Interview Questions for Every Customer Service Candidate

Short of inventing a time machine there’s no guaranteed method, which makes an interview one of the most important tools you have to vet a customer candidate.

The right interview questions reveal more useful information about a candidate than their work history, because they force interviewees to think on their feet, drawing on their experience to answer pointed questions. Seeing how they react speaks volumes about how they will handle real-life situations, and will help you avoid wasting time and energy on hiring the wrong person.

Divide these interview questions among your hiring team, and you’ll get the information you need to hire top customer service talent.

Structuring Your Interview Q&A

The best interviews are not strict question-and-answer patterns; they’re structured conversations that draw out candidates’ attitudes, strengths and challenges.

Encourage candidates to use a storytelling approach: Tell them you’re not looking for hypothetical “this is what I would do if that happened” answers. Ask for specific, detailed stories about their experiences and their behaviors in those situations.

Don’t be afraid to dig deeper: Your questions are only starting places for conversational topics. If the answer is interesting or concerning, ask follow-up questions to uncover more details.

It’s OK to ask similar questions: Often the best stories will come out when a candidate has had a few minutes to think about an earlier question. By revisiting important areas, you give them the best chance to reveal their character and skill to you.

Don’t rush to fill silence: It’s OK to let your candidates sit quietly before they answer a question. It can give them time to formulate their thoughts, and it can also result in them revealing more than they initially intended.

Customer service approach

1.What does good customer service mean to you?

2.What appeals to you about this role specifically?

3.What’s the best customer service you’ve ever received? Why?

4.Can you tell me about a time you received poor customer service?

5.Is there a difference between customer service and customer support?

Emotional intelligence, empathy and behavior

6.Can you tell me about a time when you were proud of the level of service you gave a customer?

7.Have you ever dealt with an unreasonable customer? How did you handle it, and how would you handle it today?

8.Have you ever bent the rules in assisting a customer? Tell me the situation and the outcome.

9.In your past work, have you ever received negative feedback from a customer? What did you do with that feedback?

10.Can you tell me about a customer that you found difficult to understand, and how you approached that interaction?

11.Can you describe a time when you had to say “no” to an important customer’s request?

12.What’s the best way to help a customer who has worked with multiple agents and hasn’t received the help they need?

Problem solving

13.Have you had a time when a customer was reporting a technical issue that you didn’t know the answer to? What was your approach, and how did it end up?

14.Can you tell me about a situation with a customer when there wasn’t a clear policy to use, and you needed to make a judgement call? How did you approach your decision, and what happened?

15.Can you give me an example of a situation where there were major problems with your product/service, and you needed to respond without having all the answers yet?

Communication skills

16.Can you give an example of how you handled alerting a customer when your product/service caused a major problem?

17.When responding to a customer, how do you decide what information to include, and what to leave out?

18.Can you tell me about a time when you needed to convince a customer or a teammate to change the way they were working (e.g., adopt a new procedure or modify their language), and how you went about that?

Attitude and approach to work

19.What’s the last new skill you learned? Why did you choose that skill, and how did you learn it?

20.Can you tell me about a time when you made a great contribution to your team?

21.What’s the next book I should read? Why?

22.What are you better at today than you were this time last year?

23.What do you think makes a good teammate?

Do you have unusual interview questions you’ve had success with in past interviews? Share in the comments below!

What Little Things Small Businesses Can Do To Build Customer Relationships

Have you ever wondered why we move to the complex end of the spectrum at the beginning of solving a problem and build customer relationships? I certainly have, especially after making the mistake myself.

In the field of designing positive experiences for customer relationship building, there will certainly be many designs that will take some serious thinking. But hopefully not at the expense of the little things you can do to build customer relationships. Such as what you may ask?

The customer engagement checklist starts with a foundation of little things that, when not done well, can make the more complex customer experience design actions a moot point.

Let’s examine a checklist of these ‘little’ items that Digital Spark Marketing recommends to its clients:

Acknowledge that I am there … as soon as possible. If you are busy with another customer, inform me you will be with me shortly.

Be personable … smile and introduce yourself.

Know more than your customers do … about your products and services. Always assume they have done their own homework and product research. If you don’t know, DON’T BLUFF, but do offer to do some research.

Don’t sell … use your knowledge and experience to help customers decide.

Listen to them well … and make sure you understand their question(s).

Help them complete their visit quickly … and hopefully, without seeking other help, or ‘handing them off’.

Be easy to work with … and exceed expectations whenever you can. If your business doesn’t have what the customer wants, off alternatives, including other businesses.

Be honest … and if you don’t know say so.

Always … do what you say (promise).

Follow through promptly … and keep them informed until you can close.
These are not things that we do not already know, of course.

Yet these little things list simply reminds us of what we already know but may have forgotten. Then it is up to us to put these lessons (or reminders) into daily use through persistence and practice.

How to Influence Customer Conversion with Psychological Triggers

We’ve all wished we could have more conversions at one point or another. But getting people who visit your site or your premises to actually buy from you is really tough. Most of the advice out there you could quite easily call “stylistic.” It’s all about how you present yourself and how to put your best foot forward. These could include psychological triggers.

It’s vaguely psychological in the sense that it accepts that enticing people to buy your product is important. But it’s naive in its approach. It doesn’t seek to exploit the psychological triggers that cause people to buy from you.

Here, we’re going to investigate the various psychological forces that trigger the buying decision. How you can influence them? Let’s take a look.

Trigger 1: Pleasure

Human beings might have very different personalities, but they’re all wired on a basic level in a very similar way. This is particularly the case when it comes to pleasure and pain. People like pleasure and they avoid pain.

This basic fact is important for companies. Companies that provide their customers with pleasure are in a better position to do business than those that don’t. Why? Because companies that provide pleasure will become associated with pleasure in the consumer’s mind.

