Customer Experience

The best customer service happens when you deliver the right customer experience. Whether your customers call it excellent customer service, great customer service or amazing customer service, it’s all based on giving your customers the experience they want.

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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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How was YOUR Black Friday shopping experience?

November 27, 2011

Whew! Black Friday 2011 is now behind us. We can all relax and catch our breaths. And then get on with the rest of our holiday season. Personally, I think the whole idea Black Friday is way over done. But that’s just my personal opinion. What’s important (much more important than my personal opinion) is [...]

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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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Target fails, Starbucks thrills in real world customer service

October 27, 2010

Top Ten Real World Customer Experiences Sometimes it’s fun (and helpful) to take our customer service classroom to the streets and see how real people are getting treated as customers. So today I will share with you my top ten list of real world customer experiences: nine winners and one sinner in the battle for [...]

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Freeziac brings customers back with fun experience

October 13, 2010

A favorite place for my wife and I to go on weekends is the Mall of America (or as we like to call it: “MOA”). Though I’m not much for shopping malls (probably because I’m not much for shopping) I always enjoy MOA. Being there feels like being on vacation: It’s crowded, expensive and it’s [...]

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Make it easy for customers to leave and more will stay

May 18, 2010

A few years ago AOL became the poster child for a special kind of customer abuse when a customer recorded his phone call to them as he tried to cancel his account. All he wanted to do was leave. All they wanted to do was prevent him from leaving. But they had his credit card [...]

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Forget labels

May 14, 2010

Think about how we often describe our customers. We might label them as difficult, angry, rude, uninformed, arrogant, etc. (Sometimes we use terms like friendly, warm, engaging and so on.) On one level this seems useful. It might help us decide how to handle certain customers in specific situations. But labels can also cause problems. [...]

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Choosing service means choosing responsibility

May 14, 2010

A while ago I wrote about a book called: “Choosing Civility”. One thing I like about the book is that it puts the responsibility for change on us, not on others, Even the title says it well. It reminds us we have the ability to choose how we act. Since my job is to help [...]

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Lowes still knows customer service

April 30, 2010

Recently we had a new water softener and heater installed.  And though I enjoy the good feeling I get from improving our home, I loathe the process. I feel this way because too many retailers and contractors have made it a horrible experience for customers.  From “bait and switch” advertisements to aggressive up-selling to the [...]

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Details keep your customers coming back

April 29, 2010

One of the best ways to keep your customers coming back is by offering them details. The more specific you can be, the more most people will appreciate your efforts. When you offer customers details, you’re telling them you are willing to be thorough and complete as you help them. And you’re telling them you [...]

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Enough about me, let’s talk about me.

April 26, 2010

Several times a year I get a CD from a well-known PR consultant. She is a very aggressive and consistent promoter of her business. She has done a good job making herself well-known in her niche. But, when I listen to her CD I often resist her message. Not because of its quality. She has [...]

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How do your customers see your business?

April 6, 2010

I have to admit, I don’t read a lot of blogs. There are less than 20 I read on a regular basis. But one blog I watch regularly is written by Guy Kawasaki. I like Guy’s blog partly because you never know what he’s going to write about. For example, earlier this year, Guy wrote [...]

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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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Multi-channel customer service study finds big companies failing

February 23, 2010

With the exception of web self-service, all business sectors dropped in multi-channel customer service, according to a new study released by eGain today. But even web self-service didn’t fare too well: “All areas except web self-service declined in performance, with web self-service posting a slight increase for the overall market from 1.7 in 2009 to [...]

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T-Mobile vs. the customer: Round five (the wrap-up)

February 16, 2010

This is the final post in a short series that describes my recent experience as a T-Mobile customer. The situation started with my goal of upgrading my phone to a newer model but at a price that was no more than what a new customer would pay. Since I have been a loyal customer for [...]

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T-Mobile vs. the customer: Round four (getting stood-up)

February 15, 2010

This is the fourth in a series of articles that detail my recent experience as a T-Mobile customer. As an 8 year customer, my goal is to upgrade my phone without paying more than a new customer would pay for the same phone.  You can see the prior article here. Round three ended with an [...]

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