Welcome to the Spring Break edition of the Customer Service Carnivale! I apologize for the late post as I had my own mini spring break. Please forgive me as I've been celebrating my birthday this past weekend, and to be quite honest, I just wasn't in the mood to sit in front of the computer! However, it is still Monday here in California, so this carnivale isn't technically late ;)

So, without further ado...

Customer Service Tips

When you call people on the phone to tell them about a service you think they may be interested in, what kind of approach do you take?  Managed Services presents How to Set Appointments With Prospects that are Happy With What They Have.

We live in a world where many people interact solely by email or instant messaging.  However, Silicon Valley Blogger says that sometimes it's good to talk to someone over the phone in Financial Web Transactions: How To Deal With An Online Customer?

If you're someone who does business in many countries, you may want to use the next post as a reference:  Easy, Key Phrases to Impress Business Clients Abroad.

Kathy C. shares some great ideas in Customer Service as a System, saying, "Understanding that Customer Service is a System within an organization, and that it needs to be a seamless process, is an important step toward creating a customer friendly environment."

Every internet entrepreneur or anyone selling digital goods online should read this next article, How To Avoid Refund Requests and Chargebacks When Selling Downloadable Goods.

Case Ernsting presents Community Awareness = Customer Service, saying, "By keeping track of your the news and happenings in your area, you can efficiently identify and deal with customer service issues before they happen. By being a good neighbor, you can avoid issues that may cause customers to react negatively." 

Customer Service Stories

Adesh Sidhu reminds us what the difference is between good service and great service in Not Being Sarkari: Cultivating Relationships.

Customer Service News

What if you could stay at a hotel where you weren't required to tip the bellman, the maid, or the valet?  Read more about hotel in No Tips Required at Elysian.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of customer service carnivale using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

We live in a fast-pace world where people want things instantly.  Even the most patient person like myself sometimes likes things right now - like wifi.

Today I was reminded of the reason why Starbucks is no longer my first choice when I need to get out of the house to work.  To put it quite bluntly: Their wifi access sucks!

Please excuse my crying and complaining for a few minutes....

If you want to use wifi at Starbucks, you have to register with a Starbucks card, which means you have to create an account and get login information.  However, you have to keep this card "active" every month by adding money to the card.  If you don't have an active card, you can't login and use their wifi.  On top of that, you only get two hours of wifi per visit.

Oh, and heaven forbid if you have problems signing in, which was the case for me today...I had to call AT&T to figure out why my login wasn't working.

Now I remember why I always go to Borders or the coffee shop up the street...  That's what I was thinking as I was maneuvering my way through the menu options trying to reach someone at AT&T to talk to about my login issue.  


99% of the coffee shops and businesses I go to now have instant access to wifi.  You don't have to create an account.  You just go in and connect.  They make it easy for me to do business with them. I don't have to spend 15 minutes trying to figure out why I can't log into my account.  


Apparently, I'm not the only one who feels this way.  There are tons of people who think Starbucks should make wifi easy to use.

Is your business trust-worthy?

In a time where many businesses have lost the trust of the people (think mortgage companies and banks), I thought it would be helpful to share some thoughts and ideas on how businesses can build trust with customers...

Andy Hanselman has written a great article over at The Customer Collective titled "20 Ideas For Building Trust".

Yes, I'm one of the 76% who doesn't believe all the hype in advertisements.  I always get mad at the fast food restaurants whose commercials depict all these yummy-looking burgers or tacos, yet when you order the food, you actually get stale-looking meat, wilted lettuce, and half-melted cheese.

I like Andy's idea #17 for building trust:

"Giving me the same deal as the new customers you’re trying to attract – providing ‘new’ customers with better deals suggests you don’t ‘value’ me, or even worse, you take me for granted – that’s not a good sign!"

In the short video below, Don Peppers of the Peppers & Rogers Group shares his thoughts on trust...




The idea of trust boils down to communication. When you're open and transparent in communicating with customers, the more trust-worthy you will become. When you communicate and stay in touch with people on a regular basis, they will trust you.

I asked my Twitter followers if they had any tips or ideas on how to build trust, and Becky Carroll of Customers Rock! (@bcarroll7) answered:


"How to build trust with customers: do what you say you will do. Always."

What about you? Do you have any tips to share on building trust with customers?

“Love cannot remain by itself—it has no meaning. Love must be put into action, and that action is service.” -- Mother Teresa

I just read this quote on Dr. Wayne Dyer's blog. His post titled, "Take Loving Action" was a great reminder of how we're all here to be of service to others.