The theory seems straightforward, but how to make it actionable? Today, many of the world’s top companies are using the A to Z process. The idea here is to take customers from their first interaction – point A – and get them as close to point Z as possible, before asking for money.

You see this sort of thing all the time from top tech startups. Almost all tech startups won’t charge for their software upfront. Instead, they’ll offer customers a free trial that lasts perhaps a couple of weeks.

In that time, customers will use the product and learn all the many ways that it can help them. And, ultimately, they’ll begin to associate pleasure with that product. When that happens, tech companies will look to close the sale. It’s an effective strategy and one that exploits a key human drive.

Trigger 2: Novelty

The media has known for a while that people strongly respond to both precedence and novelty. In the consumer world, the same is true. Take novelty, for instance. Neuroscience has shown that our brains react to novelty in a very interesting way.

When we see something new, our brains immediately release dopamine, making us feel good. We then start to associate new stuff with feeling good and become, in a sense, hooked.

Take the iPhone, for instance. Everybody knows that the difference between the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 6 is small. And yet people were quite happy to throw away their iPhone 5 and blow money on the new version, just because it was new.

So what can marketers do with this information? The key here is to continuously tweak your product. Add a couple of new features, change the styling, or even do a simple rebrand. These can all be effective in driving new sales and giving customers what they want.

If you do go down the novelty route, however, you’ve got to be careful. Customers will call your bluff if you don’t add meaningful new features or change your business model.

Trigger 3: Ease

The famous psychologist Daniel Kahneman said that the law of least effort applies to cognitive as well as physical effort. He says that if people have a number of options to achieve the same goal, they will choose the easiest.

His argument, therefore, is that people like stuff that is easy and dislike stuff that is hard. Evolution, he says, has made us lazy. It was a survival benefit for us to expend as little energy as possible because we never quite knew when our next meal would arrive.

Because laziness is so deeply built into our psychology, it’s something that is paramount for businesses. Firms need to make the customer experiences as painless and as easy as they possibly can.

Take making payments, for instance. Customers want to be able to make payments as quickly and as easily as possible. But often businesses don’t offer solutions that cater to their needs. Nobody wants to spend ages filling out a direct debit order form every time they make a big purchase.

Recently, however, we’ve seen the rise of consumer financing companies. These companies make it easier for businesses to offer customers financing options. Crucially, they’re quicker and smarter than the finance options of the past. And many of them can be handled by a single POS terminal.

You can also see the drive to make things as easy as possible in the rise of businesses like We Buy Any House. These companies exist solely because people don’t want to go through the hassle of selling on the regular market. They just want the process to be as easy as possible.

What’s the key message to convey to your customers? It’s that your business is the easiest and simplest way for your clients to get hold of the service that they want.

Trigger 4: A common enemy

Steve Jobs wasn’t the best manager or the best engineer. But what he could do better than anybody else in the world was sell. He understood that they way to sell to people was to create an alliance with them to solve a problem.

Creating a common enemy helps to unite businesses and consumers in a fundamental way. It makes it seem as if they are on the same team and have to work together to face down a common foe.

In the 1980s, Apple saw that Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard were running away with the desktop market. Jobs immediately saw an opportunity to cast Apple and its consumers as the underdog, and the PC firms as the corporate giants.

It didn’t matter that Apple itself was a big company. All that mattered was that Apple was uniting its customers under one banner against the PC.

The advice for small businesses is to find a common enemy. Remember, you don’t have to unite with people against a particular company. Having “colds and flu” as an enemy or “boring education” can be just as effective.

8 Cardinal Sins of On-line Customer Experience

Often overlooked, Customer Experience is one of the main factors that contributes to the success of your brand. It is as important as your digital marketing strategies, website usability and, of course, product quality. In other words, you need to identify the means to offer your clients a satisfying and entertaining experience. If they find navigating your website to be simple and enjoyable, they are more likely to come back and eventually buy from you. Today we will take a look at 8 ways to ignore on-line customer experience and use it to convert better.

1. Don’t Worry about Website Speed

If your website moves too slowly, your customers will get bored and frustrated and go somewhere else. One of the biggest deal breakers is not represented by your range of products, prices or competition, but the easiness with which people can start using your site and browse through its pages. And if this doesn’t convince you, remember that site speed is one of Google’s criteria for SEO. It wins you points and puts you in a relevant position in Google searches.

2. Forget Mobile

Experts in digital marketing and SEO cannot emphasize enough the importance of your website being scalable and usable on mobile devices. According to recent studies, two-thirds of Americans use their smartphones to access the internet not only for entertainment purposes but for shopping and service contracting. The rest of the world follows this trend as well. And Google also added the site’s availability on mobile devices among its SEO criteria.

If you want to stay ahead and keep your customers happy, you need to make their mobile experience fast, efficient and complete, allowing them to browse your website, read your content, purchase products and interact with your brand.

3. Stop Discouraging Your Customers

Take your time and browse the Internet, taking special interest in your own competitors. Note down all the things that you experience and feel when you begin browsing similar websites. Is there a login process that people need to go through? Is it necessary and if it is, is it easy? Do you use complicated, long and obnoxious signup forms that make people get bored fast? Do you use contact forms that ask for more personal information than is necessary?

A/B testing is one of the best ways to check out your signup forms, login process, contact forms and landing page experience. Once you understand what your customers want from your website, incorporate their feedback into your upgrading efforts. You will be rewarded with better conversions for your efforts.

4. Don’t Ask Your Customers For Feedback

Starting with the way you display your products in the catalog and ending with the way you thank you them for shopping from you, customer experience can cover a very wide area. You can tweak your website and use split testing for everything. But nothing compares to actually asking your clients what they really want. Over 90% of customers will never make a purchase from you again if they feel unhappy with the experience.

