Podcast appearances and mentions of jeff toister

This week on The Modern Customer Podcast, speaker, author, and trainer Jeff Toister—creator of The Service Culture Guide and multiple LinkedIn Learning courses on customer service and leadership—shares insights on building a strong service culture. With years of experience studying what makes customer-focused teams thrive, Jeff offers practical strategies to improve service without overwhelming employees. The conversation covers his 5-5-5 training method, a simple yet effective framework that helps teams develop better service skills in just 15 minutes a week. Jeff also explains why clarity is essential to great customer service, how empowering frontline employees can cut escalations by 50%, and what sets top-performing CX organizations apart.

Stellar customer service is the core of every successful business. But the journey to get there is not always the easiest. How do you balance the resources, time, and methods to ensure that your employees are going above and beyond to provide customers with what they need? In this episode of Behind the Review, Jeff Toister, a service culture guide, shares his tips on teaching employees how to offer a service that keeps customers coming back.

Stellar customer service is the core of every successful business. But the journey to get there is not always the easiest. How do you balance the resources, time, and methods to ensure that your employees are going above and beyond to provide customers with what they need? In this episode of Behind the Review, Jeff Toister, a service culture guide, shares his tips on teaching employees how to offer a service that keeps customers coming back. Theme Music by  and

In this week's episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Jeff Toister, author of The Guaranteed Customer Experience: How to Win Customers by Keeping Your Promises!The Guaranteed Customer Experience turns the concept of a guarantee on its head. An experience guarantee goes beyond merely providing a warranty against any product defects or failures. It actually encompasses the entire customer journey to promise an experience that never falls short of expectations.Some of the topics we discuss include:The elements needed to create an experience guaranteeThe common ways that drive brand promises and experience guarantees to breakThe need for ensuring your operations can feasibly deliver on your promise How to define your promise is clear to all employeesHow to know what to promise based on what's relevant to your customersDefining the problems you don't solve is just as important as defining the ones you do solveHow to restore trust from your customer by recovering from a service failureRESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE:Jeff's book - The Guaranteed Customer Experience: How to win Customers by Keeping Your PromisesJeff's newsletter - Customer Service Tip of the WeekJeff Toister on TwitterJeff Toister on LinkedIn

In this episode of Relationships at Work, Russel chats with 4x author, keynote speaker and consultant on service culture Jeff Toister on connecting the dots to create tangible employee engagement at work.Jeff shares his thoughts and experience with...The questions to ask to gauge if your employees are engagedPersonalization's relationship to culture fitHow metrics shouldn't be the barometer for successThe importance of definitionsHow we're approaching employee surveys and reviews wrongThe one thing that generally determines if an organization is engagedIf you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and share with others.For more, go to relationshipsatwork.ca Connect with me for more great content! Sign Up for R@W Notes Follow on Linkedin Follow on Instagram Email me anytime

Online reviews can be an important source of feedback to help improve your business. They're a signal to what's going well and what areas could be worked on. In this conversation with Jeff Toister, author of The Service Culture Handbook, you'll learn how evaluating your reviews can save you time, and improve your business. Digging into what people are saying about you online can help improve customer service, increase sales and pinpoint problems that are costing you money.

What do your customers say about you? What sort of customer experience do you deliver? Today's guest, Jeff Toister, has quite literally written the book (well, four books) on service culture, and he's here to discuss his latest book - The Service Culture Handbook. Jeff has trained over 1 million people in customer service. He has the number one training course on LinkedIn Learning, and he makes a living from being a public speaker and author on this very topic. So just how do you guarantee customer experience? What can you do to set your business apart from the competition? Don't miss this fantastic conversation, and listen to the very end where Jeff shares a fantastic exercise for leaders to try - something they can do today to make a difference to the customer service in their organisation. On today's podcast:Do employees need to love the products?What customer experience are you trying to create?What guarantee customer experience looks likeHow to make a difference tomorrowLinks:Book: The Service Culture Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Your Employees Obsessed with Customer ServiceTwitter – @toisterLinkedIn: Jeff ToisterWebsite: Toister Performance Solutions

In order to deliver the best customer service, you need to understand the full meaning and how to do it right.   My featured guest Jeff Toister, a best-selling author of four customer service books, and trainer of one million people, shares what elite companies do differently to gain a competitive advantage that you can do too.  Topics include: -What does customer service mean vs customer experience (CX) -How has customer service changed over time  -What does cutting-edge research reveal -How to measure customer service beyond NPS -Is the customer always right -What can brands do to help angry & upset customers Learn more: DoingCXRight.com/podcasts

Guaranteeing a great experience for your customers isn't hard, but are you actually delivering on that promise? Jeff Toister, author of The Guaranteed Customer Experience, joins us to talk about the key to earning (and keeping) our customers' trust and business.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

An experience guarantee goes beyond merely warrantying a product against defects. It encompasses the entire customer journey to promise an experience that never falls short of expectations. Customer loyalty skyrockets when people trust your brand, product, or service. That trust is earned not by the occasionally wow moment, but by being remarkably consistent. …And that's why we wanted to talk more about how to guarantee an amazing customer experience, and we have brought in an expert on the topic for you, Jeff Toister, author of The Guaranteed Customer Experience.    Guest Jeff Toister: Jeff Toister is an author, consultant, and trainer who helps companies develop customer-focused cultures. He's written four books including The Guaranteed Customer Experience. Thousands of customer service professionals around the world subscribe to Jeff's Customer Service Tip of the Week email. More than 500,000 people on six continents have taken one of his video-based training courses on LinkedIn Learning. Jeff has been recognized as a top influencer by many organizations: Top 30 customer service professional in the world (Global Gurus)Top customer experience influencer (Unymira and Panviva)Top contact center influencer (ICMI and ProcedureFlow)

How can sales help ensure a good client experience? What does customer experience mean to you? The customer experience includes sales, marketing, customer service, operations, and product design. It’s part of the experience if it affects how a customer interacts with your brand in any manner, whether it’s before or after the purchase. In this episode, Jeff Toister from Toister Performance Solutions and I, talk about his experiences in consulting in the contact center industry. We also talk about customer experience and satisfaction. Learn more on how to get your customers happy and have that long-term relationship and trust with them. Find out if your Sales Operation in Scalable Buy Selling With Authentic Persuasion: Transform from Order Taker to Quota Breaker Get help with your sales team Connect with Jason on LinkedIn Or go to Jason's HUB – www.JasonCutter.com Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn.Jeff‘s BioJeff Toister is an author, consultant, and trainer who helps organizations get obsessed with customers. Jeff has written four customer service books including The Guaranteed Customer Experience: How to Win Customers by Keeping Your Promises.Jeff’s LinksCustomer Service Tip of the Week (free weekly email): www.toistersolutions.com/tipsThe Guaranteed Customer Experience: www.guaranteedexperience.comLearn more about JeffShow less [00:00:00]Jason: Hey, what’s going on everybody so glad that you’re joining us on the scalable call center sales podcast. I am excited about this guest, the person I have on the show. His name is Jeff Toister from Toister performance solutions.[00:00:13] He is focused on consulting. Contact center industry. And so Jeff has made a name for himself by being a consultant author trainer. That’s focusing on helping organizations become obsessed and be better at being obsessed with their customers. Uh, he has written four books, one of which his most recent one

Jeff Toister is an author, consultant and trainer who helps companies develop customer focused cultures. In this conversation he shares ways that business owners can glean insights and learnings from their online reviews, as well as best practices for responding and engaging with reviews. Discover the true impact of critical reviews on your online reputation, and how to play an active role in the conversation.

