Customer service: should you blow your own trumpet?

With the increasing emphasis on customer service, more and more companies claim that they offer a very good service, the very best service even. But is it wise to blow your own trumpet? Any service delivery hick-up could then lead to a severe back clash, with many customers using the high quality service expectations set by the company as an excuse for complaining, mocking the company and thereby damaging its reputation. An alternative course is to let the customers do the talking and use forums, social media platforms and the many other tools available to ensure that the positive feedback is noticed by many. So next time you are thinking about blowing your own trumpet, make sure you can last the distance.

Fishy customer service

What is the link between a fish and customer service? 

Better hope that there are none. Unless you operate in the fish industry, it is better to avoid fishy customer service practices. There are no clear universal pointers as to what 'fishy' means but it could include known sub-standard operations, unfair practices, insufficient documentation, misleading advertising and many more horrible items that we can not quote in a blog dedicated to good customer service. Next time you review your customer service, someone should explicitly be tasked with the  objective to ensure that there is nothing fishy going on.

Reach out to customers

7 miles bridge - Florida Keys

Do you do enough to reach out to your customers? Even when you have that horrible feeling that you are too far apart to resolve a customer service issue, you have to make an effort and build those bridges to reach out to your customers. The rewards can be long lasting even if the initial investment may seem unreasonable

Customer service tips

Customer service tips

Treat your customers the way you would like to be treated;

Integrate your customer service with your marketing effort, making it a value-added activity;

Pull your weight as good customer service requires dedication and,

Stand out to make sure your efforts are noticed

Picture courtesy of Hargreaves Plants with our thanks

to be continued...

More customer service tips

 Having put together our top five customer service tips a little while ago, we though it would be worthwhile adding to the original list. At the moment, the only certainty is that there are plenty of them. Whilst we build a list, please do leave us a comment below to suggest some tips to be added to the list. Thank you







There are many resources on the internet providing lists of steps to go through if you (and your employees) want to provide a great service to your customers:
We will suggest some further reading to do if you are interested in the topic. To quick start the list here are a few suggestions:
-  Tips for empowering customer service employees

Customer service: learn to bend the rules

Learn to bend the rules

Customer service: learn to bend the rules

Customer service is often about excelling in the the delivery of rigid processes following a well defined set of rules and procedures. Developed over many years through the accumulated work of thousands of senior executives, this approach certainly appears rock solid and unbreakable. However, leaning on the experience and wisdom of the older generations, we are convinced that a little flexibility has some good. This is especially true given that the development of social media channels has dramatically raised the expectations of customers in terms of customer service. Indeed, many customers now expect a response within the hour, if not within 30 minutes. In order to ensure customer satisfaction and deliver against the very demanding expectations of your customers, should you not try to widen your employees' customer service skills by teaching them how to bend the rules?

Shadow customer service

So much effort is being deployed on customer service design that it becomes nearly impossible for individuals to be themselves. The rule books, the scripts, the do's and don'ts mean that at best the modern customer service company executive is a shadow of himself. Unsurprisingly this plethora of procedures can often be counter-productive as clients feel that their interlocutor is not acting in a natural or genuine way.  It can also provide plenty of ammunitions for the customer service officer to be obstructive rather than helpful - "computer says no!" or "this is against our policy" become frequently used sentences. More worrisomely this often leads to poor levels of job satisfaction which rapidly result in poor customer service. So, make sure your employees do not turn into customer service shadows.

customer service blog: how to deliver good customer service?

What is customer service?

Welcome to Very Best Service - The customer service blog dedicated exclusively to customer service.

The main objective of this blog is to illustrate customer service concept in pictures with a catch phrase and a short statement justifying the assertion. This blog is supported by a couple of additional resources:

- On verygoodservice.com we look for the very best companies such as hotels, retailers, online shops, travel companies, restaurants.... which are recognised as being the best at what they do and have recently won awards for their products and customer service.

- On our good customer service examples blog we feature real life stories from customers who have enjoyed a great experience from companies listed on our website.

Through our collection of customer service post we will also attempt to answer the question "what is customer service?" - To help we will post about the definition of customer service as well as give some customer service tips. We will touch on items such as culture, quality and how to handle customers.