Use polls and satisfaction surveys to get first-hand information and feedback from your users. Make sure you further incorporate their reasonable advice into your website/marketing strategy. Also, make sure you always publish the polls and surveys’ results. This improves the company’s transparency, increases website views and compels customers to share the results with their social media networks.

5. Don’t Trigger Users’ Memories

Have your tech team upgrade your website so users remember what they liked and what they purchased the last time they visited. Once a visitor comes by a second or a third time, he will feel appreciated and valued if he is welcomed by a short history related to content, products, and info that appealed to him the last time. If a customer is already sold on a product, they will have a more positive experience (and convert better) if they doesn’t have to browse page after page that attempt to up-sell the new visitors.

6.Forget Using Messaging

While email marketing still works, people usually have their inboxes flooded with unrequested offers, newsletters and goodwill messages, all meant to push them into making a purchase. Push notifications are also frowned uponheavily, as they can and will annoy customers and make them go away. In-app messaging, on the other hand, is a friendlier, less aggressive and more engaging way to keep your customers close and feeling valued without the “harassment” dose.

In-app dynamic messaging is timely, efficient and more relevant. By all means, useush notifications and mass emails as a part of your marketing mix – with an emphasis on mix. However, if they are all you use, you will be effectively pushing your customers to send you into the Spam folder.

7. Don’t Include Customers’ Reviews

If you know that customers’ reviews are 12 times more trusted than the company’s marketing and advertising campaign, then you know what you have to do. Moreover, 86% of customers consider other peoples’ reviews as an essential step in their purchase decision-making process, while 56% of online shoppers especially search for websites that include products/company reviews.

This is a tricky and double-edged sword. Some reviews might say things you don’t want to hear about your products, let alone be seen by other customers. The trick here is to answer all negative feedback in a personal and friendly manner. You will improve Customer Experience while listening to what verified purchasers had to say.

8. Don’t Offer Live Chat

Did you ever use such live chat boxes and receive no answer for hours? That’s not the way to do it. If your business is large enough, however, having a live chat on your website with professionals on the other end, increases users’ positive experience and converts amazingly. People can ask you questions about your products without browsing endless FAQ pages. And they will he happy not having to wait for you to answer the phone or an email. Moreover, they can be convinced to buy a certain product if the interaction with your customer support specialist was satisfactory.

We’d Love To Hear Your Comments!

These were just a few tips on how to increase your customers’ levels of satisfaction and improve their experience. Do you use other methods? What strategies did you implement?

Learning from the Best Customer Service Cases

Have you noticed that you learn best when you examine the work and results of others? We certainly feel you do. In this article we will examine three great customer cases. All of these offer some excellent points you can apply to your business that will help amplify your marketing.

Related: My Favorite Customer Service Blogs

Case 1

I’ve been with the same dentist for more than 15 years. He’s friendly, personal, and generally on time with his service schedule. I have considerable confidence in his abilities and he had my business loyalty, at least until now.

He does what I expect a dentist to do and he does it explaining all the issues and options without having to play 20 questions with him. For that reason I never thought about considering a change in service providers.

Then one day my wife and I started spending our winters in Florida. And now the option of finding a Florida dentist became a necessity.

The new dentist changed my entire perspective on the service expectations that I had developed over the past 15 years.

This new dentist was younger and surely ‘less experienced’. But it didn’t seem this way. He was much more personal, asked important questions, spent more time with me, and did a more thorough job.

That experience opened my eyes to the quality differences with my current dentist.

I had come to expect quality and service that was very good. But the new dentist provided something even better.

Now every time I am in need of standard dentist action, such as annual checkup, etc., I plan my appointments for our time in Florida. The Florida doctor has won my standard business.

The business lesson here?

If you are any type of service provider, never become complacent. Don’t provide standard, average or just good enough service. Always look for ways to continuously improve your service and do things better.

Because the day someone provides better results, service, or quality than you do, is the day your customers’ loyalty will dry up. Left unchanged and not corrected so too may your business.

Case 2

Ever been to Disney World? With most of our family living 50 miles away, we often felt like tour guides. Not a bad thing though. Lots any business can learn from Disney’s customer experience design and operations. A real difference maker.

Disney puts a tremendous amount of attention to its parks’ customer immersion and customer experience; in fact, one could say the Disney theme park mystique is 100% about immersing the customer in the culture of Disney movies and character history. Over 150,000 employees are employed ‘on stage’ each day at Disney parks to help create this customer experience immersion.

What are the ways Disney uses its park designs and ‘on stage’ employees to create the best possible customer experience?

Consider Disney’s explicit operations and design principles:

Care for customers

In front of nearly every ride was stroller parking and in Magic Kingdom, there were plenty of strollers because nearly every group had some small children. There were areas set aside for stroller parking, and clear instructions for where to park your stroller. Guess what? Customers still managed to ignore them.

In most places, this might create chaos. Not at Disney, where they have a ‘stroller guy’ whose entire job it was to pick up after lazy customers. We have seen them organize strollers into lines, put errant Sippy cups back into cup holders, and keep his little area of the park neat and organized.

All customer facing employees are responsible for ensuring parks remain clean, friendly, organized, and most of all, fun.

Immerse customers in the brand

At Disney, you can’t look in any direction without seeing the Disney branding all around. In the park it works to surround you with the Disney experience at every moment, even when some parts of the park are under construction.

Not to mention the side benefit of Disney likely negotiating some discount on the construction work from businesses in exchange for allowing them to put their brand on the signage seen by millions of park customers.

Lots of help and directions

All stage employees are encouraged to be ‘assertively friendly’. They are to seek out those who look like they need help, before they come looking for help.

The parks at Disney are very large and directions can be confusing. The last thing customers need is to not be able to find what they are looking for. As a result, signs have to be super easy to navigate and offer simple ways to get from one place to another. Disney does a great job keeping their signs easy to understand.