Jeff Toister is an author, consultant and trainer who helps companies develop customer focused cultures. In this conversation he shares ways that business owners can glean insights and learnings from their online reviews, as well as best practices for responding and engaging with reviews. Discover the true impact of critical reviews on your online reputation, and how to play an active role in the conversation.

Unfortunately bad news is an inherent element of the auto repair experience for most customers. But how exactly do you break bad news without overwhelming your customers or tanking the customer experience? Customer service expert, speaker and author Jeff Toister explains how to be the bearer of bad news without sacrificing customer relationships. 

It's episode 69 and the highlight is Tracy and Elisabeth's interview with Katie Anderson, author of Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn chronicling her conversations with former Toyota leader, Isao Yoshino. We're celebrating the book's one-year anniversary and a lot has happened since then. We'll let you in on a fun App that united a remote work team better than when they worked in person. And for Q&A, we asked our community how they retained what they wanted to know. Journals, phones, drama, and digital pens are just a few of the techniques we heard about. It's a great day at the cafe!   Timeline 2:30 Hot Apps "Kudoboard" lets you send kudos for a job well done with gifs, videos, and text. 6:00 Q&A Question: What techniques do you use to make standard work successful at home? 15:35 Featured Guest Interview with Jeff Toister, author of The Guaranteed Customer Experience 43:39 Upcoming Events: Webinar June 10th: How To Use Lean Thinking To Create an Antiracist Organization Webinar June 24th: How To Use Task Cards to Create Better Leader Behavior Next Podcast Episode July: Katie Anderson, author of Learning To Lead, Leading To Learn (1 year anniversary) UC San Diego Class starts June 15th: Lean Six Sigma Leadership Workshop: In the Moment: Using Improv as a People Skill   Thanks for Listening! Listen to more podcasts at JITCafe.com. Link to the video version of this podcast: https://youtu.be/yfd6dWJV5c4

Jeff Toister, Author of The Guaranteed Customer Experience [Customer Guarantee]Jeff talks about:·       What is a customer guarantee?·       How do you ensure promises are kept?·       How do you recover from a broken promise?The people who have influenced Jeff the most in the past year:·       Denise Lee Yohn·       Leslie O’FlahavanHis note to all customer service professionals:“Write your own thank you letter, put it on your desk and then read it once a day for three weeks at the beginning of your shift, and try to earn a real version of that letter.” Transcript: https://press1fornick.com/jeff-toister   JOIN THE PRESS 1 FOR NICK COMMUNITY:LinkedInWebsiteConnect with Nick BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:Learn about all the guest's book recommendations here BROUGHT TO YOU BY:VDS: They are a client-first consulting firm focused on strategy, business outcomes, and technology. They provide holistic consulting services to optimize your customer contact center, inspiring and designing transformational change to modernize and prepare your business for the future. Learn more here This podcast is under the umbrella of CX of M Radio SUPPORT:Want to support this show? Click here to buy me a coffee SPONSORING OPPORTUNITIES:Interested in partnering with the Press 1 For Nick podcast? Click here

CX is complicated. It’s a challenge to get it right and to define exactly what you should be focusing on to improve it. But Jeff Toister, President at Toister Performance Solutions and the author of the new book, The Guaranteed Customer Experience, has cracked the code. In this episode, we chat about the Guaranteed Customer Experience framework, how to implement it into your organization, and making brand promises. Topics covered: The importance of keeping promises in CX 3 steps to winning and retaining more customers Implementing a guaranteed customer experience into the culture of the company Follow Jeff on Twitter (@Toister) and check out the Top Books CX Leaders Should Read in 2021.

Learn about a new app that helps you see even if you can’t, why making and keeping your promises is key to a successful experience, and why dumping generic language may bring you closer to your customers. Bite-Sized Delight From the Episode: • Can Your Customers See You? - Starbucks partners with Aira to create accessible experiences for blind and low vision customers. • What Promises Are You Making? - Jeff Toister’s book, "The Guaranteed Customer Experience" showcases the power of every employee knowing the promises made to the customer, as well as the role they play in fulfilling those promises. • Can I Call YOU By Name? - Personalizing your customer communications (even just to say you vs. user) creates more connection and improves your bottom line. Are You Looking for Things We Referenced? • Starbucks offers Aira, creating accessible experience for blind and low vision customers • The Guaranteed Customer Experience: How to Win Customers by Keeping Your Promises - by Jeff Toister • Solvvy - The Next-Gen Chatbot Find a full transcript of the show at: http://ExperienceThisShow.com. See you next week!

Fireside Chat Without The Fires is proud and over-the-moon to welcome back (yes, he came back), the one and only Jeff Toister. Jeff, who appears as guru Number 7 on the recently published 30 Worlds Best Customer Service gurus, talks us through his new book "The Guaranteed Customer Experience" why he choose to write the book and the pivotal role that a washroom in Texas played (true story).   Jeff, as always, intelligent, funny, and down-to-earth, has the rarest of gifts of being able to take a complex topic and break it down into easy-to-understand and execute chucks for us mere mortals. For a chance to win a signed copy of the book, please visit this website: https://lnkd.in/gHVYHue

Top Takeaways:  Broken promises to your customers can be either implicit or explicit depending on the situation or marketing strategy.  There are lots of reasons why some promises are not kept. Mistakes will happen or there will be miscommunication throughout management, or sometimes people become busy and a little forgetful.  Many companies struggle to provide a consistent customer experience and inconsistent experiences create distrust and causes customer churn.  Shep’s definition of amazement is simply being better than average all the time. Consistently amazing your customers is key in earning their trust and confidence in your business.  Advertising is making a promise to your customers. It sets the expectations for your customers.  A customer doesn’t buy a product or service. They buy a solution. For example, you’ll buy a soda because you’re thirsty. You buy a drill to make a hole.  Businesses can use the framework of a guarantee to provide a more consistent experience and there are three elements to an experience guarantee: 1) Promise to solve a customer’s problem. 2) Act to solve it. 3) Recover from any service failures.  Think about what the real question is, behind the question your customers actually give you. Be aware of the solution your customers are searching for.  Quote:  “Advertising helps set the customer’s expectation on the promises that brands are willing to deliver.”  About:  Jeff Toister is an author, consultant, and trainer who helps companies develop customer-focused cultures. He's written four books including The Guaranteed Customer Experience. Thousands of customer service professionals around the world subscribe to Jeff's Customer Service Tip of the Week email.    Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are LIVE with restaurant author Jeff Toister on today's Restaurant Expert Roundup. Jeff is the author of The Service Culture Handbook and has a 2nd book coming out SOON, "The Guaranteed Customer Experience"! Let's dig into Jeff's expertise and help restaurants create a better culture and customer experience.

