I am smarter than I was yesterday, I have better ideas than I had yesterday, and I am more valuable to my company than I was yesterday.

Did my brain grow overnight? Was I the subject of a new government “smart drug” study? Did aliens kidnap me and inject me with massive amounts of knowledge using their telepathic powers?

Nope. I read a book last night.

In these interesting times, you may be trying to figure out how to successfully weather this storm. This marketplace seems to be demanding change so it is a good time to ask tough questions. Let me add a few questions to add to your list.

The biggest reason we don’t accomplish what we want in our businesses (and, in our personal lives) is we’re not always willing to change when we should. It’s easy for us to keep doing what we’re doing. It’s habit. It’s comfortable. It’s known. Our brains are hardwired this way for some very good reasons.

But this can also be an obstacle to growth and improvement.

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Catch people in the act of delivering amazing service

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

If you want to improve your own customer service then watch people around you and observe the customer service they deliver. Maybe these people are co-workers. Maybe they are employees in businesses you patronize. It doesn’t matter. Your first step is to watch them and note how they do. Your second step is to reward them when they deliver great customer service.

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

After a complaint, promise to do better.

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

A while ago I saw an interview of Dell’s Chief Information Officer. He was talking about some of the customer service problems Dell had been experiencing. While he answered many of the questions he failed to do several things, one of which stood out:

He never said they would do better.

The most important thing you can tell an unhappy customer is

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Improve Your Customer Service Every Day

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

In the world of customer service, you need to get better or you’ll fall behind. The Disney organization is well known as a model of quality customer service. And yet they constantly train and focus on how to improve the service they offer their customers. One reason they do this is because they understand the quality of customer service is relative to what customers expect. As you deliver better service, your customers get accustomed to it. They expect it. So you need to improve or they’ll feel your service level has declined.

Here’s an easy formula to bring positive change to your life:

(DVP) x (BA) = Change

D = Dissatisfaction (with a current situation or condition)
V = Vision (for how you would like things to be)
P = Plan (actions and strategies needed move you toward your vision)
B = Belief (the genuine belief and faith that you can make your vision happen)
A = Action (actions you actually take to move toward the change you want)

One of the challenges in improving customer service is putting new ideas to work.  Often they’re not even new ideas but reminders of what we already know.  Ideas are cheap. It’s using them effectively that brings us the results we want.

Here’s a tip to help you improve the quality of your customer service immediately:

Recognize others for delivering great customer service.

If you want to improve your own customer service then watch people around you and observe the customer service they deliver. Maybe these people are co-workers. Maybe they are employees in businesses you patronize. It doesn’t matter. Your first step is to watch them and note how they do. Your second step is to reward them when they deliver great customer service.

A while ago I heard an interview with Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at MIT. During the interview, Dan talked about an experiment which caught my attention:

“…they created tests that made it easy to cheat, then looked at what happened if they reminded people right before the test of a moral rule. (It turned out that being reminded of any moral code — the Ten Commandments, the non-existent “M.I.T. honor system” — caused cheating to plummet.)”

They were able to prevent cheating by reminding people of a specific moral code.

In my work, I spend a fair amount of time helping people bring change to their companies. That’s what improving customer service is all about. The companies that make a substantial and permanent improvement in how they serve their customers have discovered how to change their organizations.

Seth Godin has some useful things to say about this. Here’s a great example  from his latest book, Tribes: