BIG DATA and customer serviceBig data is definitely becoming the in-topic in the digital industry. Capturing the data, harnessing the data, shaping the data, using the data are all common themes which make the headlines everyday. The power of modern computing technology and data analytics allows companies to capture and model the behaviour of their customers and gain a deep understanding of the key trigger points in their day today interaction with the business. Once the hidden patterns and correlations leading to a purchasing action are fully understood, companies gain predictive influence…
Customer Service
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Most Topular Stories
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BIG DATA and customer service
very best service17 May 2013 | 8:29 am -
Customer service: the path to nowhere?
very best service8 Apr 2013 | 2:25 pmCustomer service careerThrough the years of writing this blog, we have establish a (small) number of truth which could be hard to challenge. To name a couple, we have established that quality customer service is a key factor in the long term prosperity of an organisation and that employee satisfaction is a key success factor driving good customer service. Bringing the two together, it becomes clear that any organisation must be able to attract quality employees to its customer service teams and to make it attractive in the long run, convince employees that customer service offers a solid… -
The best customer service is invisible
Church of the Customer Blog20 May 2013 | 2:47 pmI am huge fan of Nordstrom. They have famed customer service and that is one of the reasons why I shop there. But even I was surprised by this. Last week I was shopping at Nordstrom and bought merchadise at a few departments. The strip on my Nordstrom VISA card had apparently stopped working because each cashier had trouble swiping the card and had to resort to typing in the numbers into the register. I made an offhand comment to one of the cashieres that I would have to call in to the card customer service later and request a new card. Of course that became just one more thing on my to-do… -
The Two Sides of Customer Service Training: Human and Technical
Shep Hyken22 May 2013 | 7:44 amDelivering Great Customer Service Just because an employee understands what it means to deliver great customer service, doesn’t mean that he or she is able to deliver it. As I talk to many different companies about how they build an organization that is customer-focused, many of them start with the hiring process. You have to hire people that already understand customer service and that are capable of delivering it. That’s the human side of customer service. The hiring professional in the organization looks at the applicant’s background, prior experiences, answers to interview… -
Customer Experience: How to Delight and Disappoint a Customer
CUSTOMER+LEADERSHIP BLOG9 May 2013 | 2:48 pmIf you are regular reader of this blog you may remember that I set-up a business bank account with Barclays Bank and shared my experience: Barclays Bank: what are the customer experience folks up to? Barclays Bank: what are the customer experience folks up to? (part II) If you read those posts and come away thinking that my experience was one of disappointment then you’d be correct. So where do I stand today with regards to Barclays Bank? Barclays Bank: a customer experience that leaves me delighted and grateful Recently, I changed the name of my consulting company to Bold Intent. …
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Church of the Customer Blog
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The best customer service is invisible
20 May 2013 | 2:47 pmI am huge fan of Nordstrom. They have famed customer service and that is one of the reasons why I shop there. But even I was surprised by this. Last week I was shopping at Nordstrom and bought merchadise at a few departments. The strip on my Nordstrom VISA card had apparently stopped working because each cashier had trouble swiping the card and had to resort to typing in the numbers into the register. I made an offhand comment to one of the cashieres that I would have to call in to the card customer service later and request a new card. Of course that became just one more thing on my to-do… -
#MonsterLoyalty book tour and other speaking events
7 May 2013 | 10:37 pmHi there! Here's my speaking schedule including book tour events. If you live in one these cities, I looking forward to seeing you!! May 8: Austin - book tour event (private) May 10: Orlando - book tour event (private) May 21: Chicago - WOMMA WOMM-U Conference. Use my discount code WUSpeak50 to get $50 off registration. Jun 2: Orlando - book tour event (private) Jun 12: Milan, Italy - private event Jun 20: Salt Lake City - book tour event (public) sponsored by SoulSalt. Get tickets here. Jun 27: Las Vegas - Confirmit Conference Jul 11: Chicago - book tour event… -
The winners of the Monster Loyalty pre-order giveaway are....
2 May 2013 | 4:24 pmThanks to all who participated in the Monster Loyalty pre-order giveaway by purchasing a book before launch. The winners are: 1st PRIZE: Joey Coleman, Chief Experience Composer at Design Symphony 5 copies of Monster Loyalty: How Lady Gaga Turns Followers into Fanatics 2 Lady Gaga art prints by rock and roll pop artist Kii Arens, signed and numbered 2nd PRIZE: Shep Hyken, New York Times and WSJ best selling author of The Amazement Revolution: Seven Customer Service Strategies to Create an Amazing Customer Experience 5 copies of Monster Loyalty: How Lady Gaga Turns Followers… -
Monster Loyalty is now available!
2 May 2013 | 8:52 amI am excited to announce that Monster Loyalty is now available! This is a book that I am extremely excited about because it argues that Lady Gaga didn’t become the success she is today based solely on her talent. She did so by engendering immense loyalty from her fans – not just through her music – but through the message she embodies and the community she has built around that message. In four short years, Lady Gaga has built an army of passionate fans that numbers in the tens of millions around the globe. My book explores how she did it, uncovering seven loyalty… -
Monster Loyalty Ball Benefiting Equality Texas 5/1
29 Apr 2013 | 8:49 amIf you live in Austin, Texas, or will be here on May 1, I hope you will join me for the launch party for my new book, Monster Loyalty. The Gaga-themed party is also a benefit with 100% of ticket sales going to Equality Texas which educates and advocates on behalf of LGBT Texans, a non-profit doing amazing work to fight for a cause that I, and Lady Gaga, believe in. We will also have: A Gaga-themed performance from RuPaul's Drag Race Season 4 finalist Phi Phi O'Hara Showcasing your Poker Face at the Gaga Photo Booth Gaga-themed cocktails And more surprises! If you can't make it…
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Kevin Eikenberry on Leadership & Learning
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When is a Webinar a Good Learning Option?
22 May 2013 | 6:40 amFirst, let me say that when I say “webinar”, I am thinking broadly to things that might or might not include video (video-conference), views of slides (the typical webinar), and a teleseminar (typically audio only). I decided to write about this because I get asked about this type of learning experience often, and I find [...] -
Leadership Lessons at 10,000 Feet
20 May 2013 | 3:00 amIf you have flown anytime in the last several years you have heard some version of this announcement: At this time, we request that all mobile phones, pagers, radios, and remote controlled toys be turned off for the full duration of the flight, as these items might interfere with the navigational and communication equipment on [...] -
The Effective Executive: The Defining Guide to Getting the Right Things Done
19 May 2013 | 9:00 amBy Peter Drucker Here are two good clues that a book is worth reading. It has been copyrighted more than once (this book, 1967, 1985, 1996, 2002, and 2006) It is written by Peter Drucker. Put that together with the fact that it is written about a topic we all care about – being more [...] -
The Secret to Persuasion
17 May 2013 | 7:55 amToday’s quotation is short and to the point. It is completely true and too often forgotten in practice. “One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears – by listening to them.” - Dean Rusk, U.S. Secretary of State Questions to Ponder - What is my first inclination when persuading someone – to [...] -
The Power of Habits
15 May 2013 | 6:28 amI am often reminded of the power of habits in my personal life, and today I wanted to explore that with you and make some important connections to our role as a leader, why it can be difficult, and how to improve our success. Two Kinds of Habits While all habits are automatic responses, they [...]
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Conversation Agent
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What I find Most Fascinating About the Current "Gender" Conversation
22 May 2013 | 6:48 pmIt's about all kinds of things but what should matter the most -- performance. Competence and the ability to take action with confidence, keeping one's promises -- they are the qualities of a pro. Why do we keep getting stuck in gender stuff? Valeria is an experienced listener. She is also frequent speaker at conferences and companies on a variety of topics. To book her for a speaking engagement click here. -
Tesla Model S at a Mall Near You
21 May 2013 | 3:00 amThis past weekend I was at the King of Prussia Mall very briefly to pick up a few items for an upcoming trip. That is the one place I zip in and out of, parking near a less trafficked entrance, and practicing my long step to go as quickly as possible from entrance to destination. Occasionally, one store gets my attention on the way, it's brand new and much bigger than it used to be and has a big white Apple on the glass pane. I stopped short of it this time. Right before it, I noticed a big crowd going in front of an open space. Inside, there were two brand new Tesla Model S cars, a white… -
The Most Obvious and Important Realities
20 May 2013 | 3:00 amIn a 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College, author David Foster Wallace shared with students his take on the Truth with a capital "T" and the real value of a Liberal Arts education. The most obvious and important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. The Glossary captured a little over nine minutes of that speech in this video, which starts with the statement above explaining why "this is water". The context of day in/day out makes our internal dialogue win over the present awareness. It papers over the fact that we have a choice. It does take will and… -
Why Learning is as Important as Teaching
19 May 2013 | 7:51 amIn a recent TED Talk, Bill Gates shares this compelling statistic: “Until recently 98% of teachers got one word of feedback: satisfactory.” We all need feedback. With no feedback, says Gates, no coaching, there’s just no way to improve. Learning is as important as teaching, if not more. As he says in the talk, even great teachers can get better with smart feedback. Teaching doesn't happen only in the classroom Mentors, coaches, and peers who are willing to provide constructive feedback enrich our opportunities to learn more about what works. In the absence of deliberate feedback, I… -
Switching Sides
17 May 2013 | 3:00 amThis past Monday, author, consultant, and friend Peter Shankman, the man who found himself on the receiving end of Morton's Steakhouse greatest customer experience, invited me to the experience the 3D IMAX Theater premiere of Star Trek in New York City. That's for the man behind the connection. As for the man behind the reboot of the Star Trek franchise, J.J. Abrams, he succeeded in creating a compelling story. I'm not normally too much into 3D, and IMAX can make me dizzy. However, this movie was well done. It was like being part of the action. The best scenes are those of connection between…
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Gartner Blog Network
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My Next Research Area: Incident Response
22 May 2013 | 7:22 pmIt is with GREAT excitement that I am pre-announcing my next area of research focus – security incident response. In brief, here is what I have in mind for the next few months: Host and Malware Forensics Tools and Practices (title tentative), an assessment of the endpoint investigation tool scene (to complement my just-finished report on network forensics) Incident Response in the Age of APT (title tentative), a guidance to doing incident response (from tools to teams!) in the modern era of industrial cyber-crime, APT and also cloud/virtual/mobile environments. Some of the vendors I am… -
Lessons in Experience from My Favorite Technology Company
22 May 2013 | 8:28 amI love music and I am an unabashed fan of Sonos. I think they could be considered a technology company since their entertainment solution is all about software and the Internet. But they really know that they are an entertainment company that happens to rely heavily on technology. I started my Sonos “deployment” about a year ago after a recommendation from a friend. I had heard of them, but thought they were a little pricey. My friend told me about the cost and simplicity and I was ready to give it a go. It took me less than 5 minutes to have the system running. It… -
The Risks and Reward for monetizing your big data
22 May 2013 | 4:38 amThere is a lot of hype related to “information as an asset”. One driver relates to how organizations are seeking to create a wholly new revenue stream through the monetization of their data. Though not really a new idea, the idea has new impetus due primaruly to the growing hype related to big data. If there is more data, insnt there more opportunity to make money on data and the insight that can be derived from it? The print edition of the Wall Street Journal today (May 22 2013) had two articles with conflicting views. One story talks about the pending success from selling… -
Useless Sales Pitch Slides #2
21 May 2013 | 11:22 pmHaving looked at the most useless sales pitch slide of all — the “common differentiators” — in a previous post http://blogs.gartner.com/rolf-jester/?p=39, let’s continue with #2. The regularity with which these ineffective slides appear is alarming. It’s as though their creators all went to the same school of bad sales presentations. Probably the second most frequent one is The Ubiquitous Partner Logo slide. It lurks in almost all sales presentations. You’ve seen them. And you’ve heard the words: “These are our partners. No-one can do it all… -
How Government CIOs Can Win the Digital Battle
21 May 2013 | 5:05 pmLast week I spoke to a local government CIO about innovation. We discussed about the impact of digital, open data, social media and more. When I made my usual point about the imbalance in the use of open data and more in general of digital innovation toward external impact and the apparent disregard for how these can be leveraged internally, he was in violent agreement with me. This was both surprising and rewarding, as his jurisdiction has been quite active on the open government front. The point he was making is that, as the chief information officer, he has to be on top of all the data…
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Shep Hyken
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The Two Sides of Customer Service Training: Human and Technical
22 May 2013 | 7:44 amDelivering Great Customer Service Just because an employee understands what it means to deliver great customer service, doesn’t mean that he or she is able to deliver it. As I talk to many different companies about how they build an organization that is customer-focused, many of them start with the hiring process. You have to hire people that already understand customer service and that are capable of delivering it. That’s the human side of customer service. The hiring professional in the organization looks at the applicant’s background, prior experiences, answers to interview… -
5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of May 20, 2013
20 May 2013 | 11:31 amTop Customer Service and Business Articles Each week I read a number of customer service articles from various online resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too. Customer Service Tips from the Worst Employer by Mary Nestor-Harper (Beyond.com) Winning loyal customers is about building honest, respectful, trusting relationships. Why should it be different when the customers are your employees? Drawing from lessons from Dan Sullivan, a business coach, he lists four principles as key to delivering… -
Customer Service Tool: Consistency
15 May 2013 | 8:08 amConsistency Isn’t Part-Time It’s the same every time, never changing. Day in and day out, it’s always the same. Sound boring? It’s not when it comes to consistency in delivering customer service – especially if it’s good customer service. It should always be the same. The customer should be able to count on it, Customer loyalty is based on this concept. If you want to build intense customer loyalty, in addition to all of the customer service you deliver, you must also be predictably consistent. Brand loyalty depends on three interrelated quality service experiences: Brand… -
5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of May 15, 2013
13 May 2013 | 7:45 amTop Customer Service and Business Articles Each week I read a number of customer service articles from various online resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too. Servicing the Internal Customer by Keren Peters-Atkinson (Monday Mornings with Madison) Unfortunately, internal customer service is even more replete with bad service. Yet, the internal customer is as important as the external customer. Why is that and how does one go about improving a company’s internal customer service? My Comment:… -
Customer Service Tool: One to Say Yes, Two to Say No
8 May 2013 | 7:47 amEmpower your people to come up with a solution. It’s easy to say, “I’m sorry, we don’t have that… We can’t get it… We can’t do that… It’s not our policy” Blah, blah, blah. In other words, it’s easy to say, “No.” But, that is not what amazing companies do. Amazing companies empower their employees to find solutions for their customers. They train, motivate, and praise their employees for coming up with“Yes” answers for their customers. At Ace Hardware, the role model for my upcoming book Amaze Every Customer Every Time, one of the tactics that many of…
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Social Studies Blog
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Announcing the 2013 Love Your Customers Award Winners
20 May 2013 | 4:40 pmPrezi’s awesome community manager, Alyssa, accepts their Heart of a Champion award. It wouldn’t be a Get Satisfaction party without goodie bags, some surprises, and recognition of the people we love the most. No, not Rihanna…our Customers! Part of our commitment this this fabulous group of people is that we want to empower them with all the tools, best practices, and capabilities to achieve success supporting and connecting with their customers….and we want to shower them with praise when they do. When we first started planning our Customer Success Summit, it was a no… -
Get Satisfaction Customer Summit: People + Knowledge + Community = Success
16 May 2013 | 9:46 amCustomers are our Kings (although apparently in this picture, I’m the Queen!) Every once in a while, a company hits a milestone that truly makes a CEO stand back and smile. Our Customer Success Summit on May 2nd was one of those days. We spent the day with more than 150 of our customers and partners listening, learning, and sharing (essentially a live version of a customer community). Never before have we heard from so many customers about their experiences with Get Satisfaction—our product, processes, and our team. It was exhilarating to learn about the impact they are seeing using… -
Top Tech Support Professionals Share Insight and New Tools at TSW
14 May 2013 | 9:47 amThanks TSIA audience for voting us winner of the 2013 Service Revolutions Vision Award! Last week about 800 of these support professionals gathered at the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) TSW Conference to discuss the changes going on in the industry, and the trends, tools, and best practices to help you navigate the new landscape. Get Satisfaction was a sponsor at this event, and we relished the opportunity to get a better sense of the concerns and challenges many support teams are facing, and the solutions they’re using to solve them. There were some key themes that emerged… -
Creating a Thriving Community: So Easy a Dummy Can Do It!
3 May 2013 | 9:19 amIf you were building a customer community a few years ago, you may have been successful accomplishing your goals, but there weren’t a ton of resources and knowledge available to help guide you along the way. Thankfully, that is no longer the case. Today there are abundant resources—blogs, thought leaders, webcasts, etc—available to help you build a community, drive participation and engagement, and measure the business value. Yesterday we hosted our first Get Satisfaction Customer Success Summit, which was geared towards providing our customers with the skills, tools, and know how to… -
Get Success with Community at our Customer Success Summit
25 Apr 2013 | 11:23 amBeing a brand that people love is all about making them feel like they’re a part of your brand story. That means including them in the conversations that guide your business, being responsive to their issues and feedback, and empowering them to speak out on your behalf. It was with that in mind that the founders of Get Satisfaction launched our platform to bring the customer to the center of those conversations with branded communities. Six years and 70,000 communities later, we’ve learned a thing or two about how companies can get the most success from their community, and how they can…
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Steve Curtin
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Is Delight Your Customers for you?
16 May 2013 | 6:09 amAs a responsible consumer, before parting with your hard-earned cash, it’s important to determine whether or not the benefits of a purchase will outweigh its cost. If not, then you’re better off saving your money. For those of you who are considering the purchase of my new book, Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary, I have a quick and easy way for you to assess whether you should make the investment or hold on to your nickels. Delight Your Customers may not be for you if: you frequently roll your eyes in disgust after… -
Delight Your Customers by Steve Curtin
12 May 2013 | 9:41 pmI had planned to post a blog this week announcing that my new book, Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary is available in its Kindle edition as of Monday, May 13th. While I was thinking about the post last Thursday, I received the message below in an email from a local business owner, Mike Huggins. After reading his note, it occurred to me that it did a better job of conveying the benefits of the book than anything I could write. So I contacted Mike, thanked him for the note, and asked if I could share it on my blog. He said,… -
The power of the frontline
25 Apr 2013 | 10:14 amLast night, my 10-year-old son, Cooper, and I swung by Park Meadows Shopping Center following his basketball practice in order to purchase an umbrella as a gift for a colleague who is relocating from Denver to New York City. (Having lived there myself, I know the value of a decent umbrella on those rainy days when available taxi cabs are few and far between.) We began our quest at Nordstrom. After lingering in the accessories area of the women’s department, I was approached by a sales associate whom I asked where I might find a nice umbrella for a colleague who was relocating to New York… -
Serve your customers well – or someone else will
17 Apr 2013 | 10:59 amYesterday, my son left school early complaining of itchiness and blurred vision in his right eye. I immediately suspected conjunctivitis (commonly known as “pink eye”) since his mother had just recovered days earlier from the highly contagious infection. I phoned our health care provider, Kaiser Permanente, before noon to inquire about setting an appointment for our primary care physician (or another doctor) to see my son that afternoon at our local clinic in order to diagnose his illness and prescribe a remedy. The Kaiser representative I spoke with said that for suspected cases of pink… -
For better or worse, perception is reality
8 Apr 2013 | 1:53 pmOver spring break, I stayed at a lodge in Breckenridge, Colorado made up of 46 privately owned upscale condominium units. Many of the units offer balconies with spectacular slope side views, spa showers, granite countertops, and high-end appliances. Imagine that you were a guest at this lodge and noticed that the ice maker in the Sub-Zero side-by-side refrigerator was not producing ice cubes. When you phoned the front desk to report the problem, you were instructed to contact the intermediary company (e.g., VRBO, Interval International, etc.) through which you booked the condo to inquire…
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Ragsdale’s Eye on Service
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Day 2 of TSW: Top Attended Sessions. Technology Case Studies and Business Makeovers Are Hot!
8 May 2013 | 7:12 amYesterday was Day 2 of Technology Services World Best Practicesin Santa Clara, and I’m back to give you a list of the top attended sessions. We had a lot of variety in the focus of sessions yesterday, including a technology case study track, “business makeover” sessions, and collaborative workout sessions. Here were the top 10 attended […] -
TSW Day One: Top Attended Sessions
7 May 2013 | 7:32 amYesterday was the official opening of Technology Services World Best Practices in Santa Clara. I haven’t seen the final registration count, but we have around 800 attendees. I kicked off the conference yesterday with our TechFUTURES event and the TechBEST Showcase. The TechFUTURES event was so much fun–we moved the audience forward to 2018 and looked at […] -
Announcing TSIA TechBEST Finalists: Citrix, DB Kay & Associates, MARKETii
6 May 2013 | 1:35 pmAccording to the TSIA Benchmark, customer satisfaction with enterprise software averages 4.2 on a five-point scale (with 1 representing very unsatisfied and 5 representing very satisfied). It is troubling, then, that the satisfaction scores for the 24 categories covered in the TSIA Member Technology Survey range from a low of 3.29 to a high of […] -
Join us live for TechFUTURES in Santa Clara!
2 May 2013 | 9:10 amLast fall at our Technology Services World Conference in Las Vegas, the question I asked everyone I talked to was, “What does the support desk of the future look like?” What I heard were lots of elements that are quickly evolving, and will definitely be different in 3 or 5 or 10 years. Social media […] -
TSIA 2013 TechBEST Awards: Best in Satisfaction and Best in Show
16 Apr 2013 | 10:05 amI wanted to bring you an update on the TSIA 2013 TechBEST Awards. This is the 2nd year we are giving out these awards, recognizing excellence in our partner community. There are 2 awards: TechBEST Best in Satisfaction, and TechBEST Best in Show. Each year TSIA conducts the Member Technology Survey, tracking adoption, satisfaction, and planned spending across 24 […]
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Return Customer
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Why You Should Not Publicly Shame Customers Online
20 May 2013 | 8:10 amCustomer service rules seem simple — you and your employees provide customers with the best service possible in exchange for building loyalty to your business. Bad customers, however, often tempt workers to retaliate through other venues. Such retaliation, such as posting online receipts from cheap customers who refuse to tip, can greatly damage the image of a business and its employees. There are many ways you can deal with bad customers, but public shaming has a rippling effect that can result in negative publicity for the organization and disciplinary action for the offender. Public… -
How to Ask Customers for Referral Business
13 May 2013 | 8:10 amThe power of customers as a marketing weapon cannot be underestimated. Experian reported that word-of-mouth is the No. 1 influence for purchase decisions of more than half of all Americans. But asking customers to spread that word-of-mouth about your product or service can be a delicate challenge. Business owners must navigate the boundaries of etiquette to achieve referral success. Here are a few critical do’s and don’ts of referral marketing that help create return customers. Do: Capitalize on the Momentum of a Happy Customer When a customer expresses satisfaction, it… -
Dealing with Rude Customers without Looking Like a Jerk
6 May 2013 | 8:10 amEvery manager has to deal with rude customers from time to time. Dealing with obnoxious customers can be an unpleasant situation, but it can actually have a silver lining. A rude customer can bring problems to your attention that other customers keep to themselves. However, you will have to be very careful with the way you respond to them. You want to make sure that you address the real problem and don’t alienate them. You also need to make sure you don’t look like a jerk to the other customers. Here are some guidelines you should follow. Keep a Cool Head Most managers will be offended… -
Creating ‘Top-of-Mind Awareness’ with Your Customers
29 Apr 2013 | 8:10 amEvery business wants “top-of-mind awareness” with its customers. That is, they want to be the business/brand/company that is thought of when customers need something. There are some basic ways to nudge customers into remembering you. For instance, providing excellent customer service is key to being remembered in a positive way by customers. Put simply, when customers are treated with care and respect, they appreciate it. This can be done in big ways and small ways. For instance, be sure your website is easy to navigate and storefronts are welcoming and inviting. Whenever possible, emails… -
Customers Are Always Right
22 Apr 2013 | 8:10 amIt has been said a million times, but as with most clichés, it bears repeating: the customer is always right. Now, of course, this doesn’t mean the company doesn’t have its rules or that customer service professionals should forget their training and start bending those rules the minute they’re faced with an irate customer. It does mean, however, that your business, your company, and probably the entire industry you’re in wouldn’t function without careful people like you taking the time to address customers’ concerns and inquiries, no matter how badly…
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Service Untitled
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A practical approach to dealing with customer service frustrations
21 May 2013 | 7:56 amNo doubt, it has been a tough week for customer service. Internal Revenue Service acting agency head, Steven T. Miller who is resigning from his post stated earlier this week: “I can say generally, we provided horrible customer service. I think that what happened here was that foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient in their workload selections.” And if that didn’t capture enough of America’s attention, how about the Maserati owner only identified as Wang who smashed his $420,000 Quattroporte with sledgehammers to protest the dealer’s… -
Consumer Reports says Apple does customer service better
6 May 2013 | 8:13 amThe ultimate success of a company is predicated on exceptional customer service experiences. For post-sales service, Consumer Reports ranked Apple Customer Service ahead of other companies for best PC tech support with the company scoring an 86 out of a possible 100 points. The survey included 6,313 owners of PCs and laptops and explored their experiences with technical service over the past year via telephone, online communication, and in-store help. According to Consumer Reports, Apple’s in-house technical support service, the Genius Bar, rated as high as telephone and online services… -
‘WOW’ customer service has to be reliable and consistent
22 Apr 2013 | 10:38 amOnce again it’s Spring when our fancy changes to thoughts of love and the beautiful outdoors. We picture the lush green lawns, the colorful summer blooms, the pool, the grill, and the patio designed for that blissful oasis as casual parties for friends and family become welcome weekend events. And so the shopping begins. With the convenience of online browsing, the possibilities are endless, but how will our online retailers handle customer service? Now all of those outdoor pillows, cushions, umbrellas, and rugs are looking a bit shabby from the hot Florida sunlight of the past years,… -
Book Review: The Customer Service Survival Kit
10 Apr 2013 | 7:10 amThe Customer Service Survival Kit was written by Richard S. Gallagher, a practicing psychotherapist and the author of many customer service books who has trained over 20,000 people on how to handle the most daunting situations with customers while improving their confidence and an organization’s customer relations. The Customer Service Survival Kit helps us to diffuse even the worst emotional and intentional customer complaints, and step by step helps the customer service representative diffuse the anger and angst of those stressful situations in a calm, reflective manner. Whereas… -
Avoid costly mistakes by creating a better call center for customers
2 Apr 2013 | 8:02 amCall centers can range from one or two people in a small office to thousands of customer service representatives in huge office complexes, but a customer’s view is set by their first impression or that first phone call needed for help. Whereas customers don’t ever want to feel that once their purchase was made, the organization no longer cares about them and is just out there fishing for new clients, one of the prime frustrations often deals with call centers and their notorious poor service ranging from finding the right representative, hanging on hold for an extended amount of…
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The Chief Happiness Officer
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Watch this awesome speech by Charlie Kim, CEO of Next Jump
16 May 2013 | 5:04 amI recently wrote about New York based company Next Jump and the world-leading things they’ve done to create a very happy workplace. Here’s a fantastic speech from their founder and CEO Charlie Kim where he talks about the principles behind Next Jump: It’s an hour long and I highly recommend watching the whole thing. -
Fighting cancer with happiness
15 May 2013 | 6:29 amThe staff of Delete Blood Cancer with their brand new copies of Happy Hour is 9 to 5. WOOHOO! I recently spoke about happiness at work in New York and after the event, one attendee sent me this email: Thanks for coming to speak to the group in New York last month. Glad I got the chance to finally meet you after reading your blog for so many years. When I got back to work the next day, I told my department about your talk and showed them some of the videos on your site. My boss, inspired by the overall message of Arbejdsglaede and amused by the hand-drawn video, bought a copy of your book for… -
10 years of happiness at work
1 May 2013 | 4:24 am10 years ago today I had my first paying customer in Woohoo inc. I have now spent 10 years making millions of people in 30 countries happy at work. I have never before in my life done the same thing for 10 years running and I can honestly say that this is the most fun and the most fulfilling thing I have ever done. I am incredibly thankful to way too many people to mention here but I am fully aware that this journey would have been completely impossible without my great friends, playmates, partners and clients around the world to help me, inspire me and challenge me. Here’s to the next… -
Happiness at work in Bulgaria
22 Apr 2013 | 12:32 amThis weekend I was in Sofia, Bulgaria to speak at an event about happiness at work arranged by the Bulgarian foundation Credo Bonum. The event had two speakers, Nic Marks and myself, and we kicked ass if I do say so myself. Nic is a researcher with a long background in happiness research and gave an excellent overview of how to define and measure happiness at work. I could then offer some specific ideas of how to create happy workplaces. The event was a massive hit and turnout was huge with a large group of people having to stand in the back. I also did a number of TV interviews as well as a… -
Quitting with style. And cake.
17 Apr 2013 | 1:44 amIf you gotta quit (and sometimes you gotta) you might as well do it with style. Related posts Top 10 bad excuses for staying in a crappy job. How to know it’s time to quit. Top 10 signs you’re not happy at work. Best resignation letter ever. How Kim found the courage to quit.
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The Engaging Brand
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What is strategy?
