Jeremy Watkin
CustomerThink
Eugene, OR, United States
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Past articles by Jeremy:
Keep It Open-Ended
On a recent road trip with my family, we pulled off the freeway for a quick lunch. We stopped at a restaurant with a drive-thru, and given current events, the cashiers were standing in the parking lot, moving from car to car, taking orders. For the record, it was 115 degrees Fahrenheit out there, so along with this criticism comes a significant amount of respect that the employees were there to… → Read More
The Real Reason you Purchase a Dyson Vacuum Cleaner
After a series of vacuum cleaners that lasted two or three years before biting the dust, we finally took the plunge and purchased a Dyson. Right out of the gate it was a superior machine to anything we had ever owned and continued to be for about five years before we had a problem. Having purchased the vacuum at Costco I naturally wondered if I should just return it for a new one. But I did some… → Read More
Removed From my Blog and my Life Forever
Image by Ryan McGuire From the very beginning of this blog, it’s always been our practice to observe both good and bad customer experiences with the goal of learning and improving the service at the companies where we work. To that tune, we’ve highlighted plenty of poor experiences without ever naming those companies. This isn’t a review site. On the flip side, we’ve quite liberally praised… → Read More
Rethinking Pain
Here’s Chuy resting after a long run. I didn’t stay mad at him for very long. I’ve written about my falls while running in the past. It’s no secret that I’m a bit accident prone, and I have a fresh, new example to prove it. I’ve been running with my dog, Chuy off and on for about a year, and thanks to a headlamp and a good dose of caution, haven’t yet fallen. That was until Tuesday when I really… → Read More
Learning to Consider Others
It’s amazing the customer service insights I gain from raising my kids. We recently moved to a new neighborhood and are thrilled to have multiple kids on our street, including some the same age as my oldest son. This means that our doorbell rings multiple times a day to see if he can play. Being a good introvert (like his dad), he’s often working on a project by himself and would be content to… → Read More
Welcome Aboard! 7 Tips for Building CX into New Employee Onboarding
This article was originally published on CX Accelerator on October 3, 2019. Click here to read the original. The first days and weeks are so critical when it comes to employee engagement and helping the employees buy in to the mission of their new company. Imagine the employee that shows up to a new job, is ushered to an office where they sit alone for hours poring over paperwork, waits a week… → Read More
Optimizing the Cancellation Experience: What’s the Right Amount of “Friction”?
In my work with a variety of customer service teams to understand their top contact drivers, especially in relation to customer satisfaction, I often find account cancellations are frequently near the top of the list. Over the course of my career, I’ve encountered company cancellation policies on opposite ends of the spectrum. While you’d think that a high-friction experience in canceling an… → Read More
A Blueprint for Getting and Keeping Customers (Hint: Make it Ridiculously Easy)
This article was originally published on the FCR blog on April 19, 2019. Click here to read the original post. In November of 2017 I aired out my grievances about a terrible tire buying experience and concluded the post by saying that I’d follow up after my next experience. As it so happens, I (thankfully) haven’t had to purchase tires for a while but the time finally arrived recently for my… → Read More
5 Technologies that Piqued Our Interest in Q1
This article was originally published on the FCR blog on March 29, 2019. Click here to read the original post and click here to watch a video description of this post. It’s that time of the quarter where we take a few moments to share some of the tools and technologies that we’ve seen in recent months that you might want to evaluate for your customer service and customer experience. In this… → Read More
4 Guidelines for Switching Channels Without Aggravating Customers
This article was originally published on the FCR blog on March 22, 2019. Click here to read the original. I recently contacted a company for customer service regarding a piece of software that was critical to me finishing a project. After sitting on hold on the phone for about five minutes I hung up and opted for live chat. Up against a deadline, I wanted a quick resolution and that called for a… → Read More
4 Guidelines for Switching Channels Without Aggravating Customers
This article was originally published on the FCR blog on March 22, 2019. Click here to read the original. I recently contacted a company for customer service regarding a piece of software that was critical to me finishing a project. After sitting on hold on the phone for about five minutes I hung up and opted for live chat. Up against a deadline, I wanted a quick resolution and that called for a… → Read More
Seeing Things From Another Perspective
This article originally appeared on the FCR blog on March 15, 2019. Click here to read the original post. I thoroughly enjoy running and have been doing so for more than a decade. I don’t participate in nearly as many races as I used to but still manage to hit the road for an hour or so four days a week, some time between 5 and 6am. It’s something I can’t live without at this point. One thing… → Read More
4 Tips to Get Value From Contact Center Quality Scores
I have two scenarios for you regarding contact center quality assurance. In the first, imagine a manager or supervisor listening to a phone call and using a set of criteria to grade that call. They then add up all of the points and deliver that evaluation to the agent who handled the call. While we’d like to think this quality coaching session holds some special transformational power, what’s… → Read More
3 Observations From My Man Crates Experience
I recently received a gift — but not just any gift. It was a Man Crates. Have you ever heard of these folks, because I hadn’t? Allow me to share about my experience.I received a box that contained a wooden crate similar to the dad on A Christmas Story when he received his “Major Award” that turned out to be a leg lamp. The box also included a crowbar and instructions to “limber up” because these… → Read More
4 Tips for Using Slack to Improve Contact Center Communication
This article was originally published on the ICMI blog on January 24, 2019. Click here to read the original post. When I was a customer service manager some of our team members employed a practice I affectionately referred to as “fishing,” or perhaps it’s spelled “phishing.” This, of course, could refer to anything from catching a salmon to illegally catching someone’s credit card information.… → Read More
My Understanding of AI in CX so Far. Things Could Change!
This article first appeared on CX Accelerator on January 7, 2019. Click here to read the original post. I’m not known for being quick on the uptake by those closest to me. A couple prime examples include long division and driving a stick-shift. When my only option was a manual transmission, my parents just sort of cut me loose on the streets of Rancho Cucamonga, California to learn to drive… → Read More
I Can’t Believe You Cut Me Off!
It’s official. I’ve completely caught the fly fishing bug — an unavoidable consequence given the abundance of fishable water here in Oregon. New in 2019, the state moved to an online system for fishing and hunting licenses which means we can now carry our licenses in an app on our phones rather than toting around a piece of paper.Eager to start fishing as soon as possible, I tried to obtain my… → Read More
Journey Mapping in the Contact Center: 6 Insights to Maximize the Value
I’ve recently been collaborating with my colleagues to improve customer satisfaction for one of our clients. While our approach has many aspects to it, one of the key initiatives has been to establish a new voice and style for how we interact with customers. We’ve been able to use the skills shared in a previous column to create a voice and style guide for this team. We’ve rolled the guide out… → Read More
Caring for Customers. Which Door Will You Choose?
I have many guilty pleasures during the holidays – generally food-related. One of my biggest is eggnog and in recent years I’ve grown to love eggnog lattes. They’re sweet, creamy, and delicious with just a hint of coffee flavor. One cold, rainy December evening, after the kids were in bed, I had to have one. I ventured to a local coffee shop for my drink of choice and a hot chocolate for my… → Read More
How Chat Analytics Differs from Voice Analytics
This article originally appeared on the OpusResearch blog on November 16, 2018. Click here to read the original. Today’s contact centers are overflowing with insights about how to deliver a better customer experience. There’s just one problem: the best insights are housed in the customer conversations (phone call recordings and chat and email transcripts) and it’s traditionally been incredibly… → Read More