By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD How often have you called a company and wondered if you reached the right number? All too often, busy people answer calls hurriedly, haphazardly, or incompletely. Or perhaps the receptionist seems out of breath after spitting out a lengthy, tongue-twisting greeting. Also, it’s vital that an organization answers every call […]
Tag: customer service
Pursue Big-Picture Solutions, Not Incremental Improvements By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD There’s a lot of talk about customer experience and ways to enhance it. Though this is the right outcome, too often the approach to get there is shortsighted. Making incremental changes to improve one metric may help a bit, but how many metrics must […]
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A Shocking Experience
Customer Service Excellence Can Boost Sales By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I received a subscription invoice for a magazine I had never heard of nor received. This didn’t surprise me. This used to happen a lot. Magazines would show up and later an invoice arrived to continue my “subscription.” I scrawled “please cancel” on the […]
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The Myth of Self-Service
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD The idea of self-service has existed in many industries for years and even decades. This includes self-serve gas pumps, checking your own groceries, buying airline tickets online, and banking. Gas Stations First, let’s consider gas stations. Unless you are a 30-something driver or younger, you probably remember the days of […]
Customer Experience Is More Than a Buzzword—It’s the Path to Success By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD People love to share their stories about their experiences when interacting with various companies. They post things online, which can have a far reach and may go viral. They also tell people face-to-face, which doesn’t have the reach but […]
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False Assumptions
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD When people ask what I do for a living, I reply that “I publish magazines and websites for the call center industry.” Their responses are varied, as well as interesting. For some people, their eyes immediately glaze over, and they change the subject. Others key in on the word “publish,” […]
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Dealing with Cancellations
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD How does your company handle cancellations? Do you allow anyone to process terminations, quickly and without hassle? Or do you have a specific “cancellation” strategy, with a team assigned and trained to follow an exact protocol? Either approach has its strengths and limitations; both fall short of the customer’s best […]
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Guilty Until Proven Innocent
Key Lessons in Customer Service By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD When my internet service goes down, I seldom call customer service to report it. I simply don’t have the time to waste with my provider’s nonsensical troubleshooting process. Instead, I usually wait in hope that someone else will report the outage and achieve a timely […]
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The Failure of New Customer Discounts
Companies Focus on New Customer Acquisition and Then Encourage Customers to Leave in Two Years By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD My family just completed our biennial cell phone switch. We’ve been doing this like clockwork for two decades. We pick the company that offers the best price and switch to that one. Two years later […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD The track record of receptionists successfully transferring calls is not good. In fact, based on my experience, successful call transfers actually occur less than half the time. The most common result is being disconnected. The receptionist attempts to transfer your call, but there is no ringing and no music on […]