22 May 2013 | 5:45 amStrategy in business is one of those phrases that can make a grown person cry....because it is used with such business jargon as paradigm shift, proposition, strategic imperatives.....all of which are totally unemotional and not at all engaging. Leaders may sound clever using the business jargon but they don't sound passionate, they may sound worldly but they don't sound human! And leaders may have the job title of leader but have they engaged people to follow? The question is this...would you try and sell your product or services to customers with this kind of slogan "There is a strategic… -
SMS Marketing in Business Statistics
21 May 2013 | 5:31 amMarketing in business has grown in complexity - not in terms of the aim but in the array of choices of how we reach the customer. Digital marketing has grown from blogging to social networking to many more social media marketing tools and of course with the rise of the tablet or smartphone, mobile marketing is becoming another area to consider.... I have been researching mobile for business over the last few years and wanted to share with you this infographic from Slicktext which looks at specifically SMS marketing. I will ask the guys to come on The Engaging Brand podcast to explain in more… -
How to understand the US in bUSiness
20 May 2013 | 6:16 amThere has always been an irony for me - that the term 'a business' sounds impersonal, separate and almost intangible! Yet business is all about people, it is emotive, personal and brought to life through connections and collaboration. When coaching I try and concentrate on the word 'US' in business because if we understand their true value then we grow our business. Us is wide in definition and covers... US= How well you collaborate with your colleagues US= How well you connect the vision to the team and the team to the business vision. US= How well you connect to the outside world -… -
Show 435 - Best Practice for Online Collaboration
19 May 2013 | 3:03 amThe Engaging Brand podcast covering social marketing, business ideas and brand marketing tips has a new episode but before we start...The listener winning an Engaging Brand goodie bag - picked from all the people who share, like, tweet about the show to say a BIG thank you from me! - is Jeannie Bolstridge. Anna Farmery talks with Lionel Roux from Wimi - a company Wimi specialising in collaborative work tools. We discuss Collaboration online - why are people reluctant to it? What is the strength of collaboration online? What about security of cloud - is this a barrier to growth? -
What is the meaning of your life?
18 May 2013 | 8:09 amOur little weekend thought tries to inspire you to think differently about your life, your career, your business and this week I want you to....relax! Too often we take life too seriously, we look at meanings behind everything.....we look for hidden meaning in the gestures of others, the words of others, why we are here etc etc But remember...the only meaning you need to consider is this What do you want YOUR life to have meant? When you are out in the garden, at the gym this weekend think less about the meaning of life...and focus on the meaning of YOUR LIFE.
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The Social Customer Manifesto
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Understanding what customers really care about
1 May 2013 | 12:31 pmWhen I was invited to join Swipp earlier this year, I was blown away with the opportunity. I’m fortunate to be part of an experienced team that’s working on a tough, interesting problem – creating a new way to answer the age-old question of “who cares?” (Not only that, but it’s a blast getting a chance to help build an entire platform and ecosystem, not just another app.) We launched our consumer offering back in January and have been receiving great feedback. Since then, we’ve been heads-down making sure that our business customers can tap into the… -
Street Use
24 Mar 2013 | 4:57 pmWhen do we lose our creativity? At what age do we stop seeing possibility, and start only seeing what’s being shown and fed to us? I was at a neighborhood park today and it was packed. The swings were swinging. The teeter-totter was teetering and tottering. The jungle gym was…jungling. The water fountain had a line of kids filling up water balloons. They were filling them up, inventing games and having a great old time. The buzz was palpable. I looked a little more closely, and realized the water balloons weren’t actually water balloons. They were plastic bags. They… -
The Age of Social Intelligence
19 Feb 2013 | 11:49 amCurrent point of view on where social intelligence is headed. Would love your thoughts, comments and feedback! Are we on the right track? Age of Social Intelligence from Swipp -
The Top Five Superbowl Ads (2013)
4 Feb 2013 | 7:01 amThe top five SuperBowl commercials, according to the Swipp community: (All commercials ranked by their Swipp Index -5 to +5, +5 being the best) Tide Stain Saver (+4.6) NFL: Leon Sandcastle (+4.0) Budweiser Clydesdales (+3.9) Gopro (+3.5) Dodge Ram: Paul Harvey (+3.4) Rounding out the top group were Mercedes, Oreo, Audi, Taco Bell and Kia. Mercedes-Benz: The Devil (+3.2) Oreo (+3.2) Audi – Have Fun Tonight – Black Eye (+3.2) Taco Bell – Live Mas (+3.2) Kia Forte: Respect The Tech (+3.2) You can see all the results here: http://swipperbowl.swipp.com. More commentary on how… -
Thank you, Dr. King
21 Jan 2013 | 7:09 am(The part you know starts around 12:10.)
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the Intervals Blog by Pelago
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Tracking Time on Your Creative Agency’s Monthly Retainer Agreements
21 May 2013 | 11:30 amIt is quite common for creative agencies to bill clients under a monthly retainer agreement. In fact, it’s preferable to billing clients under a time and materials contract. The agency gets paid up front on a recurring monthly basis, so they know the revenue will be there and can manage their client projects accordingly. And the client receives a chunk of time granting them access to designers, developers and other creative types. When a creative agency enters into a monthly retainer contract with a client, they are selling units of time — a precious and limited resource. Therefore,… -
Comparing Estimates to Actuals Using Online Time Tracking Software
8 May 2013 | 11:53 amEstimating and tracking your time is not easy, at first. It’s difficult to know how much time a project might take, and how much you should charge for it. Fortunately, estimating and tracking your time is an easy discipline to adopt. Start out with your best guess and track against that. The next project, guess again and track. You will begin to notice some repetition as you break down each estimate into smaller deliverables. Patterns will present themselves, making it easier to more accurately estimate future projects. One advantage of using online time tracking software is the wealth… -
April Intervals Features and Improvements
25 Apr 2013 | 5:10 pmWe are committed to updating Intervals with improvements as often as possible. This April update introduces a new person activity feed, redesigned timer buttons, and a new calendar for selecting dates. Read on for more details. View a person’s recent activity from their profile page We recently introduced an activity feed to each project that allows you to see what’s been going on recently with a project. We’ve now extended this feature over to people’s profile pages. See what’s been going on recently with any member of your team. To see this feature in action,… -
Running a startup is a lot like playing Dungeons and Dragons
12 Apr 2013 | 2:25 pmThe role playing realms of Dungeons and Dragons, and its infinite number of analog and digital spin-offs, all played an influential part in my becoming an entrepreneur and co-founder of Intervals. The obvious conclusion is that Dungeons and Dragons stretched my imagination to consider all possibilities, regardless of how outrageous or impossibly fantastic they might seem. While that is true, a limitless imagination will only take you so far in a startup. Dungeons and Dragons was a game of strategy. Its fantasy worlds were subject to rules and laws of their own, limitations to make the… -
Can Projects be Managed using Online Task Management Software Alone?
3 Apr 2013 | 1:35 pmTask management software provides a great foundation for managing projects, and many creative agencies may find it to be all they need to successfully deliver projects on time and under budget. In my experience, however, online task management software is more effective when coupled with project management features. Managing a project successfully using only tasks depends more on the size of the project and the teams ability to self organize, than it will your adopting the latest and greatest task management software. Some pros and cons to consider… The benefits of a task-only approach Some…
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Yahoo Small Business Advisor: Ideas and Advice for Growing Businesses
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Notes From an Intern: To Blog or Not to Blog?
22 May 2013 | 6:30 pmThere are around 152 million blogs, and that number is growing every day. Not only has blogging evolved into a popular pastime, but it has also become integral to many company websites. My first experience of blogging came when school friends went travelling off to far flung places on their gap years. They turned to... -
Tips On Appealing To Your Mobile Audience :: Magnet Media Minute [Video]
22 May 2013 | 6:15 pmThis week on the Magnet Minute, Amy helps you tailor your web content to appeal to a mobile audience. In growing numbers, people are using their mobile devices to engage on social media platforms, so you’ll want to make sure your mobile bases are covered in order to avoid discouraging your audience due to the... -
Collaboration Between the CMO and CIO: A Love Story
22 May 2013 | 6:05 pmCollaboration exists in many forms. As a tool that manifests organically out of human interaction, it’s subject to the push-pull of partnerships and the dangers of imbalanced approach. That’s especially true in business, when two or more department heads fail to communicate their expectations of each other, but still use them as measures for success.... -
The Fine Art of Upselling Your Products
22 May 2013 | 6:00 pmUpselling is a marketing and sales technique used to generate higher sales from the same customers. There are different methods of Upselling, which include: Increasing sales by convincing a customer to increase the number of units purchased of the same product Offering better or advanced versions of the same product Instigating the customer to purchase... -
Keeping Your Sales People from Becoming Complacent
22 May 2013 | 5:55 pmMany people can become complacent in their jobs. They don’t always mean to. People get comfortable and sometimes they go on autopilot. Autopilot might get the job done but it may not keep things profitable for long. It’s a competitive marketplace and customer loyalty is becoming rare. It’s important to keep your salespeople out of...
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Consumerist
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Magic Hat Sues Kentucky Brewer Over Its Logo
22 May 2013 | 2:07 pmMagic Hat is suing Kentucky-based West Sixth Brewing Company over alleged trademark infringement.Most of our stories about trademark disputes — especially when it comes to anything that even vaguely sounds like the word “monster” — involve companies in two completely different industries, like energy drinks vs. fish tanks, or that same beverage vs. an independent movie, or audio cables vs. deer licks. But what about when that trademark to-do is between two beer companies? This story has apparently been brewing — yeah, I wrote it — since last fall. According… -
Daughters Who Lost Mom Say Mall Kicked Them Out For “F—k Cancer” Hats
22 May 2013 | 2:00 pm(Michelle Rick) Three daughters who recently lost their mother to cancer say they were kicked out of the King of Prussia Mall outside of Philadelphia for sporting a unique tribute to her. Two of the women were wearing black-and-pink hats designed by a family friend that read “F – - K CANCER” with the C in the naughty word replaced by a pink breast-cancer-awareness ribbon. They claim that on Sunday, a security guard told them they had to take of their hats, or leave the mall. The women tell the Daily News they were shopping for a dress for one of their daughters to wear at… -
Timbuk2 Can’t Fix My Backpack: Sends Me $100 Credit Toward A New One Instead
22 May 2013 | 1:51 pmLaurel bought her backpack from Timbuk2 in 2006. While that’s practically the blink of an eye if you’re the person in charge of stocking electronics and video games at Walmart, seven years is kind of a long time as far as product warranties go. Not for Timbuk2, though. When they learned that her bag was no longer water-resistant and had lost the rubber coating its bottom, that would not do. She sent an e-mail asking whether she could send it in for a warranty repair. They couldn’t fix it for her. Instead, they sent her a credit for a replacement bag. Hi there, Consumerist; I… -
Oklahoma Tornado Survivors Need Your Help, Scammers Don’t
22 May 2013 | 1:15 pm(914Studios)24 people are confirmed dead, and many are still missing after a massive tornado destroyed homes and lives outside of Oklahoma City. Don’t let yourself become an indirect victim of the natural disaster by giving money to a fake charity or social media account set up to take advantage of well-meaning and generous people who want to help. There are no confirmed reports of fake tornado charities yet, but surely they’re coming. Scammers popped up to take advantage of the Boston Marathon bombing and the mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. How can… -
Theft Of A $37 Walmart Printer Turns Into High-Speed Chase With Meth Flying Everywhere
22 May 2013 | 1:00 pm(Ron Dauphin) We live in a world where the desire for a $37 printer can lead to a scene straight out of an action movie, complete with a high-speed police chase and drugs flying out the car windows. Police say a couple was spotted lifting a printer from a Walmart in Louisiana and tried to make a run for it. And it was all downhill (super fast) from there. A local police spokesman tells WWL News that a loss prevention employee at the Walmart called the cops after allegedly witnessing the couple make off with the merchandise. When the husband saw the police show up and start to approach their…
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Bill Hogg | Transformative Leadership » Blog
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Three Critical Elements for Finding the Right People to Work in High Performance Environments
16 May 2013 | 7:00 amThis is the third article in our series of articles that looks at Building a High Performance Work Environment. The full series will be available for download as a white paper once it is completed. In our last article, we discussed three ways to support people in high performance environmentsBut first you need to find the right people that will excel in your company’s work environment. As previously discussed in the context of establishing a culture of leadership in the article 5 Steps to create a culture of leadership, your organization is only as good as the talent you recruit. No matter… -
How to Build Your Organizational Culture Based on Trust and Collaboration
11 Apr 2013 | 6:53 amWithout trust in your organization, what do you have? Trust is perhaps the most important element that needs to be present within the culture of your organization. Knowing that you can trust and rely on others on your team significantly changes how a person operates either as the leader of the team or as a team member. Knowing that you can trust your team to get the job done, and on the other side of the coin, knowing that the leaders in your organization will go to bat for you and follow through on what they promise plays a large role in shaping an organizational culture that will thrive. -
Three Ways to Support People in High Performance Environments
14 Mar 2013 | 7:00 amThis is the second article in our series of articles that looks at Building a High Performance Work Environment. The full series will be available for download as a white paper once it is completed. In our last article, we discussed four leadership behaviors that build a high performance work environment. Now let’s discuss some of the key ways to maintain a high level of performance and support for the team. Consistently challenging your team and setting the bar high is only effective if you have the proper support in place. Failure to have a level of support that matches your… -
Essential Elements When Framing Organizational Change
14 Feb 2013 | 6:53 amA critical element of initiating a successful change initiative is communicating that change is a normal and positive function of doing business — it is a key factor in a company’s ability to remain relevant and differentiate from competitors and grow year over year. People are intuitively resistant to change — even helpful change — so it is a leader’s ability to frame organizational change in a positive way that will lead to its successful adaption internally. Yet, one of the major issues that organizations face regularly is how they approach implementing new processes… -
Four Leadership Behaviours that Build High Performance Work Environments
17 Jan 2013 | 5:31 amFocusing on the small fixes will not put out the fire. Instead, this approach only takes up your time and leads to your company losing sight of larger, more important issues. Successful companies understand that achieving success is about addressing larger culture issues within the organization. Getting your organizational culture right is what leads to building a high performance work environment. This starts with leadership. A high performance work environment starts with leadership The most important component of a high performance work environment is people. Engaged and motivated…
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Entrepreneurs Unpluggd
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4 Things You Need to Get a Business Up and Running
20 May 2013 | 6:50 amStarting a business can be an extremely challenging process. There are so many different things a business needs that it could seem overwhelming. Fortunately, there are really two things a business needs to have potential in today’s world: A good idea and appreciable execution. But that gives everyone the premise of the company. The flesh and blood, the actual needs to get the ball rolling, are a bit more material. Fortunately, there are a lot of resources that can help you recognize just where to start. Here’s a brief list of the things you will need get your business up and… -
How To Uncover Hidden Opportunities
6 May 2013 | 7:00 amOn my way to my own dream of doing a TEDtalk! Last year I was feeling stagnant. I had ideas I was working on to expand my business, but wasn’t 100% sure how to spark to the growth I craved. As someone who thrives on the known and feels daunted by the unknown, I felt blocked for sure. One thing I definitely believe in is that when you put energy/effort in a direction, things will happen. Period. Thing was, I had been putting energy/effort into my company for a while, but I’d been doing it all on my own. The solopreneur syndrome where you don’t trust anyone to do anything as well as you,… -
Entrepreneurs Unpluggd Needs Your Help!
2 May 2013 | 11:43 amDo you love entrepreneurship? Do you dream of starting companies and relish listening to stories of others’ successes? Are you looking to learn from thought leaders in the entrepreneurship education space? Do you want to make a big impact and name for yourself? We are looking for you!! Tim and I have enjoyed growing Entrepreneurs Unpluggd over the years from a single event featuring 5 Chicago entrepreneurs to monthly events with over 3000 attendees in just 3 years, a blog with growing traffic, and a biweekly newsletter to thousands of entrepreneurs across the US. Recently, we launched a… -
How Can Girl Scout Cookies and Charity Wristbands Help Your Startup?
