We were conducting training with a client recently, and one of the participants, Jackie, is in a role in his organization where he goes out to the customer site to investigate issues, address customer complaints, and fix problems.  While he’s at the site, he often gets an earful from Read more

Why “No” is So Important - 9/15/26


The employee told the caller: “I don’t think that is possible.” The customer eventually hung up, and redialed to ask a different employee the same question. The employee responded to the customer: “That’s probably not the best way to do it.”  Then, the customer kept asking question after question, arguing Read more

It’s Not “You,” It’s “I” - 9/8/26


During a business writing course that I took years ago, the instructor had us write an e-mail.  I can’t recall if it was written to a co-worker or customer, but after writing this e-mail, she had us count every “I” and “You.”  We talked about how we need to Read more

It Shouldn’t Make a Difference, But… - 9/1/26


We have this conversation with lots of our sports clients, but the principles apply across all different industries.  Too many service representatives view a conversation with a customer as a transaction.  Just get him off the phone as quickly as possible.  The customer is Joe Public, not Joseph Pendergrass.  Read more

•••••

Beware of Scary Telephone Customer Service – 10/27/26

Posted on October 27, 2026 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

As we near the Halloween holiday in the United States, it seems appropriate to discuss examples of scary customer service, particularly on the telephone.  Here are a few common issues that frustrate and annoy customers.  These are experiences to avoid delivering, and alternatives to adopt:

  • The customer calls, describes their need, and gets transferred. The second employee makes the customer restate their entire story.  Because the company doesn’t communicate well internally and do a warm transfer, the customer’s encounter with the company is redundant, longer, and frustrating.  Do a warm transfer.
  • The customer provides their contact information to the automated attendant, and the system uses the information to route the caller appropriately, but then the customer has to repeat the information to the customer service representative (CSR). Many companies suboptimize, they design their phone menus separate from their human interactions with the customer.  Design systems and processes from the customer’s perspective so that the technology effectively hands off information from system to employee.
  • The customer navigates through phone menus, gets to the final menu, presses the appropriate button, and hears: “The person you are trying to reach is not available. Goodbye!”  Sometimes the systems don’t work as designed.  Test, test, and test again!
  • When the customer calls in and none of the menu options address their need, there’s no option to speak to a representative, and pressing 0 or # or saying “representative” or saying nothing at all…doesn’t help. Most customers that call expect to have the option to talk to an employee.  Provide a clear option for access to a CSR.
  • The customer leaves a voice mail on the main company line, and nobody calls back. Make sure somebody is monitoring voicemails going into the main line and has the responsibility and accountability for contacting the customer.
  • The customer is talking to the representative, and there is non-stop background noise from the other 50 CSRs talking loudly to 50 other customers. Nothing says “you’re just a number” like feeling like one of the herd when talking to a CSR.  Be cognizant of how the call is impacted by the environment surrounding the representative.

 
Beware of delivering scary telephone customer service.

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


Bear with Me – 3/31/26

Posted on March 31, 2026 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

As a customer, you’ve probably called a company and heard the phrase “bear with me.”  At that point, you know there’s going to be some sort of delay.  The CSR is giving you a heads up that there’s going to be additional wait time.  Essentially, they are trying to reset the customer’s expectations.

As a customer service professional, there are many reasons why you could be delayed in responding to the customer or getting the answer they want quickly while on the phone or face-to-face with them.  This can even happen when the customer’s accessing the online chat platform, and we’re trying to provide that professional answer quickly.  So, if we want to find some professional phrases to communicate to the customer, here are a few to consider:

  • This process will take about a minute. Thanks for your patience.
  • The computer is running a little slow today, so I apologize, Ms. Jefferson.
  • Looks like it’s going to take a couple of minutes to access the information, so please stay on the line.
  • I’m moving on to the last step in the process. That means we’re almost done.
  • I’m awaiting a response from the escalation team, and then I’ll be able to provide you an answer.
  • I’m in the process of pulling up the details on your account, and it takes a little while, so please bear with me for another minute or so.
  • Just confirming a couple details on the system, and then we’ll be ready to address your question.

 
Notice some of the common themes: (1) If you have an accurate sense of timing, give them a specific timeline. (2) Let them know you’re working on their behalf. (3) It’s OK to subtly blame the system, but avoid blaming the co-worker. (4) Note that you’re appreciative of them and their patience. (5) Let them know that what you’re doing is for them.

When things are moving slowly for you, don’t panic, and don’t keep your customer in the dark.

Professionally reset their expectations in that moment of delay.

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


While I’ve Got You on the Phone… – 1/6/26

Posted on January 6, 2026 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

I’m a big planner.  Whether it’s strategic planning or planning out the year or planning my week first thing on a Monday morning, I like to plan.  I do this because it gets all of my action items documented and ensures that I have some understanding of what I can accomplish every day/week/month.  I like to know what the “Big Rocks” are – to use a Stephen Covey phrase – as I make sure to address these top priorities.

A pitfall I run into is that sometimes I’m so big on planning that I don’t take an action that presents itself in the moment.  I, instead, put it on the To Do List to address later.  This has been an issue of mine that I’ve been working on for years, and I’m always amazed when I see people who don’t have this same issue.

How do I know that they don’t have this issue?  I know because I witness it when I am the customer, and they are the employee.  Here are 3 examples…

Instead of telling me that they will follow up to schedule our next meeting, during the conversation they ask if I have my calendar available so we can go ahead and schedule that meeting.

There are a couple things that the employee and I will have to deal with over the next couple months, so instead of just putting that on their To Do List, they will say: While I’ve got you on the phone, do you have 5 more minutes to address two other quick points?

We’re about to wrap up our phone call, and they just described that the next step is for me to fill out a form.  Before they end the call, they say: I’ll be happy to guide you through the completion of that form right now, if you would like.

There are so many benefits to taking this approach in terms of time savings for your organization and your customer, engendering goodwill, and increasing the likelihood that timelines are met.

When laying out a next step with the customer, offer to address it RIGHT THEN.

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


1 2 3 4   Next »