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In the topic 'Customer Service'


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A Culture Compass Charting Your Pathway to Peak Performance

For most of my career, I’ve been a “monomaniac on a mission” about integrating change and development efforts within a systemic culture development process. Way too much money and time has been wasted with isolated programs that don’t provide broader context, support, and follow-through. Decades of our experience and countless research studies show the power […]

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Rethink the Link: Strengthening the Customer Service Chain

How reasonable is it to hold a shipping dock worker responsible for the quality of the products in the boxes he or she is shipping? How reasonable is it for managers to hold the final deliverer responsible for the quality of the products or services he or she is delivering? The person on the front […]

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The Times and the Paradigms are a-Changin’

It’s been 60 years since Bob Dylan wrote his iconic song, The Times They Are a-Changin’, heralding the massive societal shifts about to rock the 1960s. We could apply these lines to today’s organizations: Your old road is rapidly agin’ Please get out of the new one If you can’t lend your hand For the […]

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The Rating Game: Markers of a Flawed Customer Culture

Heather and I recently returned from an extended vacation. We had an excellent dining room server every evening and great food. In our third last dinner, he told us about a customer satisfaction survey we’d be receiving when our vacation was over. He emphasized how important the ratings for his service were to his career […]

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Are you Building or Hallucinating a High-Performance Service Culture?

How reasonable would it be to hold a shipping dock worker responsible for the quality of the products in the boxes he or she is shipping? So how reasonable is it for managers to hold the final deliverer responsible for the quality of the products or services he or she is delivering? The person on […]

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Are You Squandering Money on Acquiring Rather than Retaining Customers?

Just how much does satisfying today’s customer reduce the cost of acquiring tomorrow’s? That’s the question headlining a recent article in Harvard Business Review. We know that satisfied customers lead to higher revenues. But how to quantify that to show senior executives the value of building a customer-centered culture? We assume that happy customers reduce […]

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Poor Customer Service: The Writing is on the Wall

Imagine sitting in an overcrowded medical clinic waiting room and spotting this sign on the wall, “When your number comes up, please have your symptoms ready.” You won’t likely ever see that sign. It’s too honest. But there’s a high chance you’ll encounter that attitude. Too many organizations are inside out rather than outside in. […]

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Do You Agree on What Customer Service or Quality Is?

We complain that “it” is disappearing. We all want more of “it.” When asked to define “it,” we say, “I’ll know `it’ when I see ‘it’.” Organizations want to be known for delivering high levels of “it.” Many understand that “it” will increasingly determine their success. Team members would like to be known for delivering […]

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Boost Customer Service with a Culture That Serves the Servers

With years of travel I’ve experienced the full range of frontline servers. Some are warm, friendly, and genuinely want to help. They seem to have bounced out of bed that morning thinking “how can I brighten our customers’ day?” Others are sour and surly. For them, customer service is an oxymoron and a huge pain […]

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What Are Today’s Most Vital Leadership and Culture Development Topics?

Early in his career, Thomas Edison invented a vote recording machine for use in legislative chambers. Politicians could vote yea or nay from their desks. This would replace the time consuming process of counting votes. Edison patented the machine and went to Washington to demonstrate and sell it. He was turned  down immediately. Edison was […]

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Most Brand Management is Misguided and Makes Things Worse

Many organizations are making major investments in external branding. But often less attention or investment is made in improving the organization’s internal effectiveness. If frontline staff isn’t living the brand, customers’ raised expectations are dashed and their anger and cynicism grows. One of the biggest reasons frontline staff can’t live the brand is because operational, […]

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Attributes of Cynical and High Service/Quality Cultures

“I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.” “Work sucks, but I need the bucks.” “I’d rather be fishing/sailing/golfing/…” Surveys show that these phrases express the feelings of a growing number of frontline performers today. Too often these contagious feelings spread throughout a team or organization. How many of these attributes of cynical […]

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Are You Seeing Through the Eyes of Your Customer?

It’s all about perception. Eons ago the ancient Greek Philosopher, Epictetus, mused, “What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are.” We so easily mouth the words “perception is reality.” But do we seek out and work from our customers’ reality? Or do we tend to dismiss […]

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Whose Definition of Customer Service Are You Using?

Customer service and quality is highly talked about and rarely delivered. Consequently, many companies pay a high “marketing tax” to counteract damaged brand perceptions and bad buzz from poor customer service. Part of the problem is because service/quality is a very slippery concept. It’s exasperatingly difficult to define and a source of great confusion to […]

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Turning Your Organization Upside Down

After listening to an angry customer vent his dissatisfaction with the organization’s service, a supervisor replied, “If it’s any consolation to you, we treat our employees worse than we treat our customers.” You’ve heard it said that no one can serve two masters. In too many organizations with their traditional top down hierarchy, that means […]

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Put Employees First to Delight Customers

How can apathetic or disengaged frontline servers produce happy customers? Some exceptional employee will delight customers despite how they’re treated by their boss or the organization. Most don’t. The vast majority of employees directly reflect the care and service they experience every day in their team or workplace. “The Secret to Delighting Customers? Put Employees […]

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Why Smart Managers Master the Art of Listening Well

Being market-driven and customer-focused relies heavily on the ability to listen effectively to customers, and frontline employees.

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Three Basic Steps to Focus on Customers and Partners

We have found that customer and partner focus can be boiled down to these three broad steps: Identify current customers and partners, prioritize expectations, and gap analysis.

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The View from the Front Line

Customer-focused organizations build internal communication processes around the valuable players that deal directly with the public.

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That Empower Word Again

We can't build a team or organization that's different from us. Successful team or organization leadership begins with successful self-leadership. The first step in improving my team or organization is improving me.

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