No doubt things go wrong in business. For example, I’ve been accidentally double charged when making a purchase at a store. Usually it’s not a problem to get this corrected, it’s as simple as refunding the extra charge. However, when something goes wrong, be very careful if you feel the need to explain what happened, or to explain how things…
Category: Customer Success
Quality cannot be standardized
I’m staying at a resort in northern Thailand, there are many activities including encounters with elephants and boat rides to Laos. As I was scanning the list of options, I noticed a rice planting experience: Try your hand at Thailand’s age-old rice cultivation methods in our resort’s private rice paddy I haven’t decide yet if I want to try it…
EBay should focus on innovating after PayPal spin off
Once EBay completes the spin off of PayPal, and now their Enterprise unit, they should redouble efforts on actually innovating in the online market place experience. After nearly two decades of being in the business of helping buyers and sellers come together, they should’ve figured out quite a few things that they seemingly haven’t figured out. They allow bidders (buyers)…
Customer service and sales stupidity at Staples
I was just at Staples tonight shopping for a few things to add to my office. I found a small filing cabinet/drawer combo that would work really well next to my desk. But they were out of stock, and of course the person working went into some spiel about how I could have it ordered, that it might only take…
Do no harm: when initiator is not authorizer
When a customer comes through the door, especially if you’re a consultant, it’s a good idea to know why they came in the door. When a customer comes through my door, I like to know why and then I like to know who initiated that person coming through my door. For example, if someone asks me to present a two…
Patient care will be thrown out of the car.
Any business in the health care industry is subject to the greatest external forces that hold the power to destroy a business. Laws, like the recently passed Affordable Care Act, are putting immense pressure on businesses to improve quality, reduce costs, and protect privacy. Regardless how you feel about the laws, these laws place external pressure on businesses. Pressure that…
Questions to figure out how you can help someone else
I talk a lot about making sure work is worthwhile. And that starts with an understanding of what we would like to accomplish. Then, talking about what value that would provide. And then determining if what it might cost makes it a worthwhile endeavor. I find it easy to talk about this in the context of business but sometimes challenging…
You’re not a consultant
Many people confuse being a contractor with being a consultant. The first difference is that a consultant realizes that customers don’t always know what they need but they almost always think they know what they want. Sure, some contractors have figured this out too. The second difference is that a consultant has the integrity to care about giving a customer…
Help customers decide if they should shop elsewhere
It’s simply not possible to serve anyone that walks through the door. If you try, you’ll wind up neglecting those you can serve well and you’ll be providing marginal service at best to everyone else. You should know the type of individuals and organizations can help and you should actively be screening the people that you can’t. It’s the right…
PhotoShelter doesn’t get it when it comes to customer service
If “individual photographers rarely exceed their allotted bandwidth” why not take that risk on so you don’t have to pass that uncertainty on to your customers? There are plenty of ways to handle this without anybody outside of “rare” worrying about it. Why make it every customer’s problem?
From this statement alone I can tell you that if I had to call this company with a problem, they would spend all their effort deflecting blame.