Blog

Offer sincere and specific compliments

This post is the second in a series that will identify 10 different customer service advantages that have emerged from my analysis of customer satisfaction data. Maybe you have capitalized on one or more of these advantages in your own business? The second advantage is to offer sincere and specific

Read More »

Express genuine interest

This post is the first in a series that will identify 10 different customer service advantages that have emerged from my analysis of customer satisfaction data. Maybe you have capitalized on one or more of these advantages in your own business? The first advantage is to express genuine interest. Expressing

Read More »

Advantages

The statistician W. Edwards Deming once said, “In God we trust; all others must bring data.” When I begin a project, the first thing I do is gather data to assess the current state of service quality. I do so by interviewing stakeholders such as managers, hourly employees, and, when

Read More »

Self-service with a smile

Last month, I received a review copy of The Customer Experience Revolution: How Companies Like Apple, Amazon, and Starbucks Have Changed Business Forever by Jeofrey Bean and Sean Van Tyne. Among the companies profiled in the book is EMN8, a manufacturer of self-service kiosks for quick service restaurants (QSR) and

Read More »

Don’t give it away!

In my previous blog, Pouring profits, I posed the question: “How have you observed businesses capitalizing on (or forfeiting) opportunities to capture revenue and increase profit by offering customers enhanced service experiences?” While the post received a fair number of clicks, there have been no responses to my question. Undeterred,

Read More »

Pouring profits

Last month, a colleague and I had dinner at a Maine microbrewery. Being unfamiliar with its selection of microbrew beers, I ordered a beer flight from our server in order to sample the variety of ales available on tap. For the uninitiated, a beer flight is a selection of beers

Read More »

Learning names is worth the effort

A restaurateur recently approached me and asked, “How can I fake that I know a customer’s name? I have a thousand regulars in my restaurant each week and can’t possibly remember all of their names.” She was asking the wrong question. Any objective that involves faking out customers (or any

Read More »

Opportunity is knocking

It is widely acknowledged that the number one reason customers quit doing business with a company is due to perceived indifference towards them as customers. When I ask audiences to describe what it feels like to be treated indifferently, I receive responses such as, “I feel unimportant” and “I feel

Read More »

Marriott is in good hands

When I received my first management position with Marriott in 1992, I worked for a general manager named Mark Conklin. Although Mark (as he preferred to be called) oversaw more than two hundred employees, each employee received a hand-written card from him in the mail to honor the anniversary of

Read More »
The Revelation Conversation

The Revelation Conversation is Here!