My husband and I ate at one of our favorite restaurants a few nights ago and were astounded by the incredibly poor customer services skills of the on-site manager.  It was a rather curious situation and I honestly believe that a third grader could have handled things better than this guy.

When I purchased my printer several years ago, I bought a three year extended warranty. Unfortunately, last week, just as I was about to print out handouts for a presentation the next day, my printer died and I found out exactly what “warranty” meant.

Do the employees at your company view customer service as a department or a company culture? Do the employees that have the least amount of contact with customers get miffed by all the attention your customer service department gets?

My husband teaches an evening class at a local college. On Friday night, he took me to his school’s holiday dinner party, where we sat at a table with the president and her husband, a couple of distinguished teachers, and the school’s librarian. During the meal, one of the professors praised the librarian, “I have been teaching for thirty years and she is by far the very best librarian I have ever met.”

When things aren’t going quite right, it’s easy to take an emotional slide down the catastrophic “what if” tunnel, mulling over all the possible things that might go wrong.

* What if my customer gets angry when I give him the news?
* What if I get stuck with the bill?
* What if he tells everyone how upset he is with our company?
* What if the company goes under and I lose my job, my home and end up living on the streets?

Have you ever noticed that people tend to mirror each other’s behaviors?   When a customer behaves in unpleasant ways, it’s not always easy to maintain a positive demeanor. If you get emotionally hooked, the conflict plays out much like a dance.

He snips at you. You snap back. He yells, “Yes, you can,  and you bark,   No, we can’t.   The more charged you feel, the less control you have over the situation and the next round of the dance escalates.

During a recent radio show interview, the host, Aldonna Ambler made a passing comment that struck a chord for me. She said something like this: Sometimes the biggest asset you bring to your company can become your most limiting factor. Since I do a great deal of work helping people discover and release limitations, her comment rang true.

During the bustling mid-day lunch rush, my coauthor, Lori Jo Vest and I met at a coffee shop with a big stack of “Who’s Your Gladys?” customer service books. While we were writing words of thanks to our endorsers and placing the books into mailers, a tall, well dressed young man walked by our table.  He passed us with coffee in hand and a quizzical look on his face, and then he came back.

I am grateful for my friends and colleagues who send me fascinating examples of good and bad customer service. Yesterday I received an email from a friend who said, “Here’s a really cool rant on the power of twitter as a customer tool and how one company, from the top down, reacted.”

This lead me to a blog article written by Bob Lefsetz which you can read here: Twitterific

Recently, my husband, Cliff, was the motivational keynote speaker for a large association. He drove two hours to the event with a car full of books, handouts and props for his speech. While unpacking, he could have kicked himself. He forgot his most important prop—a tall, lidded garbage can.

On a scale from one to ten, how well would your customers rate your phone etiquette? Your score is only as good as your next phone call. Here are a few dos and don’ts that will help you ensure that your customers feel welcomed, connected and eager to come back.

Some Dos:

The venue had been selected. The invitations had been sent.  And Border Cantina, a Mexican restaurant in Novi, Michigan was ready for the arrival of 28 women with gifts in hand.  The happy bride-to-be and her fiancé plan on saying their vows on a sandy beach in Mexico. So, when it was time to plan the shower, those of us hosting the celebration thought it would be fun to follow the Mexican theme in our own home town.