Let’s get this straight. Customers do not buy products, they buy what products help them do. Thus, the goal for businesses is to determine what it is they help people do and then proceed to help them do it in the best way possible. This means there is more to business than just selling a … Continue reading Do you know what game your business is playing? Is it the sell game or the serve game? Knowing determines everything.

Businesses send messages to customers all the time. Sometimes they are intended and sometimes not. I was getting some work done on my car and had to use the restroom. I walked in and …AAAHHHH!!! It was like a dingy truck stop in the middle of nowhere. But I couldn’t wait. Business had to be … Continue reading What message do your restrooms send?

“Customer satisfaction is the biggest driver of customer retention.” I saw this the other day as the subject in an email and had to ask, “Is this news to anybody?” This kind of thing always surprises me. How can things that are so obvious be such eye-opening news? It seems the customer experience movement gets … Continue reading C’mon business leaders, do you really need proof of the obvious? CX matters.

What do you do with a difficult customer? How do you deal with that jerk who seems intent on making life hard? This is one of the most challenging things for customer-facing employees to deal with and one of the most problematic situations for managers to try and remedy. You will hear all kinds of … Continue reading What do you do with difficult customers? The answer is more, not less.

I recently saw a list of “Six ROI-Friendly Goals for Customer Experience Initiatives” that contained the following: Improve customer acquisition Up-sell, cross-sell or increase purchase frequency Increase retention, active usage, or share of wallet Increase pricing power Generate awareness Reduce costs To most people, these might seem innocuous and perfectly reasonable business goals, however, I … Continue reading There’s more to ROI than how it serves you, and taking that view can help you.

In the 2015 movie, Steve Jobs, there is a scene where Steve Wozniak asks Jobs, “What did you do? You can’t write code; you’re not an engineer, you’re not a designer. You can’t put a hammer to a nail… What do you do?” Jobs’ reply? “I play the orchestra.” This simple dialogue struck a chord … Continue reading Orchestra conductors don’t make any music. A valuable lesson for all leaders.

Dealing with people who are difficult is one of the supreme challenges we all face. No one likes conflict. This may sound odd when you look around and see so much negativity these days, but I have only seen a tiny number of people who look like they enjoy conflict, and I am dubious about … Continue reading How to calmly deal with difficult people.

“Customer service is the business function responsible for fixing what’s broken.” I couldn’t disagree more. Let me begin with a tiny rant. I hate it when service automatically becomes customer service. I define service as helping people. And because of that, I see service as much greater than customer service. We don’t just serve customers; … Continue reading Why thinking of service as problem solving is a bad idea.

As I have written before, if you are aware that the age of experience is upon us, you know your organization needs to focus on service excellence or find itself well behind industry leaders. Perhaps you have built a small band of like-minded individuals and are now ready to grow this band into an orchestra, … Continue reading Inspiring Management to Care About Service

When I was a schoolteacher, I had a particular student who, while talented, acted out a lot. He was loud and belligerent. He was difficult to keep on task and had a hard time seeing the value and need for learning certain things. Long story short, he was a challenge. A lot of my questions … Continue reading What is modeled gets copied. Yet another leadership responsibility.