Business articles by Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD
Work to Make Your Support Staff’s Job Easier By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD A common thread throughout these posts is that a person—not a department or an organization—provides customer support. The two exceptions are self-service and automated bots, but even these often require—or, at least, should require—an actual person to back them up. This means […]
Say What You’ll Do and Do What You Say By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Repeated stories in these posts relate to cell phone companies. It’s a sad commentary on the industry, yet these lessons apply to all businesses. For cell phone companies, a disregard for existing customers and preference for new business drives existing customers […]
Use Names to Facilitate Effective Communication and Not Obscure It By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD In “The Perfect Answer,” we talked about using your name when answering phone calls. This makes a personal connection with the caller and facilitates productive communication to result in positive outcomes. Besides phone calls, names are equally important for online […]
Balance Business Needs with Customer Impact By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD It’s a hassle when our credit card changes. We must track down every business that has our credit card number on file and update it. If we miss one company, we risk service interruptions or delivery problems. Sometimes we decide to switch cards, but […]
Minimizing the Need for Customer Service Is the Best Support Option By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD As an author, I upload my books to over a half-dozen online stores and distributors, using their respective portals to enter each book’s information and files. The interface for each one differs, with some being easy to use and […]
Phone Interactions Can Save or Ruin Your Business By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD A lot of customer service occurs over the telephone. This growing trend leaves me concerned about some things and excited about others. A Shortsighted Attitude On the negative side, consider a large telecommunications company that provides cell phone, internet, and long distance. […]
Tell Your Customers What to Expect and Deliver it Every Time By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Moving required finding a new place to service my car. A well-maintained auto repair business sat just down the street from our home, less than half a mile away. A neighbor, though he had never gone there, said they […]
Customer Service Failure Exists in Both Big and Small Ways By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD After moving from one town to another, I continued working with my long-time business accountant. Though most of our interactions occurred over the phone and through email, I persisted in making an hour-long trek to his office each tax season. […]
Make Sure Your Objectives Align with Your Practices By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD To avoid the huge depreciation loss that all new cars undergo, I buy used. However, there was a season when I bought new. This story is about one of those times. Although it wasn’t my practice to go to the dealer for […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD We hear much today about delighting our customers. This is an admirable goal, and every business should strive to do so. We must acknowledge, however, that this is not sustainable. We may delight customers upon occasion, but to expect we’ll succeed in every interaction will leave us falling short of […]