Where have I been, you ask? Trying to pick myself up from utter despair. Two weeks ago I was hired to talk about make or break moments to the managers of a chain of auto repair shops. I had researched the company and their website shared customer focused words that led me to believe they [...]

This past week I did my civic duty by serving on a jury trial in Judge Cosgrove’s courtroom. I’m not here to talk about the case - but rather want to talk about the culture Judge Cosgrove has developed in her courtroom. As part of the case (a wrongful death suit in which a medical practice [...]

Building customer relationships, earning customer loyalty – these are passions of mine and I was pleased to see an article offering 7 key steps to creating customer loyalty in Fast Track magazine. Author, Micah Solomon, opens his list with this comment: A personal bond with customers lets your company escape the commodity pricing wars and provides [...]

The monthly report from E-zine Articles just arrived in my email.  Once again – the number one article for the month is one I wrote a few years ago entitled How Do You Define Customer Service. I wrote the article before the economy took a turn for the interesting, when companies were still staffed and [...]

Great article from the UK entitled 25 Customer Service Statistics to be Aware of for 2011 and the last paragraph of the entire article says it all: Many businesses still don’t ‘get it’! And, crucially, Those that do will be the ones that succeed in 2011 (and beyond!) It can’t be spelled out any clearer [...]

In the April issue of INC magazine, reporter Kasey Wehrum shares Sales Tips from the World’s Toughest Customers. Customers like Coca-Cola, Dell, Intuit, UPS and more. The lessons are simple and yet profound: Be different. And then make sure you prove it to us. We can spot a fake from a mile away. (In other words, [...]

UPDATE 9-21-10 – I don’t know why, but the video has been pulled from YouTube. It was a perfect example of how an employee can personally interact with customers without interfering in her ability to perform her tasks. Bummer. Last night there was a repeat of the 7-11 episode of Undercover Boss.  If you haven’t [...]

I often speak about the importance and value of building customer relationships but today I want to talk about relationships within an organization. Glenn Ross asks a lot of really valuable questions in his post The Most Important Component in a Relationship.  What is it? Communication. He starts the article by quoting Dale Carnegie: “90 [...]

Do you delight your customers? I found an article written by Alain Thys that was published in 2007 that says it best: It’s funny that when discussing Customer Delight, most people start talking about customer service.  While this nicely fits our managerial illusion of control, it also completely misses the point.  Customer service is what [...]

Last evening I had the opportunity to participate in a radio show – Reader’s Entertainment Radio – hosted by Sheila English.  Sheila interviewed myself and Sherre DeMao – founder of SLD Unlimted Marketing/PR, Inc.  Sheila led us through a series of questions which uncovered our philosophies of effective marketing and communication with our prospects and [...]