1 May 2013 | 7:00 am(photo credit) It’s not uncommon to get the random “you should check out X” or “they are doing Y but look similar” suggestion now and then. It usually comes up in an email exchange or conversation with people in your startup community. In fact, if nobody else was doing your idea it would be cause for concern! This type of “support” is highly encouraged. We’re all supposed to be helping each other. Right? For young companies that have been shipping code, talking to customers, and gaining some traction for several months the seemingly innocuous… -
6 Key Aspects of Networking
29 Apr 2013 | 7:00 amNetworking for business purposes has been around since before the U.S. was even a glimmer of an idea in the minds of our founding fathers. We all network. From our days on the playground, all the way up to our higher education stints. There are many ways to do it now, especially since the inception of the Internet. There are online networks such as LinkedIn that are dedicated to making this more convenient than ever. However, the good old fashion way of gathering with a group of like-minded businesspeople to recognize, create, or act upon business opportunities, as stated in Wikipedia’s…
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Justin Flitter - Strategist for the social web
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More than 10 reasons your digital strategy should focus on #mobile
19 May 2013 | 5:09 pmLast week [during a client workshop] I proposed a website renovation to address 3 key consumer insights;Mobile traffic to the current website has doubled in the last 2 years to 30%Time spent on the website from mobile users is less than 1 minute compared to over 5 minutes from desktop users. 25% of all Google search requests for their products are from a mobile device.We're not proposing to build a mobile app. We're recommending to rebuild the website with a responsive design and a Mobile First UI. The expectation is that by making the website mobile friendly we'll make… -
This new #App Chirp sends a message to everyone listening
12 May 2013 | 7:15 pmJen shared this new app with me today called Chirp. Essentially it lets you share a picture, link or a note to anyone else that has the app open and is nearby.Chirp is designed for quick and easy sharing between people in the same place. Unlike Bluetooth, Chirp doesn't require you to pair devices. Unlike email, you don't need to type in anyone's address. Unlike instant messaging clients, you don't have to add recipients from a buddy list. And so on. To share stuff, you don't need to be friends on Facebook, or to follow each other on Twitter, or be connected on LinkedIn. None of that is… -
Mapping Twitter's Firehose - More stories from your data
7 May 2013 | 3:12 pmOn FirstMonday.org a journal was published last week called; Mapping the global Twitter Heartbeat: The geography of Twitter. The stories and visualisations from the data share fascinating insights.The study analysed 1.5 billion tweets sent by 70 million users in one month to work out where people were. On average, it found, people who mentioned or retweeted each other's messages were 750 miles apart.From 12:01AM 23 October 2012 through 11:59PM 30 November 2012, the Twitter Decahose from GNIP streamed 1,535,929,521 tweets from 71,273,997 unique users, averaging 38 million tweets from 13.7… -
Jenny and the Chicken tell a story about social marketing
6 May 2013 | 7:14 pmThis is brilliant! Jenny and the Chicken from Mash+Studio -
I've got these domain names for sale.
5 May 2013 | 4:21 pmMake me an offer for any or all of the following domains with the form below AUCKLANDNIGHTS.COM CONTENTGYM.COM DATENIGHT.CO.NZ EAT-NZ.COM FOLLOWERS.CO.NZ GOINGBEYOND.CO.NZ JUSTATASTE.CO.NZ LIKEAKING.CO.NZ LITTLETASTERS.COM MATTEROFTASTE.CO.NZ MOBILEGEAR.CO MRFACILITATOR.COM MYFIVEBUCKS.CO.NZ MYTASTYPLATES.COM NOYELLOW.CO.NZ NZPUBLIC.COM NZSOCIALMEDIA.COM - sold PAINTINGBIZ.COM SIXANDOUT.CO.NZ SOCIAL-MEDIA-MASTER.COM SOCIALMEDIA-FOR-COMPANIES.COM THELONGWALK.CO.NZ Name Name First Name Last Name Email Address Subject Message Thank you!
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Parature
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4 Reasons Customers Will Dump You for Another Brand
22 May 2013 | 11:39 amA discount, referral from a friend, Facebook, or an online search may have introduced your brand to some of its best customers, but after the thrill of the first transaction is gone, it’s the emotional connection that will keep your customers loyal and telling the world how much they love you. And emotions run high, especially when it comes to customer service. According to Accenture’s 2012 Global Consumer Pulse Research: 63% of consumers point to service as the most important factor in their choice of a brand. 44% have higher customer service expectations than they had a year ago. 65%… -
Millennial Customers: A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action
20 May 2013 | 10:49 amIn a recent TIME Magazine cover story, Joel Stein gave his take on Millennials as the “Me, Me, Me Generation,” hyper-connected, with a strong sense of entitlement, known for constantly lifting their smartphones into the air to take pictures of themselves to post online. Whether or not that’s the case for an entire generation, at more than 80 million strong, Millennials are the biggest age grouping in American history, and by growing up in parallel with rapid innovations in technology, they are by far the most connected generation on a global, social and real-time scale. According to… -
Are You Born for Customer Service?
16 May 2013 | 1:19 pmIs the delivery of exceptional customer service a skill that can be learned, or are those who excel in customer service simply born for the job? I posed the question recently to a LinkedIn group of customer service professionals, and overwhelmingly they said they were born for customer service… Said Lizzie Taylor, a CSR for a UK pharmaceutical group, “It certainly has come natural to me. I’ve always felt as though this was my only real skill. I’ve never needed training on how to deal with difficult customers, how to feel and come across as empathetic, friendly and yet professional. -
Video is Worth a Thousand Words in Customer Service
14 May 2013 | 1:55 pmAs the average human attention span and level of patience grows shorter, video has become an attractive alternative to wading through the written word. Spend a day or two reading 100+ pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s luxurious writing in The Great Gatsby? Most people today would say no way. Watch the whole story in a little over two hours? A $51 million opening weekend doesn’t lie…. In long or short form, video presents a viable alternative to reading, writing and searching through manuals, instructions and lengthy online content. There’s a magic to the medium that makes even the most… -
Parature Named 2013 CRM Excellence Award Winner by TMC and CUSTOMER Magazine
13 May 2013 | 5:55 amParature is pleased to announce that the company is a recipient of a 2013 CRM Excellence Award™, presented by TMC and CUSTOMER magazine. CUSTOMER has been the premier publication in the CRM, contact center and teleservices industries since 1982. Parature is being recognized by CUSTOMER magazine for its industry-leading multi-channel customer engagement solution being used by more than 3,000 customers across the globe. Parature’s cloud-based platform enables customer support teams from mid-market and enterprise organizations to engage simply and effectively with customers and prospects…
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John Caddell's blog
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“The Mistake Bank” e-book is here – $3.99
5 May 2013 | 9:10 amAvailable at Amazon.com: -
A sneak peek of Chapter 1 of the Mistake Bank book
23 Mar 2013 | 5:44 pmI’ve attached a pdf document that represents Chapter 1 as it will be laid out. Note that the illustrations are not yet the final scans, but this gives you a sense of what the whole book will look like. I hope you like it! The Mistake Bank Chapter 1 – Bouncing Back -
An even-briefer definition of strategy
29 May 2012 | 2:35 pmFrom a working paper by Eric J. Van den Steen of Harvard Business School (”A Theory of Explicitly Formulated Strategy“), via Harvard Business School Working Knowledge: I define a strategy as the ‘smallest set of – intended or actual – choices and decisions sufficient to guide all other choices and decisions’ (or, more concisely, the ‘smallest set of choices to guide all other choices’). The concise definition is 10 words long. Our prior brief definition, also via HBR, was 15 words long. -
Ron Adner mini-podcast: Why smart companies make avoidable innovation mistakes
27 Mar 2012 | 7:16 amAfter our recent interview with Ron Adner, author of “The Wide Lens: A New Strategy for Innovation,” we got to chatting, and in that exchange we talked about the reasons smart companies can fall into the trap of a too-narrow viewpoint. I You can learn more about The Wide Lens at its website, where chapter 1 is available to read for free. Mini-Podcast: Ron Adner after interview discussion (4:15) -
Podcast: “The Wide Lens” author Ron Adner shares stories of innovation mistakes
20 Mar 2012 | 5:24 amI had the opportunity to interview Ron Adner, professor at the Tuck School of Business and author of “The Wide Lens: A New Strategy of Innovation.” The book details the challenges with innovating when you are dependent on more than you and the end-customer – including intermediaries, co-innovators, etc., who influence the success of your new venture. Ron shares a couple of great stories, but perhaps the most significant part of the interview is the discussion that happens after each story. One of the great benefits of sharing mistake stories is dialoguing with others about…
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Scott McKain Viewpoint
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What the Taj Palace Understands that Chase Bank Doesn’t
22 May 2013 | 1:02 pmI can’t imagine how many people they see on a daily basis. That’s why it was so amazing – and made such an impression. On my recent speaking trip to India, I stayed first at the Taj Palace Hotel in New Delhi, arriving on Thursday night. On Sunday morning. I departed for three days to [...] -
Thinking about our needs — instead of the customer’s situation…
16 May 2013 | 12:44 amHello from Paris! I am just here at the airport, changing planes on my way to a speaking engagement in India. And, while I was in the airport lounge, I came across a new ezine from my great friend, Mark Mayfield. (You should REALLY sign up to receive this — they are uniformly funny [...] -
Follow up on the patient/customer experience situation…
8 May 2013 | 1:20 pmYesterday, I received this kind message from the CEO of the hospital where I had the difficult time in the emergency room this past weekend. I appreciate his response, and — in fairness — wanted to post it in its entirety: Dear Mr. McKain: I truly appreciate your above-and-beyond efforts to bring your Emergency Department [...] -
The lack of “care” at a health care provider…
5 May 2013 | 3:42 pmIn my experience as a caregiver for a terminally ill spouse, I learned first hand the importance of wonderful, caring professionals in health care – and, what a difference they can make, both in the standard of care the patient receives, and the piece of mind the family experiences. This weekend, I experienced very little [...] -
Social media can harm relationships…
3 May 2013 | 2:02 pmNoticed an article today entitled, “Social Media Use Can Cause Marital Dissatisfaction” by Eric Sass — and, it occurred to me there are so many obvious jokes one could make about THAT issue, it’s just too easy! My wife wants to talk about it…and, I’ll try to get back to her sometime later — if [...]
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thinkJar
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Continuing Discussions on Knowledge Management
14 May 2013 | 12:00 pmDid you have fun reading through the last series of posts about the future of knowledge management I wrote for Stone Cobra (links at the bottom of this post)? My model is to do “sponsored” research; I know it sounds horrible, so let me explain. I don’t have the bandwidth as a single person organization to deliver consistent, periodic research as I did when I was with Gartner. I want to use blogs to spread the research, it is far easier than writing and distributing notes (trust me, I did that already) but I am somewhat limited when I just do it on my blog. As much as I… -
Salesforce Launched Communities Today
2 May 2013 | 6:45 am(Event note: the traditional Salesforce marketing cycle is to announce a new model/slogan/message at a Dreamforce event, then take the next 1-2 yeas to strengthen the delivery of that message, refining it along the way in Cloudforce or Tour events like this one. This is what happened with the social enterprise, and what is happening with the customer company. I still don’t like the concept of the customer company – don’t think i ever will – but, the past few months have been very good for Salesforce corporate communications people and the message I heard here was… -
Moxie Tries to Change The Collaboration Game
30 Apr 2013 | 7:01 pmOK, I am not going to assume you know this – so here it is: Moxie Software is a long-standing client (so are the competitors for the solution described here – I cannot escape that fact; I work in the industry I cover) and I worked with them on the strategy leading to this launch. Does this make my coverage biased? You can decide that, after you read why this can change the game for collaboration. If you think I can be tainted by my relationship with Moxie please feel free to stop reading. Here is the usual scenario: you can get free collaboration tools anywhere these days… -
What the Launch of Social.com Shows Us
23 Apr 2013 | 1:24 pmToday Salesforce announced the launch of Social.com – a social advertising solution that brings the power of Radian6 (R6) and Buddy Media (BM) (two acquisitions made by Salesforce in the past two years for over $1 Billion total that had been floundering looking for a purpose) into an innovative way to use Marketing 2.0 (or is it 3.0? 4.0? whatever version number would be the next). There are three reasons this is very interesting: It shows Salesforce listened to — well, virtually every analyst and pundit in the industry that told them that R6 and BM were nowhere near a traditional… -
Big Cheese Day at the Gamification Summit in SF
22 Apr 2013 | 4:37 pmIf you follow my blog you know that I am a fan of The West Wing and sometimes I quote it in my writing. In case you don’t know the reference to Big Cheese Day, in one of the episodes of The West Wing the Chief of Staff assigns the senior staff one day a year when they have to meet with groups that normally would not get access to the white house (usually because their message is not aligned with policy making or because their message is not relevant to a large part of the population). An example was the people who wanted to build “an animal superhighway” to allow wild…
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thinkJar
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Continuing Discussions on Knowledge Management
14 May 2013 | 12:00 pmDid you have fun reading through the last series of posts about the future of knowledge management I wrote for Stone Cobra (links at the bottom of this post)? My model is to do “sponsored” research; I know it sounds horrible, so let me explain. I don’t have the bandwidth as a single person organization to deliver consistent, periodic research as I did when I was with Gartner. I want to use blogs to spread the research, it is far easier than writing and distributing notes (trust me, I did that already) but I am somewhat limited when I just do it on my blog. As much as I… -
Salesforce Launched Communities Today
2 May 2013 | 6:45 am(Event note: the traditional Salesforce marketing cycle is to announce a new model/slogan/message at a Dreamforce event, then take the next 1-2 yeas to strengthen the delivery of that message, refining it along the way in Cloudforce or Tour events like this one. This is what happened with the social enterprise, and what is happening with the customer company. I still don’t like the concept of the customer company – don’t think i ever will – but, the past few months have been very good for Salesforce corporate communications people and the message I heard here was… -
Moxie Tries to Change The Collaboration Game
30 Apr 2013 | 7:01 pmOK, I am not going to assume you know this – so here it is: Moxie Software is a long-standing client (so are the competitors for the solution described here – I cannot escape that fact; I work in the industry I cover) and I worked with them on the strategy leading to this launch. Does this make my coverage biased? You can decide that, after you read why this can change the game for collaboration. If you think I can be tainted by my relationship with Moxie please feel free to stop reading. Here is the usual scenario: you can get free collaboration tools anywhere these days… -
What the Launch of Social.com Shows Us
23 Apr 2013 | 1:24 pmToday Salesforce announced the launch of Social.com – a social advertising solution that brings the power of Radian6 (R6) and Buddy Media (BM) (two acquisitions made by Salesforce in the past two years for over $1 Billion total that had been floundering looking for a purpose) into an innovative way to use Marketing 2.0 (or is it 3.0? 4.0? whatever version number would be the next). There are three reasons this is very interesting: It shows Salesforce listened to — well, virtually every analyst and pundit in the industry that told them that R6 and BM were nowhere near a traditional… -
Big Cheese Day at the Gamification Summit in SF
22 Apr 2013 | 4:37 pmIf you follow my blog you know that I am a fan of The West Wing and sometimes I quote it in my writing. In case you don’t know the reference to Big Cheese Day, in one of the episodes of The West Wing the Chief of Staff assigns the senior staff one day a year when they have to meet with groups that normally would not get access to the white house (usually because their message is not aligned with policy making or because their message is not relevant to a large part of the population). An example was the people who wanted to build “an animal superhighway” to allow wild…
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The UP! Your Service Blog | Uplifting Service Cultures for Sustainable Competitive Advantage
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Don’t Just Collect Data; Create Value
13 May 2013 | 8:42 pmService Measures and Metrics are a valuable building block for service improvement. But to build a service culture, the methodology of these metrics must be uplifting for those you query and for the members of your team. Service Measures and Metrics are a valuable building block for service improvement. But to build a service culture, the methodology of these metrics must be uplifting for those you query and for the members of your team. Clarify What You Are Measuring and Why Just because you can measure many things doesn’t mean that it makes good sense to track them all. What do you really… -
Leading from All Levels in Your Organization
28 Apr 2013 | 10:30 pmIf your company is going to pursue building an uplifting service culture, leadership must initiate and support the process. But service leadership must be extended and ultimately embraced at all levels of the organization. Let’s take a closer look at how to lead from all levels. Top-Down Service Leadership In the first model, a service culture initiative gets a great start. The leader from the top becomes a role model for, and communicates with, everyone else in the organization. However, this model alone is not enough because if even one manager in the middle doesn’t set the right… -
My Grandmother was unusual. Who was yours?
