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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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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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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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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Back at the end of January 2008, MSN published an article called “10 Ways to Get Fired From a Home-Based Position” by the CEO of VIPDesk. (I can’t find the link anymore).
Here’s a few that I want to stress.

Having customers hear your kids playing in the background

Working in a noisy area or with the TV [...]

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One thing that I’ve noticed some companies doing is having annual meetings to discuss what the best and worst were for the year prior.  Once those have been determined, the team begins to brainstorm and figure out what to do this year to prevent failures again and what needs to be done to sustain the [...]

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I’m sure all of us have either asked or been asked this question — or both. It is a default question, a very boring question in an interview that tends to be responded to in a very cookie cutter fashion. How to answer them in a standard way can be found here, here, [...]

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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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From the blog –Service Untitled » Make a quick attempt. – customer service and customer service experience blog
“If you have the customer’s phone number (from a voicemail or a callback request), put it into your system and see if anything comes up. If you have their email address, look it up. If you have their [...]

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