Customer Service and Experience Articles  |
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 The term customer service has been misused and abused so often that it is difficult to determine what is meant when we hear these two words.More recently another buzzword has emerged that attempts to capture the essence that once was customer service. This new term is customer experience and it can be described as the entire experience a customer has while interacting with an organization and its brand or service. It is important to recognize that, although incredibly important, customer service is just a small part of the overall customer experience. When we seek to improve the customer's experience, not just the service we attempt to provide, incredible things begin to happen. The following articles seek to move beyond the now cliche term customer service and look for ways to improve the customer experience. Customer Service Articles: Understanding a Customer's Emotions Essential to a Positive Customer Experience When it comes to creating a memorable customer experience one of the most important things an organization must realize is the potential emotional attachment a customer may have with your product or service. Industries such as child care, elderly care, medicine, funeral services, financial planning, and even the jewelry industry can have customers with a strong emotional interest in the product or service being provided. Failure to understand this emotional attachment can put your organization in a position to seriously harm the customer emotionally and create unwanted negative word of mouth advertising. Read on... Consistency Key to a WOW! Customer Experience Sometimes it seems that customer service in some organizations is hit or miss. One time you visit an organization and your experience couldn't have been better. Sadly the next time you visit that organization, you were treated like you didn't exist. The key to creating a truly exceptional customer experience is consistency. Read on... What You Need To Know When It Comes To Customer Service Given the high level of ambiguity that surrounds the term customer service, it is little surprise that when a manager instructs a team member to provide excellent customer service the results he or she gets are wide and varied. With this list we hope to establish a solid foundation as to what customer service really is and remove some of the ambiguity that has become affixed to the term customer service as of late. Read on... Developing Customer Touch Points to Deliver an Incredible Customer Experience A customer experience touch point can be described as any interaction a customer has with your organization. It is important to think broadly about these touch points and not limit oneself. This means evaluating everything from the appearance of the parking lot and availability of parking spaces to the bus boy who offers to refill a customer's glass of water. When one is able to identify all the possible touch points within a customer's experience and improve on these touch points the customer's experience can be greatly enhanced. Read on... What We Can All Learn About Customer Service From Ozzy Osbourne When we think about inspiring moments of customer service an Ozzy Osbourne press conference would probably be one of the last things to come to mind. However at a recent press conference for his 2007 Ozzfest tour, the Prince of Darkness delivered a great lesson on what it means to provide exceptional customer service, and genuinely thank our customer for their patronage. Read on... Creating a Powerful Customer Experience by Exceeding Expectations Exceeding the customer's expectations of the service he or she is likely to receive can do wonders in the effort to create a powerful customer experience. Provide an experience the customer has never dreamed of and you are likely to gain a lifelong customer. The following story describes a salesperson who did just that by going above and beyond the call of duty to satisfy the needs of a customer. You can be he'll be back Read on... Customer Service Summed up in Four Little Words It might sound crazy, but one can pretty much predict the type of customer experience one is going to have just by the way one is greeted. Start a customer interaction on the right note and things can go great; on the other hand create a bad first impression and you will be digging yourself out of a whole during the whole interaction. In my home town I've noted this dichotomy to be especially true when comparing my experiences at two local drive through eateries. Read on... What is Bad Customer Service Costing Your Organization? Often it takes only one poor customer experience to sour a customer for life. The worse part is he or she is not likely to keep that bad experience to themselves, but rather share it with their friends and colleagues, or worse post it on the Internet such as this dissatisfied customer did. Watch the video... Being a "Yes-Man" can Create a Powerful Customer Experience Although we might cringe at the thought of being labeled as a "yes-man", the truth is that being a "yes-man" can create a truly powerful customer experience. Isn't being a "yes-man" the essence of customer service by trying to give the customer whatever in our power possible? Read on... Are Your Vendors Hurting Your Customer's Experience? Often times we do not put ample consideration into the vendors we contract services from. The truth of the matter is that these vendors can have a serious impact on the customer's experience