Customer/Employee Empowerment

  • 10 Characteristics of Customer-Centric Execs

    How Many Do You Embody?

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    Here are 10 characteristics that every customer-centric executive should demonstrate. They range from having a customer vision to monitoring what matters to customers. How well do you stack up?
    Jul. 17, 2021
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  • Un-Empowered Employee Limits a CX "Save"

    Microtel Tries its Best, but can't Completely Remedy a Bad Situation

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    A loyal hotel patron expects front line customer service rep to be able to reimburse for minor losses. How much leeway should a front line service rep be given?
    Jun. 3, 2015
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  • When Comcast Insults Customers

    Who’s to Blame?

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    When customers are treated badly by customer service, something is wrong. But just where does the buck stop? With the CSR? With the company and its priorities and policies? With the customer? There is probably enough blame to pass around!
    Feb. 5, 2015
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  • Designing Solutions for Aging in Place

    Part 1: Boothbay’s Awesome Seniors’ Initiative—First Year

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    How do seniors design services that will enable them to thrive in their own homes? They look at what they need. They look at what they have. They experiment.
    Dec. 5, 2014
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  • Secure for “Your Own Good!”

    Cumbersome Security Measures Create Difficult Customer Experiences

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    Bank of America doesn’t streamline customers’ address changes across BoA product lines. Comcast sets long, arbitrary router passwords and discourages customers from changing them—using “security” as a flimsy excuse.
    Oct. 1, 2014
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  • Do You See What I See?

    Why Customer Service Reps Need to Be Able to Access What Customers Actually Saw

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    When customers can see information within their account pages on your website that your support agents can’t see, how can they trust your CSRs to really help when there are problems?
    Jun. 19, 2014
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  • Do’s and Don’ts of Telephone Support

    Making It Easy to Navigate through IVR Hell and Get a Positive Telephone Support Experience

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    Think you provide great customer service? When did you last check out what your customers experience when they call your support line? Are they stuck in an infinite IVR loop? And, when they get to a real person, are their issues resolved?
    May. 15, 2014
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  • Inconsistent Customer Service Information from Bank of America

    Four Different CSRs; Four Different Responses

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    Trying to sign up to automatically pay my new Bank of America credit card balance each month turned into a long, frustrating mess because of inconsistent processes and the fact that not all CSRs knew what could be done!
    Apr. 17, 2014
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  • How to Offer a Little Extra to Delight Customers

    My Most Recent Favorite Customer Experience Practices

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    Go beyond good – surprise and delight people with unexpected customer service. See examples from Amazon.com, Trader Joe’s, CVS, and BoltBus, with extrapolations for B2B organizations.
    Feb. 19, 2014
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  • How to Use VOC to Create Fitness Fans for Life

    Blair McHaney Uses Daily VOC to Improve Customer Experience and Front-Line Engagement at Gold’s Gyms in Washington

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    Meet visionary customer advocate Blair McHaney. He uses customer metrics and methods in daily operation, leveraging a customer-centric culture and Medallia VOC software.
    Jan. 23, 2014
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  • My 2013 Holiday Customer Experience Heroes

    Lessons to be Learned from Customer Support at Small Companies: Standing Stone Farms and Geoff & Drew’s

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    Small businesses often provide the best customer experience because they offer a personal experience. What can your organization learn from these small companies?
    Dec. 19, 2013
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  • Why I Am No Longer a Sears Customer

    Sears.com Fails to Deliver on Promises

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    Sears has failed this shopper for the last time! Read the sad, sad story of hours wasted, responses not received, and powerless customer service agents following self-serving customer service practices.
    Dec. 5, 2013
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  • Good Service, but Missed Opportunity for Greatness

    A Recommendation for Peapod Grocery Delivery Service

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    Peapod grocery delivery service does a fine job of customer service, but a recent experience revealed a barrier between what they know about a customer and the customer service department.
    Aug. 30, 2013
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  • Have We Consented to Government Surveillance?

    Do Citizens, Residents, and People in Other Countries Have a Right to Privacy in the Digital Age?

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    Edward Snowden’s whistle-blowing on the NSA, and Glenn Greenwald’s documentation of the technologies and processes used, are a wake-up call for citizens who believe that their private communications should remain private.
    Aug. 1, 2013
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  • Defining the Customer-Centric Organization

    What Are the Attributes and Behaviors that Define True Customer-Centricity?

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    Is yours a truly customer-centric organization? See how well you stack up to the attributes and behaviors that characterize an organization that holds customers at the core.
    Jul. 25, 2013
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  • Improving Wretched Customer Service

    Beyond Giving CSRs Authority—Giving Them the Ammunition to Provide Great Service

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    What makes well-intentioned customer service so bad? Martha Brooke of Interaction Metrics offers four common mistakes, and we look at how to empower CSRs to avoid these mistakes.
    Jul. 3, 2013
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  • Exploring the Five Customer-Centric Habits

    Necessary Qualities for Executives and Organizations

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    What are the habits that successful customer-centric executives share? Rob Thompson of CustomerThink has identified 5, and we add our Customers.com perspective.
    May. 16, 2013
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  • Designing Effective Group Meetings

    Using Concepts and Techniques of Liberating Structures

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    Here are some easy-to-follow facilitation techniques that you can try out in your next meetings to promote continuing conversations based on Lisa Kimball’s framework of Liberating Structures. See if they work in your organization.
    Apr. 30, 2013
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  • Boston Globe Masters Social Media in a Crisis

    How the Boston Globe Covered the Boston Marathon Bombing

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    What does it take to beat all the major news and cable networks in news coverage? An amazing team and a commitment to getting it right! Learn how the Boston Globe became the trusted source of information during the Boston Marathon crisis.
    Apr. 25, 2013
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  • Collaborating with Customers

    Working Together with Customers to Achieve Their Goals

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    Collaboration is a method of working together to reach a goal; it isn’t the goal itself. But when you collaborate with customers to reach a goal, the results can be very powerful!
    Apr. 4, 2013
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