Maybe it’s time to re-think your goal of customer satisfaction. My family and I spent the entire day driving through a torrential downpour to get to an important event three states away. Both of our kids were cranky and miserable which meant my wife and I were cranky and miserable. We all were ready to […]
If you haven’t seen It’s a Wonderful Life, stop what you’re doing right now and go watch it. Then call your parents and ask them why they omitted this crucial piece of awesomeness from your upbringing. I watch it every year and, if the other members of my family are to be believed, I always […]
Samantha was talking to her neighbor who was moving out of town and asked him what he’ll miss most when he moves. He answered, “I know it sounds funny, but one of the things I’m going to really miss is my mail lady. She’s just awesome!” Since this wasn’t anything like the answer she was […]
It’s that time of year again when it has become necessary for me to switch from shorts to pants, and I couldn’t be happier. I had almost forgotten the comfort, warmth, and security that wearing pants provides. It’s just like getting a hug of sunshine, but without the searing heat and life-threatening melanoma. The reason […]
Customer service means never saying “no.” I went into a sweets store at the mall this past weekend to buy a gift basket for a visiting client. As I browsed the store’s shelves, I noticed the goodies in the baskets looked less than appetizing, so I asked Jeff, the customer service representative, if he could […]
By the late 1970s, Journey was pretty much finished. The band had recorded three albums, all of which had been critical successes but market failures. They had managed to sell several hundred thousand albums cumulatively, but in the recording industry at that time, selling one- or two-hundred thousand units per album was pretty much like […]
Is tearing up a bird’s nest an act of cruelty or kindness? Last year my wife and I noticed a couple of birds flying up to the dryer exhaust vent above the kitchen window. My wife correctly guessed that they were building a nest so I went outside to check it out. After I came […]
For just a moment, forget about productivity. Forget about making your company more money. Forget getting a better performance review. To me, good customer service isn’t really about any of those things. To me, providing good customer service is about the person that I want to be. Think about the last time you were provided […]
Sometime back in the early seventies, I was getting in our family car in a Kmart parking lot when I looked down and found a badly weathered eight-track tape (ask your mom) on the ground next to the car. The tape was in bad shape but closer inspection revealed that it was The Turtles’ Greatest […]
With a little prodding, you can get my friend John Hicks to talk about the time he got to act in the Coen brothers’ classic movie, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” After John saw their first movie he was hooked, so when he learned they were shooting a movie practically in his backyard, he rushed […]
