If you have been following my blog, you know that I have had a little bit of a melt down over the last month. A discouragement brought on by the realization that MOST businesses just don’t care about the customer. (by the way – if  you disagreee – please tell me why in the comments) [...]

Had a business lunch at the Crooked River Grill on Thursday. Melody was our waitress and she greeted us with warmth and enthusiasm. She engaged us in conversation and her interpretation of the menu was nothing short of epic! I had to stop her half way through her explanation of the menu that she’d interpretated as [...]

Have you ever experienced such extraordinary customer service from an associate that you wonder about the training they’ve had? Are some people just born with the skills necessary to build customer relationships or can it be learned? Here is a story recently shared about just such an experience: Last week I had the best customer [...]

I met a customer at the local Barnes and Noble bookstore over the weekend.  We both decided to grab a cup of coffee.  My customer, Kathy, is a loyal – no, more like an obsessed Starbucks fan. Everyday she has to have her Starbucks – not just in the morning but several throughout the day. [...]

Yesterday I had the opportunity to address the Retail Organization of Lakeland Community College at the Great Lakes Mall. I shared my thoughts on the value of make or break moments with our customers…each moment is an opportunity to make a difference. After the talk, one participant came up and shared a great observation: When [...]

They sound similar but do they mean the same thing?  I asked the question of the Build Customer Relationships group on LinkedIn this week and overwhelmingly the answer was NO.  Everyone agrees that customer service is the foundation – what gets customers in the door the first time and turns them from prospects to customers [...]

I decided that I needed to hire a virtual assistant. I am at a point where there are some things I just can’t do anymore and a friend of mine once told me “delegate everything but your genius.”  So – I was off to find a virtual assistant. The first project – transcribe a one [...]

All this week the preacher at the Chautauqua Institute is the Very Rev. Alan Jones, dean emeritus, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. In his sermon this morning he had a quote that made the congregation chuckle but perhaps the laughter was a little uncomfortable because of the truth of his statement: “I know that I’m nothing [...]

I just bought a new chair. It was time. The last time I bought a chair I was pregnant with my first born. That’s him sitting in the new chair. He’s 19. I went to Levin because they had a 50% off sale and if you purchased on the weekend, it was free delivery. I’ve [...]

I used to have a little cartoon from the paper that said “Shrug off Apathy.”  How ironic, I’d chuckled, as I snipped it from the paper, and yet so many of today’s workers in the retail and food service environments have an attitude that is just this side of apathetic.  Some would call it “indifference.”  [...]