Improving customer experience is near the top of everyone's to-do list in 2021. And as hard as this might be, it's even harder without internal-buy in. How do you get your employees excited about CX? Join Terrence and Jeff as they dive into this all too important question.To find out more, check out these links:Website: https://www.iadvize.com/cx-series​Terrence's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrencefox/​iAdvize's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/iadv...​Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iAdvize.worl...​Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iadvize/?hl=enTwitter: https://twitter.com/iadvize​Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/iAdviZe​

In today's episode, author and CX expert, Jeff Toister, joins Neal and Paul to discuss the importance that a customer service vision plays in any organization. Jeff busts wide open a popular myth and shares his CX heroes. This is a must-listen for anyone involved in customer experience. Thank you, Jeff!

Jeff Toister founded Toister Performance Solutions in 2005 to help companies improve employee performance. The company focuses exclusively on helping companies develop customer-focused cultures. Jeff is based in San Diego, CA. In this episode Jeff talks about metrics, building great relationships and the one big mistake behind every failed CX strategy.   https://www.toistersolutions.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefftoister/ https://www.linkedin.com/learning/instructors/jeff-toister

Culture isn't just something that is felt; it's something that has a tangible impact on behavior from both employees and customers. In this powerbomb episode of The Dealer Playbook podcast, Jeff Toister shares the importance of creating a wayfinding system that will help dealers deploy a culture shift that grows the business.

Culture isn't just something that is felt; it's something that has a tangible impact on behavior from both employees and customers. In this powerbomb episode of The Dealer Playbook podcast, Jeff Toister shares the importance of creating a wayfinding system that will help dealers deploy a culture shift that grows the business.

Bestselling author, Jeff Toister (Getting Service Right, The Service Culture Handbook), joins Michael to share ways in which car dealers can provide a better customer experience. As the founder of Toister Performance Solutions, Jeff's mission is to help companies improve employee performance, with an exclusive emphasis on helping them develop customer focused cultures.

Bestselling author, Jeff Toister (Getting Service Right, The Service Culture Handbook), joins Michael to share ways in which car dealers can provide a better customer experience. As the founder of Toister Performance Solutions, Jeff's mission is to help companies improve employee performance, with an exclusive emphasis on helping them develop customer focused cultures.

Jeff Toister is the author of The Service Culture Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service. He has also authored customer service training videos on LinkedIn Learning, including Customer Service Fundamentals and Leading a Customer-Centric Culture. Jeff was named one of the Top 30 customer service professionals in the world by Global Gurus. He was also named one of the Top 50 Thought Leaders to Follow on Twitter by the International Customer Management Institute. Follow Worthix on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/worthix/ Follow Worthix on Twitter: @worthix Follow Mary Drumond on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/marydrumond/ Follow Mary Drumond on Twitter: @drumondmary Follow Jeff Toister on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefftoister/ Follow Jeff Toister on Twitter: @toister Buy "The Service Culture Handbook" here: https://www.serviceculturebook.com/

Scaling Up Services is a podcast devoted to helping founders, partners, CEOs, key executives, and managers of service-based businesses scale their companies faster and with less drama. Have each episode delivered to your inbox by subscribing here: http://www.scalingupservices.com/subscribe

A conversation with Jeff Toister, author of "Getting Service Right: Overcoming the Hidden Obstacles to Outstanding Customer Service" and other books. His website is at https://www.toistersolutions.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/toister The SPOCcast logo, podcast theme, and all content are the property of HDI, a part of Informa Tech. © 2019 HDI, all rights reserved.

Today’s Special features Elisabeth’s interview with author and customer service thought leader Jeff Toister who gives a behind-the-scenes look at overcoming the obstacles to providing excellent customer service. Jeff is a great storyteller so stay tuned for that! We’ll start… The post Podcast: Just-In-Time Cafe, Episode 54 – 10 Secrets to Outstanding Customer Service, Featuring Jeff Toister appeared first on GoLeanSixSigma.com.

Jeff Toister has written three customer service books; including his new book, Getting Service Right: Overcoming the Hidden Obstacles to Outstanding Customer Service. Jeff has been recognized as a top customer service thought-leader by Global Gurus, ICMI, and COM100. More than 140,000 people on six continents have taken his video-based training courses on Linda.com. His training videos include Customer Service Foundations and Leading a Customer-Centric Culture. In this episode, Jeff discusses his new book, how he got into the customer service field, why he firmly believes providing great customer service isn’t just a matter of using common sense, why customer service leaders shouldn’t be dismissive of angry customers, how customers sabotage the service they receive, a breakdown of the “Zone of Hospitality,” and more!

