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Tag Archives: “customer service communications”

“You Can’t Push Right Now Because The Doctor Isn’t Here”

Don't Push Now The Doctor Isn't Here

Sometimes, pushing is the wrong strategy.

Of course, if you believe that “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”, you push. You push all the time. You explore. As I’ve heard pointed out in various ways by many people, “little boys just can’t resist sticking their fingers in holes”.

In a way, that’s what I do here. I find holes and figure out what’s inside them. I create Search Engine Optimization strategies for our clients. I look for business change issues that small businesses can use to their advantage. I’m all over customer service. And it comes together in something I’ve started calling influency*.

Should You Respond To Cranky Customers? Yes, and Here’s How.

This morning I got to work, and found a comment in my in-box. One of our subscribers to this blog had taken exception to something that happens here at Answer Guy Central.

Here’s the way things work: each time a new visitor comes here, we point out as they leave that we’re happy to stay in touch. We make that happen by having a small window pop up on their screen and offering a chance to  receive a monthly newsletter from us.

Customer Services Doesn’t Work? Yep, It’s Official.

Think Customer Service is an oxymoron? Turns out you’re right.

I’ve written on this topic before. From the supposed communications expert who told me that she didn’t want to hear my opinion, to the software company that thought a good way of doing support might be to go for sympathy by telling me that software development is hard, to the company that just couldn’t communicate, the theme recurs anecdotally for me, you, and just about everyone.

And now Contact Center Industry Analyst ContactBabel has made it official: in the USA, in 2009, looking at 6.6 billion call center interactions, consumers felt overwhelmingly that the centers failed to actually provide support.

“Do You Have a Program Called Skype?”

Here’s a Business Change you need to think about right now: Are you speaking the same language as your customers? I have opinions about outsourcing to far-flung countries, but today’s context has nothing to do with that.

Today being the first day of the month, we were getting ready to send out the monthly Answer Guy /  Virtual VIP Newsletter. We use a popular email management service to send the newsletter every month, and something was going wrong. I used the vendor’s instant messaging application, got a representative on line in a matter of seconds, and . . . well, I won’t bore you with the details of this friendly-but-ultimately-not-productive customer service / technical support experience.

The Spirit of MLK Day Giving: Alienate Your Customers, Part 2

Last week, I told you about an easy way to alienate your customers (feel free to change the word customer to “reader”, “viewer”, “disciple”, or whatever fits). At the time, I promised to reach out to Arianna Huffington and Sarah O’Leary and ask for comment on the decision one of them had made to pontificate in public but disallow comments.

The Fastest Way to Alienate Your Customers. Just Try This:

If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t believe it.

Yesterday the Huffington Post ran an opinion piece about communications. Specifically, it was about e-mail and how the impersonal, lacking-in-inflection nature of the medium leaves—even creates— too much room for misundertanding.

I couldn’t agree more. We’re running a little experiment here at Answer Guy Central, and I Hate Texting is based  entirely on the idea that you can’t really communicate without speaking.

So imagine my surprise when I got to the bottom of Ms. O’Leary’s piece, found the spot where every article I’ve ever read on Huffington Post allowed for comments, and saw this:

Your Clients Are Dumber Than You

Oh, yeah. I went there.

  • Point #1: I don’t really believe that
  • Point #2: Unless I do

And I don’t. At all. But here’s the thing: your clients hired you because you have some sort of expertise that they need. You’re the expert on something. So why do you speak to them as though they understand the things that are second-nature to you?





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