National Customer Service Week 2011: What’s Your Plan?

Paper Smile Face, Business Concept

This week, October 3-9, marks National Customer Service Week (NCSW). NCSW was established by proclamation of President Bush (#41) in 1992. The beginning of the proclamation reads: In a thriving free enterprise system such as ours, which provides consumers with a wide range of goods and services from which to choose, the most successful businesses [...]

Customer Service Stories: Stop Subcontractors From Killing Your Customers

Customer Service Stories: Snorkeling Guide Truck

One of the trickier parts of delivering an exceptional customer experience is when you cede control of the experience to subcontractors. Maintaining service standards with the company’s team is challenging enough; maintaining those same levels of service through a subcontractor can border on the impossible. The experience we had when vacationing on the island of [...]

How Your Pride Is Losing You Customers

Pride Creates Bad Customer Service

In customer service, pride is a double-edged sword. Pride in your organization can cause team members to go the extra mile. However, pride of the don’t-disprespect-me variety can cause team members to respond unfavorably to upset customers. When the personal reaction to an unhappy customer trumps the professional reaction, pride has won, and your organization [...]

What Is Excellent Customer Service?

What is Excellent Customer Service Survey

Customer service is one of those topics where it is easy to speak in broad generalities. Sayings such as the customer is always right and service begins with a smile easily convey basic, unqualified principles that mask the fact that what defines excellent customer service will always be incredibly individual in nature. However, while superior [...]

The Definition of Customer Loyalty

Definition of Customer Loyalty: Dog Waiting on Dock

I have been trying to find a good definition of customer loyalty in this wide world of the Internet, and I have come to the conclusion that 1) no one has figured out how to define customer loyalty or 2) I am really bad at finding information on the Internet. Do some searches yourself; you’ll [...]

Customer Service Stories: Getting to the Root of Customer Service

Customer Service at Dental Office

  Guest Poster: Kaarina Dillabough It is my pleasure to introduce Kaarina Dillabough, former Olympic coach and current make-your-life-and-business-better coach, as our first guest poster. Kaarina is the perfect person to launch the Customer Service Stories series, because she has an engaging way of telling a story while still being able to analyze the systems [...]

Customer Service Stories: Introducing The New Series

Customer Service Stories Header

Last Saturday, I wrote that this blog would be changing tack and focusing on the customer service experience. One of the most exciting aspects of this conversion is the launch of the Customer Service Stories series. The idea behind Customer Service Stories is to discuss the principles of superior customer service through the lens of [...]

6 Lessons I Learned in My First Six Months Blogging

Lessons Learned from Blogging Dog with Glasses

I ventured into blogging, I thought, pretty well prepared for what it would entail. I read sites like ProBlogger and Copyblogger and thoroughly studied my previous niches of small business and franchising. However, the areas in which my research failed to adequately prepare me were not trivial ones! I underestimated a few key parts of [...]

This Blog Is Dead: I’m Starting Over

Rebirth of The Blog Flower

As of today, this blog no longer exists. Well, it exists, but it is morphing into something new – something more focused and markedly different than its current incarnation. While not a complete 180-degree shift, the new blog direction is a significant change, and I thought it best to write a post explaining the transformation. [...]

The State of Small Business Infographic

State of Small Business in the United States Infographic

Like most businesses in the United States, small businesses have felt the impact of this volatile economy. Yet, small business continues to be one of the key employers and drivers of economic growth in the United States. Small business holds the key to our economic future. We enjoy infographics and love small business, so we [...]

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