March 2010

Customer service training coming for New Jersey toll collectors

March 31, 2010

Customers have spoken and the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA) has listened. The NJTA claims to have very few customer complaints, 1 for every 540,000 transactions. But a public din arose recently when several dozen of these complaints were posted on the website of a local news organization. The outcome is, the NJTA has developed [...]

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Top 10 customer service blogs

March 30, 2010

This is the March 2010 edition in my series of Top 10 Customer Service lists. Every month I’ll present my top 10 list of resources that can help you improve customer service and increase customer loyalty. To keep the lists readable I won’t go into a lot of detail on each item. But each resource [...]

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23 Ideas to be a better boss

March 30, 2010

The only way to have a healthy, sustainable business is to be a good leader for your employees. You need them to run your business, so the success or failure of your business comes from how well you take care of your staff. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of [...]

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Smart companies make customer feedback easy and convenient

March 29, 2010

I’m sick and tired of surveys. I’m tired of being interrupted at home or in my office by the caller who expects 5-10 minutes of my time as a reward for interrupting me. I am sick of being stopped mid-bite in chain restaurants to complete a 100 question survey. And I really hate being told [...]

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How you can create customer evangelists

March 29, 2010

Customer evangelism is something big companies and marketing consultants have talked about for years. Too often though, the big companies get all the attention in this area. People assume small and mid-sized companies can’t create customer evangelists. But they’re wrong! Here are four things you can do to create customer evangelists. 1. Talk to your [...]

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Chicago Blackhawks beef up customer service with better fan feedback

March 28, 2010

The Chicago Blackhawks are all about customer service. Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true. No doubt they’re more excited about winning hockey games and getting a slot in the NHL playoffs. But they are on record as saying customer service is important to them. So important, in fact, they have beefed up their efforts to [...]

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5 things your customer service training should cover

March 28, 2010

When you do a great job for your customers, your marketing is easy and cheap. And, to make sure your business performs well, you need to help your employees perform well. Here are a few quick tips to help new employees get up to speed so they can hep your company grow. Every new employee [...]

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Misunderstanding is the natural state of our communication

March 26, 2010

A while back I attended a seminar geared toward helping us manage change better in our organizations. One of the many things worth remembering from that day is a phrase from Larry Wilson: The natural state of communication is misunderstanding. At first I didn’t understand what Larry meant. Lucky for me he continued to explain. [...]

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Customer service tips for all of us

March 24, 2010

Our Amazing customer service resource for this week is a post at the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur called: “60 Customer Service Tips for Entrepreneurs”. It was written by TPE’s Mike Michalowicz but actually consists of tips from dozens of bright people. Here are a few of my favorites: 4. Be You, Not a Script – Get [...]

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New law will start healthy conversations between restaurants and customers

March 24, 2010

Recently new legislation was passed that requires restaurant companies with 20 or more locations to publish calorie counts of the food they serve. They’re also required to make information on sodium, carbs and fat available at a customer’s request. It’s about time! If you know me, you know I’m no fan of over-regulating our businesses. [...]

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Top 10 things you should NEVER say to a customer

March 23, 2010

Much of how we help people deliver better customer service is with examples. These are fun and useful because we all have them (since we’re all customers.) And sometimes it helps to look at examples of things we shouldn’t say to customers. That is, if we want them to keep coming back. So, here is [...]

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Is social media driving Shamrock Shake surge?

March 17, 2010

In 2006, while writing an article for AllBusiness.com, I discovered Google had about 39,000 listings for the search: “Shamrock Shake”.  Today, the same search throws us 877,000 possibilities. That’s like the city of Muskogee, Oklahoma, growing to the size of Detroit in four years. There are over 200 videos about these fun, minty shakes. Roughly [...]

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Social media elevates the power of Nice

March 17, 2010

Today, Erik Qualman, at ClickZ, published his proposed list of social media thought leaders. It lays out his plan to create a crowd-sourced ranking of the most influential people in social media today. As I scanned the list of 32 contenders many of the names were familiar. Some more familiar than others. I counted at [...]

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Customer service tip: Don’t insult your customers

March 16, 2010

Don’t insult your customers. I know this sounds pretty obvious. Why would any of us insult our customers on purpose? But it happens more than we realize. Here’s a recent example. I’m ordering a sandwich at my favorite sub shop. As I’m chatting with the sub-maker, the co-owner walks over. She notices that I’ve had [...]

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Continental Airlines boosts customer service by cutting free food. Huh?

March 15, 2010

An extremely exclusive club has just lost another member. Now that Continental Airlines has bagged its free meals I can no longer include it on the “airlines I like to brag about” list. The list is getting very, very short, by the way. Let’s hope Alaska Air and Singapore Airlines stay in business or this [...]

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Winn-Dixie Customer service employees stop scam artist, save customer thousands

March 15, 2010

Last week AT&T showed why you should hire people who care. Their customer service employee literally saved her customer’s life.  Now Winn-Dixie is schooling us in the fine art of going the extra mile for your customers. Recently, employees in their Stuart, FL store helped two of their customers avoid losing almost $3000 as victim [...]

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AT&T customer service employee saves customer’s life

March 11, 2010

Here’s a perfect example of why companies should hire smart people who care. Recently an AT&T customer was talking with their customer service service department. He started having symptoms of a heart attack and eventually passed out during the call. Rather than hang up (because the customer became non-responsive) the AT&T employee (Kelly Hart) knew [...]

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