A few years ago in a Customer Experience study we asked customers to write about “memorable” experiences.
The responses were split about 50/50 positive and negative, and around 1/3 were related to customer service. In analyzing the text, we found the single most common word was “friendly.”
That’s why the infographic below caught my eye. Based on Ask.com’s polls of 2,000 users, 48% said “friendly” was the most important quality in customer service, followed by 41% who said knowledgeable.
My take: hire for friendliness, train for knowledge.
Why? Because as some have put it more colorfully: “You can’t train nice.”
