helping

Here is what real service looks like (and why it matters)

April 1, 2010

There I was, standing in the Burnsville Post Office, staring at a pile of work. I had 21 books to mail that each required 5 stamps. (Yes, that’s 105 stamps total.) It was 5:36 pm and the deadline for pickup that day was 5:45. The clock was ticking so loud I could barely think straight. [...]

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Focus on Solutions for Your Customer, Not Dead Ends

July 8, 2009

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service: Focus on solutions for your customer, not dead ends And here are some additional thoughts on this topic… When you fail to help a customer, you’re giving them a dead end. When all you do is quote policy or simply tell them “we’re all out” of whatever [...]

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Serve your customers

June 25, 2009

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service: Serve your customers And here are some additional thoughts on this topic… We’ve all dealt with people and companies that try to sell us what they want us to buy. They try to fit our need to their solution. They send us away with no help if [...]

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Be Interested in Helping Your Customers

June 2, 2009

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service: Be interested in helping your customers And here are some additional thoughts on this topic… It’s easy for us to get distracted. We all have many things to accomplish in addition to helping customers. And we know if we don’t do them, no one else will! But [...]

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This Company Cares About Their Customers

December 23, 2008

Yesterday a massive fire engulfed a large apartment complex in my city. While fire fighters from 6 communities fought the blaze, residents shivered in sub-zero temperatures. It was three days before Christmas and everything they owned was going up in smoke. It was a miracle nobody was injured. But the tragedy is still monumental for [...]

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Quote of the day: 12-7-08

December 7, 2008

“Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’” -Brian Tracy Author of:  Reinvention: How to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life

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Unemployed man makes generous donation to service dog agency

December 5, 2008

I saw this on the KSAX TV website. An unemployed contractor donated a custom trailer he owned to a nonprofit agency that provides service dogs for people who are deaf or disabled. A week ago (on Thanksgiving) someone had stolen the trailer owned by the nonprofit. Without it

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Help your customers get the outcomes they want.

July 3, 2008

Kevin’s Amazing Customer Service rule# 22: Help your customers get the outcomes they want. Our customers come to us for something. They want to prevent something bad from happening. Or they want to make something good happen. Either way they’ve come to us for help. So we need to help them get what they want. [...]

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Amazing Customer Service Means Focusing on What Your Customer Wants, Not What You Want

June 29, 2008

Too often I hear people give bad advice to others about how to talk with new potential clients. Rather than focus on what the customer is trying to accomplish now, they try to get their foot in the door for a long-term relationship with the company. It’s like talking about marriage, kids and and the [...]

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Ask Open-Ended Questions

May 28, 2008

Amazing Service Rule# 13: “Ask open-ended questions.” One of the most important ways we serve our customers is to help them get what they want, even if they don’t know exactly what that is. They rely on us for knowledge about our product or service. They come to us for expertise they cannot get anywhere [...]

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Never Ask for Referrals

August 30, 2007

Referrals are a hot topic. And they should be. Many businesses rely more on referrals than any other source of new business. But many people get it wrong when they think about referrals. They see referrals as something they can “get” or produce. They try to build systems and plans to generate referrals. The reality [...]

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Bridge Collapse Shows People at their Best

August 2, 2007

This morning Minnesota is in shock. A major bridge in Minneapolis collapsed. No warning. Nothing unusual happened prior to the collapse. It just dropped 64 feet into the Mississippi River. At least 50 cars fell into the river. As many as 60 people were injured. Nine people have reportedly died. Our governor rightly called it [...]

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It’s Easy to Be Better Than Your Competition

May 13, 2007

I once had a boss who told us to never return phone calls right away. He said if you return a call too quickly, the other person might think you’re not very busy. This same boss also liked to say “always make it hard for the other person to schedule an appointment with you”. His [...]

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