I am amazed at the effort companies put into building service brands on the outside, yet how fragmented they can be on the inside when it comes to customer service excellence. When fragmentation on the inside is experienced by customers on the outside, real trouble is brewing for the brand and any changes of being
Learning how to change company culture to have staff members intuitively behave in a certain way takes time, effort and exceptional planning. A great example of how to change company culture for the better comes out of Singapore. Singapore’s Changi Airport has been rated #1 in the world so many times the trophy cabinet is
Legendary Service. Many organizations use this phrase to describe and promote their service. But how many have really earned the right to claim customer service excellence? If you give good service, that’s not legendary. If you go out of your way for someone, that’s not legendary either. But if you provide service unsurpassed in your
My friend Benny told me about a local restaurant that serves a variety of Chinese dim sum dishes, but could benefit from a customer service education course. He went there with five friends for a business lunch and ordered widely from the menu. Each dish featured six bite-sized items, one per person. Most of the
Douglas, an elected delegate at the Democratic National Convention in the United States, dropped his Handspring Visor personal digital assistant (PDA) onto the stone floor of his downtown hotel lobby. The outer case of the PDA was chipped in one corner, but the software and the system still worked. He called Handspring to purchase a
When you want to improve customer loyalty, turn bad situations to your advantage. If things go wrong, step up to the plate to fix them. You’d be surprised at the return on investment you receive from doing so. A great example of taking the right steps to build loyalty happened to me not too long
My video duplication company has been a reliable and responsive supplier demonstrating customer service excellence through the years. They should be – I have spent more than $62,000 with them in the past few years. I received a complaint from a customer about one of my video programs that “skipped” during playback. I thought it
I lost my mobile telephone. The telephone company told me to file a police report and then come down to their office to buy a new phone. When I arrived, the counter staff member was helpful and very understanding. She gave me a discount on my new phone purchase and a free replacement SIM card
When negative issues arise in the course of doing business, it’s important to focus initially on helping the client recover. When you work to improve customer experience first and then correct the problem, the rewards just might include loyalty and repeat business. A perfect example of the need to improve customer experience first arose when
We all try to do things right. No business sets out to do wrong when servicing customers. But life is full of unexpected moments and, inevitably, mistakes do happen. When this happens, so does the opportunity to improve customer loyalty. While many people in business focus on doing things right the first time, very few
