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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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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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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Tom Vander Well’s QAQNA blog had an amusing post today that I wanted to share.  He talks about how you “Dress” your conversation.
Basically, his point is that a company with a physical dress code expects that their employees adhere to it. Coming to work in shorts and a T-shirt when the dress code is slacks [...]

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Contact centers tend to be at the core of this arguement. Quality vs Quantity. What is truly the most important? Does a person’s Average Speed of Answer (ASA) mean more than their customer feedback score? Is the abandon rate the key or does customer satisfaction play a role? In truth, the answer is not [...]

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For those few people that still don’t believe that customer service has an impact on the success or failure of a company, here’s some quotes and surveys published by CNN Money:
A new study from Accenture (NYSE:ACN) ACN found that 59% of people had actually stopped doing business with companies in the past year due to poor [...]

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A little customer service goes a long way « Palmetto PR Divas
To the technician in the blog post above, it meant nothing. The person was simply an object to be worked on, as though he were in a factory and the child was nothing but a generic “widget”. There’s a difference — if you’re in [...]

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