26 Mar 2013 | 6:40 pmUnusual people and events have powerfully shaped my life, and the lessons I’ve learned from them are the roots of my unrelenting passion. My grandmother was my earliest inspiration. She taught kindergarten in New York City for 40 years, and when I visited her class, I felt like the most important person in the world. My grandmother made everyone feel like the most important person in the world. She’d give one child a compliment and give another a helping hand. She’d read to one group while answering questions from another. She’d separate two fighting five-year-olds and manage to… -
A Personal Path to Service
2 Feb 2013 | 5:20 pmFor the past 40 years I have been on a mission to improve the world. The vision that motivates and sustains me is a world in which everyone is educated and inspired to excel in service to others. In support of this mission, I have flown more than ten million miles, visited three hundred cities, and worked with businesses in every industry from high fashion to high technology, government agencies, schools, associations, and voluntary service organizations. I help people become better service providers, and help organizations build uplifting and self-sustaining service cultures. I define… -
Can You Really Overhaul a Nation’s Customer Service Culture? Part Two
17 Jan 2013 | 12:47 amClick here to read Part One of this blog post Here’s how nations and large organizations can engineer an Uplifting Service culture: Stay covered with great leadership. True service leadership is not a demand for better performance pointed at the frontline service department. It’s not a campaign slogan that gets splashed across the wall. True service leadership means creating an environment where every member of the team can take the lead in improving and uplifting—from the top down, from the bottom up, and from every position in the organization. Tan Suee Chieh faced a big challenge…
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Zengage - a Zendesk Blog
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Making the right moves for security
22 May 2013 | 9:52 amSecurity is like chess: both require adaptation and the methodical use of multiple pieces. A good security program requires a similar, multi-layered strategy, requiring a continuous and methodical approach to risk assessment, mitigation, and re-evaluation. It evolves to address new risks and iterates to incorporate necessary changes. A few months ago, Zendesk took an “across the board” look at our security capabilities, including the features in our product, the effectiveness of our key processes, the depth and breadth of our security organization, and the design of our security… -
Community tip: track repeat ticket submitters
20 May 2013 | 9:11 amKeeping track of customers who submit multiple tickets can help you gauge things like customer satisfaction, product quality – is there a recurring problem or bug that needs to be addressed, and help site effectiveness – are the self-service options you’ve provided not effective? The latest tip of the week focuses on tracking customers who submit multiple tickets with Advanced Analytics which are available to our Plus and Enterprise customers. This tip comes to us from Todd Zabel, global customer support manager for Hearsay Social and a Zendesk Community Moderator. Head… -
Great customer service starts… in bed?
14 May 2013 | 9:29 amIf your first conscious thought in the morning is “Where’s my phone?”—you’re not alone. Mobile phone and tablet usage is on the rise everywhere, even in bed. Formal surveys and anecdotal stories reveal that we’re increasingly obsessed with beginning our days by hopping online to see what’s happening both in our social networks and at work. To see how our morning routines are getting a tech boost, check out our latest infographic. And because the “bed office” is a global phenomenon, we’re happy to announce that the Zendesk iOS app (for iPhone and iPad) is now available… -
Tip of the week: changing bad satisfaction ratings to good
13 May 2013 | 9:03 amCustomers have two ways to rate tickets. The first is to respond to the link in the Customer Satisfaction email. The second is by logging in to your Zendesk web portal. There, customers can access their recently solved tickets and either set or change the rating if they feel that you have followed up on the issue to their satisfaction. The trick is just letting your customers know how! The latest tip of the week will show you how addressing bad satisfaction ratings and giving your customers the option of changing their minds can help you turn a negative into a positive. Head to the forums to… -
Zen U. and the College of Customer Happiness is coming to a city near you!
9 May 2013 | 9:24 amIn case you missed our pre-launch Zen U. blog post in March, Zen U. is a FREE day of training, customer service best practices, and networking. Zen U. is now in session and coming to a city near you. Our next four stops are: Dallas, Austin, Toronto, and Chicago. Register for class and join the fun. Your degree in customer happiness awaits! (Take a look at the full schedule for more dates.) Check out this photo from Zen U. San Francisco: And here’s what recent attendees are saying about Zen U.: “Zen U. was an environment where questions were appreciated, where I could talk easily with…
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very best service
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BIG DATA and customer service
17 May 2013 | 8:29 amBIG DATA and customer serviceBig data is definitely becoming the in-topic in the digital industry. Capturing the data, harnessing the data, shaping the data, using the data are all common themes which make the headlines everyday. The power of modern computing technology and data analytics allows companies to capture and model the behaviour of their customers and gain a deep understanding of the key trigger points in their day today interaction with the business. Once the hidden patterns and correlations leading to a purchasing action are fully understood, companies gain predictive influence… -
Customer service: the path to nowhere?
8 Apr 2013 | 2:25 pmCustomer service careerThrough the years of writing this blog, we have establish a (small) number of truth which could be hard to challenge. To name a couple, we have established that quality customer service is a key factor in the long term prosperity of an organisation and that employee satisfaction is a key success factor driving good customer service. Bringing the two together, it becomes clear that any organisation must be able to attract quality employees to its customer service teams and to make it attractive in the long run, convince employees that customer service offers a solid… -
Customer service: the great rotation
9 Mar 2013 | 8:25 amWe are inspiring ourselves from an often used expression, "the great rotation". This describes a current phenomenon whereby worldwide money managers may reallocate part of their assets towards more risky investments, for example switching from fixed income instruments to equities. This is done in order to benefit from higher equity yields especially given that interest rates will have to stay low for a while to fuel the economic recovery. This is compounded by the perception that interest rates can not really go lower and, as and when they start to increase, the fixed income instruments will… -
Customer service web
4 Feb 2013 | 7:12 amCustomer service webWhat can spiders teach us about customer service? Over the years, they have perfected the art of building a structure which catches all. In many environment, if we leave them a little bit of time, they will construct a web to catch food. What about applying the same technique to customer service? Web based customer service would consist of a close knit network of multiple interactions with customers. Perfectly organised as far as the company is concerned but flexible from the customer point of view, service delivery would be based on multiple nodes, interacting with… -
A fresh approach to customer service
2 Jan 2013 | 5:03 amNew Customer service approachAt the beginning of a new year, many businesses are starting to implement their new strategies and look at fresh ideas. All the budgets have been reset, the new marketing campaigns are ready to be rolled out. New investments in products, overseas expansion, new factories, the company has covered all angles. Customer service should not be left out though! Have you taken the time to review what worked well? In which areas of your business have you received excellent endorsements from your customers? Which teams have demonstrated that their innovations and…
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Good for Customers, Great for Business
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Customer satisfaction – why books can’t make you a service Ninja.
22 May 2013 | 3:39 amPhoto: Brandon Daniel, Licence: CC-BY-SA So many books, so little impact on customer satisfaction. Management books about customer service are often a good read. They can be interesting, thought-provoking and even entertaining. But here’s the problem: They can’t tell you how to improve the satisfaction of your customers. After trying lots of the techniques that I had read about I learnt this lesson the hard way when I was responsible for customer services (delivery and revenue) in a large business. And the experience taught me that there’s also an even bigger problem: What… -
Invoice sent. Customer satisfied. But will they pay?
2 Apr 2013 | 3:33 amGood customer service keeps clients happy and happy clients make for successful businesses. But what happens if your customers don’t reciprocate by paying on time? Or worst of all, they don’t pay at all? In this guest blog we hear how fellow Xero add-on provider LedgerLive can help you ensure you avoid late payments and bad debts. Know your customers It’s worth asking yourself how much you really know about the businesses you invoice on a regular basis. You may have a great working relationship with the company that buys your widgets or pays for your professional skills, but do you… -
How not to waste time benchmarking your customer service
11 Feb 2013 | 5:39 amPhoto: ©nojhan, CC-BY-SA licence. Benchmarking can be a useful wake-up call. Looking at how well others are doing stimulates ideas and opens your eyes to opportunities for improving the performance of your business. But in my experience all the effort is wasted if you compare against the wrong things. The lessons of this article are think carefully: will benchmarking customer service bring any business or customer benefits at all? if you decide to benchmark, choose the right comparators; focus 100% on your customers rather than your own company or your competitors. 1. Don’t… -
4 surprises when you implement a customer feedback system
13 Nov 2012 | 8:34 amEvery company is different of course. But having now seen hundreds of companies set up and run a customer feedback system for the first time there are some remarkably common themes. It was the same surprises, and the dramatic benefits I was able to achieve when I went through this process when I ran a customer services department, that led me to launch CustomerSure to help other people get the same results. So for anyone wondering what will happen when you take the plunge, the chances are that this is what you’re likely to find! 1. More good feedback than you were expecting Most… -
A big return from two ‘Cloud’ software investments
26 Oct 2012 | 7:04 amThis is not about stock tips, it’s about investing wisely in software to get a big return for your business. A success story Stephen Paul is an accountant in practice. He’s very good at what he does. So good, in fact, that nearly all the new clients in his fast-growing business come from personal recommendations. His practice has won a lot of awards. On top of all that, he’s a thoroughly good guy who supports local charities and shares his time and knowledge generously with other business owners. What’s the secret to his success? There’s no secret…
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Impact Blog! Customer Service Training
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Maximize Your Company’s Cold Calling Training with these Dos and Don’ts
21 May 2013 | 4:05 pmCold calling is a hard art to master, and when conducting cold calling training for your team, the instructing part can be just as difficult as the cold calling itself. After all, how do you teach confidence? How do you help people deal with rejection? Part of the problem with traditional cold calling training is that it relies on rote scripts and teaches people what to say, rather than teach an attitude and guide sales reps on what not to say. If you are growing frustrated with your current efforts to improve your staff’s cold calling effectiveness, consider taking a different approach –… -
How Internal Metrics can Help You Decrease Turnover Rates
16 May 2013 | 12:52 pmIn the world of call centers, metrics are king. Resolution time, first call resolution, CSAT scores, and average call duration, to name a few, are meticulously tracked, recorded, analyzed, and then acted upon. The goal, typically, is to use these metrics to increase customer satisfaction, yet it’s often at the expense of call center employee satisfaction – which in the call center industry, is quite a problem; in an industry where a 60% turnover rate is considered good, one must ask – how useful is customer service training if you can’t retain employees? Are we an industry too… -
Is Your Sales Team Getting the Most out of Your Sales Coaching?
14 May 2013 | 11:21 amA colleague of mine from Miller Heiman surveyed a number of sales managers by asking how much true coaching they have done in the last 60 days. The shocking truth? Three-quarters of these managers admit they only coach sporadically and say that coaching time just isn't a priority. Companies that rely on sales and customer service teams understand that improving sales coaching skills is an investment worth making. However, simply having your management team dedicate sales training time and sales coaching to your sales teamwill not be enough if you neglect some key facets of sales coaching,… -
Customer Service and Social Media
9 May 2013 | 11:40 amThe Link Between Social Media and Customer Service Social networks are the new battleground for customer satisfaction. As a result of sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest, the customer experience is no longer isolated—it is communal. Companies now have to engage with the customer in the public eye. Impact Learning Systems has developed an infographic to tell the story of this link; click to view it here. Social Solutions Companies are now hiring social networking solution managers for their customer service department; social networking isn't just for the marketing… -
What’s Apple’s Secret for their Legendary IT Customer Service Training?
7 May 2013 | 10:19 amApple is a company known for, among other things, attention to details. Steve Jobs had a reputation for being uncompromisingly particular about every part, interface, and material used in his products. When Apple stores first hit the scene in 2001, every element, true to form, was carefully orchestrated, including the IT customer service trainingthat Apple employees underwent. When Apple’s first retail stores opened, the company faced the challenge of not being a company known for its vast selection of products; at the time, Apple only had four product categories. So what was Apple’s…
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Rich Baker
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Google Atmosphere – London 21 May 2013
20 May 2013 | 11:03 amFor those that know me, since 2009 I’ve been active in the corporate social media space, pioneering the use of twitter for crisis PR and online customer service. Back then, it was a relatively new phenomenon, and the work I was doing was greeted with interest, scepticism and in some cases, fear. Myself and other [...] -
This is Water
17 May 2013 | 6:19 amIn 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech didn’t become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we’ve ever come across, and perhaps the [...] -
Engage for Success – 4 years in the making #E4S
8 Nov 2012 | 2:05 pmFour year ago David Macleod and Nita Clarke published their ground-breaking study into employee engagement. The report, called Engaging for Success, commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, shared real-life case studies ... -
Do you value Intuition?
17 Sep 2012 | 11:19 amOne of the areas I am studied during my MBA involved a look at how innovation and creativity manifest themselves in individuals and organisations. Part of this considers the perception we have of intuition. Rather than it be a ???magical??? ability th... -
Branch – from the creators of Twitter
26 Aug 2012 | 12:31 amI've been invited to try out the new 'conversation platform' Branch, from the creators of Twitter. It's a more structured and controlled way to have conversations about things. And you can choose who participates! I'm also interested in Branch as ...
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The Mojo Helpdesk Blog
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How to Turn Tweets into Helpdesk Tickets
20 May 2013 | 10:24 amTurn customer Tweets into helpdesk tickets with our latest mash up. (Photo credit: @daskeyboard)You may not have asked for it, but it's happening.Your clients are using Twitter to reach out to you when they need customer support.Their question, requests, and complaints are in the public eye; your responsiveness and service quality are out in the open for anyone to see.It's the perfect time to start getting systematic about how you address support via social media channels.Having your customer's Tweets automatically turn into helpdesk tickets is a great place to start so we've setup… -
How To Save $1,500 to $21,300 A Year on a Helpdesk...
