At AMA’s MPlanet conference I had the opportunity to be part of a special Blogger Q&A session with Mary Dillon, Executive VP and Global Chief Marketing Officer for McDonald’s. She talked about a strong focus on employees, reaching out to moms, and social media.

There are some employees who manage to withstand all kinds of criticism and negativity from management and find ways to brush it off and excel at work. Other employees, despite a supportive management team, fail to be productive.

I believe that people who work in an environment where doing their best is recognized have a better chance of feeling good about their work. They also have a better chance of becoming successful producers who enjoy pleasing customers.

Last week Dennis Snow and I sat down to talk about customer service.

Dennis is a highly regarded customer service expert, having cut his teeth with the Disney Corporation. Dennis also has  a popular customer service blog and he has written several well-received books on customer service.

So I was thrilled when he asked me to join him on his customer service podcast. And he was kind enough to let me repost the interview here, on AmazingServiceGuy.com.

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Ask your customers these three questions…

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

Our customers know our businesses better than we think. And it makes sense. We’re in business to help them. If we don’t our business will fade away, as it should. Their experience is critical because it tells us whether we are actually helping them or not. It also tells us how we can do better.

It makes sense that if you improve customer service, you will increase customer loyalty. But improving customer service is not necessarily easy. It takes more than a seminar or a motivational speaker. It takes effort and time to make a sustainable improvement in the level of service you deliver your customers.

Not long ago I was talking with Dr. Alan Weiss about customer service. Among the many good ideas he mentioned to improve customer service, one stood out. Alan said “if you want to improve customer service in your company, get a role model”. So, with thanks to Dr. Weiss for his thought starter, here are some of my suggestions to find (or create) a Amazing Service role model in your company.

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Get everyone involved

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

Jan Carlzon, former CEO of Scandinavian Airlines said: “If you’re not serving the customer, your job is to be serving someone who is.” It’s one of my favorite customer service quotes because it reminds us everyone in the organization needs to be involved in serving our customers.

Our customers come to us for help. They want to accomplish something (or prevent something.) And they want to

One of the best ways to increase revenue and profits in a tough economy is to get more new customers who are already sold on your product, service or brand. These customers can be hugely profitable because they require very little marketing or sales costs. By the time they reach your door they have already heard good things about your business and they are interested in learning more. If handle them right a high percentage will become customers with little effort on your part.

We all know customer loyalty is a good thing. Loyal customers can cause many good things to happen, like more referrals, more repeat business and ultimately, a healthier business. And a critical piece of the customer loyalty customer is employees. In fact, your employees create your loyal customers.

So in my last talk radio session at KLBB (with Mark Kozlak and Ann Hermes) we talked about this topic. We discussed why this is so and shared examples of how it works and how to do it well.

There is plenty of room for improvement in how many organizations serve their customers. And there are substantial benefits for those that do. The good news is you don’t need to spend a lot of money to start making improvements in your customer service.

Here are some specific suggestions to get you started.

1. Improve People Skills

To deliver Amazing Service, people skills count. So a fast and high return way to improve customer service is to find ways to improve your team’s people skills.

This might include bringing in a speaker or trainer. It could mean focusing on people skills topics at staff meetings. It could involved providing useful training content to employees in a variety of formats like audio CDs, online material, videos, books, blogs, articles and even newsletters and ezines that cover people skills topics.

Poor customer service from airlines is legendary. It’s cliche. It’s so common that when we do get great service we feel like we’ve won the lottery, if only for a moment.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Sure, airlines have big challenges that can be obstacles to providing great customer service. So do many other companies that find ways to provide remarkable service to their customers. They choose to overcome their challenges and they take care of their customers very well. And they do it consistently.