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Business Development Cultivating Positive Relationships Customer Service Opinion Social Media

Communications channels need to back up customer service reps

I got a reminder last week about the importance of “training” communications channels right along with reps to accurately inform and educate. The matter seemed to be simple: I wanted to donate an old flat-screen TV. After a couple hours calling around, based on website-based policies for such items, I learned that many communications either […]

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Business Development Customer Service General Marketing Opinion Tips

As top-notch customer service demand rises, does supply have to fall?

Forbes Senior Contributor Micah Solomon addresses a great question about customer service standards falling as a company scales up operations. He notes: “Is such lowering of standards irreversible, the inevitable status quo as a company continues to scale? Decidedly not—if you relentlessly resharpen your focus and tenaciously stick to your guns once again in only […]

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Business Development Customer Service Opinion

Top-notch training keys customer service success

In today’s complex, fast-scaling work environments, competent and ongoing training is an absolute requirement to achieve customer service success. Without it, workforce attitudes and aptitudes suffer—with consequences impacting customers in frustrating ways. To provide complete and accurate information to would-be as well as present customers, companies must ensure that their customer service reps know the […]

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Customer Service Empowerment Techniques Kudon'ts Opinion

Starry snafu highlights why misleading customer service is worse than none at all

Customer service representations that don’t hold up to actual performance are worse than no customer service at all. My Nextdoor post last week addresses my frustrating “Starry Snafu” experience:  “As a backup to CenturyLink Internet/landline, which I’ve had nearly 5 years, I ordered Starry on a trial basis. When I put in the order, I […]

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Cultivating Positive Relationships Customer Service General Marketing Kudon'ts Opinion

Incessant advertising is another over-communication mistake

I can die a happy person if I never see another Golo or American Home Shield TV commercial come up on the screen. Make no mistake, I actually checked them both out initially. Golo offers a regimen to battle insulin resistance and American Home Shield covers home repairs. In fact, I initially found the American […]

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Customer Service General Marketing Opinion

Text spamming, scamming, slamming proliferate

Leading the over-communication charge is texting. Between spamming, scamming, and now slamming us with unwanted texts, email and robocalls now have some serious competition. Maybe I’ve been late to the party, as I’ve only started getting bombarded the last few weeks. For whatever reason, however, the intrusion has been substantially thwarted by a text blocking […]

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General Marketing Opinion

And the beatdown goes on…

Two unrelated social media posts show how deep and wide intrusive, over-communicating customer service platforms can get. One states, “I recently bought Royals tickets for a team outing and I’ve literally had to unsubscribe from 8 different Royals email lists already.” Another points out, “Once you donate…you can expect to be bombarded with robocalling pleas […]

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Business Development Cultivating Positive Relationships Customer Service Opinion

T-Mobile goes overboard in ‘customer service’ communications

One end of the pendulum to the other: From not communicating enough with customers to deluging them with confirmations, reminders, requests, survey questions, and directives via automated platforms and conversations. Clear, consistent communication is one thing. This is getting very noisy and annoying. While most customers can control the level of information provided to some […]

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Cultivating Positive Relationships Customer Service General Marketing Opinion

Bait-and-switch prospecting taints customer service expectations

When a company courting you starts out with a bait-and-switch pitch to get your business, chances are excellent that their customer service leaves much to be desired as well. It’s the epitome of inaccurate and incomplete information. I recently came upon a new and somewhat compelling nutritional program article. Interested, I filled out a profile […]

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Cultivating Positive Relationships Customer Service Opinion

Telling you what you want to hear, not what you need to know

Pandemic-soothing commentary coming from the Trump White House established new, awful standards for telling people what they wanted to hear versus what they needed to know. Factual outcomes dashed hopes, ruined lives, and rendered a horrible disservice to those supposedly being served—the American people. In an effort to mollify customers or move on quickly to […]