3 May 2013 | 12:53 pmWhat could you buy with the money you save by using Mojo Helpdesk? How about a 3-story office slide. (Photo credit: Ben Terrett)How much does web hosted help desk software really cost? What is the yearly investment required to run web hosted ticket tracking & request tracking software?How much budget should I set aside to equip our customer service team with an online help desk support system?If you've ever had one of these questions, take a look at the web hosted help desk pricing table below. It shows yearly costs for some of the most popular web hosted help desk and ticket tracking… -
How to Create Help Desk Tickets from Google Calendar in 5 Steps (or Less)
29 Apr 2013 | 3:06 pmGirl Talk's new mash up makes the crowd go wild. Mojo's will too. (photo credit: milkshake media)It's a Google Calendar event. It's a help desk ticket. It's a do-it-yourself mash up that can be configured in 5 steps or less. If you've ever wanted your Google Calendar events to flow straight into helpdesk a ticket, here's how you do it:(Author's note: You'll need a Mojo Helpdesk account to get started. Sign up on our home page for a 30-day free trial.)Step 1 (Optional). Create a new queue for your Google Calendar eventsFrom your Mojo Helpdesk navigation bar, click 'manage' >>… -
Sync Google Apps users instantly with Mojo Helpdesk
16 Apr 2013 | 9:48 amMojo Helpdesk is excited to announce our new Google Apps User Sync integration. With user sync you can import all your Google Apps users into Mojo Helpdesk in a few mouse clicks. For example:Businesses that have large classes of new hires starting every summer can now import them all seamlessly from Google Apps. School or universities with hundreds of new students enrolling each fall can now add them to Mojo with no manual data entry. Government agencies now have the ability to quickly add temp workers and seasonal employees as Mojo users. If you've already integrated Mojo… -
How Ticket Tracking Software Helps Homeowners Associations Work More Efficiently
11 Apr 2013 | 9:48 amHomeowners associations and other property management organizations can streamline operations and handle requests more efficiently by using web hosted ticket tracking software.Requests can include internal assignments related to the HOAs tech infrastructure (computers, laptops, phone lines, etc) as well as maintenance and support requests that come in from homeowners (landscaping, grounds keeping, security alerts, etc).While using email to handle requests can seem simple at first, as your residential community grows, it becomes highly inefficient.For example, how do you know all incoming…
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The Squawk Point: Service Improvement
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The Dark Secrets of Benchmarking
19 May 2013 | 10:44 pmThis is a guest post Everyone loves a bench-marking exercise, right? It helps you understand your place in the world – where you excel, right? It shows you the gold standard, best practice, the benchmark you aspire to, right? Wrong. Bench-marking is honest and pure, so, what brings me to such a bold outburst? Well, there are a couple of reasons: Knowing that our own brains play tricks on us Plain, old-fashioned common sense My brain really plays mean tricks on me?? Your brain works in some odd ways. Brain science tells us two really important things that put us at a disadvantage… -
What Everyone Ought to Know About Numbers
17 May 2013 | 11:17 pmThe news is full of numbers; startling headlines containing big scary numbers. Two Billion Dementia Patients Sudden Cardiac Deaths Rise by 10% in Young Americans Police Privatisation: ‘£5 Million Could Be Wasted’ Are those numbers really big? Politicians love to create a stir and news paper owners pay journalists to shock. Those big numbers they use do the job perfectly. They cause us to stop, thank and react, but should we be frightened or are they just fooling us? Next time you are faced with a shocking statistic, ask yourself a simple question; “Is that a big… -
Are you Cruel to Your Children?
14 May 2013 | 10:13 pmI tore into my 10 year-old-daughter yesterday. It wasn’t a half-baked telling off. It was a full on balling out. I was so angry, I must have screamed at her for 10 minutes. The poor little mite was in floods of tears by the time I finished. She sobbed for half an hour. Why was I so angry? She stepped into the road without looking. It is my worst nightmare that my children are killed by some fool using a mobile phone instead of watching the road. We hear horror stories about children being abducted, but if anything happens to mine it won’t be a kidnapping, it will be a man in a white… -
Are Your Team High Performers or Losers?
11 May 2013 | 12:40 amWhat do you think of the team you manage? Are they the crème de la crème or a shower of … Is that a rather harsh question? Perhaps, but the answer may well have a lot more to do with you than with them. Why do some people do better than others? In 1968 Rosenthal and Jacobsen started to look at under achievement among school children. Why do some children do better than others? Their theory was that it was all to do with intelligence. If you tested children’s I.Q. you could predict which children would do well and which wouldn’t. So they ran a test. They ran a… -
Money, Motivation and Monkeys
6 May 2013 | 1:10 amWe have all heard that “money doesn’t motivate”I’m not sure I totally agree. If you can’t afford your weekly food bill then I suspect that making money comes high on your list, but I guess we pass that point fairly quickly. What I do believe is true though is that money can de-motivate. As Professor Noriaki Kano of Kano model fame would say, money is simply a basic need. Or to use an old gag, you have two hopes of delighting your entire workforce with your compensation and benefits strategy: No Hope Bob Hope So how do you meet those basic needs? In his book Drive…
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Customer Contact Leadership Council
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How to Send Subliminal Messages in Your IVR
8 May 2013 | 2:37 pmSetting customer expectations can be a very delicate matter. There are times when you need to be very transparent to help customers understand what to expect next—and to avoid them from calling you back unnecessarily— Your estimated wait time is 2 minutes. We will reply to your email in 24 hours. Your order will ship next Tuesday. But, there are other times when being that straightforward is not appropriate—and frequently the IVR script is one of those times. We want customers to use the IVR, and we want them to understand its value in serving them…but customers aren’t always… -
Customer Service in the News | Week of May 6th
7 May 2013 | 8:53 amThe Risk of Using SMS for Customer Service [Forbes] Gamification for Customer Service: Does it Work? [CustomerThink] Infographic: Social Customer Service [five9] Insurers See Value in Social Media’s Customer Service Capabilities [Insurance Networking News] -
Why You Make it Hard for Reps to be Low-Effort
7 May 2013 | 8:41 amThere is no doubt that the No.1 goal for service organizations is to make it easy for customers to solve their issues. But have you ever thought of whether you have made it easy for your frontline reps to deliver that service? If reps have to put forth a lot of effort during customer interactions, how can you expect them to create easy experiences for customers? In fact, our data collected from “Service Organization Culture Assessment” as part of our major research initiative this year showed that nearly half of reps (48.6%) we surveyed agreed that they had to put in a great deal of… -
You’re Probably Not Hiring Correctly
3 May 2013 | 7:28 amOur parent company, CEB, recently acquired a company at the forefront of talent acquisition analytics. SHL, a leader in talent measurement solutions, has a suite of offerings—one of them being contact center frontline rep hiring. We are excited about the offerings that they have and the exciting research they’ve done on how to hire smartly. And it’s led us to do a little thinking of our own about hiring in the contact center environment. It’s no secret that a lot of things have changed in the contact center environment—so how you hire for reps should be one of them. Reps were once… -
Why You Need to Trust Reps
1 May 2013 | 7:41 amWe recently came across an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review that explains the importance of trusting your employees to achieve good outcomes, rather than telling them what to do. The author asserts that by trusting your employees, you encourage individuals to be more committed, produce higher quality work, and be proud to work for you. We couldn’t help but recognize the similarities in the author’s findings and our own work on trusting employees to achieve outcomes and increasing employee engagement as a result. The author outlines the following actions to demonstrate…
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Wim Rampen's Blog
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Don’t Take The Customer Decision Journey For Granted
20 May 2013 | 12:45 pmIf we judge marketers by their (customers' ) actions we could come to the conclusion many take the Customer Decision Journey for granted. And it's highly questionable if predictive (online) analytics is the best solution. So, what could you be doing? Continue reading » -
Value Is Always Co-Created In Use
24 Mar 2013 | 11:52 amMuch of my thinking and writing is inspired by a Service Dominant Logic. Today's post is about one of the key notions from that logic: Value Is Always Co-Created in Use. Do you agree? Continue reading » -
Burning Bridges To Foster Innovation
17 Mar 2013 | 2:50 pmInnovators not only need to experiment and fail (fast) they also need to understand that burning bridges might be the best option they have if they want to be successful at growing a market.. Continue reading » -
We Don’t Need An NPS-[fill in the blanks]
26 Feb 2013 | 12:14 pmYou have probably heard this before: "People in [fill in any country name] do not rate your service with a 9 or higher. That's not our culture". Do you buy into this 'culture'-effect? I don't, and here's why: Continue reading » -
You Don’t Need a CEM/CRM Strategy To Be Customer Centric
18 Feb 2013 | 12:50 pmI believe one can be extremely Customer centric without having a Customer Relationship Management or (Branded) Customer Experience strategy.. You can read why and how in this post. Continue reading »
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Adrian Swinscoe
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Measuring employee engagement and happiness: Should you be building an app for that?
20 May 2013 | 1:09 amWhen talking about measuring employee engagement, happiness or satisfaction at work many people resort to quarterly, biannual or annual surveys. Don’t get me wrong. These type of surveys can be great and very insightful when done well. However, one of the key weaknesses many of them suffer from is that they lack follow up and fail to relate to staff what has been found out and what is going to be done with the results etc etc. This is not so different to what happens when many firms survey their customers. Other firms take a different approach, eschewing large surveys for something more… -
Customer engagement, social CRM and cool tools for professional services firms – Interview with Mark Bower
16 May 2013 | 11:55 pmToday’s interview is with Mark Bower, co-founder and CTO of CubeSocial, who are developing and have launched some cool products in the social CRM and customer engagement space, particularly for professional service firms. This interview follows on the back of last week’s interview: Employee engagement is a commitment not a campaign – Interview with Stan Phelps and is number fifty-eight in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things and helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service. Here’s the highlights from the… -
When it comes to customer service, are you ready to help?
12 May 2013 | 9:54 amToday I want to share something different with you. It’s a video that I came across about customer service in Japan that I found on Gadling that was originally posted on LiveLeak earlier this year. The video is only 51 secs long but is definitely worth a watch. If you can’t see the video then click here. Did you watch the video? Surprised? Funny? In a country that uses a lot of technology, I think it is fascinating and insightful to see a very personal approach to solving a customer’s problem. Is it a spoof? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I’d like to think it is real and… -
Employee engagement is a commitment not a campaign – Interview with Stan Phelps
2 May 2013 | 1:06 amToday’s interview is with Stan Phelps an “experience architect”, author, professor and popular keynote speaker. Hat tip for the idea for this interview goes to James Lawther who recently hosted a guest post (5 Easy Ways to Increase Employee Engagement) from Stan on his blog. Stan recently published a new book: What’s Your Green Goldfish?: Beyond Dollars: 15 Ways to Drive Employee Engagement and Reinforce Culture and joins us today to share some insight into the book and the lessons that businesses can draw from it. This interview follows on the back of last week’s interview: How… -
Can we ‘rest’ more to improve our business performance?
27 Apr 2013 | 5:45 amBefore I start, I warn you this is more of a thinking out loud piece rather than anything else. Anyway, as i was browsing my store of articles and notes for future blog posts i came across a scanned article from my friend Paul Robertson of On-Up that he sent me a while ago. The article was written by Steve McClure, a professional climber, for Climbing Magazine in late 2011. Reading the article there was a passage (below) that struck me as particularly interesting and applicable to the world of business. “A basic theory of life, the universe and everything states that if an animal or…
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Help Scout Customer Service Blog
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The Ultimate Guide to Measuring Customer Satisfaction
21 May 2013 | 9:00 pmMeasuring customer satisfaction is incredibly important for both product development as well as improving your company’s support. A satisfied customer is one who will continue to buy from you, seldom shop around, refer other customers and in general be a superstar advocate for your business. But measuring satisfaction can be a bit tricky. Where should you start? What should you be measuring? Today you’ll find the answers to these questions and more as we dive into how to correctly track and improve your overall experience to create more satisfied… -
Traffic Cop Gets a Promotion
20 May 2013 | 9:00 pmWe have a Help Scout feature called Traffic Cop, which prevents duplicate replies between two users that are updating conversations via email. Today we're happy to announce that Traffic Cop now works in the web app as well. When two people reply to the same conversation without seeing each other, Traffic Cop steps in, sending the first message to the customer and stopping the second message for review. A member of your team can then choose to send, edit or discard the second reply. You may also notice a new top-level folder in your account, called "Needs Attention". When there is an active… -
The Shocking Truth About Brand Loyalty (Why Values > 'Engagement')
14 May 2013 | 9:00 pmThe conversation around brand loyalty has been on a steady decline since the advent of social media. Ever since the term “engagement” snuck into the picture, marketers have been blowing smoke about how important it is to regularly engage with customers, touting the untold benefits of regular contact. The problem is that this belief couldn’t be further from the truth. Most consumers do not care about how much you engage with them—and I have the data to prove it. But there is a “secret sauce” that is guaranteed to increase brand loyalty, and it’s… -
10 Proven Ways to Build a Website that Customers Will Love
8 May 2013 | 9:00 pmGood design keeps the user happy, the manufacturer in the black, and the aesthete unoffended. - Raymond Loewy While it can be a tough balance to achieve, creating a functional, streamlined and well designed website is well worth the effort. Fortunately, improving your customers’ experience with your site coincides with improving your bottom line. One study even revealed that a website’s design is most likely to affect its presumed trustworthiness—not the content that lies within. Today, we’ll look at some proven strategies for building a website that customers… -
Gamification & Customer Loyalty: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
30 Apr 2013 | 9:00 pmOutside of big data, gamification—the use of game mechanics in a non-game context to engage users—is the darling child of business publications today. It’s easy to see why businesses of all sizes have flocked to the use of gamification. It is widely applicable since it taps into fundamental elements of human behavior. When executed well, it can make even mundane activities seem like a game, creating motivation and desire for users to keep “playing.” But there’s a dark side to gamification. When gamification begins to insidiously make its way…
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@Win the Customer!
