January 2009

We Always Have Choice to Deliver Amazing Service

January 30, 2009

“Happiness is not by chance, but by choice.” -Jim Rohn A while ago I was talking with some people about their customer service experiences. A lady commented to me on what amazing service she received from a cashier at Target. She explained: The customer ahead of me was grouchy and really giving the cashier a [...]

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Is Customer Service Better than Sex?

January 29, 2009

Over the years many it’s been suggested many things are “better than sex”. I recall (fondly) a certain dessert called “better than sex cake” I was introduced to almost 20 years ago. And I’ve heard sky diving, mountain climbing and other extreme sports are often subjects of this comparison. But I’ve never heard anyone suggest [...]

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How to Beat the Recession – Part 2

January 29, 2009

During a recession it’s normal to be fearful of what the future might bring. Massive changes like what we are facing can cause people to reach out in many directions just to keep their business afloat. Sometimes these ‘solutions’ are no better than rolling a dice, pulling a slot machine handle or playing bingo. They [...]

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How to Beat the Recession – Part 1

January 28, 2009

When it seems all we hear is bad news, it can be easy for us to join in the chorus. It can seem natural to spend time worrying about how we’ll survive in these challenging times. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Every second of every day, we have a choice to behave [...]

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Companies Still Need to Improve Service Says New Report

January 26, 2009

Today my company published a new report on customer service. It’s called: “The State of Customer Service” and it offers a glimpse of what real people think about customer service these days. Surprisingly, the news is not all gloom and doom. But it does suggest that, in general, organizations need to continue working hard to [...]

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Little Things Make the Difference

January 23, 2009

Last week I got a call from a hotel employee confirming the headcount for an event I was responsible for. In her voice mail, she asked me to call her back to confirm our final headcount, even though I had sent in the final number earlier that day. On the surface this seems like a [...]

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A New Tool to Improve Customer Service

January 23, 2009

A while ago I heard an interview with Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at MIT. During the interview, Dan talked about an experiment which caught my attention: “…they created tests that made it easy to cheat, then looked at what happened if they reminded people right before the test of a moral rule. (It turned [...]

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Is Your Company Delivering the Right Experience?

January 23, 2009

I surf the Internet a lot. As a writer and speaker it comes with the territory. And I don’t mind, except when I have to deal with insanely slow websites. There are a few websites I use on a regular basis that are horribly slow. I call them “coffee cup” websites because you can go [...]

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Twitter Beats Customer Support at Comcast

January 2, 2009

Yesterday while surfing the web I noticed it was very slow. So I did a little research and discovered the problem was with my service provider, Comcast. So, the first thing I did was try to let Comcast know using their online services. I hate making phone calls to customer service of big companies because [...]

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