Management, Human Resources, and Life in a Customer Focused World

You.
That’s the premise that the writer of Purpose Built has in one of his blog posts.
There’s a line in the post that strikes completely true. It has held true at the majority of the companies that I have worked for, interviewed at, consulted with, and talked to over the phone.
“I don’t engage with [...]

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One thing that most people don’t think about is how they sound to a customer. Sure, people think about how they sound in terms of professionalism, sales and expertise. That’s not what I’m referring to. I’m talking about how you sound to a customer.
As an example, I was at a drive thru fast [...]

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Customer service is something that comes from the obvious locations — the agent picking up the phone when you call technical support, the sandwich maker behind the counter when you walk into one of the many sandwich shops around town, and the manager at a video chain. These are examples of the obvious. Even [...]

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I’ll be posting a few more thoughts over the next few months once again, but first I thought I’d let everyone know that I’ve done a slight site redesign for the blog to make it easier to read and navigate. In addition to that, I’ve also redesigned my personal / professional website. Please feel [...]

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I read something that I felt was truly worth repeating.

The vast majority of customers we spoke with made the task pleasant and enjoyable.
This is a quote from Tom Vanderwell while he was doing surveys with people at a store’s checkout line.  It applies to every thing you [...]

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Human Resources is one of the areas that is a challenge.  The definition of Human Resources tends to be one that is nebulous because each company uses it differently. In some companies, HR is simply the people that handle internal complaints and concerns including hiring, firing, harassment, etc. In others, HR’s role is expanded to [...]

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The QAQNA blog posted a link to the 10 worst presentation habits.  Initially, these were written by Carmine Gallo, an author on communication, who also wrote about 5 ways to ruin your next presentation.
If you present or use powerpoint for anything (training, business pitches, customer quality reviews, etc), please read both of these.  They’ll help [...]

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Someone recently asked me:
“When’s the right time to centralize different divisions or receptionists into a centralized center?”
This is a question that a lot of companies struggle with and mirrors the simple question of
“Should I start a contact center?”
The easy answer is: It depends.
I know. It’s a co-out. It is, however, true as well. [...]

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Customer Service in Different Countries was the blog posting that made me chuckle a little… The reason it did so was that one of my friend living outside the US has been regaling me with some problems that she’s been having.  She doesn’t live in one of the 11 countries surveyed by Accenture.  They did [...]

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Service Untitled wrote a post about the “Difference in Roles” in a service organization.  His three definitions are Support, Account Management, and Consulting.  I think that he’s missed his naming/definitions a little bit, but let’s play along for the moment.
Support is the least involved and consulting is the most involved, with account management in the middle.
Based on [...]

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