Our fast-paced business world is moving further away from this principle. What would happen if we made a deliberate effort to talk with our customers? It's a simple question about a lost art! We encourage you to carve out some time to bond with...

Imagine a high school football team that never practices, and only shows up to the games. They would be a disaster. Now replace the football team with your customer service team. Why do we let customer service reps play the game, without practi...

Business is a two sided coin. One side is what you sell. The other side is how you sell it. Each side of that coin creates customer experiences. Is your company actively dissecting all of the experiences you create? Are you sometimes overlookin...

Transactions have routine components that are common with most every sale. Many of these components involve interaction with the customer. These are commonly called touch points. Do you know how many touch points are in your routine selling pro...

Customers can sense when companies are setting the service bar at a bare minimum. The companies that aim higher elevate the customer experience, and will benefit from an abundance of repeat and referral business. Avoid being “run of the mill” a...

One of the hallmarks of top tier companies is to anticipate the wants, and needs of customers. if your company routinely assesses the necessary components of customer success, you will always be one step ahead of creating bad experiences. Antic...

 Sometimes a series of small changes help you deliver better customer satisfaction , rather than making wholesale, sweeping changes. When was the last time you sat down to identify 10 or 15 improvements you could make on your website? When...

Voluntary communication from the vendor is a display of good stewardship in action. Customers want to know that their money is being spent wisely. Vendors demonstrate good stewardship by sending voluntary information designed to educate, inform...

After decades of consistently baking up conversations in writing, I let my guard down one time in December. The lack of written confirmation came back to cause me painful issues in February. Do you confirm the details of critical conversations ...

Turn the noise off, leave the electronics home, find a place to think… and continuous improvement ideas will pop up everywhere. You just need to quiet the noise, search your mind, reflect on possible improvements, and then write them down. It c...

Football quarterbacks often call audibles because they read the playing field and see something that could damage their play calling. We are no different in business. Sometimes we need to call an audible in order to reshape our approach to some...

The short answer is customer feelings. The day has come and gone, where product and services stand on their own merits. In today’s economy, businesses must be keenly aware of how they are making their customers feel. If you’re not managing this...

Time is money. Time is short. Time is a precious commodity to a business. What are you doing to reduce the time and toil customers have to spend doing business with you? Maybe it’s time to look for ways to save your customers more of their prec...

Mature companies often find themselves saddled with internal squabbling about issues that are actually quite insignificant. If this is happening to your company, you are inadvertently taking your eye off the customer ball. Maybe it’s time to re...

Black holes are unanswered  communication. As time ticks by, the inquiring party becomes increasingly agitated because their inquiry has gone unacknowledged, and unanswered. Many deals have been lost, and many customers have defected becau...

Margin erosion is a sneaky business killer that can unnecessarily send a company to the boneyard. Becoming a doctor of details is essential to protecting the precious pennies of profitability. If you are not willing to get into your company wee...

After 35 years of tracking bad customer experiences, the lack of these two actions are the bedrock of buyer dissatisfaction. Period. End of Story. You want a more profitable bottom line? Do you want to stay in business for the long haul? Do you...

The best return happens when companies aim their improvements at customers. Buyers have a keen awareness of which companies prioritize customer satisfaction over company profitability. The best companies know that happy customers will lead to h...

The common thread of championship athletic teams is humility. At a certain point, once the collective team becomes humble, the real improvement and growth starts. Without that humility, the teams will never achieve the ultimate goal of a champi...

Sadly, customer perception molds customer reality. This reality may not be true, but to the customer, it is their reality. If companies want to create better customer experiences, it behooves the company to understand the various realities cust...

Companies can lose BIG money when they deliver a product that looks, and feels inferior to the original sample. This happens all too often. Why? Companies want to pad profitability by using cheaper raw materials for the order fulfillment produc...

Many of us split our work week between our homes and company offices. Trade professionals transition from job to job in the same day. Each of us has common tools of our trade to work quickly and efficiently. However, many of us come to a work l...

We invite you to follow us for two minutes per week. With a small weekly investment of 120 seconds, you will come away with two business questions designed to stimulate your thoughts about how to improve customer satisfaction. Follow. Like. Sha...

I could pay for a weekend at a ski resort If I had a dollar for every time a business associate printed an attachment, but ignored the email it came with! The accompanying emails often contain special instructions, requests, conditions, or prev...

Many buyers prefer to order products and services independent of interacting with customer service personnel. Does your order entry process service “do it yourself” purchasing?