How Can You Serve Your Customers “Where They Are” On Social Media, When They Are Everywhere?

When customers can be anywhere on the Internet, it makes no sense to “serve them where they are”, and it’s costly and wasteful. How Can You Serve Your Customers “Where They Are” On Social Media, When They Are Everywhere? Q: One of the exhortations I…

Why Blaming Doesn’t Work To Improve Customer Service – Never Ending Customer Service Interviews

Profound Difference Between Blaming, and Holding People Accountable For Mistakes Why Blaming Doesn’t Work To Improve Customer Service Q: I’ve seen your articles on eliminating blaming in the workplace, and I wonder whether that’s important if the goal is to improve customer service? Robert: Sadly,…

How companies are misled by their big data

Shotgun Approach To Understanding Customers Via “Big Data” Will Fail Companies Shotgun Analysis of Customers Via Big Data As Likely To Mislead As Help Q: We hear a lot about “big data” as a tool to help individual companies understand their customers. What do you think?…

Perfect Phrases For Customer Service – Preface Online

Perfect Phrases For Customer Service – Preface The following is the Preface from Perfect Phrases For Customer Service, by Robert Bacal (McGraw-Hill). For complete information about this groundbreaking book on customer service click here. From there you can browse excerpts and the Table of Contents. I want…

Obama’s Call For Improved Government Customer Service – A Fool’s Quest

Improving Customer Service For Government Q: Recently President Obama announced an initiative to improve the customer service offered to the taxpayers and citizens of the USA and asked that government departments submit their plans to achieve that end. What’s your take on it? Robert: On…

Interview: Voice Recognition, Customer Service and AI

How Good Does Voice Recognition/Artificial Intelligence Have To Be To Be Useful For Customer Service Next Big Thing In Customer Service? Voice Re cognition and Artificial Intelligence? Q: Since Watson’s successful debut on Jeopardy, there’s been a suggestion that computers can do natural language processing…

Survey Based Research On Customer Behavior and Use of Social Media Often Very Misleading

The really bad news about the “research” that informs us about the value of customer service and consumer behavior. Survey Based Research On Customer Behavior and Use of Social Media Often Very Misleading Q: You’ve commented that you believe the use of surveys in both…

Customer Service Training In Government – What Works, What’s Needed

Generic customer service training for government staff is looked on as a waste of time, and “out of touch”, by employees who are forced to attend. Customer Service Training In Government – What Works, What’s Needed Q: When we talked about the challenges government faces…