Posted on February 14, 2012
Today is Valentine’s Day. I love Valentine’s Day because it gives me the perfect opportunity to talk about a topic that’s near and dear to my heart: Love in the business world!
Posted on February 15, 2011
It’s the time of year when everyone’s thinking about romance. But did you ever think about how much romance is involved in building and sustaining customer relationships? I have.
Posted on December 23, 2010
I was away last week teaching positive communication. Twice while walking through the lobby of the hotel, people stopped me to say, “You have a great smile.” The same thing happened in the airport. Hmmm.
Posted on December 06, 2010
It’s a nice time of the year. Despite the hustle and bustle — and for retailers, the craziness and the opportunity to “get in the black” — there’s a warmness, a softness and a kindness that wants to express itself. Yes, I know that sounds mushy, but bear with me.
Posted on October 26, 2010
Times like these present great opportunities to talk to customers, to delve deep into understanding who they are, what they really need and why you might be a good choice for them. This isn’t the time to abandon the customers who got you where you are today, but to build those relationships even bigger with understanding and the sharing of ideas.
Posted on October 11, 2010
The first full week in October is National Customer Service Week in the U.S. Companies of all kinds have been honoring their employees and customers in fun ways with food and games and a little extra dose of customer consciousness
Posted on September 27, 2010
The bottom line on motivation is that the thing you’re thinking of doing has to have value to you. When it has value, you’re more inclined to want. As my coach used to say, the higher the value, the higher the motivation.
Posted on September 13, 2010
Being more mindful of the opportunities you have during the day to make a small difference in the well-being of another human being — an internal customer or an external one — is the key to building important trust accounts with people.
Posted on August 30, 2010
How can you use the Slidin’ Slater incident to start a lively dialog in your company about how working conditions impact employees’ abilities to take care of customers and feel good about work?
Posted on August 16, 2010
Consumers are constantly letting you know what they want, how they’d like to be treated and what their needs are. This feedback is there for the taking — if you pay attention and listen carefully.
Posted on August 03, 2010
Value is a blend of tangible and intangible elements that consumers want in varying proportions from transaction to transaction. Your job is to find ways to consistently meet, exceed and sometimes anticipate those needs.
Posted on July 19, 2010
What if you were able to use the energy of really caring? What if in the workplace you could consistently create a level of quality in product and service that shouted, “We Care!” How would that change the quality of your businesses overall? What would change if every phone call, piece of mail and personal interaction revealed a deep down, from the heart sense of pride and caring?
Posted on July 06, 2010
In order to bring out the brilliance in everyone in your organization, believe that everyone on your team is smart, creative, talented and has something to contribute. In holding open the possibility that people will shine, they usually do. People live up (or down) to our expectations of them. If we expect and empower them to be competent, creative, innovative problem solvers who create exquisite experiences for customers, they’re more likely to do so.
Posted on June 21, 2010
How many “blind spots” do you have in your business? How many things — or people — do you ignore because they don’t fit your picture of the way it should be? How many things do you look past or through, never really examining them to see if they’re serving your larger purpose — like retaining customers and keeping them happy?
Posted on June 21, 2010
How many “blind spots” do you have in your business? How many things — or people — do you ignore because they don’t fit your picture of the way it should be? How many things do you look past or through, never really examining them to see if they’re serving your larger purpose — like retaining customers and keeping them happy?
Posted on May 24, 2010
Understand your customer’s expectations. Seek to exceed or, better yet, anticipate them. Be consistent and have some kind of mechanism in place to help you accomplish this. When you mess up, have an elegant recovery response that makes customers feel “whole.” Let’s start getting this right. It’s easy; it takes awareness and attention. Where are your blind spots?
Posted on May 10, 2010
Today’s educated, demanding consumers insist on quality, price, performance, speed, convenience and service — the particular combination of which they call value. Value is often an elusive, ever-moving target. What constitutes value today changes tomorrow. Customers measure value by what’s important to them.
Posted on April 26, 2010
How could a supermarket forget to make sure its employees were well trained? A store’s sales can go up substantially when the people behind the counters get engaged with customers. When companies think more about creating value than cutting costs, they get a bigger return.
Posted on April 12, 2010
Do you offer the choice of a black napkin? What’s the equivalent in your business? What little detail can you think of that your competitor hasn’t? Walt Disney used to say, “There’s no magic to magic; it’s all in the details.” Go ahead, sweat the small stuff!
Posted on March 29, 2010
If you’re serious about creating the kinds of experiences that keep customers happy and coming back with friends and money, there needs to be a top-down commitment to looking at the WHOLE picture. The whole picture consists of dozens if not hundreds of touchpoints that form the moments of truth customers experience. It takes an absolute understanding of what happens at each touchpoint and where opportunities lie to create emotional connections.
Posted on March 15, 2010
We want people to bring their passion to work so they can create customer experiences that keep the customers happy and coming back, BUT we’d like them to keep their emotions at home. Hmmm. There’s a disconnect somewhere here, and it’s the very thing customers feel when they get less than passionate care from companies that tout their “excellent” customer service but don’t deliver.
Posted on February 23, 2010
Every time you make a deliberate effort to make customers feel special, important and appreciated, you’re upgrading them to first-class status. Consider trying some of the following:
