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Customer Service Information |
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Under Promise & Over Perform: The Art of Managing Customer Expectations
I'll always feel warmly about Conrad's restaurant, in Glendale, California. On the morning of the Northridge earthquake, Conrad's was the only restaurant in town that opened for business, and stayed open until the last customer went home. (For the record, I had a jumbo burger with Swiss cheese, grilled onions, fries, and two chocolate shakes with lots of whipped cream and extra cherries on top.) The line of hungry patrons shoe-laced down the block, but instead of being grumpy, everyone was smiling, happy to be alive, and bursting with their own quake stories to share with the strangers all around them. What was truly extraordinary was the fact that Conrad's did the ordinary, under exceptional circumstances. It opened for business-as-usual. Undoubtedly, it had a skeleton crew, because freeways were damaged and closed, and some workers couldn't make it in for their shifts. But enough servers and hosts were there for us, and this very fact exceeded, I'm sure, most people's expectations. Which of course, proves a point: You don't have to provide "legendary" or "heroic" or otherwise spectacular service to succeed. You merely have to exceed people's expectations as a way to consistently create customer satisfaction. The problem is most companies do the opposite. They crow about how capable they are at providing top service, citing surveys that they have sponsored and often manipulated to appear better than they really are. "Your call is important to us" is repeated incessantly on hold. Some service reps are even trained to ask one of the dumbest questions imaginable: "How can I provide you with exceptional service, today?" In reality, most of us would be thrilled to replace this self-serving rhetoric with the basics. We really want service folks to: Be there for us when we need them. Be competent and well trained. Be quick to address our problems and to solve them. Be upbeat, and grateful for the opportunity to have our patronage, and Be done! To elevate our customers' hopes, and then dash them, is utterly self-defeating. It reminds me of what I used to hear as a kid-athlete. It's ok to boast, but you better be really, really good, in every single contest. Otherwise, the first time you screw-up, you'll be razzed, relentlessly. Moral: Be modest. Nice and humble does it every time. If you're modest, and simply competent, you'll be appreciated and you'll win customer loyalty. That's the secret to Conrad's decades-long success. Dr. Gary S. Goodman is a popular keynote speaker, consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books. He is the author of the Nightingale-Conant audio program, The Law Of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable. Gary teaches Entrepreneurship and Consulting at UCLA Extension, and he is President of Customersatisfaction.com and The Goodman Organization. He can be reached at gary@customersatisfaction.com.
MORE RESOURCES: Pricing, AI, DPA, Customer Service Tools; Bill Emerson Interview; Training This Week; STRATMOR CD Workshop Mortgage News Daily AI Chatbots Are Ready to Talk to Customers. Sort of. The Wall Street Journal Samsung Electronics Canada Customer Service Wins Bronze in ‘Best Use of Omni Channel' at International CX Awards 2024 Yahoo Finance Qme secures $3M funding to streamline customer service across Africa Techpoint Africa Building Competitive Advantage in Customer Care Through AI The Business of Fashion 311 Customer Service Center City and County of San Francisco FTC Finalizes Order with H&R Block Requiring Them to Pay $7 Million and Overhaul Advertising and Customer Service Practices for 2025 and 2026 Tax Seasons Federal Trade Commission News Ikea expands integration with assembly services platform Chain Store Age JEA is inviting bids for 19-story downtown tower that used to be its headquarters The Florida Times-Union Consumers Demand Enterprises Modernize to Improve Ailing Customer Experience, Says Research Business Wire American Lamprecht Enhances Visibility for Air and Ocean Shipments Using Descartes Solution Supply Chain Dive Women in Fintech: A Conversation About Loyalty Ecosystems in Financial Services with Becky Hill Finovate Neterra Enhances Its Customer Service Monitoring System Total Telecom Gladly Named a Leader in Constellation ShortList™ for Digital Customer Service and Support PR Newswire QueueKiosk™: Saving Thousands of Active-Duty Man Hours & Improving Customer Service at the MPF Office Kiosk Marketplace Finally, hard data on a real-world AI business use case: It’s huge for customer service Sherwood News Liverpool reinvents customer service through digital platform ComputerWeekly.com CSPI & Nutrition Action Customer Service CSPI Newsroom Firm to expand customer service in Yorkshire with new service centre Golf Business News Textron Aviation to Open New Service Facility at Essendon Fields Airport, Expanding Capabilities in Australia Pittsburg Morning Sun Help Department of Taxation and Finance Six Game-Changing AI Customer Service and CX Strategies Hospitality Net Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP) New York State Department of Health Cigna's customer-centric strategy could ripple across the sector Modern Healthcare Major AI Success Story: Giftify Achieves 40% Faster Customer Response Times with Enterprise AI StockTitan Customer Service Center apps.tampagov.net 311 - Birmingham’s Customer Service Center City of Birmingham (.gov) Palm Coast Utility Department Celebrated for Enhanced Customer Service City of Palm Coast DESCO's meeting held to enhance customer service and power reliability The Business Standard 70% of customer service to rely on AI by 2028: Gartner Outsource Accelerator Customer Service & Support Hillsborough County (.gov) My experience as a Customer Service and Sales Intern Toby Shapiro's Experience at A.D. Sutton and Sons Chapman University 3 Ways To Quickly Make $50 GOBankingRates Delta’s annual profit-sharing day spotlights ‘people first’ strategy The Atlanta Journal Constitution Welcome to Riverside Public Utilities City of Riverside (.gov) Celebrate Customer Service Week City of Riverside (.gov) Which companies have the best customer service? Amazon, Shein, Costco among top-rated brands USA TODAY Con Edison Proposes Investments to Meet Growing Demand for Clean Energy, Enhance Customer Support T&D World Fulton County Recognized as a 2024 National Customer Service All Star Fulton County Government Contact Reverb Support Reverb Charter Names Robyn Tolva Senior Vice President, Customer Service Reliability | Charter Charter Communications Clem Allen named 2024 Barbara Lezczynski Customer Service Award winner! Milwaukee Public Schools Corporate Job Areas - Service Centers & Business Enablement Target Corporate America's Best Customer Service 2025 Newsweek 8 strategies for using AI for customer service in 2025 Sprout Social Attorney General Bonta Demands Better Customer Service for Californians California Department of Justice AI for Customer Service Market worth $47.82 Billion by 2030 - Exclusive Report by MarketsandMarkets™ PR Newswire Can artificial intelligence rescue customer service? The Economist Permits–customer services King County Lifeline Support for Affordable Communications Federal Communications Commission Department of Transportation Governor Tom Wolf President Biden Announces New Customer Service Actions, Targets Subscriptions and ‘Doom Loops’ CX Today 11 key elements of excellent customer service Business.com Launch of New Districtwide Customer Service Platform The School District of Philadelphia How to balance speed and quality customer service Sprout Social |
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