Customer Engagement

Today we have more ways than ever to engage and connect with our customers. Whether it’s delivering an awesome customer experience or connecting with them through social media to discover how we can help them, we now have a world of tools and techniques we can use to meet our customers where they are.

Three Ways to Keep Your Customers Coming Back

January 10, 2012

Last week I was interviewed by Daniel Bortz, a writer for Entrepreneur.com. He asked my opinion on some things small businesses can do to keep their customers coming back. The ideas in his article focused on tactics that most small businesses can do and can be made easier using technology tools.  The suggestions centered on [...]

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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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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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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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How good are you?

May 26, 2010

To be successful, in any business, we need to give our customers what they want, in a way that works for our business. We should focus on doing what our customers want AND what we can do well. Then we need to do it well. In fact we should do it better than anyone else [...]

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Referrals increased by over 100%

May 25, 2010

The headline of this post comes from a blog post by my friend Brian Carroll. His post describes a conversation he had with a client where they discussed how lead generation often ignores current customers. As a result of the discussion, one CEO decided his company would begin focusing more on current customers. He even [...]

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Understand what your customers want from you

April 23, 2010

Every business exists to help people accomplish something. If we fail at that then our business will not be sustainable. But to help our customers really get what they want, we need to know what that is. We do that by having conversations with them. Ask questions and listen to the answers. Get in the [...]

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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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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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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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Google’s strength is offering value, engaging customers

March 4, 2010

In the last 24 hours, the ‘net has been abuzz with Google’s admission that their SEO is not as good as it could be.  Some see this as a sign that Google “ain’t all that”. Others see it as a reason to question the value of SEO. Regardless of what you make of Google’s SEO [...]

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Use customer service standards to engage customers and employees

February 24, 2010

A while ago I was engaged to do a customer service seminar for a city. One of the things they wanted to talk about was establishing customer service standards. So I began a search for other cities that had already established customer service standards to see what their experience had been. My first search in [...]

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