Shows
Become Your Own Boss: Tips for Starting and Growing Your Own Small Business244 - Boss Up Book - How Could Your Business Improve If You Hugged Your Haters?In this episode Monica breaks down the book Hug Your Haters by Jay Baer and shares the mindset shift that transformed how she handles customer complaints. Once extremely bothered by negative reviews, Monica now sees them as one of the most powerful tools for growth. Through personal stories and lessons from the book, she explains why how you respond to unhappy customers could become your strongest marketing tool—and the secret to standing out in a crowded market. If you’ve ever taken feedback personally, this episode is for you.Episode Quote: A customer complaint is a gift...
2025-03-2815 min
Nobody Raves About AverageLeadership Mantra for New Managers: Connect. Inspire. Empower.“How long employees stay at a company, and how productive they are there, is determined by the relationship they have with their immediate supervisor.” Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, The Leadership Challenge
According to Kouzes and Posner, these managers supervising the staff who were directly interacting with our customers had as much, if not more, impact than I did on employee engagement and subsequent customer satisfaction. And while each new manager displayed strong interpersonal skills that served them well to earn the promotion, managing people requires a different set of skills. We all know of an all...
2021-04-2704 minNobody Raves About AverageLessons from the Pandemic to Improve Your Customer Experience NowWhen first confronted with this pandemic we moved quickly to identify the high risks for our employees and our customers and then worked to define the action steps required to minimize those risks. What would have taken many months to implement for any other initiative took only a few weeks.
We can learn from the processes we took during this pandemic to establish the same steps to reassess and create our customer experience in what is the new normal. While improving customer experience is not literally life and death, without offering a good experience we stand...
2021-04-2604 minNobody Raves About AverageDon’t expect C-level execs to fix their company’s customer serviceNo matter how much companies say they value customer feedback, don't expect their delivery of customer service to get better any time soon. While C-level executives must be customers and experience service for themselves, they experience it like they do in the first-class section flying on a plane. Since they are not personally paying for the ticket, they do not worry about getting their money's worth. They do not weigh the needs might want, they are blind to what we real customers must endure behind that first-class curtain. As we complain about cramped leg room and...
2021-04-2403 minNobody Raves About AverageI Know Ritz-Carlton and You’re No Ritz-CarltonPeople are willing to pay much more of a premium to stay at a Ritz-Carlton. And despite paying that premium, people still rave about the exceptional service delivered by the Ladies and Gentlemen of Ritz-Carlton. So what is their secret? Actually, it's not a secret, at all. Ritz-Carlton gives us the blueprint to their success. Simply Google "Ritz-Carlton service" and you will find any number of articles written about the subject or the Amazon listing for Joseph Michelli's book about Ritz-Carlton, The New Gold Standard. Or do directly to the Ritz-Carlton page on their website that defines the brand's...
2021-04-2405 minNobody Raves About AverageJust Because You Don’t Think It’s a Big Deal, It’s a Big Deal"Just because you don't think it's a big deal doesn't mean your customer doesn't think it's a big deal. When your customer says it's a big deal, it's a big deal. And even when your customer says "It's no big deal," it's still a big deal. Or why would they bring it up?" - Kristin Anderson, Performance Research Associates
Listen to this episode for an example of how something you don't think is a Big Deal, IS a Big Deal. Remember, the customer is paying for his experience, not yours.
This episode is also...
2021-04-2202 minNobody Raves About AverageGreat Service is Great TheaterDo you always feel like working every day, five days a week, 8-10 hours a day, on your birthday, the holidays, or even on scheduled days off? Of course not. But do you think the customer really cares how you feel? Of course not! No customer walks into your establishment with an expectation of being dissatisfied. So you have to deliver Great Theater whether you feel like it or not. Listen to this episode to break down your customer experience, act it like you mean it, and deliver Great Theater to every customer.
This episode...
2021-04-2203 minNobody Raves About AverageNever go to a doctor whose office plants have died.What do dead plants in the waiting room have to do with the skill of the doctor? Logically nothing, but to the customer, everything.
“Customers perceive service in their own unique, idiosyncratic, emotional, irrational, end-of-the-day, and totally human terms. Perception is all there is!”
Listen to this episode to find out what dead plants in the waiting room mean for your customer experience.
This episode is also available as a blog post: http://billquiseng.com/2011/12/05/never-go-to-a-doctor-whose-office-plants-have-died/
2021-04-2003 minNobody Raves About AverageNo Surprises. No Excuses.When your customers call or walk into your establishment, they already have a perceived expectation of what your customer experience should be. Your advertising, website and salespeople, which serve a promise to your customers, have already shaped that expectation. Deliver on that promise and your customers come to trust you. Fall short and you have broken that promise and trust.
So how do you live up to your customers' expectations? Listen to this episode to find out how to deliver an experience with "No Surprises. No Excuses."
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2021-04-2002 minNobody Raves About AverageWhen It Comes to Service Training, Once Is Never EnoughToo often, the value of service excellence is communicated only at new employee orientation and the on-the-job training during the first week with no reinforcement thereafter. That is simply not enough to drive consistent customer care performance. And while I enjoy presenting my customer experience seminars to clients, I always let them know that learning about customer service cannot be seen as an event, but must be seen as a process. If your intent is to drive customer service excellence, you need to say it and your team needs to hear it more than just one time.