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5 Hospitality Tips for Achieving Top Rated Customer Satisfaction
17 May 2013 | 12:28 pmEven during a global recession, the hotel industry can thrive and often continue to grow by improving their customer satisfaction and customer service. People are still traveling for business or pleasure and looking for the best values for their money. Competition for new customers in the hotel industry worldwide is high and repeat business is always desired. Gone are the days where folks hop in their automobiles and drive along exploring and then stop at a roadside hotel that looks decent and clean. 5 Hospitality Tips for Achieving Top Rated Customer Satisfaction Customer satisfaction has… -
Customer Service is How You Show Customers You Care
15 May 2013 | 1:59 pmCustomer service is how a business shows how much it cares about its customers. Sounds pretty basic and something that everyone should already know right? Well, unfortunately, it doesn’t always happen. Actually, most of the time organizations fall short, way short in the execution of the customer service experience. There’s a clear difference between wanting to offer great customer service and actually delivering an exceptional customer service experience. It’s something that too often is taken for granted and customer service goals and customer experience mission statements… -
How to Get Out of a Service Contract If You’re An Unsatisfied Customer
14 May 2013 | 5:46 amStuck in a bad contract? Getting out of your service contract may not be as hard as you think. Nothing is worse than being stuck paying for a service you are unhappy with, but what can you do if you signed a service contract? The only thing to do is find a way to get out of that service contract, which may not be as complicated as you think. Let the company know you’re unhappy with the service contract The first step is simply to let the company know that you are an unsatisfied customer. Point out to the customer service department all of the reasons you wish to end services with them. -
Random vs Planned Customer Service Experience
13 May 2013 | 4:03 amEvery customer service experience action should serve a purpose in the overall customer service experience you want to deliver. The idea that your customer service experience actions should have a purpose suggests that it requires real planning in order to deliver the type of customer experience that makes a difference to your customers. Many people are often surprised to learn that I often recommend creating enough freedom in your customer service experience plan to allow for random acts of service to take place. Most often it’s these random moments of customer service that makes the… -
Avoid Charging Your Customers New Card Processing Fees
9 May 2013 | 9:41 amCustomers don’t take well to change—particularly price change. Credit card processing companies in January assigned merchants a new transaction fee after previous restrictions resulting from a 2012 lawsuit had lifted. Large retailers won a $7.25 billion settlement over credit card companies Visa and Mastercard and several large banks, according to CNN.com, forcing them to reduce “swipe fees.” That grace period has lifted, however, and swipe fees are back. Credit card companies can now charge merchants 1.5 to 4 percent fee for each transaction. As part of the agreement,…
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Specialty Answering Service
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PayPal: Why Aren’t You Offering It
1 May 2013 | 11:08 amThe Internet is rife with tales of people being victimized by one variety or another of email scheme. If you haven’t received the ‘I need your bank account information’ email, then you most likely don’t have email, a computer, a blender, or a microwave. Have You Received The: 1,000,000,000 Winner in the UK Lottery email: [...] -
Infographic Explaining The Voder: The First Voice Synthesizer
19 Apr 2013 | 8:19 amThere is no question that making your computer talk is pretty cool. It’s cool for the kid making a prank phone call all the way up to the executive using it in a text to speech capacity to read their emails aloud. From a call center perspective, it’s cool because talking computers, or voice synthesizers, [...] -
Can Social Media Be Your Virtual Call Center
16 Apr 2013 | 8:49 amCall center technology used to revolve around a cubicle, a telephone queue system and a script. Pretty simple. Walk into one of those call centers and you’d hear phones ring endlessly. Thanks to the advent of cyberspace, social media and the cloud, the concept of the virtual call center has dramatically evolved. How Has Social [...] -
Specialty Answering Service’s FTC Robocall Challenge Entry
11 Apr 2013 | 1:33 pmWhen the FTC announced a $50,000 prize last October for the best proposal to block robocalls, we were thrilled! We welcome any opportunity to stop automation in favor of live operator interaction; plus we love a good challenge! Figuring out how to stop robocalls wasn’t easy. Our telecommunications engineers dropped everything and worked feverishly night [...] -
SAS Celebrates the 40th Birthday of the First Cell Phone Call
8 Apr 2013 | 12:18 pmWe couldn’t let the 40th anniversary of the first cell phone call go by without a graphical homage to the greatest advancement in communications technology since Alexander Graham Bell made ‘two cups and a string’ obsolete. Much like Zack Morris from ‘Saved by the Bell’, we love the cell phone. Without it, we couldn’t dispatch [...]
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Customers That Stick
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5 Empowering Questions to Create a Customer Service Mindset
20 May 2013 | 5:00 amOne concept in self-development that I learned from motivational speaker Tony Robbins is the concept of asking the right questions. The concept, brilliant in its simplicity, is that the questions you ask yourself frame the responses you will eventually provide yourself. If you ask yourself why does this keep happening to me then your brain is going to provide you an answer to that question — and the answer will most likely not be one that empowers you. If you ask instead what can I do better next time or what can I learn from this experience, your brain will find an answer for that too,… -
5 Small Business Lessons from the Kitchen Nightmares Meltdown
16 May 2013 | 7:57 amIf you have not seen the greatest Facebook brand implosion in history, then congratulations, you must have been off the grid for the past few days. It began with an episode of Kitchen Nightmares so indescribable that you have to see it to believe it. The short version is this: Amy and Samy Bouzaglo, owners of Amy’s Baking Company (ABC) in Scottsdale, Arizona were featured on the “reality” show Kitchen Nightmares. During the show, the couple demonstrated a pattern of behavior so hostile, a work environment so toxic, that Chef Gordon Ramsay, for the first time in the history of the… -
Inside Customer Service: Jayme Soulati Live!
13 May 2013 | 5:22 amWe are pleased to present our next installment in the Inside Customer Service video series: Jayme Soulati of Soulati Media. I was able to catch up with Jayme back in April at Social Slam, and she was kind enough to give us our first “live” interview. Jayme has been interviewed here before (see How Great Marketing Can Create Bad Customer Service), and she delivered once again. We might not do a blog post for each installment in the Inside Customer Service series, but Jayme’s video is special because she just released her first book Writing with Verve on the Blogging Journey. -
Social Media Is a Channel Not a Strategy
6 May 2013 | 5:00 amFads. Trends. Bubbles. Management is almost as susceptible to “what’s hot” as fashion and entertainment. In 1982 we were all in search of excellence. In 1998, we were all wondering who moved our cheese. And in 2001, we were all trying to go from good to great. It is easy to get carried away with the hot thing of the moment, even easier to lose focus on basic principles. Of course, in customer service (like in many other disciplines), the hot thing for the past few years has been social media. Social Customer Service Comes Online Social customer service is the most… -
Monthly Mash and the Right Demeanor
2 May 2013 | 8:01 amWelcome to the Monthly Mash, a mashup of tools, tales and tips on customer service and the customer experience from around the blogosphere. Volume 18: April 2012 Thoughts on the Customer: Does Your Team Project the Right Demeanor? On a flight this past weekend, the pilot came over the speaker system and told the passengers, “Please return to your seat and fasten your seat belts.” We had just encountered minor turbulence, but the pilot’s voice was excitable, as if we were about to fly into The Perfect Storm. It could have been stress or frustration, but he sounded almost…
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andyhanselman.com
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Andy’s 3D Thoughts 20th May
20 May 2013 | 12:15 amHere are this week’s 3D Thoughts! It’s 3 iDeas in around 3 minutes! No need to download anything! Just click on the icon below, listen and then DO something! Don’t forget, so you never miss one again (and so you can listen when and where you want!), then subscribe via iTunes here. listen to ‘Andy’s 3D Thoughts 20/05/13’ on Audioboo Links: Pleasepress1.com – The Answer To All Your Call Centre Frustrations! Hubspot: Compromising On Culture Is Like Mortgaging The Future! Don’t Just Think ‘Word Of Mouth’, think ‘Word Of Mouse’! Bookmarks: -
Don’t Just Think ‘Word Of Mouth’, Think ‘Word Of Mouse’!
20 May 2013 | 12:11 amWant evidence that social media is becoming more and more of an influence on customer buying decisions? Well, how about this? 46% of consumers said they now count on social media when making an online purchasing decision! Interestingly, more and more of them are letting others know what they think too! 35% of customers use social media to vent about bad customer service and this rises to 55% of under 35s! The new research from YouGov highlights the increasing power of ‘word of mouse’ and the fact that more and more consumers are listening to, and looking at what other customers… -
Pleasepress1.com! The Answer To All Your Call Centre Frustrations!
19 May 2013 | 2:09 pmFor customer service, press 1….. for sales, press 2….. for queries about your invoice, press 3…… to wait endlessly and hear inane drivel on the phone, or worse crap music, with someone saying ‘your call is important to us’ every two minutes just keep pressing buttons until we get around to speaking to you or you lose interest…. Have you ever experienced that? Well, fret no more, your phone frustrations and worries may well be over. Your prayers have been answered by a guy called Nigel Clarke who has set up an innovative new website called… -
Hubspot: ‘Compromising On Culture Is Mortgaging The Future’!
17 May 2013 | 6:19 am“You’re going to have a culture anyway. You can and should influence it – so why not build the one you love?” Those are the words of Dharmesh Shah, the co-founder of of HubSpot. Like many businesses, culture wasn’t always something that they focused on: “In the early years of HubSpot we didn’t talk about culture at all,” he explains on Inc.com but then he started working intensely on building and developing the culture of his business that focuses on customer delight, and it clearly seems to be working – the inbound marketing… -
Andy’s 3D Thoughts 13th May
13 May 2013 | 1:30 amHere are this week’s 3D Thoughts! It’s 3 iDeas in around 3 minutes! No need to download anything! Just click on the icon below, listen and then DO something! Don’t forget, so you never miss one again (and so you can listen when and where you want!), then subscribe via iTunes here. listen to ‘Andy’s 3D Thoughts 13/05/13’ on Audioboo Links: Are You Irritating Your Colleagues? Making The Customer Experience Through Mass Personalisation! Sir Richard Branson Demonstrates His Dramatic Difference! Bookmarks:
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UserVoice Product Blog
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Bigcommerce’s custom-designed UserVoice site shows the power of our customization features
25 Apr 2013 | 8:00 amUserVoice’s customization features mean you can make our platform look however you want. We’ve seen a lot of great designs, but I wanted to briefly highlight Bigcommerce’s truly excellent custom designed UserVoice portal. Let’s unpack what they’ve done, shall we? Custom HTML Header Nav: Using our Custom HTML feature, Bigcommerce makes you feel like you haven’t even left their site. After all, there’s the navigation, right there! Bonus: they use a curved image at the bottom of the Header to make it look like the Ideas section appears to have a nice curve along the top. -
Congratulations to our Summit Award winners!
15 Apr 2013 | 11:55 amUserVoice Summit featured fantastic talks about how companies like Bing Ads and Launchrock make the most of our product. We even took the stage for a little bit to announce Touchpoint Toolkit and an integration with Pardot. But it wasn’t an event just about us. We wanted to take time to give kudos to some awesome companies that have proven that they are focused on delighting & listening to their users. There are lots of deserving companies, but we wanted to call out the following five UserVoice customers for their particular awesomeness: Excellence in Instant Answers Rate… -
Improvements to emailed ticket notifications
11 Apr 2013 | 8:16 amI mentioned in a UserCentered blog post the other day that sometimes acting on customer feedback gets delayed while a big project is the focus. Now that we’re done with the first phase of the huge project that was Touchpoint Toolkit, we’re diving back into your feedback. Our first target? Emails. You’ve been telling us for a while that our ticket notifications for agents are a little lacking. They don’t show the full ticket history, lack or obscure some important data, and they’re, frankly, a little boring. The new notifications beat up the old notifications and sent them crying… -
UserVoice Summit 2013: Touchpoint Toolkit, Pardot integration, & CoSupport partnership
5 Apr 2013 | 3:23 pmLast month we hosted the first-ever UserVoice Summit in San Francisco. While I suspect most people were focused on my enviable MC-ing skills, the event was designed to highlight the evolution of our customer engagement tools and to help companies get even better at retaining customers. As you probably know by now, the biggest thing we announced is Touchpoint Toolkit – a suite of new, addicting engagement tools that lets you: Extend meaningful user interaction throughout the user lifecycle. Imagine 34X more users engage through the new SmartVote™ feature than traditional forums. -
Slight email delays due to mail provider, permanent fix in place
3 Apr 2013 | 11:59 amWe had another hour of delayed ticket emails on Tuesday morning due to some overloading of our email provider. Thankfully they were already working on solutions for our heavy traffic and have implemented a change which should completely avoid these issues in the future. -Evan Hamilton Head of Community, UserVoice
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CUSTOMER+LEADERSHIP BLOG
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Can Insight into the Human Condition Help Us With Leadership, Employee Engagement, and Customer Experience?
20 May 2013 | 2:47 pmIt occurs to me that“outside in” is being approached with an “inside-out” way of being in the world And the people that are doing this are blind to it. What do I mean by that? It is best to illustrate it through behaviour. As such I urge you to read this post by Wim Rampen that points at the gulf between customer-centric rhetoric and company centred behaviour. Why is it that so many are doing “outside-in” through an “inside-out” lens. And are blind to it? Why is it that so many talk about employee engagement and collaboration and yet… -
Change Only Works When…..
16 May 2013 | 11:33 amThe shift towards an authentic customer-centred orientation is a huge shift for just about every large organisation. That means organisational change. At the heart of all effective organisational change lies effective communication. Effective communication is radically different, I say distinct, from what passes for communication in the workplace. If you are going to make the kind of organisational shifts that are necessary to cultivate customer relationships, call forth the best from your employees, and excel at the customer experience game, then I advise you to listen to the wise words… -
Why Stop at Satisfaction When You Can Generate Happiness and Gratitude?
14 May 2013 | 11:56 pmAre you present to the big difference between a satisfied customer and a happy-grateful one? There is a satisfied customer. There is a happy customer. And there is a happy-grateful customer. Too often we are not present to these distinctions. You and I can create satisfied customers simply by taking care of the functional aspects of the customer experience. To create a happy and grateful customer requires the human touch that evokes positive, life affirming emotions. And, I say that the human touch makes all the difference when it comes to repeat business and customer advocacy in a… -
At Your Service and With My Love
11 May 2013 | 1:23 amThis is personal post and a philosophical one. If you consider yourself a hard-headed business type focussed on the bottom line, nothing but the bottom line, then I suggest that you stop reading now. If you are open minded then it is possible that this post will find a listening in you. Let’s start. Shopping with my mother My mother is elderly. She finds it hard to get up, she finds it hard to move about, she finds it exhausting to go up stairs, she has to be careful coming down the stairs…. She needs help buying the weekly groceries. This week, I was with my mother for a… -
Customer Experience: How to Delight and Disappoint a Customer
9 May 2013 | 2:48 pmIf you are regular reader of this blog you may remember that I set-up a business bank account with Barclays Bank and shared my experience: Barclays Bank: what are the customer experience folks up to? Barclays Bank: what are the customer experience folks up to? (part II) If you read those posts and come away thinking that my experience was one of disappointment then you’d be correct. So where do I stand today with regards to Barclays Bank? Barclays Bank: a customer experience that leaves me delighted and grateful Recently, I changed the name of my consulting company to Bold Intent. …
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Call Center Outsourcing | Virtual Assistant Services
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Virtual Assistants: Why Office Based?
