Jeff Toister
MyCustomer.com
San Diego, CA, United States
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Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
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Past articles by Jeff:
How to discourage customers from tweeting public complaints
Public complaints on Twitter can be painful for brands, and can cause them damage. How can they be avoided while still placating the disgruntled customer? → Read More
Why service leaders must focus on middle-performers to improve CSAT
Why do we focus on the performance of contact centre agents at the bottom and the top, but rarely the middle?Think about which employees y → Read More
Goal-setting mistakes that will crush your service culture
Good goals can reinforce a service culture by getting everyone to work together towards a specific achievement. But bad goals can crush the culture. How can → Read More
Is Chat Ready to Grow Up?
My credit card recently expired, which meant updating accounts such as Netflix, cable, etc. where the card was used for automatic payment. It was a strangely inconsistent process from company to company. My cable company’s website wasn’t working, so I had to contact a live agent. I opted for chat, hoping this would be the most convenient. It was not a great experience. I waited for two minutes… → Read More
Goal Setting Mistakes That Will Crush Your Service Culture
The new executive looked with dismay at the list of strategic goals the CEO had shared. They were designed to help the organization create a service culture, yet she knew the list was not very strategic nor did it contain actual goals. One goal was “provide customer service training for employees.” Merely ticking the box to show she completed the training task wasn’t going to create a service… → Read More
A Hidden Reason to Be Polite to Rude Customers
I distinctly remember the first time I apologized on behalf of America. It was 1995 and I was living in Dublin, Ireland. I wandered into a gift shop near Grafton street to purchase some Waterford crystal to send home to my mom. As I walked around the shop, I observed another customer berating an associate. This lady was RUDE. She obnoxiously demeaned the employee while constantly stating that… → Read More
How to Keep Non-Desk Employees in the Loop
Sharing information with non-desk employees is a challenge in customer service. These are employees who don’t sit at a desk in front of a computer to do their job. They may not even have a set work station and often don’t have access to company email. Non-desk employees can work multiple shifts or even at multiple locations, making face-to-face communication difficult. Here are just a few common… → Read More
Report: Small Banks Are More Customer-Centric
A few years ago, I was having a conversation with the CEO of a small local credit union. The credit union had hired me to conduct a customer service assessment and I had asked him about his vision for serving credit union members in the future. The CEO remarked that his biggest wish was to have more branches. Members enjoyed the credit union’s highly-rated service. The challenge was the credit… → Read More
Should Survey Rating Scales Be Even or Odd?
There’s a long-running debate about customer service survey rating scales. Some people think they should be even, such as a survey that asks customers to rate their satisfaction on a scale of 1-4. Others think survey scales should be odd, making the customer satisfaction scale go from 1-5. Let’s take a look at both arguments where you’ll see there’s one clear answer. The Case for Even Rating… → Read More
Three Big Trends from LiveChat’s Customer Service Report
Trend #1: Tech Support Loves Chat Tech companies had the highest customer satisfaction for chat among the industries covered in the report: * Web Hosting: 92.91% satisfaction * IT Businesses: 92.66% satisfaction * Software: 91.17% satisfaction One of the natural advantages of using chat for technical support is agents can have a nearly real-time conversation with customers while also sharing… → Read More
The One Thing You Gotta Fix Before You Fix Service
How Operations Impacts Service Customer service expert John Goodman examined the source of service failures in his book, Strategic Customer Service. Here are his statistics: * 20 – 30 percent are caused by the employee * 20 – 30 percent are a result of customer errors * 60 percent are caused by poor products, processes, and marketing messages That last part is all operations. Let’s say you… → Read More
IBM Watson Wants To Help You Find A Jacket
You typically try to find a customer service agent when you need assistance. IBM Watson is trying to do that job on The North Face website. The North Face is beta testing a new feature on its website. It’s called Expert Personal Shopper or XPS. Powered by Watson, the site uses natural language to ask questions about the type of jacket you’re looking for and make recommendations based on your… → Read More
Why Having Fewer Options Leads to Better Service
Sheena Iyenger and Mark Lepper set up an experiment in 2000. They wanted to see how adding more choices affected consumer behavior. Their experiment was conducted in an upscale grocery store called Draeger’s Supermarket in Menlo Park, California. The store was known for having a large assortment of products such as 250 varieties of mustard. Iyenger and Lepper experimented with an in-store… → Read More