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2024 Holiday Poem - 12/24/24


I sometimes hear it said That things have never been like this before. That challenges are unique, That stresses seem like more.   I sometimes hear it said That we're asked to do much more with less. That workloads are increasing, And we're resource-constrained at best.   And others often say That things are really very good. That they enjoy those Read more

Is Their Poor Planning Your Emergency? - 12/17/24


Have you ever heard the saying:  Your poor planning is not my emergency. I’ve heard it said often – not necessarily directly from one person to another.  More typical is that I hear it from the person having to drop everything and do something immediately because someone else didn’t think Read more

Empathy Examples for Everyday Situations - 12/10/24


I’ve often said that empathy is the single most important characteristic of people who are great at customer service.  If empathy is essentially “to understand the other person,” it helps so much to have that ability in order to specifically help someone.  To talk to what’s unique about them.  Read more

Tell Them Why You’re Giving Thanks - 12/3/24


Thank you! Merci! Danke! Doumo! Gracias! It seems like every language has a translation of Thank You.  Even though I only fluently speak English and speak Spanish, un poco, I – and probably most of you – have heard some or all of the translations of "Thank You” noted above.  Read more

Refine Your Decision-making Process - 11/26/24


Every day, you make decisions of what to do and what not to do.  And in the world of customer service, often the affected parties are our customers, our co-workers, and our company.  Here are a few quotes to consider when you’re thinking about evaluating and refining your decision-making Read more

Acting on the Guiding Principles for Great Customer Service - 11/19/24


In last week’s tip, we shared 5 Guiding Principles for Great Customer Service.  This week, let’s address what “taking action” looks like on those key principles.  If last week was about what to do and WHY, this week is about the HOW. Engage with Interest: To engage with interest, proactively Read more

Guiding Principles for Great Customer Service - 11/12/24


It’s hard to know every procedure, every policy, every technique possible to handle every situation correctly.  After all, maybe our procedures are standard, but our customers are not.  Maybe our policies stay pretty consistent, but our customers’ needs and issues, their attitudes and actions can change from customer to Read more

From a Simple Question to an Exceptional Experience - 11/5/24


Phyllis loves her job.  It’s not just because she loves being a customer service representative, not just because she really likes her co-workers, and not just because she enjoys her company.  It’s because she really appreciates her customers, as well. A customer had ordered a register book off the company Read more

Fix One Problem without Creating Another - 10/29/24


If you’ve ever had an issue with your dishwasher, this will sound familiar.  I’ve dealt with so many dishwashers over the years, and they always seem to have some kind of an issue.  Maybe it’s because of the mix of water and technology, but for whatever reason, these never Read more

Delight Your Customers - 10/22/24


Buddy the Bug Man was different.  His company was new, and the only reason why Janet tried him out was that the service she had used for years just wasn’t working.  Whether it was mosquitoes in the yard, ants in the kitchen, or cockroaches flying through on their way Read more

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The Servant Mindset

Posted on December 16, 2009 in Business Advice, Government 1 Comment

A county manager talks about staff needing to have a “Servant Mindset” with the community. He is talking about government workers on the local level in tax collections, parks, social services, and the health department being servants of the residents of the community.

That’s his way of describing customer service. That’s his way of sharing his mental image of what it means to provide customer service.

To many people, this conjures up the image of someone subservient to the other, someone who defers to the other, someone dressing fancy, saying “Yes, Sir” and “Yes, Ma’am” and catering to the other person’s every whim. Could that possibly be the image he is referencing?

Well…yes.

We know that many government workers have a bad reputation for being slow or inconsiderate or even rude at times. And that reputation – fair or not – has to be turned around; changing that perception is not going to happen purely from some slick marketing or branding campaign. It has to happen through the thousands and thousands of interactions that occur on a weekly basis. That perception has to be changed through the reality that residents experience on a daily basis. It has to be based on each call, or e-mail, or face-to-face interaction which the community experiences. At some point, for government entities (and most businesses), reality is the ultimate determinant of perception.

