Kevin Stirtz

Customer Service Training for Call Centers

November 13, 2011

Improve your call center’s ratings and performance with this comprehensive guide The most important resource that any call center has is its people. Customer relationships can be made or broken by one single interaction, so much is riding on the shoulders of the frontline staff. Managing these call center staff requires specialized skills and knowledge [...]

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Customer service can beat low price

September 22, 2011

Many competitive industries rely on low prices and heavy discounting to attract and keep customers. But this strategy is not the only one that can help you increase customer loyalty. Even in a highly price competitive business, customer service can beat low prices. This article shares a perfect example of how one dry cleaner lost [...]

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Caribou Coffee Fails at Customer Service Recovery

September 12, 2011

None of us are perfect. Neither is any business. The good news is most customers don’t expect the people they do business with to be perfect. But as customers we do expect businesses to fix things when they go wrong. One of my favorite coffee places provides a current example. It was a beautiful late [...]

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Delivering Amazing Service – Boston Style

June 12, 2011

by Kevin Stirtz Recently my friends Chip Bell and John Patterson shared with me this story of amazing service. It’s from their friend and client, Katy Wild. Chip and John call it “Boston Style Customer Service.” “Recently I lost my purse while traveling and then found it, thankfully, but not before missing my plane.   So, [...]

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Don’t communicate. Conversate.

May 23, 2011

Our friends at Dictionary.com define the word communicate this way: To impart knowledge of; make known:  to communicate information This is something companies are very good at. They should be. Big companies have entire departments dedicated to communicating. They “impart information” and make their messages known on a grand scale. For decades, big business (and small business too) has spentvast amounts [...]

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Online review & customer feedback tip: Don’t leave customers hanging

May 8, 2011

by Kevin Stirtz Yo, dude, don’t leave me hanging Every day the Internet makes it easier for people to connect. Employees, customers, friends, family, neighbors…you name it. We have more technology than ever before that can help us reach out to people. If we choose to. And that’s a big problem for many businesses. They [...]

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Social media advice: Get real or go home

May 3, 2011

by Kevin Stirtz Chris Garrett wrote a post a while ago about being real vs. phony. Here’s what he says about real people: Real people rock. If anything, I would always rather meet an imperfect human being than a fake robot. Be proud to be you, mistakes and all. Too many companies hire and train robots [...]

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How to claim your Google Places page

March 7, 2011

Local businesses can do themselves a big favor by using the free yet effective internet marketing tool called Google Places. For a business owner, manager or marketer, the most important thing to know about Google Places is how to make it work best for your business. There are two ways to get started. One is to [...]

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What are the top local search directories?

March 1, 2011

Go to one of the most well known local search related websites, GetListed.org, and the first thing you see is a free tool to help you get listed on some of the top local directories (they call them local search engines). In fact, as you might have surmised based on the name of the site, [...]

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10 Ways to Turn Online Reviews into More Loyal Customers

February 21, 2011

Companies like Google, Yelp, UrbanSpoon, CitySearch and many others have made it easy and convenient for customers to share their thoughts with the world. And they’re not just talking about what they had for breakfast. They’re telling the world what they think of YOUR BUSINESS. Smart companies are using these online reviews to attract and [...]

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Five Ways to Improve Customer Service Starting Today

February 11, 2011

There are substantial benefits for companies that improve their customer service. The good news is you don’t need to spend a lot of money to start making improvements in your customer service. You can make customer service improvements starting today. Here are some specific suggestions to get you started. 1. Improve People Skills To deliver [...]

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Google, Yelp et al, help you connect better with customers

February 7, 2011

There’s  a lot of talk these days of new Web tools that help us communicate with customer better. Websites like Yelp, CitySearch, Google Places and HotPot, Angie’s List and Judy’s Book all provide easy platforms for customers to tell us what they think. And we should be glad they do. One of the best ways [...]

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Yelp can help local businesses get more customers.

January 13, 2011

One of the best ways for a local businesses to increase customer loyalty is to get steady, positive reviews for customers. And doing this has never been easier. With services like Yelp, Google’s HotPot, CitySearch and others, millions of local businesses are getting feedback from customers without even asking. Because it’s so easy, customers are [...]

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Google makes it official: Customer service matters

January 6, 2011

For years I have been preaching the gospel of customer service: Good customer feedback can increase loyalty and revenue. But it’s easy to ignore this because customer feedback is often fleeting. Many businesses never get enough to make an obvious impact. When a business lacks a steady flow of useful customer feedback , there are [...]

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Mitch Joel explains Web 2.0 (and why it matters)

November 5, 2010

Mitch Joel hates it when you say “Web 2.0“. I know. He told me. Okay, he didn’t actually tell me in person as in, we’re having coffee at Starbucks and he said, “by the way Kevin…” I was listening to a webinar Mitch did earlier this year. He was talking mostly about Web 2.0 and [...]

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Gitomer tells how to attract and keep customers with value

October 27, 2010

Jeff Gitomer is best known to many as a sales guru but his message is equally important to anyone who wants to keep their customers coming back. In this short video he offers some platinum advice on attracting the right customers by offering them more value than anyone else. This is important because the more [...]

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