One of my first jobs was working for a company that provided business communications systems—telephone and computer systems. My usual task was to run cable. So, I spent a lot of time underneath the floors of corporations and hospitals and other buildings. Much of my days were spent with a headlamp, crawling through dark spaces, squeezing past utility pipes and …
The late Steve Jobs once famously stated, “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” No one in your organization understands processes, products and customers more than your employees. Those closest to the work know it best. Annual employee surveys and exit …
Customer service involves many variables. In this video, we’re going to look at customer service as a process. We’ll see where quality standards fit, and why improving processes is where you’ll make substantial progress. Your quality standards set the mark. But it’s the underlying processes where the real improvement opportunities are. Learn more in this video from my LinkedIn Learning …
Accessibility and quality are closely related. Quality can’t happen unless our services are accessible, but quality also impacts accessibility. If you don’t handle interactions with quality, you’ll have a higher level of waste and rework, time required to fix errors, repeat contacts from customers, escalated contacts in which they ask to speak to a supervisor, and other variables that zap …
When you peel back the layers of any customer-centric organization, you’ll find a culture of honoring employees, encouraging their insight, and engaging them every step of the way. Customer experience is built on a foundation of employee engagement. I don’t know of any exception. What is employee engagement? We know it’s not the same as employee satisfaction. An employee can …
Customer advocacy has the potential to strengthen your organization and transform customers into enthusiastic brand advocates. But you have to unleash it. Whether you’re developing customer advocacy within a team, a department, or across the organization, you’ll need an ongoing approach to guide your efforts. In the following video from my LinkedIn Learning course, Customer Advocacy, you can learn about …
One of the themes driving innovation in customer experience is effort reduction—making things as simple and easy for customers as possible. One element of reducing effort is convenience design. Digital experiences aren’t always more convenient. A colleague recently moved with his family into a new home. He rented a large truck to help, and sent me this note: I was …
Managing customer feedback includes both short and long-term objectives. It involves responding to feedback as it happens and collecting and analyzing feedback from many customers to look for recurring problems and opportunities. This video explores what it takes to respond to feedback as it happens, the tactical aspect of managing customer feedback. Learn more about 5 steps to managing customer …
Customers are advocates for you when they positively promote your products and brand. Brand advocates, as they are often called, bring much value to your organization. As you think through the many possible alternatives for engaging with both passive and active advocates, I encourage you to develop what some refer to as a brand advocate pyramid. Begin with four levels …
In some organizations you can feel the energy. You can just tell employees are committed and engaged. I’ve seen that seven key principles are always at work in great organizations. These organizations see both employee engagement and business returns improve. I explain these seven key principles in this video from my LinkedIn Learning course “Customer Service: Motivating Your Team.” As …
