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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

When You’re the Educator, What Should You Teach? - 1/21/25


The best customer service professionals are also excellent educators.  Not only within the organization, but I’m talking specifically about the role they play as educator with their customers.  With all the self-service options that technology provides, customers often have the opportunity to do things on their own, to investigate Read more

Wrap It Up Right: Why Follow-Up Communications WOW Customers - 1/14/25


Dena had some questions about her water bill, so she looked for answers on the utility’s website.  She didn’t find specific answers, and she really didn’t want to get on the phone with somebody at the time and risk staying on hold.  She had lots going on, but she Read more

From Conversation to Connection: Defining Customer Engagement - 1/7/25


Maggie was sitting in the Service Excellence Training class, and the instructor kept talking about staying engaged with the customer.  Proactively engaging the customer.  Being fully engaged in the conversation. After hearing this same phrase (“engage”) used in various ways, Maggie raised her hand and asked a question probably several Read more

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Know When to Pause – 3/28/17

Posted on March 28, 2017 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


You don’t have to have the innate ability to perfectly understand the other person. You don’t have to know every answer. You don’t have to react immediately with the perfect response to what’s been said. To be great at customer service, you don’t have to be the perfect conversationalist.

Having the rapid-fire response, the quick answer, and the immediate set of perfect words is somewhat unrealistic, and definitely overrated.

A conversation is a dialogue, a sharing of ideas and thoughts and opinions and facts, back and forth. But the sharing in a customer service-related conversation has very distinct purposes. The purposes often involve establishing a rapport, understanding the other person, and addressing their need.

One thing that can positively impact rapport, understanding, and successfully addressing the need is a simple – but underused (and underrated) technique – the pause.

Too many conversations with complaining customers are made worse due to a hasty and ineffective (or inappropriate) employee response. “I’m sorry you feel that way” or “Why did you do that?” or “It’s not my fault” are clear mistakes in wording in most situations.

Reactions to requests or complaints can also cause more pain than they relieve with misdirected action. How many times has an employee transferred you to the wrong person (or without asking first, or without explaining to whom you’re being transferred and why)? How many times has the customer directed you to a website when you just wanted an answer on the phone – or worse yet – directed you to a website when you drove to their store to ask a question?

Sometimes the greatest action you can take in conversing with a customer is to pause. I’m not talking 5 minutes of dead silence, but take a few seconds to think, or ask for a minute or two to research the issue. But pause.

Give yourself time to respond instead of react. Give yourself time to think of the appropriate words to say, the best clarifying questions to ask, the best next step to suggest. Then move the conversation forward.

You don’t have to be the perfect conversationalist, but you can be better if you’re just willing to be patient with yourself – and pause.

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Visualize Your Way to Success – 3/21/17

Posted on March 21, 2017 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


Brandon was having a bad day. Well – technically it was not THAT bad. After all, the worst day spent golfing is better than the best day spent working, or so goes the old saying.

But Brandon could not hit anything well. His shots from the tee were okay, but whenever he put a short iron in his hand, he’d hit it fat. For those of you who aren’t golfers, that means that he would take a swing, and the ball would go only a few yards because he would dig a large chunk of earth out in the process – a half-foot long, 2 inch deep divot would go flying through the air.

It was late in the round, and on #15 Brandon hit his best drive of the day. He was only 100 yards from the hole – a chance for a birdie! Well, that’s what a normal person would visualize. But Brandon saw the small pond just in front of the green. So he took his wedge out of the bag for the short shot, got an extra ball out of his bag, and walked over to his ball to hit.

He got out the extra ball because all he could think about was hitting another fat shot, and he visualized the shot landing in the water. So – of course – he visualized having to hit another shot with the second ball.

What happened? Brandon hit a fat shot; the ball plunked right into the water; Brandon dropped the second ball, and he put the next shot right on the green.

With his first shot, Brandon had visualized failure, and failure ensued.

Many times in the world of customer service, we’re reacting and responding – we don’t know what we’re about to deal with, and it’s hard to have time to visualize. But often, we DO have time to visualize. We do have time to see how we want the conversation to flow, how we want the tone to be, how we want it to end positively.

In life, and golf, and customer service – we can visualize success or visualize failure – and whatever we visualize has a greater chance of happening.

Choose to visualize success.

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The Over/Under of Ted’s Talking – 2/14/17

Posted on February 14, 2017 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


Ted was like many employees new to the world of customer service – great intentions creating great enthusiasm resulting in great big mistakes with the customer.

How?

The female customer asked a question (or Ted heard at least part of the question), and it triggered something in Ted’s mind. He knew the answer. He wanted to help, and BAM! He just started talking – fast and energetically. He verbally “ran over” the customer. Talking over her with his answers. He was delivering, but she was being taken aback. He thought of himself as helpful, but she thought of him as rude, not letting her finish, interrupting her in mid-sentence.

Sometimes Ted didn’t know the answer, but – again – he REALLY wanted to help. So with the customer talking, he’d turn to a co-worker and quietly start asking his more experienced peer some questions. Unfortunately, he wasn’t so quiet that the customer couldn’t hear that Ted was saying something. He was talking “under” the customer, not interrupting, per se, but talking to others while the customer was talking was coming off as rude – like the customer wasn’t worthy of Ted’s attention.

Over time, Ted was still the same energetic person as when he started, but he became more self-aware. When he would feel himself interrupting, he’d pause and say “Oh! I’m sorry. Please continue; this is really helpful.” And if he needed to ask a co-worker for guidance, he’d patiently wait for a pause from the customer, ask permission for a minute to investigate the right course of action to best help the customer, and he’d move the call to a hold.

Enthusiasm is a wonderful gift. Don’t quash it in yourself or others, but also don’t let the enthusiasm in conversations convey rudeness.

Learn the Lessons from Ted’s Talking.

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