Shep Hyken interviews Jeff Toister. They discuss his book, Getting Service Right: Overcoming the Hidden Obstacles to Outstanding Customer Service, and Jeff offers immediately applicable advice on how to improve your customer service.  In Shep’s Opening Monologue... He discusses the importance of caring for your employees so they can better care for your customers. The Interview with Jeff Toister:It’s difficult to not take angry customers personally. The instinct is either fight or flight, neither of which is helpful in a customer service situation. The key is to recognize this instinct, take a pause and a breath, and choose to respond in a different way.Employees are trained to jump straight into offering solutions to angry customers rather than focusing on the emotions at play. Often, angry customers need to vent first. Once they’ve calmed down, they will be more receptive to your ideas for solutions to their problem.Transform your approach from an adversarial stance to the mindset of a partner. If you approach the problem with the customer as a team, they won’t be on the defensive and will be more open to potential solutions.Organization leaders and executives usually don’t spend much time dealing with customers and can therefore be out of touch with their company’s quality of customer service. They may make the mistake of assuming that customer service is both easy and common sense, which it isn’t.People assume that customer service is getting worse when in reality, it’s getting better. The issue is that “good” customer service is what’s expected, and people remember negative experiences more because it’s a deviation from the expectation.When you witness an employee fall short of an expectation, don’t jump straight to conclusions and solutions. Instead, ask “why?” and suspend judgement. Have a conversation with the employee and involve them in problem solving for the present and the future.Quote:  “Great customer service leaders make it easy for their employees to deliver great service.” - Jeff Toister About: Jeff Toister is a top customer service and experience influencer and the author of three customer service books. He has also created video-based training courses for LinkedIn Learning (a.k.a. Lynda.com). Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Key Insights o Greg introduced the concept of "People-first Revenue Generation" i.e., put People above Process and Technology. o 5 Metrics that Support leaders should keep track of: CSAT - Customer Satisfaction FRT - First Reply Time Requestor wait time Agent Turnover Agent satisfaction (Not EPS — Employee Promoter Score). o Option Bots vs Answer Bots o Support Challenge -- Companies continue to look at support as a cog which doesn't make sense in a recurring revenue/empowered consumer market. o Focus on empowering “both” customers and agents vs ticket deflection — different intent and will likely have different results. o Tiered support will tend to create culture of competition. You need to watch out for that. Instead create culture of collaboration — “serve the person in front of you” i.e., Level 3 coaches Level 2 and so on. o Customer Experience vs Support Experience o Favorite Business Book — “The Service Culture Handbook” by Jeff Toister.

