Micah Solomon
Try This Radical Mindset Adjustment That Leads to Customer Service Excellence
The likelihood of customer service excellence becoming the norm at your company is increased not only via direct behavioral and procedural changes, but also by nurturing the correct mindset, a mindset that will allow you to grow ever closer to delivering the highest level...
A Delicious Example of Internal Customer Service: The ‘Ice Cream Airlift’ from Nextiva
When she heard the UPS truck coming up the driveway, she wasn’t sure what to expect. It was 108 degrees in Courtney's Arizona town, not far from where she works at Nextiva, a fast-growing provider of business communications and team collaboration software. The driveway...
Why Jerry Seinfeld Is A Customer Service Consultant
"We're craving the nondigital even more these days, the authentically human interaction," says Jerry Seinfeld, explaining (I would argue) not just live standup comedy's appeal but the appeal of almost any great customer experience. "We need to see some schmuck sweat." Authentic human interactions make...
Customer Service for Millennials: Building a Gen Y-Friendly Customer Experience
80 million Millennial generation customers (also known as Gen Y) are about to hit service providers with a wallet force larger than that of the baby boom. This is a disaster hurrying to happen. Businesses need to know how to provide the kind of customer…
Customer loyalty requires 5 steps
To build customer loyalty, start by making a decision: Are you willing to put the customer at the center of everything you do: at the center of your company or department, your daily routines, the way you hire, the way you design your webforms? Don't...
Is your customer experience something you’ve experienced (as a customer?)
If you haven't yourself experienced the customer experience at your business, is it really wise to invite an unsuspecting public in? Can you assume, with any confidence, that they will enjoy something you've never tried yourself? I'm always startled when businesses don't work at finding...
Great customer service employees are the product of
As a customer service consultant, I'll help a business transform in just about any positive way. But boy-oh-boy, it helps to start with good raw human material. Here's a lovely passage on what makes a great customer service employee. It's from Alain...
The retail customer experience: in banking, pharmacies and other locked-in-customer situations
To discuss why the retail customer experience matters, even when your customers are locked into buying from you, we need to back up a step or two: When you're a retailer, there are two possible commercial relationships you can have with your customers. Scenario 1:...
Panera’s hidden menu: restaurant customer service consulting from the customer’s point of view
Shhh–Don't tell anyone: Panera has a secret, "hidden" menu. Should your business have a secret menu? Well, maybe. QR -code magnet touts Panera hidden menu Like most things, this is worth looking at from the view of the customer. On the one hand, if your…
Improve your customer service: Give your business the rollaboard test
Here's a customer service consulting secret that won't cost you a penny, assuming you have some old luggage lying around. Give your business the rollaboard test. It's a simple test you can do with a single piece of rolling luggage. Let me explain. This morning,…
A customer service consultant walks into Louis CK
Customer service consulting can be intensive. Technical. Highly detail-involved. But sometimes, the simplest things tell the most. You don't need to burn the midnight fluorescents huddled over a spreadsheet to realize some of the issues that are dragging a company down in...
Customer Service initiatives, from Taco Bell to Charlie Trotter
A customer service initiative — whether it's formal and assisted by customer service consultants , informal , or anywhere in between — can reap significant rewards for a company in just about any industry. The goal, the highest level you can hope to accomplish...
Build an expert customer service problem resolution approach
An expert approach to customer service requires a well-defined process for problem resolution. Let's look at how to start setting up such a process. 1. Start by actively ''harvesting'' complaints. Yes, harvesting: Your company should have the same policy as Don Corleone in The Godfather...
The paradox that experts in customer service discover early on
There's a particular paradox that experts in customer service discover early on. (And by "expert in customer service" I mean to include anyone who takes to heart the day to day lessons available to us from those often delightful, often frustrating human beings we...
The most popular customer service consulting question ever?
"How should I compensate a customer for a service or product failure?" …This is one of the most common, popular, and emotionally fraught questions I encounter. (I can find myself answering it most any day in the course of customer service consulting and in...
How to apologize to customers without alienating employees
In customer service, the key to an effective apology is to convey to the customer at the outset that you're willing to take his side and share his viewpoint. And yet, when employees overhear a manager taking the customer's side, don't expect them to...
Social Media Customer Service: 5 Secrets You Need To Know
Business keynote speakers tend to run into the same questions over and over from nervous audiences facing new on and offline realities. For me, this recurring query goes something like this: "Micah, isn't it dangerous out there for my brand, my company, myself, in the...
A wee little customer service secret from the Ritz-Carlton
Most businesses have no idea — no idea! — the extent to which they can improve customer perceptions by getting the little things right. (You're likely doing the big things right, anyway–as, unfortunately, are your competitors–so the little things are where the opportunity...
Customer Service and Cultural Differences
Cultural differences can create particularly bad impressions when you interact with a customer from a different part of the world—or even a subculture within your own country. Why does this happen? Culture is the set of assumptions, traditions, and values a community develops over time....
Customer service through positive peer pressure
Let's talk about positive peer pressure for a minute: the double significance of every hiring decision in how customer service is provided at great companies — including, I hope, yours. One reason that your hiring decisions affect the treatment of customers is obvious: the direct...