Are you taking loving action for your customers today?  If not, why?

Photo Credit: Pink_Fish13

Welcome to another edition of the Customer Service Carnivale! We've got an interesting mix of customer service tips and stories that will educate, enlighten, and hopefully inspire you to deliver the best service...

Think that social media doesn't affect people's perceptions of your company?  Think again.  Shaun Sayers reminds us that YouTube is the guerilla regulator of customer service.

It's rare to find a bank that delivers good customer service.  Cheryl of Service Untitled says that Wachovia delivers positive customer service. 

Kathy C. thinks Toyota's reputation for quality and service will sustain them through this current quality crisis.  She shares her thoughts in a post, "Will Toyota Recover?"

Banquet Manager presents NYC Chef Serving Cheese Made From His Wife's Breast Milk! saying, "I know they say give the customer what he/she wants, but this is ridiculous."

Case Ernsting presents How to Find & Understand Your Business Market, saying, "Customer service begins with understanding your business market. Get out in the community and understand what your customer's want and what they need. This will help you smooth our customer service issues when they arise."

Zhu shares an interesting perspective of customer service in France in the post The Customer Is King.  Zhu says, "In France, the saying goes that “le client est roi”. But in fact, the customer is anything but a king - at worse he is an idiot, at best he is a minor annoyance in your day."

Jennifer Saksa shares Hello World! posted at the NCH Software Blog, saying, "In this post, David, A software developer compares programing software and trying to make it user-friendly to the "guest experience" in the restaurant industry and really taking the time to think about all of the little details and listen to customer feedback to help improve the entire process."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of customer service carnivale using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

The editors over at Focus.com have put together a great post that outlines 12 Lessons From the Best Customer Service Companies.

The one lesson that stuck out in my mind is:  "Always Innovate".  Even in this fast-paced, technology-driven era that we live in, I seem to have forgotten the importance of creating innovative products and services to keep up with this world that is changing by the minute.


One thing I would add to the 12 lessons is:  Take care of your employees (internal customers). When you take care of your employees, they are more inspired to take care of others.

What other lessons would you add, if any, to the list?

Hat tip to Trevor Usken.

Just like Helene Le Blanc of The Luxe Chronicles, I've become very fascinated with how companies use social media to interact and connect with their customers - especially women.

Helene makes reference to Dell and and how the company partnered with OPI to create customized laptops in favorite nail polish colors.

Ok, yes, I must say that pretty colors are nice, but as a writer who always travels with a laptop, I would much rather have a laptop that doesn't weigh a ton...You don't see Mac computers in fancy colors, but Apple is still doing quite well!

I was curious as to whether or not Dell actually engaged with people on Twitter, so I checked out a few of their Twitter accounts listed here and discovered that the company mainly uses Twitter as a bulletin board to share company news or announcements.  Although the company has claimed that using Twitter has increased their sales, I have to wonder whether or not this type of business model will last very long.

As Helene said in her post:

"Going forward, I suspect brands who take the time to engage meaningfully with customers and to actually connect on a personal level will see the biggest returns...

Mashable put together a nice list of 40 of the best Twitter brands. One of my favorites is Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, who invited me to tour of their office via Twitter.

What do you think?  Which companies do you see becoming successful because of social media?

Welcome to the Almost Spring edition of the Customer Service Carnivale! We only have a few submissions that made it into this edition, so take some time out to read every article because I'm sure you'll come away learning something new - or if you're a fellow customer service blogger, you'll find inspiration for a new post...

Customer Service Tips

• Before you outsource your customer service or any other business operation to a third party, make sure to read Advantages and Disadvantages of Outsourcing.

• What do you do when a customer complains? Get tips by reading Customer Complaint Procedures.

Customer Service Tools

• Ever wonder why customers abandon their shopping carts while on your website? Or what about the lack of website visitors? Here's an excellent article to read: Pros and Cons of Online Visitor Registration.

Customer Service News

• I'm all for making your customers feel comfortable in your restaurant, but promoting sex in the bathroom may be going a little too far, dontcha think?

Customer Service Stories

• I like this next post, My Conversation With a Pushy Automobile Warranty Salesman, because I had a very similar experience recently when I called several extended auto warranty companies about a car I was thinking about purchasing. Never let a pushy salesperson scare you into buying their product!

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of customer service carnivale using our  carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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