They also have logical layouts for parks and plenty of places to pick up copies of maps as you’re walking around their parks.

Random acts of kindness

Each employee is encouraged to offer random acts of kindness often.

The Fast Pass system at Disney is a work of analytical art that is designed to keep people moving through attractions faster and in a more optimized way. To use it, you just insert your own park ticket and the Fast Pass will give you a specific time to return to a ride in order to board it without a wait.

Only one active at any one time however. At several, you also got the unexpected surprise of a bonus ticket to a nearby (and usually less popular) ride. Thanks to this bonus ticket, you had the chance to ride an extra ride in the same time and feel just a little better about your experience all day.

A random act of kindness that costs nothing.

Be flexible with rules

Many of the rides take photos of you while you are on board. Those photos are sold to riders after the ride, a classic amusement park upselling technique. At Disney, they show you the images and put a person below those images just standing by to answer questions.

Of course, some people will just take a cell phone photo of their image instead of buying one. Many places would put up big signs preventing that. Disney, instead, puts a person there working under the photos to make it a little more socially awkward to take a photo of your photo, but they don’t outlaw it. The result is that they probably still get a high percentage of people buying the photo who really want it. They don’t need to have the typical rule outlawing the inevitable group of people who are happy with lower quality photo they take themselves.

Educating while entertaining

Many places in all the parks Disney provides educational material on signs around the parks. This is particularly true in EPCOT and the Animal Kingdom, and special events like the annual garden show at EPCOT. Can’t be too much of this in our opinion.

Offer reassurance

Everyone ‘on the stage’ has a cast role, and as such, is responsible to contribute to the positive customer experience by being as helpful and assuring as possible.

When we traveled to Australia, we frequently ran into the expression a ‘nervous nelly’ used to represent a timid or always apprehensive person. We all know people like that. They check a map constantly even when they are going the right way, and usually find a reason to worry about something.

Disney does a great job of making sure those people feel at ease, with plenty of places and people to answer questions.

Show ready

Each customer facing employee is expected to be ‘show ready’ whenever they are on stage. Everyone has a part to play as a component of the show. On stage, the show is on and everyone follows costume and customer interface guidelines. Breaks and relaxing are ONLY allowed in areas unavailable to guests.

Disney certainly knows all there is to know about customer immersion and customer experience, don’t they? It’s a culture handed down by Walt himself.

Companies that are proactively managing all elements of their customer experiences are most successful in achieving customer loyalty. It is awesome marketing isn’t it.

Case 3

I stayed in a new Marriott Courtyard hotel a while back. The situation was that it was recently opened and should not have been opened until the problems were worked out and management was ready. There were many problems, believe me and it started as a significant customer failure.

But not only did the staff take care of the issues for me, the manager, once he got me back to ‘even’, continued to build the relationship with me. His techniques included exceptional, personalized service, using my name in face-to-face greetings, and continued follow-up and attention to detail. He actually made me believe I was the best customer he had ever had. Not only did I forget about the earlier problems, but I was feeling great about the entire three-day experience.

Service recovery requires remaining with your customer, through follow-up, and through unexpected contact well after the issue. All customers deserve our best service, but the ones that have a negative experience represent an opportunity to define a business.

Such an opportunity represents an opportunity to turn customers into enthusiasts and maybe even advocates. And that requires going beyond the ‘break-even’ point for that customer.

Research has shown time and time again that customers who reported a problem and were delighted with the outcome have higher satisfaction with the business than the ones who never experienced a problem. So these results show the importance of turning customer failure into full customer recovery.

Why should any company not want to seize such a great marketing opportunity?

Try it … the next time you have a customer who has had a back experience with your business. You will be amazed at the results.

My Favorite Customer Service Blogs

Do you like to read a lot? Keep up with new thoughts in your professional field? I certainly do, especially my favorite customer service blogs. And we always end up expanding the way we look at things, the more we read.

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

-Wayne Dyer

Are you continuously working to find new things you love to do? Perhaps starting with your personal development? A very good idea these days … where change is the name of the game. Aim high. Explore. Stretch your boundaries. But be sure and put learning in your skill bag.

All of these are useful to remember for growing knowledge of your enablers for success. Enablers for success that are essential for your personal and professional development and in doing what you love.

Related: Should Patients Expect a Great Customer Experience from Doctors?

Our marketing agency focus on how to make small businesses better for successful growth. We believe growth depends on 5 key ingredients: creative marketing, customer service and experience, adaptation and change, your employees, and leadership. All of these topics have important subheadings, of course, but these 5 ingredients are a great place to start,

Today we will begin a series on our favorite blogs on each these topics. They are not the only ones we read, they are merely ones we try not to miss. Our first subject is customer service and customer experience.

We have 3 favorite bloggers that write in this field. We will tell you a little about each of them and then explain why they have become our favorites:

Bill Quiseng www.billquiseng.com

Bill Quiseng is a blogger and award-winning writer in the areas of customer service for front-line associates and customer service leadership for managers.

He has over thirty years of luxury resort/club management experience. Presently the resort manager at Marriott’s KoOlina Beach Club on Oahu, HI, Bill was the general manager of The Henry – Autograph Collection in Dearborn, MI. leading it to be ranked #1 Dearborn Hotel on TripAdvisor.com. Prior to that, Bill was the general manager of The Inn at Bay Harbor‐A Renaissance Golf Resort, MI.

Why I like Bill’s blog

Bill is a big believer in building strong relationships with customers, one of our hot buttons. He has been in this field his entire career with many companies and many locations across the country. As a result, he has a great network that he uses to his advantage in many awesome guest blogs.

Shep Hyken www.hyken.com/blog/

Shep Hyken, is a customer service expert, professional speaker and bestselling author who works with companies and organizations who want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees.

