Chip R. Bell's Blog, page 9

Your Customers Like Tortoises Better Than Hares

Aesop was a wise Greek philosopher. His fables gave us life lessons in a fashion far more memorable than our mother’s repeated advice. The fable about the race between the tortoise and the hare was not just about persistence over speed. It was about avoiding arrogance that can lead to faulty assumptions.

Just to refresh your memory, the rabbit challenged the turtle to a race. Now, we all know rabbits can run faster than turtles. As soon as the race began, the rabbit raced way ahead. Looking b...

Help Your Customers ‘Sharpen Their Claws’

Dr. Stephen Covey listed “sharpen the saw” as one of his seven habits found among highly effective people. It meant staying current, always learning, self-renewal and continually growing physically, mentally, socially and spiritually.  It is an important principle. My black cat taught me another key principle—”sharpen your claws.”

Our cat lives indoors. She attacks lizards through the screens, growls at squirrels through the glass window, and watches passerby hawks like they were intending to...

Help Your Customers “Sharpen Their Claws”

Dr. Stephen Covey listed “sharpen the saw” as one of his seven habits found among highly effective people. It meant staying current, always learning, self-renewal and continually growing physically, mentally, socially and spiritually.  It is an important principle. My black cat taught me another key principle—”sharpen your claws.”

Our cat lives indoors. She attacks lizards through the screens, growls at squirrels through the glass window, and watches passerby hawks like they were intending to...

What Time Zone is Your Customer In?

Time zones have always been a thinker’s game to me. I still do not really get Greenwich time or how time measurement is really all made up. I do know the birds and squirrels in my backyard get up and start foraging for food at the same time every day all year long without benefit of the clock, calendar, or whether to fall back or spring forward.

Time litters our language big time. We mark it, buy it, kill it, make it, tell it, and do it. There is downtime, hard time, bad time, big time, and h...

The Meticulous Creation of Great Service

Every famous beverage—from Dom Perignon to Coors beer—is laced with great stories. Champagne lovers know that a Benedictine monk and cellar master named Dom Perignon was the “father of champagne” and invited his friends over to “taste the stars!” Coors lovers enjoy the story of people from the East coast importing purchased beer in their luggage when the beer was only available West of the Colorado-New Mexico border.

I am a fan of Jack Daniels Single Barrel Sour Mash Charcoal filtered whiskey...

Does Your Service Make Customers “Purr?”

A two-week four-thousand-mile road journey over the winter holidays gave our cat a trip to “camp,” as we call the nearby facility where she is occasionally boarded. It is a very nice place that gives her a daily brush-out, lots of TLC, and her favorite activity—tree time. Tree time is an hour of play on a giant climbing toy with many tunnels and holes. But, being at camp is not the same as being at home where she can do her professional work—20 hours of sleep a day plus keeping the elephants...

What Chair is Your Service?

It started with a discussion over the duties of a particular committee chair at my church.  

After twenty minutes of esoteric ballyhoo ranging from “the chair provides order” (not a big worry in my conservative church), and “the chair brings leadership” (we are all leaders), the person who was voted into the role stopped the fluffy debate by finally saying, “We are here for service and the chair is the chief service provider.” Her great answer got me thinking about the other meanings of chair...

So, What’s Santa Bringing You?

My wife and I are in the middle of brainstorming cool presents for our three granddaughters. We asked them for suggestions. The 11 and 13 year olds took a clipboard and made a list, complete with brand names and model numbers. But, the 9 year old took a completely different approach. On the clipboard under her name she wrote, “Just surprise me!”

Customer service for many years had more than its share of surprises. My hometown grocer would give my brother, sister and me a free fireball when my...

Do You Deliver Knockout Service?

It is December and two beautiful flowers are blooming at my house. A Christmas cactus that only shows its gorgeous red flowers in December, and a large collection of Knock Out roses that bloom red roses all year long. It is like customer service. Sometimes, we deliver great service right after something went wrong, or during Customer Service Week in early October, or when we know the snoopervisor is within earshot. But, great customer service is like the Knock Out roses. They show their best...

Getting Your Customers To Paint

“My right hand shakes a bit as you can see,” he said, as he was serving his plate next to me at the giant salad bar. “But, when I stand at the easel and paint, it does not shake at all.”

The author of these powerful words came from a high school classmate at our recent class reunion. Phil Lavely is a renowned painter of wildlife in the Savannah area. His fascinating lines caused me to research if this phenomenon was unique to Dr. Phil, or more of a universal one. I learned an important fact:...