2 May 2013 | 7:17 pmDo you own a business – big or small, run a business, know someone who has a business, or do you plan to start a business?If you answer YES to these questions, this article may help you revolutionize your business or the business that you are planning to start.Owning or running a business is no joke. You will be dealing with tons of work such as answering phone calls, checking e-mails, accounting, and other administrative tasks.But the good news is there are also tons of ways to help you manage the admin work. Perhaps the most conventional way is to hire someone to do all of those.But wait. -
The 4 Types of Call Answering Service
11 Mar 2013 | 11:46 pmAn answering service is one of the most effective tools in delivering customer satisfaction nowadays. It is widely used by professionals and companies to efficiently address their customers’ concerns.Not all answering services are the same. They come in many types, each having a different characteristic that would make it fit for the type of business it is intended to be used. Thus, each type of answering service should be studied and compared to the needs of a company.Here are the four (4) types of answering service and their specific characteristics:1. Automated Answering Service. This… -
The Disadvantages of Home-Based Virtual Assistant Services
23 Jan 2013 | 7:03 pmWhether you are a professional seeking secretarial assistance at a lesser cost or a small company that can’t afford to hire an actual employee to answer the calls from customers, getting a home-based answering service to do the job would seem to be the right thing to do.Acquiring a VoIP service provider that works home-based will help professionals or any small businesses to forgo the expense of hiring and keeping an employee. Home-based professionals do not require the worry and expense of implementing employee policies and benefits. Now these advantages might sound good enough for you to… -
How Answering Service Came to Life
11 Oct 2012 | 12:01 amFor the remaining days of her life, someone bedridden had a simple idea that turned into a legacy for her children, a business for some people, and a worthy service for the rest of the world. In 1923, a bedridden woman named Margaret Smith realized she could still make money by taking calls for busy doctors from her bed. She might not be able to move much but she can still talk and use her mind. From there, she started her own company, Mrs. Smith’s Doctor’s Exchange. The company was under her supervision for two years, until her death.Seeing the feasibility of the business, her children… -
Is It Time To Have a Virtual Assistant
26 Sep 2012 | 10:26 pmAre you wondering why your colleague can finish all the tasks and still has time to enjoy a good eight to ten hours of sleep? While here you are, cramming with all your business’ paperwork and emails at the wee hours of the night.The sound of hiring someone to fill the position of doing administrative tasks like answering your calls, checking the email, accounting, etc., worries you about the expense of letting another person in to your company, tagging along company responsibilities like employee benefits and other needed actions for employee retention.Worry no more about these issues that…
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Service Strategies
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Conversations That Get Results and Inspire Collaboration
6 May 2013 | 12:17 pmJoin us on Thursday, May 16th at 10:00 AM Pacific for this complimentary, experienced based one-hour webinar hosted by Service Strategies. What is the key to business success? COLLABORATION. In this interactive webinar, author and executive coach Shawn Kent Hayashi will discuss the principles outlined in her latest book "Conversations That Get Results and Inspire Collaboration." Shawn will highlight best practices for engaging leaders, peers, and employees to build momentum toward success. -
Service Industry Summit – Asia Pacific
1 Apr 2013 | 12:37 pmJoin Service Strategies for the Service Industry Summit - Asia Pacific, on May 21 - 22 in Sydney, Australia. The event theme is Perspectives on Global Technology Services. Learn from industry leading service organizations, share best practices and discuss the latest issues and trends critical to your business. -
Teradata Customer Service Global Support Center Recognized for Delivery of Exceptional Technology Support
5 Mar 2013 | 12:43 pmSAN DIEGO—June 20, 2012—For the third year in a row, content security leader Websense has been recognized for excellent customer service and support, by attaining certification under the prestigious Service Capability & Performance (SCP) Standards. The results are based on an extensive third-party on-site audit of worldwide support centers. The SCP Standards define a stringent set of performance criteria that quantify the effectiveness of customer service and support and represent the global benchmark of service excellence. -
Google+ Debate – Is Customer Service the New Marketing?
22 Jan 2013 | 11:10 amIs customer service the new marketing? This question isn’t just about the increasing importance of social media and customer reviews, or rising consumer disenchantment with traditional marketing. For some, it’s about making the decision between long-term reputation and short-term profit. This topic was at the center of a recent Google+ Debate hosted by research firm Software Advice. -
Service Strategies and the Business Technology Association Announce Field Service Foundations Workshop
17 Dec 2012 | 11:35 amService Strategies in partnership with the Business Technology Association (BTA), a not-for-profit trade association serving independent dealers, value-added resellers, systems integrators, manufacturers and distributors in the business equipment and systems industry, announced the launch of a new educational workshop that will provide technology service professionals the guidance and tools they need to manage a highly successful field service operation. The class will make its debut on Feb. 6-8 as the front-runner workshop to the Winter Break event, to be hosted by BTA Southeast on Feb. 8-9…
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Podcast Transcription + so much more - DoneItNow
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A change of Government looming?
20 May 2013 | 12:34 amDo people think it’s going to be good or bad? Inevitable? Or will Labor pull through? What does everyone think? It’s going to be a cracker of an Australian Federal Election, that’s for sure. It’s not going to affect the transcription industry (at least we don’t think it will; not too much, anyway). So, yeah, what does everyone think? Matt -
How to Record High Quality Audio for a High Quality Transcription
30 Apr 2013 | 10:22 pmYou may be recording one-on-one interviews, or a conference with people shouting and screaming over the top of each other, or a small meeting with a bit of ambient, not-too-drastic noise. Whatever the case may be, your aim should be to record it to the highest possible quality. When we are given high-quality audio, we can: 1) Guarantee the turnarounds (if the audio is under 1 hour long) 2) Guarantee 98% accuracy (usually higher) 3) Enjoy working on your audio a lot more as our ears aren’t bleeding! (JOKING) Some of our customers recommend using a Rode NTG3 shotgun mic into a Tascam… -
An Online Transcription Service’s Philosophy on Customer Service
17 Apr 2013 | 9:53 pmAs an online audio transcription service, the way we interact with customers is integral to our business and directly related to how many customers want to come back . Our philosophy is: 1. We respond to emails ASAP. Some companies and some people may not respond to an email for a few days, or a few hours, because they need to research the topic or ask their colleagues. In their reply they may say, “Sorry for the delay but I was looking into this, etc. etc.” There is nothing wrong with that! But we personally don’t like that . We believe in emailing straight away… -
Things We’ve Learned About Market Research Transcription
16 Apr 2013 | 10:16 pmWhen it comes to market research and focus group transcription, we have learned a lot over the past year about how to handle it best! 1. Firstly, fantastic transcribers are needed for the initial transcript. They need to be proactive about researching any terms or definitions. 2. Editing – thorough and careful – is vital. 3. Quality assurance. When dealing with multiple speakers, cross-talk, accents, mumbling and industry-specific jargon, it’s perfectly normal for some errors to slip under the radar. QA aims to pick up these errors in a careful reading of the… -
New QA procedures
15 Apr 2013 | 6:18 amHey everyone! Matt and I are really excited to introduce a new QA process. QA is quality assurance and, essentially, means all edits are in turn edited. 1. You securely upload your order 2. Transcription begins through our amazing team of transcribers 3. Finished transcripts are comprehensively edited by one of our DoneItNow native English editors 4. Finished edits are proofread once more for accuracy, spelling, grammar, punctuation and formatting 5. Before they are sent to our customers, I (Riley) spot check the transcript to quadruple-check quality 6. If customers ever have issues…
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Customer 3D™
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Customer 3D Book
30 Apr 2013 | 10:39 amThe post Customer 3D Book appeared first on . -
Evidence
30 Apr 2013 | 10:38 amThe post Evidence appeared first on . -
Progress Happens
30 Apr 2013 | 10:31 amThe post Progress Happens appeared first on . -
Whats Next
30 Apr 2013 | 10:30 amThe post Whats Next appeared first on . -
Be an Original
30 Apr 2013 | 10:29 amThe post Be an Original appeared first on .
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Customers That Stick
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5 Empowering Questions to Create a Customer Service Mindset
20 May 2013 | 5:00 amOne concept in self-development that I learned from motivational speaker Tony Robbins is the concept of asking the right questions. The concept, brilliant in its simplicity, is that the questions you ask yourself frame the responses you will eventually provide yourself. If you ask yourself why does this keep happening to me then your brain is going to provide you an answer to that question — and the answer will most likely not be one that empowers you. If you ask instead what can I do better next time or what can I learn from this experience, your brain will find an answer for that too,… -
5 Small Business Lessons from the Kitchen Nightmares Meltdown
16 May 2013 | 7:57 amIf you have not seen the greatest Facebook brand implosion in history, then congratulations, you must have been off the grid for the past few days. It began with an episode of Kitchen Nightmares so indescribable that you have to see it to believe it. The short version is this: Amy and Samy Bouzaglo, owners of Amy’s Baking Company (ABC) in Scottsdale, Arizona were featured on the “reality” show Kitchen Nightmares. During the show, the couple demonstrated a pattern of behavior so hostile, a work environment so toxic, that Chef Gordon Ramsay, for the first time in the history of the… -
Inside Customer Service: Jayme Soulati Live!
13 May 2013 | 5:22 amWe are pleased to present our next installment in the Inside Customer Service video series: Jayme Soulati of Soulati Media. I was able to catch up with Jayme back in April at Social Slam, and she was kind enough to give us our first “live” interview. Jayme has been interviewed here before (see How Great Marketing Can Create Bad Customer Service), and she delivered once again. We might not do a blog post for each installment in the Inside Customer Service series, but Jayme’s video is special because she just released her first book Writing with Verve on the Blogging Journey. -
Social Media Is a Channel Not a Strategy
6 May 2013 | 5:00 amFads. Trends. Bubbles. Management is almost as susceptible to “what’s hot” as fashion and entertainment. In 1982 we were all in search of excellence. In 1998, we were all wondering who moved our cheese. And in 2001, we were all trying to go from good to great. It is easy to get carried away with the hot thing of the moment, even easier to lose focus on basic principles. Of course, in customer service (like in many other disciplines), the hot thing for the past few years has been social media. Social Customer Service Comes Online Social customer service is the most… -
Monthly Mash and the Right Demeanor
2 May 2013 | 8:01 amWelcome to the Monthly Mash, a mashup of tools, tales and tips on customer service and the customer experience from around the blogosphere. Volume 18: April 2012 Thoughts on the Customer: Does Your Team Project the Right Demeanor? On a flight this past weekend, the pilot came over the speaker system and told the passengers, “Please return to your seat and fasten your seat belts.” We had just encountered minor turbulence, but the pilot’s voice was excitable, as if we were about to fly into The Perfect Storm. It could have been stress or frustration, but he sounded almost…
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The Connection
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“BtoB Email Research Report: Data, content drive email marketing” brought to you by BtoBonline.com
17 May 2013 | 4:00 amIn an article from BtoBonline.com, a BtoB study has shown that email is still a very reliable form of marketing. According to the article by Charlotte Woolard, the report, “Email Marketing: An Established Channel Evolves,” found that respondents expected email to help businesses engage with existing customers, nurture leads and acquire new customers. Its success hinges on investments in content and data, rapidly evolving areas that marketers cited as top concerns for their programs.“ In addition to these findings, the report also found that marketers prefer to use lists they compile,… -
Offering Support at All Hours
15 May 2013 | 4:00 amAs a doctor or surgeon you have your hands full with daily tasks around the hospital. You never know when something is going to come up and you often don’t have the time to get to every patient’s call while working. Still, you want your patient to be heard and you want to provide the ordinary services that your patient expects such as appointment setting, acquisition, crisis management, interactive voice response, and round-the-clock patient support. Below is one solution to this problem. The Solution One solution to not having enough time to field every patient call is by using a… -
How Health Care Uses Call Centers
13 May 2013 | 4:00 amCall centers are known to be used for outsourcing day-to-day tasks in an office environment, but did you know that there are healthcare call centers? At healthcare call centers, trained agents are ready to handle ordinary tasks as well as crisis situations that may arise at your hospital or health insurance company. If you have a recall situation for instance, the call center can take whatever volume of calls you may be receiving and agents will dispense the appropriate needed information. The Purposes There are many different reasons why a healthcare company or hospital could benefit from… -
“Report Shines New Light on Key Factors Affecting Customer Management” Brought to You By TMCnet
10 May 2013 | 4:00 amDan Goodwin, practice director of customer interactive solutions at Dimension Data, a global IT service and solution provider, released its 15th annual Global Contact Center Benchmarking Report called “Transforming Customer Management,” which looked at survey results 637 companies from 72 countries. According to the TMCnet article written by Goodwin, the report covers six key areas: “strategy and development, operations, customer interaction management, self-service, workforce optimization and technology.” Findings from the report could benefit many different industries, including… -
Common Call Center Questions
8 May 2013 | 4:00 amSo your business has just partnered with a call center. This might mean your business has experienced growth in customers or sales recently, and that’s an exciting time. There are so many benefits to partnering with call center services. For instance, you can now focus on your business’s core activities, and your business is being saved a lot of money by outsourcing, allowing you to invest that extra money in your business. Still, you want to make sure you and your partner are on the same page. Read below on some common questions people have about call centers. Call Center Information…
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UserCentered » Blog
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Mathew Patterson talks about what you do when things go wrong
22 May 2013 | 8:00 amI was skeptical of Mathew Patterson when he first showed up at UserConf 2012. What kind of man has one “t” in his first name and two in his last? Turns out, it’s the sort of man who’s very good at customer service and very likable. He could have easily spent his timeslot speaking about how great he is at customer service, but instead he spoke about outages, major issues, and one particular traumatizing experience he had. Basically, Mathew covers the entirety of what we’re discussing this month. This is a must-watch. Liked this video? Join us at the next UserConf! -
The three places you should communicate outages & issues
18 May 2013 | 8:00 amCarter already told you that it’s crucial to communicate about your issues. But where do you communicate? This is something you need to figure out in advance because emotions will be high when your crisis is occurring, and you don’t want to be debating the merits of tweeting outages. 0. Support Tickets I would hope this goes without saying, but respond to any support tickets you have gotten about an issue! 1. Social Media The first place many folks are going to go during an issue is social media. If you’re lucky, they’ll check your profile first (many will just start complaining). If… -
MailChimp shows how you manage change
17 May 2013 | 9:18 amJust yesterday we posted about how it’s essential to communicate clearly with users about changes, even if you see them as improvements. MailChimp (who just spoke at UserConf) is doing an amazing job handling change at this very moment. The email newsletter company is about to launch a major revamp of their product…changes that affect every single page. They’re all improvements, and it sounds like they’re amazing. But MailChimp knows better. People fear change, are creatures of habit, and don’t always see the bright side. So MailChimp’s gone out of their… -
Why communicate changes?
15 May 2013 | 8:00 amI all-too-frequently hear: “we don’t need to tell people about these changes to the product, let’s just launch them.” No. Stop. People fear change. It’s just part of human nature. There’s a common misconception, especially amongst creators, that if you are (or think you are) making something better then of course people will gladly accept your changes. This is wrong. I used Facebook early in it’s existence, when it was only available to college students. When I first started using it, it was just profile pages. You went to someone’s page to see what they were… -
Please tweet about your outages (before you drive me crazy)
14 May 2013 | 10:13 am“Accountability and responsibility.” My dad repeated this to me ad nauseum from the time I could speak until, well, still. No matter what I did I had to be accountable for my promises and responsible for my actions and their consequences. Being responsible for those consequences was easy when I did something good, but pretty challenging when I screwed up. In my house it was always understood that missteps happen to everyone, but we had be honest about them when they occurred. I hold companies to the same standard my dad held me to. For instance, if a company webpage goes down, I expect…
