Is the Customer Really King?

We often hear ‘the customer is king’. I don’t believe it. First, many customers do not behave like kings. Some act more like ruffians than royalty. You might want to disregard this kind of customer altogether. But it’s tough to disregard a king.

Make it Person-to-Person

Automation is essential for expanding and accelerating service in many industries. But when individual care or attention is required, customers need contact with real people. When human energy flows and connects, good things (can) get done.

Who's Answering Your Email?

Websites, e-mail and digital voice mail are changing the game in business. Some companies are taking the lead with great digital service like Computers.com and Amazon.com. Others are falling far behind. A friend of mine had a complaint about the service at a local hotel. He visited the hotel’s website and wrote to the 'feedback' e-mail address provided. One week later he got this reply:

9 WOW Ways to WOW Customers

This week is National Customer Service Week. As we celebrate the people who pay our bills, I want to give a few low-cost and no-cost ideas to WOW Customers so that they come back again and again and tell everyone they know.

8 Ways to Get Close to Your Customers

Want to add more value to your customers? Be sure you know what to add! Here are eight proven ways to get close to your customers and find out what they value, what they care about, what they really want:

Connect to Your Customers Through Your Customers

We all live and work in a constellation of relationships based on service. You can see this with the customers you serve and the suppliers who serve you. But this is also true with colleagues, employees, managers, family, friends, government agencies and community members.

For Just 30 Cents of Salad

Full-bodied communication with customers leads to understanding and delight. By contrast, sparse or misleading communication leads only to distress.

Where on the Floor is 264?

Your customers may require more than technical data to fulfill their wants and needs. Data only becomes useful information when it connects with human concerns.

An Upgrade is Usually Worse, At First

If you are upgrading or changing your service in ways that affect your customers, send them advance warning and acknowledge openly what everyone already knows: things go wrong, upgrades take time, it takes effort to locate and iron out the wrinkles.

Overcoming the Nasty Pirate

Put positive emotion and a personal touch in your service recovery efforts. Customers will remember and cherish you forever.

How Hot is Our Service?

Excellent service quality training is important, and sometimes a classroom is the best place to provide it. But training should be always supported by a work environment that generates...

No News is Bad News!

If you have a customer who is happy and you do not give them a chance to tell you, you lose one of the strongest opportunities to increase customer loyalty. The need to be internally consistent is a driving force in shaping future behavior. In other words, if customers...

Turtles Deliver the Internal Mail

I haven’t received it yet, she wrote back. We have Turtle Mail inside this company. I should get your package by the end of the week...