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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

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Show Your Confidence – 9/7/21

Posted on September 7, 2021 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

“Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.”

To do something great, you need to have confidence in yourself.  That confidence often comes from positive experience, preparation, understanding what has happened and could happen, and having the knowledge and resources and training to address it when it does happen.

If you want to do a great job in your role in service or in delivering a customer experience or dealing with the irate customer, remember your positive experiences, prepare, understand what happened and why and that it could happen again.  Know your resources, and train with others so that you can address even the greatest of undertakings.

“With self-confidence fulfilled, you’ll find that folk have confidence in you.”

While having confidence is important, when we’re working with customers, it’s also exceptionally important to show your confidence.  People don’t always take what you say or the information you provide at face value. Oftentimes, they judge the quality of the information and the credibility of the person providing the information based on how that information is delivered.

If you want the customer to accept what you say, have faith in what you decide, and trust the direction you provide, it needs to be delivered with confidence.

Confidence is often conveyed by presenting something with a focus on the other person.  It’s conveyed with clarity of thought and well-articulated words.  It’s often conveyed with brief statements as opposed to lengthy and rambling narratives.  And it’s conveyed with your nodding of the head or with your strong yet conversational tone.

Set yourself up for customer service success.  Invest in yourself so that you are confident in the work you do.  Then present yourself in such a way that the customer shares your confidence.

Show your confidence.

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Listen Here…or Hear – 8/24/21

Posted on August 24, 2021 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

To listen or not to listen?  That is the question…

Okay, so I’m no Shakespeare, but I like to quote the masters – Shakespeare, Senge, Seinfeld – whenever I get the chance.

Today’s topic is listening versus hearing.  There are distinct differences.  It’s important to go beyond hearing what somebody says if you want to truly convey that you care about what they’re saying.

You hear the wind, but do you listen to it?  You hear the laughter, but do you listen to it?  You hear the voices and the background music and the reporter on the television, but do you listen to them?

When you’re listening, you’re not only hearing the noise, but you are also seeking to understand the noise or the person or the content or music.  In customer service, hearing may be passive, but listening is active.  People want you to actively understand them based on what they say and how they say it.  And just as much as they want you to listen, they want to perceive that you’re listening to them.

This means that you have to have the eye contact when you’re listening, you nod periodically, and you have to have a total focus with your body language that conveys that you’re attentive to them and thinking about what they’re saying.

To show you’re listening, it helps to convey your understanding of what they’re saying.  So, take notes on what they’re saying, not relying purely on your memory.  Because from the customer’s perspective, it doesn’t matter if you hear them; what matters is that they feel like you are listening to them.

When you are listening, others feel like their comments are appreciated.  They feel like they are of interest to you and valued by you.  They feel…important.

The next time you are engaged with a customer in conversation, don’t just hear them out – convey that you’re listening.

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Show Nothing but R-E-S-P-E-C-T – 8/17/21

Posted on August 17, 2021 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

With the new Aretha Franklin movie, Respect, coming out, it’s a great time to talk about Respect in customer service.  Respect is a word, a concept, an experience that’s brought up a lot in customer service, and it’s usually discussed when someone has been disrespected, Respect is part of an organization’s values or standards, or a customer demands Respect.

But what is “Respect?” While there is no universally accepted definition of Respect, I find it interesting that in Aretha Franklin’s song she says “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me.”  Maybe that’s the reason we don’t have a universal definition – because it can mean different things to different people.

When we’ve talked with clients about Respect in customer service, particularly in staff workshops, we often start defining Respect by first defining the opposite – what it means to be disrespected.  The answers flow quickly:

  • No eye contact
  • They don’t listen to what I say
  • They cross their arms or roll their eyes
  • They look at their phone
  • They interrupt me, are rude, or argue with me
  • They give me an attitude that’s condescending
  • There’s no greeting at the start, no “Thank You!” at the end
  • They have a dismissive tone in their voice.

 
These are examples of issues with body language, tone of voice, poor communication skills, and lack of patience among many other concerns.  But what’s the commonality?  The commonality is how it makes the other person feel.  They feel “less than” or not listened to or not valued or unimportant.

Now, I’ve often said that we have no control over how others feel, but we can do things to impact the likelihood that they’ll feel a certain way.  So, Respect is as much about what we don’t do as it is by what we do; it’s about focusing on nothing but the other person.  It’s about thinking about nothing but this situation.  It’s about conveying nothing but an interest in the customer.  It’s about nothing but them.

To Respect someone, ensure you avoid things that convey disrespect.  Work to do nothing but Respect the other person.

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