Customer Service Failures: From Hello to Hell No!
After this festive season, we are ready to get on with the new year. Despite our usual good intentions ‘I want to be more friendly, helpful or patient’, our daily routine soon brings our feet back on the ground. That will surely happen when you need to get in touch with the customer service of…
How To Use Digital Customer Service To Make Business Alliances
‘Tool’ is definitely one the most frequently used terms in Digital Customer Service. But it is overvalued. Actually it’s just part of the solution. In fact, even though tools are very important, they are not enough to deliver excellent and consistent customer experiences. The other missing ingredient? People soft skills, meaning those who daily interact…
What Will You Do When Your Customer Screws Up?
Nobody’s perfect – neither you nor your customers. In fact, sometimes even the most admired brands make customer service mistakes. But they typically have the ability to turn such pitfalls into great customer experiences. In this article though I’m going to focus on the other side of the coin: helping you fix issues that you…
Win the B2B Race with These 3 Customer Experience Masterstrokes
When we think customer experience, we typically picture beautiful, well-laid-out stores, a clean and easy to navigate website, and helpful customer service. Retail, largely. But customer experience matters just as much, if not more, in a B2B setting. When you deal directly with businesses, instead of individual consumers, you soon realize that more than anything…
3 Common Customer Service Sins To Get Rid Of
Last Monday I had an interesting conversation with Paul, an English colleague of mine. As we are both 100% customer service focussed, we usually talk about this topic. But this time, we did so in a different way, asking each other: ‘what’s the biggest customer service pain point in your local market?’ This simple question…
Don’t Let Constraints Kill Customer Service
“I wish I could, but unfortunately I can’t…”. That’s the typical sentence that expresses a sense of frustration. Did you ever utter these words? Well, in the past I did it more than once. Today I hear many people saying similar things – whether they refer to their life or their jobs. As a consultant, I…
5 Customer Service Trends You Shouldn’t Miss
Yesterday, I asked Milan Malpensa airport for some information because my mom will travel soon and needs special assistance. As I wanted a quick response, I used Twitter because they provide support thru the account @MiAirports. I have to say that it was great! In just 6 minutes I got their answer avoiding any ‘waiting…
The 3 Most Important Things to Outsource in an Online Business
If you’ve recently launched an eCommerce business, or are thinking of doing so, you’ve probably heard something along the lines of: “One of the best things about running an online business is the freedom it provides.” Running a virtual company does offer more freedom and flexibility than a traditional company might. There is no physical…
What Your Website Imagery Is Really Saying About Your Business
First impressions count. And when it comes to web design, you’ve got a matter of moments to make that impression stick. Either that or your new visitor will be just one more increment on your bounce metric. In general, when someone visits a website for the first time, they make their initial evaluation based almost…
The Story of a Schizophrenic Customer Experience
A couple of weeks ago, I got an SMS informing me that my Telco provider could not charge my bill because my credit card had expired. So I immediately activated a new one. All I had to do let my Telco know my new credit card details. Easy thing, uh? Well it should be! But…
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