both good and bad. The scary part is that when your vendors fail to provide the kind of service the customer expects and deserves, the customer will likely remember your organization as failing to meet their needs, not that your vendor failed. Read on... What Time is the Three O'clock Parade? - What Your Customers are Really Asking Believe it or not, one of the most frequently asked questions fielded by team members at Disneyland is "what time is the three O'clock parade?." How often does your organization receive seemingly thoughtless questions such as this? Do you know what your customers are really asking? Read on.... Angry Customer Mirror You Ever heard the expression "people are like mirrors?" What is meant by this is that the way a person treats you is often a mirror of the way you treat that person. This is especially true in the customer service industry. Approach a customer with a smile and a positive, upbeat attitude, and you are likely to get that smile and upbeat attitude right back from the customer. Read on... Don't Let Customers Ruin the Experience Even been in a situation where other patrons were so disruptive that it completely ruined your experience. Perhaps an experience at a neighborhood bar and grill with your family where a group of rowdy bar patrons were allowed to get out of control? Managers must be aware of how their customers can impact the experience of other customers. This is especially true in setting where families are likely to gather. Read on... Why Customer Experience Initiatives Fail Ever wonder why your latest attempt at customer service training didn't seem to stick? The answer probably lies in the approach taken to improve customer experience at your organization. The key is not just improving the approach taken towards customer experience creation, but rather taking a holistic approach that seeks to enhance the people within an organization, the organization's culture, and finally the customer experience touch points. Read on... The Worse F-Word: FINE When it comes to customer service, what is the worse F-word you can hear from a customer? No, not that! The worse thing you can hear from a customer is that every thing is "FINE." The truth is that things are rarely fine. Rather we would suggest that FINE actually means "Feeling Inside Not Expressed" Read on... The Soul of the Customer Experience It might sound funny, but there is a definite soul to the customer experience. That soul of customer service is creating an emotional connection with the customer. When this happens you are likely to gain a customer for life. Read on... The Opposite of Love is Indifference Ask most anyone what they felt the opposite of love is and they would likely indicate that hate is the opposite of love. The truth of the matter is that indifference can have an equally strong or stronger affect on an individual. Think about it - a team member at an organization walks by you while you are hoping to get assistance without even the slightest bit of acknowledgement. What does this really communicate? It says "you do not exist to me, you are invincible" and this can be a far more painful experience for a customer. What is indifference costing your organization? Read on... Papa's Pumpkin Patch - It's Not About The Pumpkins In our hometown of Bismarck North Dakota, every fall there is flocking of families to a local pumpkin growers property just outside of town. The place is called Papa's Pumpkin Patch, and Papa has been drawing large crowds of families for almost twenty years. The truth is that you don't go to Papa's to buy a pumpkin - you can get a pumpkin anywhere - but rather you go there for the experience. Ask anyone in Bismarck if they've been to Papa's Pumpkin Patch and they are likely to respond "of course" and then share a favorite memory they've had there. This is the essence of the customer experience. Read on... Now Hiring: Smiling Faces It's your cliche banner posted outside of a fast food restaurant when they are in need of new team members - "Now Hiring Smiling Faces." But what is it really like when you get inside. Are the team members really smiling, or was the banner just another piece of corporate propaganda sent down from an ivory tower in some far off town. What a let down to the customer when they enter and see the long line of patrons waiting to interact with an indifferent, irritated, and unhappy team member taking their order. Read on... Customer Experience is Much More Than the Product or Service The essence of customer experience is not what you do but how you do it. How an organization "does things" is a critical part of its culture and has a dramatic effect on the customer's experience. I had an experience while flying recently that truly reinforced this concept. Read on... Obits - Customer Service is Dead! Customer service these days is dead. We have lowered our expectations so low that we make it almost impossible. This is a sad state of affairs for organization who provide customer service. Its seems if you aren't directly insulted or injured during the purchase process, customer service is what you expected: bland, boring, and uninspiring. Read on... The SineCera Customer Experience How would you describe an experience that is genuine, soulful, and strait from the heart? You might describe it as sincere. The word sincere come from Latin term Sine Cera, meaning without wax. This is our philosophy for creating an exceptional customer experience. Read on... 1-866-988-RAIN   |
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