Bestselling author and global speaker Jeff Toister returns to the show with amazing tips and actions for creating and executing on your vision for an outstanding service culture. What’s your vision for a solid customer service culture? If you want to deliver outstanding customer service that inspires loyalty and positive word-of-mouth, then you need a customer-focused service culture. But while many leaders think they provide excellent service, they have an unrealistic vision of what that means. As a result, business strategies continue to cause conflicts that make maintaining a customer-focused culture an uphill battle. “It’s a journey that takes long-term commitment.” -Jeff Toister That’s why we’re delighted to have Jeff Toister on the show! In fact, Jeff joined us in the early days of Crack the Customer Code for a great discussion around the root causes of customer service failures. But now he’s back to help us create and execute a vision for customer service excellence. “You can’t just declare ‘from now on we’re going to move from a toxic culture to a service culture…’” - Jeff Toister Jeff has helped many leaders create realistic, scalable service visions, so the wisdom he brings to this episode is priceless. Not only does he share where many great leaders go wrong, but through great examples and actions you can take today, he shows us some simple ways to get on the right track. Good things come in threes! Here are some of the core disciplines and exercises Jeff gives you in this episode: 3 characteristics of a good service vision 3 rules for leaders to shape a customer-focused service culture A 3-question assessment for your service training Jeff explains all of these in detail, so you’ll know exactly what to do next. And as a bonus, he tells you where to find additional free resources to power up your transformation. Are you ready to create a service vision that motivates employees, delights customers and brings measurable results? Then listen in! Interview Highlights There are many parts to a good service vision, but what are the 3 most important characteristics? [4:10] Why is it so important to balance aspiration with reality in your service vision? [9:10] There’s a popular belief that culture is built from the bottom up. However, Jeff has a different take on this. [13:20] Training plays a huge role, so Jeff shares how you can assess how well employees are aligned with your service vision. [17:00] Want to do better at creating a service vision? Then Jeff has vital tips and a free resource to get you started! [21:40] About our guest Jeff is the best selling author of The Service Culture Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service. More than 140,000 people on six continents have taken one of his video-based training courses on LinkedIn Learning (a.k.a. Lynda.com). Jeff was named one of the Top 30 customer service professionals in the world by Global Gurus. He was also named one of the Top 50 Thought Leaders to Follow on Twitter by the International Customer Management Institute and Feedspot has named his Inside Customer Service blog one of the Top 50 customer service blogs on the planet. Jeff brings an adult learning background to his customer service work and holds a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) certification from the Association for Talent Development. Connect with Jeff Twitter Sign up for Jeff’s Customer Service Tips of the Week Download Jeff’s Service Culture Handbook Toolkit Related Content 360Connext® post, How to Unlock Your Outstanding Service Culture for Good Customers That Stick® post, Creating a Customer Service Culture with Jeff Toister Episode 014:  Handling Pressure, Jeff Toister, and The Customer as Hero Episode 222: (Tip) Instilling Culture Throughout the Organization We’re on C-Suite Radio! Check it out for more great podcasts   Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeff Toister Show Notes Jeff Toister helps customer service teams unlock their hidden potential. He is the best-selling author of The Service Culture Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide To Getting Your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service. More than 140,000 people on six (6) continents has taken his video base training courses on LinkedIn Learning aka Lynda.com. Jeff’s 15 training videos on LinkedIn Learning include Customer Service Foundations and Leading a Customer Centric Culture. Jeff was named one of the top 30 customer service professionals in the world by Global Gurus. He was also named one of the top 50 Thought Leaders to Follow on Twitter by the International Customer Management Institute. Feedspot has named his Inside Customer Service Blog one of the Top 50 customer service blogs on the planet. Jeff holds a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) certification from The Association for Talent Development. Questions Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey Can you tell us about your journey in writing the book – The Service Culture Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service? What is culture? As entrepreneurs, what are some of the things they should be thinking about? What are some advice you would give to an employee or a business owner who is trying to sustain a service culture and with growth they have not been able to manage the culture with the massive growth that they have experienced? How do they scale but at the same time maintain that same service culture and experience? How do you stay motivated every day? What is the one online resource, website, tool or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? What are some of the books that have had the biggest impact on you? What is one thing in your life right now that you are really excited about – something that you are working on to develop yourself or people? Where can our listeners find your information online? What is one quote or saying that you live by or that inspires you in times of adversity? Highlights   Jeff Toister stated that what compelled him the spectrum of customer experience was the very first customer he served. He would love to say that it was a success story but it wasn’t, he didn’t do a good job and that changed things for him. He was 16 years old, he was working in a retail clothing store and he had gotten about 15 minutes of training and the person that was supposed to be training him said, “I’m going on break, good luck, here’s the key to the dressing room. Do the best you can, I’ll be back.” He was nervous as young kids often are and I didn’t know what he was supposed to do. A customer comes up to him and he’s just thinking, “Oh no, I don’t know anything” and that’s obviously the wrong mindset but that’s the mind set he had. The customer asked, “Do you carry Dockers?” it’s a brand of khakis and he knew what they were, he had no idea if they carried them or not and so he’s looking around the store and he’s hoping that there’s a big neon sign that says, “Dockers right here” but there was not. And being 16 years old and being inexperienced, the first words that came out of his mouth were, “I don’t know” and without getting a second chance to recover, he got angry and he said, “Wow, this is terrible service” and he stormed out of the store. He knows that that was the wrong answer, the challenge is when you’re employee in that situation how do you stop yourself from giving that wrong answer, that comes with experience, life experience and training knowledge and so in that moment he knew it wasn’t the right answer, he knew he didn’t do well and he never wanted to feel that way again, that was many years ago but throughout his entire career, he has always gravitated towards 2 things: customer service but in particular, What makes employees tick? How do we help our customer service employees perform their very best? And how do we remove these obstacles where we put them in a position where they are not as able to be successful? He has always been fascinated with customer service, he has always been fascinated with training and all of his jobs have focused on that and for the last 12 years he has been a consultant who helps organizations tackle these types of problems.   Yanique stated that she finds it interesting that it was a not so positive experience that propelled you into this because as a consultant that many times when a customer becomes loyal to business, if you track back the root cause, it’s usually a dissatisfied customer who dealt with an employee who was able to turn the situation around and just because of how it was handled, now every time they come back to that business they only want to deal with that particular employee, they’ll even wait sometimes if they’re on vacation to come back from vacation to transact business with that company and it all came out of a negative experience.   Jeff mentioned the “Peak-End Rule” (Psychology Term), he stated that it explains what Yanique said is true. It’s about customer perception or perception in general that we tend to not notice things that are normal. We tend to notice things that are different than normal and what really stands out is the thing that is most different and so the bad experience if you kind of think of that as the heartbeat of customer service, the bad experience is kind of like this really bad deviation from our normal experience and then a really good correction, really good fix is a huge difference. So, it stands out because it’s such a leap from a horrible experience to this great experience, it becomes imprinted in our memories and that’s the peak part, if it’s the last experience we had with that organization or that person, that really gets imprinted in our memories. So, the Peak End Rule kind of explains why that big gap, it’s so true when we recover from a bad experience, that’s what really sticks in our customers’ mind.   Jeff Toister shared that he’s glad that Yanique’s impression of his book was that it’s a practical guide and he really appreciate that because that was the goal in writing it. He found a couple things and one was that he consistently had this theme with his client which was culture, “How do we get our employees obsess with service?” and the other thing he found quite frankly was that companies tend to have money to invest in technology, they often don’t have the budget to invest in people and he thought, “If I could put this into a book and make it a practical step by step guide, maybe they can’t afford to hire me or you to come in, we wish they would. If they don’t have the budget for that, this book will give them everything I’m already sharing with my clients.” That was the starting point to say he’s going to make these ideas available. So where did they come from, they came from work he was doing but then he wanted to profile companies that were successful, and one of his biggest challenges in writing the book was, he didn’t want to include some of the usual suspects - the Zappos, the Southwest Airlines, the Nordstrom, the Disney, the Ritz Carlton, not to take anything away from those organizations, it’s just that we’ve heard their stories so many times, there are other companies out there that are delivering amazing service. So, you ask where did those stories come from? He started researching what other organizations have a strong service culture where they’re known, they have the reputation, maybe it’s service ratings, maybe it’s stories written about them, they’re known for having employees who are obsessed with service and then he started researching, what do they do and it was amazing to him that there was a consistency across all of these companies, in terms of how they approach it and so he was able to pull his own work and in the research he did into these companies and put them into the step by step guide and say, “Hey, there is something here. There’s a process that all of these organizations are following and we can give this recipe to anybody who cares to follow it.”   