His articles have been read in hundreds of publications, and he is the author of Moments of Magic, The Loyal Customer and the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestsellers, The Cult of the Customer and The Amazement Revolution, which was also recognized as a New York Times bestseller, and, his latest book, Amaze Every Customer Every Time.

Shep’s programs focus on customer service, customer loyalty, internal service, customer relations and a motivational program titled “You Are The Magic!” He is known for his high energy presentations, which combine important information with entertainment to create exciting presentations for his audiences.

Why I like Shep’s blog

This is an easy one. Shep tells great stories filled with many great experiences and examples. We learn the most from our and others experiences in a subject. Shep’s experiences are: always interesting; so useful, the activity’s relevance is self-evident; wide-ranging, so varied, every critical thinking skill is exercised; and so effective, when the experiences themselves are forgotten, their benefits are fixed permanently in our memory.

Annette Franz http://CXjourney.blogspot.com

Annette has led Consulting Services departments for several companies that focus on improving both the customer experience and the employee experience by utilizing their software platforms to facilitate listening to and operationalizing the voice of the constituent.

She started her career in this space as a VOC consultant at J.D. Power and Associates and has been working with clients to transform their cultures and experiences for more than 20 years. She is currently Director, VOC Consulting at Confirmit.

In 2011, Annette began her blog, CX Journey™, as a way to share her learnings and experiences from the last 20 years. Her blog is currently syndicated on CustomerThink, Yahoo Small Business Advisors, FutureLab, Business2Community, and more, and she’s a guest blogger and ghost writer for several others.

Why I like Annette’s blog

Annette has had many jobs in her continuing career of customer experience consultancy. As such she has worked with many businesses large and small on ways to improve customer experience design. Her writing is very easy to follow and represents both a world of her experiences and a large variety of interests.

We certainly encourage you to do some sample readings from these great blogs and tell us what you think. And better yet, refer us to some of your favorites in this field.

Interview with Shep Hyken, Customer Service Author and Expert

What is the best way you have found to maximize your learning on a topic? Perhaps it is reading, web research, or a combination of ways. Today we will have an interview with Shep Hyken, a customer service expert, professional speaker, and bestselling customer service author for better than 35 years. This is another great way to learn by examining others’ experiences.

Shep works with companies and organizations that want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees. He has recently published a new book: Amaze Every Customer, Every Time. I like to follow Shep because he shares so many great personal experiences. Such experiences are the best way I’ve found to learn.

His articles have been read in hundreds of publications, and he is the author of Moments of Magic, The Loyal Customer, and the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestsellers, The Cult of the Customer and The Amazement Revolution, which was also recognized as New York Times bestseller. He is also the creator of The Customer Focus program which helps clients develop a customer service culture and loyalty mindset.

Let’s dive into this interesting subject:

Mike’s question: Shep, how did you get started in this career?

Shep: Back in 1983 I was less than a year out of college and didn’t have a job. I saw a couple of motivational speakers, and thought, “I could do that.” In high school and college, I worked doing comedy and magic in clubs and felt comfortable getting up in front of an audience. I did some research and landed on the topic of customer service, which is something I always believed in. My parents instilled the values in me to do the right thing by other people. So, my dive into this business started with some motivational speaking with the theme of creating Moments of Magic for our customers.

Mike’s comment: A great example of finding your first job. I like to coach on this topic and have done so many times over my career. It is amazing how many young people need help in this area.

Mike’s question: What is your favorite part of the job?

Shep: I love working with our clients. Every client is different and each has their own learning opportunities. While I have done a lot of research in the area of customer service and experience, our clients give me some of the very best education I could get in this field.

Mike’s comment: Ah, learning from others comes up again.

Mike’s question: What does a typical day look like for you?

Shep: I don’t believe there is anything typical about my day. I travel around the world and live the life of planes, trains, and automobiles (in the form of taxi cabs). On the road, I’m up early for an early-morning workout. Next is a good breakfast and then to the meeting room where I meet with clients in preparation for the speech I will be delivering to their employees.

When I’m home in St. Louis I start the day out the same way, with a workout. Once in the office, I’m on calls throughout the day with clients. Every week we shoot videos in our studio, so that is a fairly steady routine. I also do a lot of reading and writing. I read to learn and get ideas on what to write next. I also engage heavily in social media, so throughout the day I interact with my followers.

Mike’s question: You give lots of great advice. If a businessman could only remember 3 things about customer service, what should they be?

Shep:

1. Customer service is not a department. It’s a philosophy to be embraced by everyone.

2. Everyone has a customer, be it an internal customer (who you work with) or an external customer (someone who buys your goods or services). And, in some cases, they have both.

3. Everyone is a leader when it comes to customer service. Everyone can step up and be a role model that others admire and want to emulate. My friend Mark Sanborn says, “You don’t need a title to be a leader.” That is especially true in the world of customer service/experience.

Mike’s comment: If I could pick the most critical things to remember about customer service, it would be taking leadership, initiative, and realizing everyone has a role.

Mike’s question: What are the biggest changes in customer service you have seen in the last decade?

Shep: First and foremost, the customer’s expectations have changed. We (businesses) work very hard to promise great customer service. Companies tout their great customer service and that they have won awards (JD Powers and others). We brag to the customers how good we are, and then we have to prove it. The ones that do set the bar higher for everyone else (thankfully).

Another big change has been in technology. Used to be that you would call for tech support. Now there are multiple channels and companies must be on these channels. Great customer relationship management (CRM) programs help give anyone with access to the program the customer’s profile.

Social media is changing the customer experience for the better. It has given the customer a voice, bigger than ever before. Happy customers evangelize for you on social media. The opposite is also true. No company wants bad reviews, which ups the game for the company to deliver the best experience they can. Customers also benefit from this.

Mike’s comment: These would certainly be at the top of my list. Lots of change still in the future, don’t you think?

