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WOW with Welcoming - 6/6/23


Individuals, organizations, and even communities today seem to be more overtly focused on being welcoming to others.  In customer service, being welcoming is a key to a great first impression.  But what does it mean to be welcoming? We defined Welcoming in one of our February Tips as:  Proactively engaging Read more

Change on the Fly - 5/30/23


Situational service requires some advanced engagement skills.  It involves seeing each situation independent of any others, reading the moment, and changing on the fly to create the best possible customer experience and outcomes.  So, what are some keys to situational service?  Keep these guiding principles in mind: Start Open-minded: When Read more

Try an Empathy Exercise - 5/23/23


We often note that empathy is the most important quality to have in order to be great at customer service.  Empathy enables you to view people uniquely.  It helps the customer not to feel like just a number.  And the more we can view people as individuals, the better Read more

Time is of the Essence - 5/16/23


Time is precious.  There’s no time like the present.  Your time is valuable.  Timing is everything.  Children spell “love,” T-I-M-E. There are many great quotes that reference time.  And part of the reason is that time can be considered somewhat finite; at least within the day, it’s a limited resource.  Read more

Perpetuate Positivity with the Customer - 5/9/23


We’ve written many Tips on how to deal with various negative customer emotions.  Those emotions could reflect anger, fear of the unknown, upset, anxiety, or nervousness.  But instead of talking today about how to deal with their negative emotions, let’s talk about how to engender some positive emotions. We want Read more

Are You in a Position? - 5/2/23


Last week’s Tip compared Perspectives and Positions, and we noted that when people have a perspective on a given topic or issue, that’s often useful.  However, when people are more focused on their position, things can get testy. One topic we didn’t fully address last week was the definition of Read more

De-escalating Conflict in Customer Service - 4/25/23


Conflict can be very healthy and productive.  You and your customer are taking different perspectives, but if you have the same goal and you focus on what you’re trying to accomplish, the different perspectives may lead to an interesting approach or a mutually-beneficial solution. If the decision was up to Read more

Why a Home Run Swing Whiffs - 4/18/23


ACME Tree Service showed up at Nancy’s house to provide an estimate for trimming some trees.  The sales consultant looked at the trees and their proximity to the house, and he quickly wrote up a bid.  Heavy trimming on 9 trees.  Heavy price tag.  It was a quick conversation Read more

Communicate Crisply - 4/11/23


I try to make these tips around 300 words, but oftentimes I’m North of 400.  I work hard to pare down the words because I don’t want one or two core points being lost in a barrage of verbosity. Phrases like lost in a barrage of verbosity are the things Read more

Improve Co-worker Rapport to Improve the Customer Experience - 4/4/23


The movers were packing up the house.  It was a stressful time for Janine.  She was having to move her aging parents to a new city in a new State to help care for them.  The parents were leaving behind friends and a community where they’d lived for most Read more

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Hockey Team Listening to Learn…Today

Posted on April 2, 2010 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

The Chicago Blackhawks professional hockey team announced this week (http://blackhawks.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=523044) that they are launching a new program to improve the fan experience. Chris Werner, the Blackhawks Senior Executive Director of Ticketing and Business Development stated “Quality customer service has been an ongoing priority over the course of the recent seasons. We are working hard at using different innovative methods to gather fan feedback to measure guest’s overall experience.”

This program focuses on getting fan feedback during the games. While that’s not novel, per se (many teams over the years have conducted in-game surveys), what it does suggest is that this organization understands that if it truly wants to impact fan satisfaction, it has to go to the fans and talk to fans. It has to make it easy for fans to get in touch with them. It has to be proactive and seek the input. It has to gain the information as real-time as possible.

These are all great principles for any organization to consider. Does your organization go to where the customers are (when they’re already interacting with your business) and ask for feedback? Does your organization make it easy for them to provide feedback? Do you try to gain information on the customer’s experience while the customer is…well experiencing?

Rethink your research strategies to go away from customer satisfaction surveys conducted over the phone when all your business is done face-to-face. Make sure your research strategies are not purely retrospective, when a customer’s memory cannot always be trusted.

Make sure that you’re asking and receiving real-time input from your customers today.

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


Own the Problem

Posted on February 18, 2010 in Business Advice, Education, Healthcare, Sports Please leave a comment

Personnel in a college athletics department were interviewed about the low attendance this season for basketball games. They discussed the reasons for it. ‘It’s the economy’s fault.’ Valid reason. But the student attendance is down, too. ‘It’s the players fault for not being more a part of the student body.’ Possibly valid. ‘It’s also the student leadership’s fault – they’re not doing a good enough job of getting the students excited about basketball.’ Possibly valid.

What’s interesting about these three reasons discussed is that none of them were the fault of the athletics department. Or put more politely, none of these were directly controllable by the athletics department.

So this implies one of two things. Either the athletics department has no impact whatsoever on attendance or they have an impact, but there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing. They’re perfect.

This is the problem in organizations where the product is the most important thing. In sports, it’s the play on the court. In hospitals, it’s the clinical care. Too many people in these types of organizations feel that the product is not only the most important thing; it’s the only thing.

If this were true, why do athletics departments have “fan relations” positions? Why do pro sports team have “season ticket holder account representatives?” In hospitals, why are employees taught customer service skills?

Why? Because there should be some impact, some value, some effect from the efforts of these people.

If you’re in an industry where you don’t control the ultimate product, focus instead on what you DO control. And take more ownership over making an impact than did this one college athletics department.

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


Knowledge-based Renewals

Posted on January 25, 2010 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

We are a data-driven society, aren’t we? Well, successful managers would like to lead us to believe that they operate based on data, but many managers operate based on gut feel and instincts.

Regardless of which way your management leans – decide by the data or decide by the gut – if you’re in a situation where you’re trying to renew an account or retain client business, and there are many clients to retain, then data has to come into play.

In professional sports, the issue of too many season ticket holders for the number of sales and service representatives is an ongoing concern. Here are some of the concepts that we suggest to pro sports teams but which could apply to virtually any business that has recurring customers. Consider these data-focused initiatives:

· Conduct Exit Interviews with former season-ticket holders to determine why they left so you can create profiles of those lost customers and apply those findings to your current season ticket holder (STH) base. This helps you to more clearly identify current season ticket holders who are at-risk of non-renewal. You may also be able to generate a good number of sales leads!

· Make In-Person Touches with 80%+ of First Year STHs. You use these conversations to not only develop rapport but also to gather intelligence on their expectations and satisfaction.

· Conduct an At-Risk Profiling Assessment of former season ticket holders to determine why they’ve left so that you can apply the criteria to your current season ticket holders.

· Conduct Season Ticket Holder Surveys asking about and gauging likelihood of renewals in the near future. This again helps you to target renewal efforts to those most likely to cancel.

These four important data gathering and analysis methods can help you get the renewal efforts to where they’re needed most because they allow you to target, target, target.

Learn from our approach to supporting our professional sports clients. Use data-driven concepts so your renewal and retention efforts won’t seem so daunting.

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


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