Yanique agreed that he tries to look at a very practical, operational way that any business, even if it’s a small business with just 5 employees would be able to extract that information and run with it in their own company.   Jeff stated that even a team because one of the biggest questions he gets is that people say, “I read the book but I’m not the CEO and I don’t even think my CEO cares too much about service, she says it important but I know she really cares about the budget.” And that’s fine, you can still use the book. He has examples in there with specific teams or departments, so whatever the size, whether you’re the CEO or you’re just leading the small team within a bigger company, the goals and the ideas that you can use these tools to create a service culture in whatever you control.   Jeff stated that he thinks sometimes culture is one of those words that we take for granted, we all say, “Culture is important” but maybe we mean different things. To him, culture when we’re talking about an organizational perspective, it’s a system of behaviors and beliefs, it’s how a group of people act or thinks and understand the world. Sometimes we think culture is a statement that says, “This is our motto or these are our values” and that’s not quite accurate. Culture is what people actually do, so if people are living those values each and every day then those values are accurate and they reflect your culture, if not, then they’re pretty empty. He gave an example, there was a bank in the United States about a year ago, there was this huge scandal because what they were doing was opening accounts for customers that didn’t request them. Millions of accounts were affected and the reason it was happening is because there were a lot of pressure for the individual employees to meet these very aggressive sales targets, so that’s what led to this huge scandal that the CEO resigned, there was a lot of fines, the Federal Government started to look into it. What was interesting though was that the CEO even in the moment when it was announce that the scandal broke and the CEO still had his job and he was announcing this scandal and this big settlement of a lawsuit, he still pointed to their culture as being customer focused and to him, that’s the perfect example of Your words doesn’t really matter if they’re not backed up by your deeds. How did people actually act? In that organization, the culture was about sales pressure and doing anything at all cost to sell a product. That was their actual culture. So, when you think about organizations and one of the organizations he wrote about in the book is a place call REI, if you love the outdoors, that’s the place to go for your camping equipment, your hiking equipment, bicycling, whatever. REI is an example of culture that really matches what they say. For example, if you go in and you’re looking for camping equipment, you’re not going to have somebody just kind of point you to the camping equipment aisle, the person who works there who’s going to help you is an avid camper, they love camping and they can’t wait to share with you what they know so that you can love camping too and that’s by design because they purposely stated that their goal as an organization is to help us all enjoy the outdoors. That to him is when culture matches what we’re saying, that’s pretty healthy but at the end of the day, culture is what we do, it’s how we perceive the world, it’s what we actually believe.   Yanique agreed and stated that in her process of dealing with some businesses this week, she called a company that deals with cooking gas and their office is not located in the city, it’s located on the outskirts of the city so it’s a 20-minute drive and she asked them if didn’t have any other mode of payment because she told the sales representative before they came that she will be paying by card and she specifically requested that the gentleman coming brings the card machine. He comes and he didn’t bring the card machine and of course he now informs her that she needs to drive all the way to the location to make the payment. So, she called them and said, “Can the payment be taken over the phone?” “Oh no, we just changed out our card machines and that’s not possible anymore.” Yanique called and ask them, “Do you expect me to drive 20 minutes outside the city just to get to you to make a payment for a service that you provided, I think you really need to talk to your finance department and think about a more customer friendly way to accept payments from your customers.” And it’s interesting because they were voted one of the best customer service organization in their industry and that left a bad experience. Even when the guys came, the service was good but then the payment part is a part of the service as well.   Jeff agreed and stated that whenever that happens, he always wonder why does it happen and is it that the person doesn’t want to do their job, sometimes but often it’s that they are put in that position or no one shared with that driver that Yanique had had that communication or that driver was specifically told, “We’re not doing cards so this is what you have to tell people.” Those employees are often put in a bad position where they almost can’t win.   Jeff stated that maintaining the same service culture and experience is a big challenge for a couple of reasons. One is that keeping culture exactly the same is impossible because culture changes, every time you add a new person to the team, every time you add a new product or a new line of service or a new channel, it changes just a little bit. He doesn’t know if it’s possible to keep culture the same but maybe consistent and have it grow and evolve in the right way, that’s maybe the goal for those businesses. The other challenge is scale, as businesses grow it becomes necessary for the business owner or the business leader to trust more people to do the work and that business owner can’t be in all places at all times, they can’t talk to every single customer and so the process of building a service culture really is about that scale question, “How do I instill in my employees what I believe in my core?” and the way to do that is that you have to make it clear, you have to articulate it. Just like how he was asked, “Let’s define service culture.” In these organization you have to define, “What does our culture look like?” and the tool that he uses is something called The Customer Service Vision, it’s a very simple statement, it could be something that you already have like a Vission or vision statement for your company but it’s very simple statement that says, “This is what outstanding service looks like.” And every employee in the organization has to understand what that vision statement is, what does it mean and most importantly, how do they personally contribute in their role and once you achieve that, then you can scale using that vision as a guide and that’s the first step, you’ve got to have that vision. The second step is employees all have to understand it and the third step is that you have to use that as a way of doing business, one thing he sees that business owners/ business leaders do that really hurt that effort is that they treat culture as a separate project, so people will maybe take time out of their normal job to do some cultural things, maybe on a culture committee or we’re doing culture as the theme for this year strategic planning and then we go back to work and just do our jobs, that’s not how you evolve culture, culture is our behavior so we need to use culture as a guide for making all decisions, it’s how we create strategy, it how we invest in technology and processes, it’s how we hire, it’s how we train people, it’s how as a leader you’re deciding what to put in front of your employees and talk about every single day and if we are not talking about culture and how outstanding service should look like then your employees are not going to believe that it’s important, they’ll focus and what you talk about and that’s the biggest challenge for leaders. Jeff also hear a lot of companies say to him, “We’re just so busy, we’re too busy to deal with culture.” And he would say, “No, you’re not because what you’re really doing is you’re still creating a culture, it’s just not the culture you need.”   Yanique agreed that with the point that even though they’re not focusing on culture, every organization has a culture but is it the culture that they really want and so if you don’t have intentionally activities, whether it be meetings, conversations, group outings, strategies built around what you’re trying to achieve, then the culture will emerge on its own. And so, you’d have a culture you don’t want all because there was no intentional act but not because you didn’t put any attention there doesn’t mean it’s not formed.   Jeff mentioned that often when you don’t put the intention there, it goes in the direction you really don’t want it to go.   Yanique mention that the take away from this interview is culture is not something that just doesn’t happen, it happens even without your intentional behavior behind it, it’s going to manifest and this is why you really have to intentionally work towards the culture you want. It’s like eating because we have to eat every day but if we don’t intentionally make an effort to eat healthy then we’ll eat anything and of course the body will just consume whatever you put inside of it and if you’re consuming negative thing then it will lead to disease and chronic illnesses versus taking an intentional approach towards eating, ensuring you do your meal preps, you exercise 3 to 4 times a week, you’re getting 8 to 9 hours of sleep per night, those are things that are intentional activities you schedule into your life to ensure it’s done every single day.   