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September 30, 2008: Putting Customer Care Above All Else Leads to Success for Overstock.com

Earlier this month, overstock.com was awarded the inaugural “Gartner & 1to1 Customer Awards’ Users Choice Award.” The award is given to companies who show exemplary Customer relationship strategy and excellence in providing customer experience. “Overstock.com’s attention to the customer experience as a leading way to significantly grow their business” was stated as a deciding factor in his decision said, Adam Sarner, principal research analyst at Gartner.

August 31, 2008: Three Strikes

Being a customer service professional, I’m constantly studying service experiences. Analyzing each experience to determine its good and bad points and using that information in my own profession to improve the level of service I provide or that of my team members through training. I feel I’m fair and actually more tolerant than most customers because I understand the challenges customer service professionals face every day. That said, I recently had not one, but three less than stellar customer experiences all within an hour and all at different merchants. It was as if it was orchestrated as some sort of training field trip…I was not impressed! Let’s start with a little history.

May 30, 2008: MSN Publishes 2008 Customer Service Hall of Shame

Earlier this week, MSN published the results of their 2nd annual, 2008 Customer Service Hall of Shame Survey. The national online survey, conducted by Zogby International polled 7,724 randomly chosen respondents and includes 140 companies from 14 industries. Several companies including Sprint, Time Warner Cable and Comcast have appeared on the list both years. Topping the list this year is AOL.

April 30, 2008: Consumers Leveraging Social Media to Guide Buying Decisions

A study released last week from the Society for New Communications Research shows consumers use social media to share customer care experiences and research companies’ service reputation when making purchase decisions. The study shows the increasing power social media has on driving purchasing behaviors and ultimately maintaining one’s brand. It’s becoming virtually impossible to hide behind poor products or services as the average consume now has several outlets through which they can share their experiences.

February 27, 2008: PR or Great Customer Experience?

Whether it’s simply great PR or an honest attempt to improve the customer experience, Starbucks’ decision to close over 7,000 company locations for 3 1/2 hours on Tuesday has the media and blog worlds buzzing, and it’s not from a jolt of java.

January 31, 2008: Reviving A Brand

“We will focus on what is most important; we are committed to customer experience” was the battle cry of Howard Schultz as he addressed investors on a conference call earlier this month as he once again took the reigns of mega coffee giant Starbucks. Starbucks has long been the poster child for great customer experiences and has in fact inspired a book written by Joseph A. Michelli titled The Starbucks Experience, in which he discusses 5 key principles for turning ordinary into extraordinary.

September 29, 2007: Online Sales Slowing

After considerable year over year growth since the inception of the Web, online sales growth in major sectors like books, computer peripherals, pet supplies and others have dropped dramatically. Online sales this year are expected to reach a respectable $116 billion or 5 percent of all retail sales. Nothing to slouch at, but it is becoming increasingly more difficult to maintain the growth rate seen in recent years.

August 24, 2007: Bring Back The “Human Touch”

In our quest to deliver better, faster and cheaper, we continue to leverage technology to automate processes in order to reduce cost. But where should the line be drawn? Have we gone too far? Is the automation of customer service actually hurting your business by driving customers away? While some automation and self help is desirable, I personally feel we have gone too far in dehumanizing customer service and therefore are negatively affecting the customer’s experience.

July 31, 2007: Perception is Reality

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, there is little doubt you’ve read something or at least had a conversation with somebody about CRM, CEM or VOC. Not familiar with all these acronyms? They stand for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Customer Experience Management (CEM) and Voice of Customer (VOC). Simply stated, all of these areas focus on some aspect of understanding your customer’s wants and needs and then adjusting business practices to ensure you can deliver on those expectations. It seems simple enough…why all the hype?