The concept of customer effort first began gaining traction back in 2010 when team members from The Corporate Executive Board Company (CEB) published an article in the Harvard Business Review entitled Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers. Since that time, CEB has expanded its research into the relationship between customer effort and customer loyalty. Much …

The Effortless Experience: An Interview with Matt Dixon, Part 1 Read More »

The folks at Zopim sent us this helpful SlideShare presentation on mastering the art of live chat. As more and more transactions are performed online, live chat is becoming an increasingly important part of the customer experience. What is interesting about this slide desk is how little technology changes the basics of good customer service. …

Tips For Effective Live Chat Read More »

The time for this free webinar has passed. If you are interested in having this webinar presented to your group or organization, please contact us here. If you want to learn more about the 7 Service Triggers, pick up a copy of Be Your Customer’s Hero. The 7 Service Triggers are covered in depth in …

A Free #CustServ Webinar: Mastering The 7 Service Triggers Read More »

Often in retail, you will approach a customer to offer assistance and be given some version of the browsing response. “I’m just browsing.” “Just looking.” “Just killing time.” Generally, when you are confronted with the browsing response, it means one of three things: The customer really is just browsing. The customer does not want to …

How to Handle “I’m Just Browsing” Read More »

Consulting is an important mechanism for business process improvement and engaging an outside perspective can breathe new life into stagnant areas of your business. In fact, a good customer experience consultant can help your organization walk through your entire customer experience and identify the essential touchpoints that define your customer’s experience with your organization. Yet, …

33 Ways to Tap Into Your Internal Consultants Read More »

Working in customer service can be challenging. It’s easy for the daily grind to wear away at teams — routines grow stale, enthusiasm wanes. Keeping your team engaged so that they are motivated to provide consistently great service to your customers is an essential part of managing a customer facing organization. Below are 6 ways …

6 Can’t Miss Ways to Reinvigorate Your Customer Service Team Read More »

When my friend Shonali Burke of the public relations firm Shonali Burke Consulting first sent me an advanced copy of Robert Scoble and Shel Israel’s new book Age of Context, I had two thoughts. My first thought was what an interesting topic. My second thought was how will I have time to read it; I …

Age of Context, Future of Experience Read More »

We are pleased to present our next installment in the Inside Customer Service video series with Jeannie Walters. Jeannie is the Chief Customer Experience Investigator™ and founder of 360Connext, a Chicago-based consulting firm specializing in the cornerstones of customer experience: customer engagement, employee engagement and connections like social media. In addition to writing and consulting, …

Inside Customer Service: Jeannie Walters Read More »

A few weeks ago I was caught in a tug of war between two large multinational banks — My Bank and my general contractor’s bank, Receiving Bank. I had written a check to pay my general contractor for a retail buildout. Since it was for a construction job, the check was fairly large. (The landlord …

Your Service Is Only as Good as Your Systems Read More »