Jeff stated that he really likes this question because motivation is a part of something he looks at all the time, not just his own motivation but employee motivation. He thinks we often look at it the wrong way, we look at how we get motivated versus how to not be demotivated and so for him, motivation is easy, he does what he loves. He finds the inner section of what he loves to do and what he can be successful doing and where he has a little bit of skill. Jim Collins’ Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Other’s Don’t’ Built to Last : Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, one of his landmark books. He talked about this head shock concept for companies, it’s an inner section of what you love, what can you do well, what can you get paid to do and he takes that personally. And so, he gets up every day excited because he loves this. The demotivation happens not just for him but for everybody where we perceive that there’s obstacles that stand in the way of doing what we love. In a service environment, referring to his story about his first service encounter, that happens to employees every single day where they want to provide great service, almost every employee wants to provide great service but there’s some obstacle that they perceive is standing in their way and that’s what’s demotivating them. Every day he works on himself but he helps organizations and employees work on finding what are those obstacles and they can remove those obstacles, motivation becomes really natural.   Yanique stated that it’s interesting because she does workshops for organizations and a lot of questions that she hears from employees is that sometimes you can’t do what you love because you have bills to pay but then, if you have that kind of mindset which goes back into your attitude. Is it your motivation that affects your attitude or your attitude that affects your motivation?   In reference to Yanique’s question if motivation affects attitude or attitude affects motivation. Jeff stated that he is a big sports fan, so the team that’s winning, are they because they are motivator or are they motivated because they are winning. He thinks success breathes that and those two go together. Doing well, we feel good, we’re motivated and if we’re not doing well we feel bad with a bad attitude, we feel demotivated. There’s a concept called, “Learned Helplessness” that a lot of employees’ experience. What it is that over time they feel like they failed trying so they just stop trying. It gets really bad is a lot of times they stay in the same job, not every job is right for every person and so they’ll stay in the job or maybe they have those bills to pay and they don’t feel like they have another good option and so they kind of give up but they keep coming to work everyday and that makes it so much worst because it’s defeating.   Jeff stated that the tool that he uses every single day is a website called Highrise, it’s a way of keeping track of clients and projects all in one place. One of his core value is accountability and he believes if you say you’re going to do something, you do it. As an entrepreneur, you have a million things going on and trying to meet deadlines and maintain commitments and do what you say you’re going to do is extremely difficult. So, he uses that through every single day to keep track projects, initiatives, people and making sure he maintains all of his commitments but he also uses it to not just look at an individual commitment but how does that connect to all the other commitments he has made so that he’s not overloading his plate. He uses LinkedIn and Twitter every day as well and primarily to connect with other people and learn from other people and see what other people are doing as he thinks we are definitely in a relationship business. As someone whose passionate about training and adult learning, he’s always learning as well and that’s often where he finds “What are people doing that’s interesting?” So those would he his second and third picks.   Jeff shared that he loves to read and is sometimes reading 2 to 3 books at a time. He thought about and said, “What are the books that stick with me?” and that’s the challenge with the book, that we read a book and say, “Oh it’s good” and then you ask, “What have you used from that book?” Jeff shared that these are some book that he uses a lot. One is called Street Smarts by Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham and what he loves about it is that it’s an entrepreneurial perspective on the business side of running a business and he thinks in the world of customer service and customer experience, too many of us are unfamiliar or tentative around the business side, the number side. He had a discussion online with someone the other day where they were upset that executives only care about the budget and the point he tried to make and comes from this book is, the way to get executives to care about customer service is you have to translate customer service into numbers because that’s their language and if we’re not doing that or if we don’t know how, we’re only hurting ourselves. The next one is a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen, it’s a system for managing your time and commitments and it’s a principle based system rather than go out and buy this portfolio and you have to use this specific software, it’s more about principles to use whatever you feel comfortable using. He uses those principles to do things that allow him to keep on top of things. For example, at the end of everyday he has zero messages in his email inbox and for most people that’s unbelievable but it’s because he has these set of principles that David Allen shared with him in his book that he uses every day. The third book is a book that really made an impact on him, it’s called Lincoln on Leadership by Donald T. Phillips and what he did was he studied the United States’ 16th president which some people would say would be one of their most amazing leaders in history and he looked at some of the things that Abraham Lincoln did as a leader that we can pull from today. One of his favorite examples that he uses as a consultant and trainer is Lincoln was really the first president to spend a lot of time going to people rather than expecting people to come to him for a meeting or a conversation and the reason he did that, it’s management by walking around which we know now but the idea was, if you approach people in an environment where they feel comfortable and make them feel like we’re on an even keel and you’re not trying to intimidate them then they’re much more likely to open up to you and have an honest and frank conversation and he learned when he’s working with a client and he meets with their front line staff and ask them about their job, they are always ready to tell him exactly what is working well and exactly what they think is going wrong and he thinks it’s because of that principle of coming to them and making them comfortable.   Jeff stated he has this thing where he realizes that his audience doesn’t have a lot of budget to spend on customer service maybe technology but not on people. So, one of the things he has been trying to do is transform his own business where he can make resources, tool, concepts available to people at little to no cost and somehow still get paid. A few examples are his book, the investment on the book is USD $14.95 for the paperback or USD $9.99 for the kindle, that’s a pretty low investment yet he puts all the tools he uses as a consultant in that book so you don’t have to hire him because you probably have USD $14.95, you may not have his consultant fee. He has training videos on LinkedIn Learning and Lynda.com and he has learned that a lot of his clients and companies that he works with already has a subscription to one of those platforms, so you can get his training without having to pay for him to come in, the video is right there, it’s available to you and if you don’t have a subscription, it’s fairly inexpensive and then things like this podcast, he loved this opportunity and really appreciate it because it’s a chance for them to have a dialogue about service but it doesn’t cost anything to subscribe to the podcast and learn from it and learn from not just himself but from some of the other amazing experts that Yanique interview. Those are free resources that anybody can take advantage of and he’s really excited about the opportunity to help people wherever they are in their journey.                                                                                          Jeff shared listeners can find him at – Twitter - @toister (www.twitter.com/toister) Customer Service Tip of the Week – www.toistersolutions.com/tips Insider Customer Service Blog – www.toistersolutions.com/blog   Jeff shared that he’s not a big quote person, the reason he’s not a quote person, the first reason is because he sees quotes and they sound great but then what do we do with them. He’s more of an action person and the second reason is he has done research on some quotes and he has been disappointed to find that that person never said that or that’s not what they meant. He gave an example, the quote, “The customer is always right” no one said that and it bothers him that we have accepted this as some mantra in customer service and he did some research on where did this come from, why do we believe this and there is not really an agreement but it came from a few places. One possible source says Ritz Carlton and he said, “The customer is never wrong” and the context was that even if the customer is wrong, of course they are sometimes, you don’t argue with them, you just find a way for them to help them become right. Marshall Fields who is a famous retailer, he said, “Right or wrong, the customer is always right” and his point was the same thing that the customers will of course make mistakes but we don’t argue with them, our role here is to help them become right, to help them succeed. He wished he had a great quote to share but when he finds those quotes and he found out no one ever said that but the story behind the quote often is much more interesting.   Yanique mentioned that in most of her workshops towards the end of the session, she always explains to the participants that the customer is always right literally is not a true statement because there are times when the customer is wrong but what we should be guided by is the principle that as employees, we are not here to prove the customer wrong, we are here to help them, they are wrong but we are not here say, “Hey Mr. Customer, you’re wrong and we are going to punish you.” But more like, “It’s okay, let’s work back to how we can undo what’s happened and find a solution so that you can leave here feeling good, let’s make this right.”   Links Highrise Street Smart by Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham Getting Things Done by David Allen Lincoln on Leadership by Donald T. Phillips The Service Culture Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service by Jeff Toister

