Guest Service

Connected consumers always have an array of communication channels at their fingertips, allowing them to interact with brands on multiple platforms simultaneously. However, contact centers have yet to meet consumers where they work and play, creating lackluster service experiences that jeopardize loyalty.

Innovation seekers have advised that the most fertile ground is a fear-free setting. It is hard for employees to focus on the originality of what might be when they are preoccupied with the oppression of what is. Others point to enlightened leadership as the magnet for creative breakthroughs and success-building insights. Recipes for cooking up innovation have also included such important ingredients as training, affirmation, necessity, burning platforms, and grand causes. Yet, the secret may be something as simple as extrapolation done in three-part harmony!

To make sure your customer experience work stays on track, you need to constantly manage these seven inhibitors of customer experience success:

Employee engagement: An essential ingredient to effective employee engagement is to make customer feedback available to employees.

We received a master class on the use of microinteractions to support customer experience when we at CTS Service Solutions held a team retreat at Kimpton’s Vero Beach Hotel and Spa (VBHS) awhile back.

“You know what I always enjoyed, that I still think of a lot? When we would all get together as a family and how much laughter there was in the house. From our parents to all the kids and …

A few well known brands are renowned on the basis of how their customers experience these brands. Year after year, the situation remains the same: the same brands stand out in terms of the customer experience, and of the rest most of them are doing ok (not great) and haven’t improved much from the previous year.

Spring Break! Fun in the sun! Time away! And then that time you fly home with your family…only to be mistreated so incredibly that writing this blog seems like the only recourse I have.

Studies show that customers today hit the road when they don’t like the human side of doing business with a company. At The Melting Pot, every employee takes careful aim at preventing such incidents from happening. They strive for service perfection, an overall attitude motivated by the company’s customer-centric core. 

The explosion of marketing technology tools and software gives marketers innumerable opportunities to engage consumers and provide excellent customer experiences. In fact, 89 percent of marketers expect to compete primarily on the basis of customer experience by 2016, according to Gartner. But not all technology is equally useful and marketers must weigh the value of a point solution versus integrated versions.

I say that a leader is s/he who brings about a future that wasn’t going to happen anyway. I also say that human beings are beings who live in-through language. This leads me to conclude that a leader is s/he who is a master of using language to bring about a future that wasn’t going to happen anyway. This begs the question, what kind of language? To bring about a future that wasn’t going to happen anyway a leader has to take the initiative and effect change in the present. This means that a leader has to excel in the art of Initiative Conversations.

Let’s try a fun exercise based on a real situation. You look for all the places a more aesthetically congruent service experience could have been created.

Implement and manage major change initiatives,
sell staff on the value of improving customer experience and customer service,
change processes so that staff can actually deliver it. 
“Understand who you are and how you are different before you start talking about the customer experience,” advises Kelly.

Are your customers raving fans or fairweather fans?

Given that it’s the start of the baseball season, it was timely (albeit, intentionally so) that I received details about Brand Keys‘ 23rd annual Sports Fan Loyalty survey results a few days ago.

Brand Keys interviewed 250 self-declared fans in each baseball team’s area; insights from the interviews were designed to enable league and team management to identify improvement areas.

A chief character in the movie we call “customer service” is obviously the customer. But, since service involves the co-creation of an experience, the other chief character is the service provider. A customer without a service provider is just a person in search of a source for meeting a need; a service provider without a customer is a person or entity on the eve of bankruptcy! Animation is the collective spirit that serves as the energy for the service encounter.

Consumers would rather clean their toilets than talk to customer service over the phone. What does this mean for the future of brand loyalty?

Here is a fascinating new and hot concept in customer service: Predictive Consumption.