Same words, different results

Last week i was in Chicago’s O’Hare International and ventured into the baggage office, where disgruntled passengers end up without anything to wear tomorrow – literally.  Likely the worst place to work in the entire airport.  You never have a happy customer enter your office. I watched two different representatives say almost identical words and [...]

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Customer Service in Casino’s and Chain Hotels

We recently exhibited and presented a workshop at the CFO Rising West conference in Las Vegas. The conference was held at a J.W. Marriott. We stayed nearby at a typical Las Vegas Casino/Hotel. It was interesting to compare the two hotels that we were in and out of throughout the week. Because of this isolated [...]

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Promoted beyond the customer?

Most companies will testify that first and foremost that their employees are their greatest asset.  Read most mission statements and they will say some version of “our customers are our number one priority”.  Neither statement could be truer, or more crucial, yet many companies have an alignment problem between the two. Consider the typical employment [...]

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Appreciate Your Customers 8.3% of the Time

A while back, I was out and about and saw this image in the window of a Supercuts. While I have no bone to pick with Supercuts, and I understand the basis of this promotion, it illustrates a bigger point. Why would a company appreciate their customers only one month out of the year? Shouldn’t we [...]

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UX (User Experience) and Macs

If you know me (and much of the rest of us here in the office) we are a tad bit biased in our preference for Apple computers. A friend of mine just got a new MacBook Pro. It has been years and years since she got a new computer. She was pleased and excited to [...]

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Customer Service creates your brand

Ever wonder the effect your customer’s experience has on your brand identity and the public opinion? In March 2008 musician Dave Carroll flew from Halifax to Omaha, transferring planes in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Apparently baggage handlers in Chicago caused damage to Carroll’s guitar http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-biz-united-breaks-guitars-video-ual-july8,0,4414385.story and after a year of trying to negotiate and work with [...]

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Quality product / service = repeat business = higher revenue

We have been talking a lot this week about employee engagement and the effects on business. As a business owner, you know that it is critical to have repeat customers. Repeat customers only come from satisfied customers. Dissatisfied customers spend their money with your competition – if this is not the case, you are quite [...]

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Appreciation Marketing

Ever have great, remarkable, “Wow!” customer service? How about poor, rotten,  abysmal customer service?  Big difference. As customers we usually reward good customer service with our repeat business and really great customer service with positive word of mouth to our friends, family and colleagues. The consequence of poor customer service is that the company loses [...]

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Culture can yield shareholder return

Yesterday headlines of Bernard Madoff’s 150 year sentence were everywhere.   150 years in prison for corporate fraud and running the largest ponzi scheme in history.  For years he successfully stole money from very rich and seemingly smart individuals.  How?   He was able to show greater than average returns on their first invested dollars which of [...]

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Get “Jobbed”: A Lesson in Best-Practice

A couple weeks ago I posted this on Facebook: Jonathan is wondering if Holland, or anyone else, is drooling over the sweet new iPhone? You know I am! A disgruntled friend of mine countered, But does it run on more than one app? Does it cut and paste? Does it forward texts? [actually, yes and [...]

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