Contact center managers know that a strong, positive, can-do culture will improve their metrics and make their customers satisfied. However, culture can seem like a complex, difficult thing to turn around, to build, and to maintain. There are some important tips that will help you with this important element of your operation. Bruce Belfiore will ask Jeff Toister to give you the benefit of his experience regarding issues such as: - The importance of leadership in fomenting, forming and furthering customer-focused cultures in the work place - Ways to foster engagement in a way that will build morale - Encouraging senior executive involvement in the life and culture of your center. Join us for an information-rich session of CallTalk, the industry's online talk show since 2009!

I had the great pleasure to speak with Jeff Toister, author of The Service Culture Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service. The book is one of the best I've read on customer service. It's rich with examples and stories, but its real strength is that it is a workbook. A book you can actually use to improve your customer service. Our conversation...

I had the great pleasure to speak with Jeff Toister, author of The Service Culture Handbook: A step-by-Step Guide to Getting your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service.The book is one of the best I've read on customer service. It's rich with examples and stories, but its real strength is that it is a workbook. A book you can actually use to improve your customer service.Our conversation covers...

Nearly every company says that they want to have a customer-focused culture, but then why are so many companies lacking one? What are the steps that your company needs to take to be committed to becoming customer focused? Shep Hyken speaks with Jeff Toister about his new book, The Service Culture Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service. First Up: Shep Hyken’s opening comments focus on how the best companies have an amazing service culture, because they have an amazing culture. Period. For instance, Zappos has their Ten Core Principles on how to create that customer-focused culture. CEO Tony Hsieh has even been known to fire employees if they can only buy into nine of the ten principles. Tony doesn’t even particularly care if his employees like shoes, but he is adamant that all his employees fit into the culture. The culture starts on the inside and is felt on the outside by the customer. If a company has a good customer-focused culture, there is a pretty good chance that the company has a great internal culture. The companies known for providing the best customer service are typically the best companies to work for. Featured Interview: Shep begins his interview by asking Jeff Toister, “Why don’t more companies have a customer-focused culture?” Toister claims the challenge is that we simply don’t know how to get there. There is so much information about how to develop a customer-focused culture. Some of it lines up, and some of the information is conflicting. With so much conflicting advice, how can you make sense of it all? To help you to get there, Jeff Toister wrote his book as a guide that anyone could pick up and follow as a step-by-step plan to develop a customer-focused culture in their organization. When you have finally achieved the goal of creating a customer-focused culture, you will find that your employees are absolutely obsessed with service. They know what they are supposed to be doing. They’re committed. And they always seem to do the right thing. Top Takeaways: Three steps to developing your customer-focused culture: 1. Define what your culture is going to be. Your customer service vision needs to be one sentence, that everyone can remember. It needs to focus on the customer, not that you will be “industry-leading” or will make a lot of money. It cannot be a fluffy statement that no one believes in, but it must become a way of life for everyone in the organization. Who are we on our best day? Example: In-And-Out Burger’s “Quality, Consistency, and Courtesy” 2. Engage your employees and get them committed. Employees must fully understand what makes the organization successful, and they are committed to achieving that success. Many organizations have a difficult time having their employees give a consistent answer as to what “success” means. 3. Align everything in your organization around that definition of success, that customer service vision. We tend to do things that create conflicts and, that make it harder for our employees to deliver outstanding customer service. For example, we focus on customer service survey scores, and reward or penalize employees accordingly. Instead, we should focus on the feedback and learn how to use it, so that we can continually improve and deliver even better customer service. About: Jeff Toister helps customer service teams unlock their hidden potential. He has authored customer service training videos on Lynda.com and was named one of the Top 30 customer service professionals in the world by Global Gurus. He was also named one of the Top 50 Thought Leaders to Follow on Twitter by the International Customer Management Institute. Jeff holds Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) certification from the Association for Talent Development. Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, best-selling author and your host of Amazing Business Radio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chief Customer Success and Happiness officer Amy Downs of Lifesize outlines her strategic path to a 79-point increase in Net Promoter Score. Customer success and happiness: A mini case study Customer experience is gaining traction! But when we think about how the slightest increase in Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a cause for celebration in most organizations, we realize there’s still a long way to go. Thankfully, we have inspiring leaders like today’s guest who have proven that success is within reach, even for those of us who’ve fallen way behind. With their NPS looming at -4 and customers already “screaming,” making necessary changes to the service model at Lifesize was creating even more tension. But as the Chief Customer Success and Happiness Officer at Lifesize, Amy Downs quickly turned these challenges into opportunities. While the company was on its head, she brought customer obsession into their culture, core values, functional processes, and communications. And now? Their NPS currently shines at 75. You can do this! Amy’s story is more like a mini case study, where she outlines all the crucial steps behind Lifesize’s transformation.  “If you don’t have that level of engagement from your employees, your customers will never feel it, says Amy. And with a 79% increase in NPS, you know everyone feels it! Listen in to make this your story too. Highlights from the interview: How Amy’s title of Chief Customer Success and Happiness Officer speaks of her day-to-day work  [2:50] Quick customer experience wins make room for more ambitious goals! Here’s what Amy tackled first [5:50] The key traits of a customer-obsessed company are… [9:40] Embedding customer-obsessed cultural values across functional leadership and down into everyday processes [12:40] The impact of communicating progress and insight organization-wide, and great tools that help make it happen [18:10] How is internal customer service affected by customer-obsession? [21:10] About our guest: Amy Downs is the Chief Customer Success and Happiness Officer at Lifesize, the connected video conferencing company, and is responsible for ensuring that customers are at the epicenter of everything the company does. From support, service and training, Amy drives the strategy and execution of programs that help Lifesize customers and partners bring successful video collaboration to their companies. Prior to joining Lifesize, Amy spearheaded Voxeo’s industry-leading customer support and service organization and oversaw all post-sales interaction with customers. Connect with Amy LinkedIn Amy on Lifesize.com Email addowns@lifesize.com Related Content 360Connext® post, 4 Ways to Change Organizational Perspective on Customer Experience Customers That Stick® post, Turning a Customer Service Culture Episode 094: Joseph Michelli, Becoming Customer-Obsessed Episode Episode 014: Handling Pressure, Jeff Toister, and The Customer as Hero Sponsor message: Develop your customer experience mission Do you know how to deliver the superior customer experience you visualize? We can help your team become a force for positive change, starting with a customer-centric mission. The Customer Experience Investigators™ at 360Connext specialize in helping companies across industries and around the globe. Developing and internalizing unique and scalable customer-focused missions has been crucial to their success. Want to compete with the other 89% of companies staying afloat by providing better experiences? You need a compass for making astounding changes in the customer experience while breaking down the silos that are holding you back. We offer evaluations, workshops, and roadmaps to keep your wheels firmly planted on the road to a customer-centric future. Join us on our mission To Create Fewer Ruined Days for Customers™ today. Visit us at 360Connext.com.   Take care of yourself and take care of your customers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode…     Handling Pressure in Customer Service An Interview With Jeff Toister of Toister Solutions The Customers are the Heroes     Handling Pressure in Customer Service     Jeannie and Adam discuss why the ability to handle pressure is so important for frontline customer service reps. Jeannie tells a story of a problem flight that was handled well by the team at Southwest Air.     Adam recalls a story about his wife’s experience with a frontline rep who completely folded under the pressure of a crowded store.     Discussion begins at 1:50.     Interview with Jeff Toister of Toister Solutions     Jeff discusses how employees are often not the most common reason for service failures. Jeff discusses 2014’s viral Comcast call, the cultural problems he found underlying it, and some background to the story.     Jeff points out the importance of attention and how many impediments there are to customer service reps being able to give customers their full attention. Jeff also points out the important distinction in customer service between emotional and rational needs.     Tune in to find out what Jeff thinks about how mental fatigue affects customer service agents.     Interview begins at 6:45.     Customer Hero, Customer Zero: The Customers are the Heroes   Adam shares the heartwarming story of Shirley Ratliff, whose customers loved her so much that they bought her a car.     Tune in to hear Adam and Jeannie discuss this incredible story and what all customer-facing professionals can take away from the story!   Discussion begins at 18:12.     People, Places, and Things of the Podcast   Jeff Toister is a consultant who helps customer service teams unlock their hidden potential. He’s the author of Service Failure: The Real Reasons Why Employees Struggle with Customer Service and What You Can Do About It. Connect with Jeff : Toister Solutions | Twitter Southwest Airlines Shirley Ratliff’s Story (video included) Bruegger’s Bagels       Take care of yourself and take care of your customers.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices