Tag: customer service
Why Service Suffers When Unhappy Customers Sound Happy
During a recent visit at a client company, the management asked me about the problem of service reps who feel like they’re successful because a customer thanked them graciously, even enthusiastically, for their help, when,... Continue reading
How to Make a Small Tweak in Communication for a Surprisingly Big Change
When I interviewed a group of highly experienced technical employees at a client company last week, one of the things I asked them was what consistently made them nuts on the job. They told me... Continue reading
It’s Always Better to Resolve a Problem Than to Reroute It
When should an organization realize that it’s not enough to keep stepping around a problem — and that it’s time to work through it and stop the excessive cost, disruption, and generally bad customer experience?... Continue reading
The Devil’s in the Details. For Customer Loyalty, You Need to Be There Too.
How can you apply enough of the right kind of attention up and down the hierarchy to ensure a seamless customer experience? Pre-Covid, I stayed at a major hotel chain in New Orleans for a... Continue reading
Why Your Silos Are More Important Than You Think
Last month, a longstanding client brought me in after reviewing some recent customer research. The company provides a relatively complex service, and one of their most common and unprompted customer complaints was that the company’s... Continue reading
What Can You Do When a Customer Explodes?
I just watched a customer take offense in a situation where no one was actually in the wrong. She reached into an awkward -- although salvageable -- circumstance, and pulled out a negative experience for... Continue reading
In What Ways Is Your Work Like a Cocktail?
It’s a rare thing to chuckle your way through a book on management and leadership. But I was so entertained by The Perfect Mix: Everything I Know About Leadership I Learned as a Bartender by... Continue reading
3 Practical Ways to Prevent United Airlines-Style Damage
Oscar Munoz, the CEO of United Airlines, recently ran a public letter of apology as an ad in several major newspapers. A much more detailed, self-abasing version of the apology was sent as an email... Continue reading