Long Live Customer Service… If you’re reading this, you’re probably subscribed to my customer service list. So maybe it saddens you to hear that this thing you thought was so valuable, this thing you staked your future on, is now deader than the dinosaurs. But fear not! There’s hope yet. Now, what do I mean when I say “customer service is dead”? Do I mean that we should all start ignoring our customers, or responding Read more…
Sort of… A few years ago, I decided I wanted to get into Marketing. I had been studying influence and human behavior, and I wanted to apply it in the real world. I had also been learning from a then-guru named James Altucher. And it just so happened, Altucher’s company had an office here in Denver. AND They were hiring for a marketing position. So I sat down, focused, and banged out my best job Read more…
…from your problem customers. (Do this instead.) Anyone who has worked in customer service, whether for themselves or just as a job, knows the feeling I’m going to describe today. The shitty customer. But it’s worse than that. That person who is so unreasonable, unpleasant, unbearable that you find yourself putting off dealing with them. Or when you do, you’re careful (see terrified) to avoid saying anything that might set them off. Make it worse. Read more…
The ONE thing that fixes almost EVERY customer service problem… You signed up for this list for 80/20. So here it is. ONE thing that you can start doing right now in your business that will DRASTICALLY improve your customer service and customer satisfaction. Move faster. Think about it. What do you, personally, hate the most when you have to contact a company’s customer service department? How LONG it takes. The hold time. The silly Read more…
And everything in life… There’s a lot of advice out there about how to provide good customer service. Some of it is decent, a lot of it is pure crap. But like so many things, these so called experts are out there peddling “tactics” and “techniques” and “secrets.” When what you really need is principles. Customer service is a form of human interaction. And like all human interactions, there’s one key piece that underlies everything Read more…
A lesson for anyone who has worked in finance… Years ago, in what feels like another lifetime, I worked in a call center. And not just any call center. It was the call center for a mutual funds company here in Denver. And this wasn’t just any time… it was the 2008 financial meltdown. Not exactly a fun job. I started there as the lowest level call center agent. “Non-licensed Agent”, they called it, because Read more…
Make all your customer service problems disappear today… Just getting customer service handled can feel like a nightmare at first. It did for me. It took me years, but not only did I get handled, but I developed a foolproof system to keep customer service simple, and profitable. If you’re reading this, you probably already know this. I write these emails and posts. I do videos on Quora, YouTube, and now Twitter. And I sell Read more…
Customer service for the future… I’ve written and talked a lot about keeping customer service simple. Making it profitable. Preventing problems before they happen. I’ve recorded hours of video on the subject on Quora and Youtube. I’ve written dozens of posts and emails here. I’ve even released two comprehensive guides. And I’m not going to lie, everything you need to get this stuff right is available between all that content. But no matter how much Read more…
At least when it counts… It’s no secret we live in the information age. But that doesn’t mean all information is good information. You CAN have too much of a good thing, whether it’s discussing your grandma’s sex life, or telling your customers what’s going on. In the movie The Departed, there’s a line where one of the detectives says (I’m paraphrasing), “feds are like mushrooms, keep em in the dark and feed em shit.” Read more…
Side Hustle Entrepreneurs Must Read This! Popular Twitter account @WallStPlayboys recently declared customer service to be “the worst part of any business.” And that may be true. But it doesn’t have to be. Not anymore. The fact is that it has never been easier to build a business where customer service basically runs itself. And this isn’t reserved just for the biggest players out there. Far from it. Much of what I’m going to show Read more…