Mike’s question: What are your favorite examples of the best customer experience designs?

Shep: Amazon has an amazing online design. Once you set up your account, they remember you when you come back, make suggestions, and more. It’s like a personal shopper is with you 24/7.

So many other companies come to mind; Nordstrom, Ritz-Carlton, Zappos, Four Seasons, Amazon, Ace Hardware, and more. They get the customer experience and are continuously working to improve it.

Mike’s comment: Can’t miss learning from these guys.

Mike’s question: What type of personality is best suited as a public speaker?

Shep: One of the most important personality traits of a speaker is passion. That doesn’t mean you enthusiastically jump up and down on stage. It means you have a strong, yearning desire to share a message. Once a person has that passion, they can work to hone their speaking skills.

Also, the business of professional speaking is really a people business. You talk to people from the stage. You talk with people to prepare for the presentation. And, you talk with people after your programs. You must be gracious and show appreciation for others.

Stunning Customer Service Lessons and Their Examples

Maya Angelou knew a thing or two about the spirit of customer service didn’t she? Her secret of course was focusing on making people feel good about themselves and their examples, And, by transference, feel good about the business that was serving them.

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

–Maya Angelou

Related: Successful Social Media Marketing Tactics You Should Employ

Why is this a powerful secret? Because doing nice things for people often gets talked about. A lot. And things that get talked about are at the core of word-of-mouth marketing. The most valuable way to execute your marketing, in our humble opinion.

There’s much to be learned from companies that place a value on the details of customer service. For small businesses, there are practical lessons, such as how to increase business by developing a relationship with existing customers.

For larger corporations, there are lessons to be learned about company philosophy and brand development, and how taking a customer-first approach can benefit all aspects of an organization. And perhaps most simply, businesses can learn how to emphasize customer service from those that are doing it best.

Regardless of what lessons there are to be learned, or whether or not businesses choose to adopt this approach, there is little doubt that for many businesses, placing customers first leads to real benefits.

As it turns out, in a world where there are ever more businesses competing for the consumer’s dollar, one of the best ways to stand out from the crowd is to make those consumers feel appreciated and wanted.

Fundamental lessons from the best

Amazon, Trader Joe’s, Ritz Carlton, Marriott, Zappos, LL Bean, Legos. These are our favorites among the best of the best when it comes to customer service. But what lessons can these companies impart?

Well, each adopts different policies in order to meet their customers’ needs but the fundamental lesson is simple: do everything possible to appease the customer, and you will earn his or her loyalty, and that means return business. So how do businesses achieve this?

Well, let’s take a look.

Amazon.com

When Amazon started out, the idea of doing most of your shopping online was still foreign to most. In order to convince individuals to skip the department store and shop online instead, Amazon needed to first earn their trust – and they did that in part through their now quite well-known return policy.

Nearly everything on the online giant’s website can be returned within 30 days of purchase, no questions asked. This return policy is seen by consumers as a sort of safety net, helping build trust and loyalty.

Marriott

I have been a loyal Marriott customer from the start of my business career for over 45 years. Did quite a bit of travel throughout my career, and got sold early on with Marriott, from their Rewards Program, one of the best, if not the best in the industry.

Of course, in addition, their properties were all consistently outstanding. But since my retirement, I have not had the opportunity to stay with them very often.

But for my wife and I’s 20^th anniversary we decided to visit Miami Beach for a couple of nights. For my many years of loyalty, I am a Marriott Platinum Rewards member. The most significant benefit of this is having access to the concierge lounge and upgrade to a nicer room if available.

When I called to make a reservation, the corporate reservation desk person reminded me that he would request an ocean view upgrade, in case they were any available. A few days later, after thinking about it, I called the local hotel front desk, told them we had a reservation for 2 nights in celebration of our 20^th anniversary, and asked for a special favor for the ocean view room for this special occasion. The front desk assured me they would do their best.

On our arrival at check-in, the front desk welcomed us with a warm anniversary congratulations and welcome. They said they were able to find us a very nice ocean-view room. We certainly were not disappointed.

Later, after getting back from an afternoon of sightseeing and dinner on the bay, we returned to the room to receive a very nice bottle of champagne and fresh strawberries from the front desk and hotel chef. What a great surprise and ‘wow’ customer experience.

The thing is this: the front line of any brand in the marketplace is not the advertising, packaging, or product design. It is the interaction of the customer experiences that determines the brand’s reputation to a large degree. It is human and emotional, and at that critical time when a customer engages with your employees at your touchpoints, your brand (your product and reputation) will either be enhanced or diminished. No doubt about our experience was there?

Ritz-Carlton

If someone told you that Ritz-Carlton Hotels was voted one of the best companies for customer service, you likely wouldn’t be surprised. Our research on them certainly didn’t surprise us. And that’s kind of the point; by making customer service a priority, the company has established a reputation as being always willing to put the customer first.

And this reputation not only engenders loyalty from existing customers, but it also attracts new customers as well. Ultimately, that is the promise of customer service and the point of brand reputation – to earn new business.

LL Bean

For some companies, it’s a magical return policy, while for others, it’s anticipating the customer’s needs before he or she is even aware of it. Retail giant L.L. Bean takes a simple approach; working every day to improve customer service across the board, by implementing policies and taking steps to put the customer first.

And perhaps this lesson, above all, is the one to take away from this article. If you run a business, whether it is Google or a local coffee shop, put your customers’ needs first – work hard every day to keep them satisfied, and in turn, they will give you their business.

Trader Joe’s

We frequent Trader Joe’s when we can (none in our local area) and we like to witness their operation firsthand. Our study shows them particularly adept at random acts of kindness. Here is a story to illustrate.

An elderly man, 89 years of age, was snowed in at his Pennsylvanian home around the holidays, and his daughter was worried that he wasn’t going to have access to enough food due to the bad weather in the area.