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2021-04-1903 minNobody Raves About AverageThe customer is paying for his experience, not yours.The goal of any business is to attract and retain customers. And customers actually make it very easy for you. No customer walks into your establishment and says to you, "Here is my money. Now, dissatisfy me please." In fact, your customer comes in with an expectation that what you offer could be more valuable than his money. Nobody knowingly expects to pay good money for a poor product or service.
If it's so easy, why isn't your business doing so well that you are literally turning away customers? It's because you already are turning away customers...
2021-04-1804 minNobody Raves About AverageCommon Sense But Not Common PracticeEarning customer loyalty is ultimately about creating and maintaining relationships. Over 70 years ago Dale Carnegie wrote the very best book on building relationships, “How to Win Friends and Influence Others.” While the stories are too dated to be relevant for most people, the fundamentals defined by Dale Carnegie many years ago are still customer service gold today. Mr. Carnegie defined the six ways to make people like you. Listen to this episode to find out how to use his common sense advice and put it into common practice to win the customer.
This episode is also...
2021-04-1802 minNobody Raves About AverageRemove all the dissatisfiers: Forbidden PhrasesYour Number One work responsibility is to attract and retain customers. So how do you do that? Be the customer. When your customer interacts with you, you are not an individual. To the customer, you are your company. And as the company, you cannot begin to satisfy customers until you remove all the dissatisfiers. That means removing forbidden phrases. Forbidden phrases are those which could potentially give a customer a poor impression of you and your company. Find out are just a few of these Forbidden Phrases and the proper alternatives in this episode.
This episode is...
2021-04-1804 minNobody Raves About AverageStep One on “How to Wow”: Remove all the dissatisfiers.The goal of any business is to attract and retain customers. In order to retain customers, you must provide service that will exceed the expectations of the customer. If you only meet the needs of the customer, there is a possibility that the customer will defect if there is a future choice of something new, different, or less expensive. So how do you wow the customer? Listen to this episode to learn about Step One in delivering the World's Best Customer Exeprience.
This episode is also available as a blog post: http://billquiseng.com/2011/08/03/step-one-on-how-to-wow-remove-all-the-dissatisfiers/
2021-04-1802 minNobody Raves About AverageWord of mouth advertising is NOT the best form of advertising.I ask my audience, “What is the best form of advertising to build market share?” Invariably, almost everyone responds “word of mouth.” Yet I tell them they are wrong.
In fact, the reach of word of mouth has gone beyond just family and friends. People are turning to the internet to use sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Yelp and even Facebook to make buying decisions. While the reviews and advice are virtual, it is still word-of-mouth advertising. We do it now and most likely with technological advances, will do it even more. We will trust the reviews and the rati...
2021-04-1802 minNobody Raves About AverageUse the CASE Method for Customer Experience ImprovementIt will be very rare that someone intent on improving the customer experience for his company will come up with an idea that is brand new. Better to use the CASE Method to enhance the customer experience. CASE stands for “Copy and Steal Everything”. If you feel uncomfortable with “Steal”, then “Copy and Save Everything”. Be more intent on observing within and outside of your industry for ideas that you can CASE. Then tweak the idea to make it your own. Listen to this episode to generate ideas to CASE.
This episode is also available as a blog post...
2021-04-1801 minNobody Raves About AverageLeadership Mantra for New Managers: Connect. Inspire. Empower.“How long employees stay at a company, and how productive they are there, is determined by the relationship they have with their immediate supervisor.” Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, The Leadership Challenge
When I served as a hotel GM, I had the opportunity to promote many front-line employees to their first management position. My commitment to them did not end at giving them a new title. That’s the easy part. More importantly, I needed to make sure they succeeded in their first leadership role. According to Kouzes and Posner, these managers supervising the staff who were direct...
2021-04-1804 minNobody Raves About AverageDo you have a Customer Service Manifesto?Imagine if you could get each person on your team focused on the same vision and commitment to the delivery of the World’s Best experience for each customer. Your company's service reputation would be broadcast so loudly by all of your customer loyalists that you easily would dominate your competition. So how do you do it? How do you get everyone on your team reading from the same book? Simple. Put it in writing. Literally, let them read from the same book. Create your customer service manifesto. Your manifesto is a declaration of your company's customer service creed, pr...
2021-04-1805 minNobody Raves About AverageFacemasks, safety signs, and hand sanitizers won’t keep your customersFacemasks, door signs, floor decals, partitions, and hand sanitizers won't keep your customers. Such safety protocols in response to the pandemic are expected from your customers. While failing to implement them will cost you customers, maintaining those standards will not guarantee that you keep them. Your competitors are doing the exact same thing which means what you are doing is average, heightened like everyone else, but still average. And ... wait for it ... nobody raves about average. Customers don't rave about a business that simply meets their expectations. Nor are they loyally bound to them. With these safeguards, you have...
2021-04-1703 min