Archive for the ‘Customer Service’ Category

How to Hold Great Meetings

Meetings can be a colossal waste of time. Here are tips for avoiding that, especially for sales and service team meetings held on a regular basis. (more…)

Why Do Customers Do That!? (Part II)

Service reps deal with lots of customers who are irritable, impatient, annoyed, and downright rude. It’s understood that behavior comes from frustration, worry, and the idea that the angry-squeaky wheel gets the grease. Here are the questions for this article:

Why do customers stay that way even when they got what they wanted? Why don’t more of these customers say “Thank you” or even apologize for giving the service rep a hard time? Why are so many customers still grouchy when they hang up? The short answer: biology. (more…)

How and Why to Say “I Don’t Know”

Not long ago, I had a problem with a product purchased from a small company. When I called, the phone was answered by a very nice person who told me to call so-and-so in a few hours. Since I didn’t want to wait a few hours, I asked the nice person if she could help me: Did she happen to know if…

The nice person responded with several questions of her own and I answered them. This back and forth went on for a few more minutes. I repeated some form of my original question, she responded with questions of her own… Pretty soon I was plenty irritated. Annoyed, I told her I’d call back later and slammed down the phone. (Like that would help, right?)

As I angrily planned to call the head of the company and thinking about what I’d say, it hit me: The person who took my call did not know the answer to my question but didn’t want to tell me, “I don’t know.” (more…)

Why Do Customers Do That!? (Part I)

Many service reps, especially those in call centers, deal with customers who are irritable, impatient, annoyed, and downright rude almost all day long. We know that kind of attitude can come up when people are confused, frustrated, angry or disappointed. Here’s the question for this article: Why do so many customers call or come in with a bad attitude already in gear? Why do they start things off that way? (more…)