Calling multiple stores in a frantic attempt to find anyone who would deliver to her father’s home, she finally got ahold of someone at Trader Joe’s, who told her that they also do not deliver … normally.

Given the extreme circumstance, they told her that they would gladly deliver directly to his home, and even suggested additional delivery items that would fit perfectly with his low-sodium diet.

After the daughter placed the order for the food, the employee on the phone told her that she didn’t need to worry about the price; the food would be delivered free of charge.

The employee then wished her a Merry Christmas.

Less than 30 minutes later the food was at the man’s doorstep—for free! In refusing to let red tape get in the way of a customer in need, Trader Joe’s shows that customer service doesn’t need to be about fanfare, it can simply be about doing the right thing.

Lego’s

We love many things about this brand, from their innovation to the way they engage with their customers. Here is a perfect story to illustrate.

Nothing like losing a favorite toy to wreck your day. Especially devastating to a young child. Longtime Lego fan Luka Apps spent all of his Christmas money on a Ninjago (Lego ninja) named Jay XZ. Against his dad’s recommendation, he took his Ninjago on a shopping trip … and lost it.

Luka wrote a letter to Lego explaining his loss and assuring the Lego staff that he would take extra-special care of his action figure if they sent him another one.

Hello.

My name is Luka Apps and I am seven

years old.

With all the money I got for Christmas, I

bought the Ninjago kit of the Ultrasonic

Raider. The number is 9449. It is really good.

My Daddy just took me to Sainsbury’s and

told me to leave the people at home but I took

them and I lost Jay ZX at the shop as it fell out

of my coat.

I am really upset I have lost him. Daddy said

to send you an email to see if you will send me

another one.

I promise I won’t take him to the shop again if you can.

– Luka

The response he received from a Lego customer support representative was nothing short of remarkable.

He told Luke that he had talked to Sensei Wu (a Ninjago character), writing:

He told me to tell you, “Luka, your father seems like a very

wise man. You must always protect your Ninjago minifigures

like the dragons protect the Weapons of Spinjitzu!”

Sensei Wu also told me it was okay if I sent you a new Jay

and told me it would be okay if I included something extra

for you because anyone that saves their Christmas money to

buy the Ultrasonic Raider must be a really big Ninjago fan.

So, I hope you enjoy your Jay minifigure with all his weapons.

You will actually have the only Jay minifigure that

combines 3 different Jays into one! I am also going to send

you a bad guy for him to fight!

Just remember, what Sensei Wu said: keep your minifigures

protected like the Weapons of Spinjitzu!

And of course, always listen to your dad.

It’s rare to see such a thoughtful, creative response to a distraught customer. So rare that this story went viral and repaid Lego many times for its kindness. And paraphrasing Seth Godin, ‘remarkable actions get talked about the most’.

Our takeaway

Remember this important fact. This is your time to create a remarkable spirit of customer service to tell the stories of what you are all about. Great way to own the moment with lots of customers.

Why Customer Relationship Management Is Crucial To Business Success

There are many important factors that determine business success in 2023, but one that should not be overlooked is Customer Relationships Management (CRM). CRM is the process that businesses use to manage interactions with customers and is key for providing the best possible experience for customers and keeping them happy. These days, there are excellent CRM software systems that can help businesses to improve their relationships with customers, and this should be a key area of focus for all businesses. This post will look at why this is so crucial and how the right CRM system could boost your business in 2023.

Learn About Your Customers

One of the key ways that CRM helps businesses to succeed is by providing the ability to learn about their customers. CRM enables businesses to learn about the wants, needs, preferences, and purchase history of their customer base. With this information, companies are then able to find ways to adapt and improve to enhance the customer experience. When businesses are able to do this, they can retain customers as well as develop a positive reputation – this is key for word-of-mouth marketing and attracting new customers.

Improve Customer Service Standards

Another key way that CRM helps businesses to succeed is by improving customer service standards. With data on each individual customer, businesses are able to easily provide personalized customer service. CRM equips customer service staff with every interaction with each customer, and personalized customer service will help improve customer satisfaction and help create a stronger connection with each customer.

Make Work Easier For Customer Service

Following on from this, CRM software can also make work easier for customer service staff and increase productivity. By providing easy access to customer interactions, staff can quickly handle interactions without having to trawl through different systems and spreadsheets. In addition to this, high-quality CRM software can automate various processes and tasks to increase efficiency and improve collaboration between different departments.

Improve Sales & Marketing

CRM software is important for customer service, but it can also be used to improve sales and marketing. CRM allows the sales department to close deals by using data to follow up on leads and prioritize prospects and increase conversion rates. Marketing strategies can be optimized by creating targeted marketing campaigns, customer personas, segmenting their customer base, and establishing trends and patterns.

How To Get The Most Out Of CRM

It is clear that CRM can help a business to succeed in a few ways, but how can you get the most out of CRM? It is worth using the services of a CRM consulting company that will be able to use data and analytics to improve all aspects of your CRM. This can include improving the customer experience and customer service standards, boosting sales, and developing the best marketing strategies to attract new customers to your business

CRM can have a huge impact on the success of any business in 2023, and it should be a key area of focus. When you prioritize CRM, you can attract and retain customers and develop a positive reputation that will help your business to stand out from the crowd.

Target’s Marketing Strategy Uses Customer Experience as a Difference Maker

Be everywhere, do everything, and never fail to astonish the customer. Have you noticed how Target’s customer experience design has grown in the importance of brand marketing? More and more trying to astonish the customer. Certainly, a real discriminator, isn’t it? The customer focus at Target has led to the retail giant having a reputation for an absurdly great customer experience design. In fact, the marketing strategy uses customer experience design as a key difference maker. The company is perhaps as known as much for its experience design as it is for the merchandise it sells.