So the manager strives to impact those interactions by impacting the mindset of each employee. If the employee takes the attitude that “I need to defer to the other” and “I need to dress professionally” and “I need to be respectful in what I say and how I say it,” then how that employee is perceived by the customer will improve. This mindset creates an underlying feeling in the conversation that the customer is important, they are being served, and they are being respected.

The next time your company is coming up with the next big thing to impact your perception and your brand, start first by impacting the mindset that each employee has toward their relationship with their customer.

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


Service and Sales Need to Talk

Posted on December 14, 2009 in Business Advice, Sports Please leave a comment

We are fortunate to have a lot of professional sports clients. Typically when working with these organizations, the dual focus is season-ticket holder retention and sales growth. Many teams focus on creating synergies between their services area and their sales area. It is not just important for pro sports teams; it is also important for any organization. Let’s stick with the pro sports analogy to illustrate the point.

One key term used in the business side of pro sports is the need to create “synergies” between departments. In particular, one of the biggest potential areas of synergy is the service area creating sales leads for the sales division. This is a situation where service personnel identify potential group sales, event sales, or ticket sales through the relationship they have with their existing season-ticket holders. The service areas then send these leads to the sales departments to close. The synergies not only help the organization to perform better financially, but they help your organization to quickly generate sales by having the sales be created through leads generated from the greatest referral source there is – your current clients.

But thinking a little out of the box in terms of the relationships between these two areas, one great way where service and sales need to talk is where the education of one group by the other will pay dividends to the company. For example, salespeople know how to sell. They know the strategies, the mental decision trees, and the techniques to utilize. While many customer service people may detest selling, they must also realize that to do the best job possible in serving their clients, they need to periodically make offers on products and services to help address client needs. You’re actually doing a disservice if you don’t sell to some of your clients because they’re not getting their needs met. The sales personnel need to train service on key selling techniques.

Similarly, service needs to train sales. Sales people often think in a very transactional manner. While some are very process or relationship oriented, many more don’t understand how to think long-term and how to develop relationships using a long-term strategy. Service people in pro sports teams understand the concept of Touch Point Planning. They understand how to develop a relationship over time, viewing your customers as suppliers of information that will help you to retain them and sell to them in the future. Service personnel can teach sales folks how to be very disciplined and how to structure communication points with their clients, realizing that they need to get information from the customers in order to best sell to the customers.

While there are many organizations that experience friction between service and sales, the organizations that are most effective are those where service and sales talk with and teach each other.

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


Small Errors in Service Recovery

Posted on December 7, 2009 in Business Advice Please leave a comment

 If “Service Recovery” means that we need to “save” situations where the customer is upset, irate, or complaining, then there are right ways and wrong ways to do it. While there is no one rule to deal with Service Recovery situations, many times employees can think that they are doing things the right way, and in fact there are small errors that are causing the recovery to be unsuccessful.

Think of the following actions during Service Recovery and the issues with each:

  • The employee responds to an e-mail from an irate customer by sending an e-mail back.  Whereas this may be very effective at times, particularly when the customer prefers e-mail communications, in a Service Recovery situation you want to talk to someone 2-way, on the phone or face-to-face. Because that ability to see the body language and to hear the tone of voice enables you to deal with the emotion of the situation better. Remember that e-mail does not convey emotion well.
  • The employee responds to the customer that if they have a concern, then the customer is welcome to call back. While this may seem like a positive offer, in effect what the employee’s doing is dumping the responsibility for follow-up back on the customer. Particularly in Service Recovery situations, the employee needs to take ownership over the follow-up, to convey that they care and ensure that the follow-up happens.
  • The employee hears the complaint and gives the appropriate solution, and yet the customer is still upset. This typically happens when the employee is providing an effective solution, but they are ignoring the emotional aspect of the conversation. Most customers want to be understood and to feel like they are cared for at least as much as they are having their question answered during a Service Recovery situation. Employees need to make sure they’re not so focused on the issue and the solution that they totally ignore the emotion that comes with the issue.

When determining the best way to deal with Service Recovery situations, look at the little things that employees can do wrong to determine how to tweak the technique to make sure everything turns out right. 

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


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