Target has managed to make customer service its strongest selling point, and it certainly seems to have been the smart choice.

Today we will examine 10 different ways the brand has chosen to use its customer experience to stand out above the noise and become a significant contributor to their marketing strategy.

The end-state quality of the product or service the customer receives is what counts. However, this includes the experience the customer remembered while he purchased the item. Often that is what is remembered the most.

So what constitutes a great customer experience?

The quality of your company’s customer experience is ultimately determined by the way customers feel after their last interaction. If the customer is unhappy, your company’s customer experience is bad. If the customer doesn’t have a feeling one way or the other, your company’s customer experience is mediocre (and some would argue badly). If the customer feels good, your company’s customer experience is satisfactory, but it does not stand out.

But if the customer feels delighted, your company’s customer experience is a substantial competitive advantage. That is the only one that really matters to success. It is the one everyone is attempting to find the magic for.

Consider the invention cycle:

Imagination is envisioning things that do not exist.

Creativity is applying imagination to address a challenge.

Innovation is applying creativity to generate unique solutions.

Entrepreneurship is applying innovation, to bring unique ideas to fruition, and inspiring others’ imagination.

This framework is relevant to start-ups and established firms, as well as innovators of all types where the realization of a new idea — whether a product, service, or work of art — results in a collective increase in imagination. An entrepreneurial spirit infects others, leading to wave upon wave of imagination, creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Let’s examine 10 smashing examples that Target uses to delight customers:

Customer care

Feelings and emotions certainly have a significant role in the way customers are influenced in the marketing process. Some are saying that all customers are concerned about right now is price. I challenge that. It takes no special skill to follow the leader or be the (momentary) leader with the lowest price.

Companies that are thriving (yes, thriving) do more. They have made deliberate decisions about how they would run their business, and they live out those decisions every day. The most important of those decisions is the one that determines that taking great care of their customers is the highest priority.

Hire nurturers

Hiring nurturers to take care of customers is the best place to start the process. You can identify this natural ability in employees during the interview process.

As much as there is a tendency to move customers quickly in and out your doors in the name of efficiency, resist this approach. Today’s customer wants and expects to be cared for as an individual. For example; on “Black Friday,” as customers were standing in cold lines to get into stores in the middle of the night, one intern at a local store decided to pass out coffee, hot chocolate, and doughnuts to keep the crowds calm. A great small touch that had remarkable long-term results via word-of-mouth marketing because of that “nurturing” gesture.

At Target salespeople can offer to ring up your purchase without you ever having to stand in line. A great small touch that had remarkable long-term results via word-of-mouth marketing because of that “nurturing” gesture.

Product presentation

Have you ever been to a Target store? If you have you will remember the emphasis on the visual presentation of their products. Draws your eyes to many, even if you are not looking for them. Helping customers visualize and sometimes try on the products.

Personalization

Customers don’t want to be treated like a number. They want to feel valued and understood. Their belief? That the money they spend with your company entitles them to such treatment.

The differentiation of the experience your company delivers will therefore be at least in part contingent on your ability to personalize your interactions with customers across all channels. That means knowing their name, their previously expressed preferences, or the particulars of their current situation. Lots of small ways to create customer personalization. A Nordstrom salesperson rarely points. If you have a question about where something is located, they walk you there. The personal touch is remembered.

Care

Customers like knowing that you care. Great service is the top reason customers keep giving their business to companies and the top reason they recommend those companies to others. On the flip side, 80 percent of customers say that they have stopped doing business with a company because of a bad service experience.

More often than not, they will never do business with such a company ever again. For these reasons and others, it is critical to ensure that your company delivers great service care. Care that results in great experiences that are remembered and talked about.

Separate checkout bays by department, unlike many other retail department stores that have central checkout bays that can feel like a cattle call. You can’t over-prepare your customer experience if you want customers to select or stay with your company.

Empower employees

Be relentless about cutting out those rules that make your frontline folks have to bounce back and forth between themselves and a manager to take care of a customer or extend a special gesture they feel is warranted.

Take another page from Target that gets rid of the rule book for customers, or minimizes the rule book for employees, telling employees that the major rule they all live by is “No Customer Can Leave Unhappy.”

Differentiated value

This example, while being traditional, will surprise you with the best brand in this discrimination category. Ever shopped at Target? Our favorite retail store because of its great, unique discriminators. Consider its high-touch service, spacious look and feel, and top-quality products. One-to-one service. In most departments, if you indicate the desire to shop, there is a salesperson designated to help you find sizes, etc. They are number 1 in our minds.

Get away from the desk

Be where your customers and the folks who serve your customers are.

Be agile, be on the lookout for what people are asking for, and then be responsive. If you do something for one customer in need, spread the idea to your employees to extend the gesture, too. Being responsive and empathetic and adjusting how you do business for your customers now will pay off as the memory of your kindness stays with them.

Let your customers know

Let the marketplace know about who you are and what you value in your decisions and actions. Be authentic at all costs.

When you make a decision, it results in action. And the accumulation of those decisions and actions becomes how people describe you and think of you. It becomes your story. So decide what story you want to be told about your company and your people. Your “storefront” is the accumulation of your decisions and actions.

So what story is emerging about who you are and what you value? Having customers who love you tell your story will make your business grow. Make decisions that will earn you the kind of story you want to be told. No wonder the only rule at Nordstrom to this day is “Use good judgment in all situations.”

The bottom line

Here’s the thing, social and customer experience isn’t just a new way of marketing, it’s really a new way of running a business. Many businesses certainly have figured this out and are using social marketing and improved customer experience to rapidly grow their business.

Remember, don’t talk about how great you are. Tell your customers a story about what you do well will make them feel awesome. Make customer experience the centerpiece of your marketing success strategy. Learn from these guys, one of the best.