Think of your own experiences daily.  How many interactions do you have with or around other people where you are expecting someone to respond to you in some manner?

1. You ask someone to pass you the salt at the dinner table.
2. You make a phone call. 
3. You make a purchase at any store or business.
4. You honk your horn at someone in front of you stopped at a green light.
5. You ask a question in a class, seminar, a business, or to any individual.

I’m sure you can think of many other instances as well.  Think about how long it takes for someone to respond in each situation.  Obviously the phone call one can vary in a number of ways.  The urgency with which you expect someone to respond to you is directly related to how important the situation is to……. YOU.

Right?

Now keep that thought in mind when you are called to respond to someone else.  The urgency they expect is directly related to the importance of the situation to…. THEM!  How does this relate to your business and your customer service priorities?

You need to consider your customer’s concerns and values as important to you as you would your own concerns and values if you were expecting a response from someone else, even more so.  If a customer’s inquiry seems like it may not be as pressing (you may get a clue for example, if the customer says, “there’s no rush….” Or something similar) you might ask them what their expectation is time wise to solve their request.

The single most important thing is that YOU DO RESPOND.  DO NOT IGNORE THE CUSTOMER!  Even if you feel their question or need is not really that important, it may be to them.  Ignoring a customer will definitely not gain you good marks in gaining or keeping their loyalty.  Respond and respond in a timely manner, based upon the importance of the issue to THEM!

Here are a few more tips from Time to Reply, a company that helps businesses automate responses to improve their customer service.

 

• Set clear response time targets: Define specific response time targets for different channels (email, live chat, social media) to ensure a consistent and timely approach.
• Prioritize urgent inquiries: Implement a system to identify and prioritize urgent customer inquiries, allowing your team to address critical issues promptly.
• Automate routine responses: Utilize automation for routine queries by implementing canned responses or chatbots, freeing up time for your team to focus on more complex issues.
• Provide comprehensive training: Ensure your customer service team is well-trained to handle various inquiries efficiently, minimizing the need for constant escalations.
• Utilize customer feedback tools: Implement tools to gather and analyze customer feedback, enabling you to identify areas for improvement and respond promptly to customer concerns.
• Use response time tracking software: Optimize customer satisfaction and streamline operations with response time tracking software, ensuring you unlock fast email reply value at every touchpoint.

If you would like to discuss your customer service needs further, please schedule a meeting with me, Coach Mike, to see how we can improve your customer service.

How observant are you about things around you?  Do you tend to notice things that are out of place, or do you go about doing what you’re doing until someone slaps you upside the head?

As I was worshipping in church this morning, I noticed a pencil someone had dropped in the aisle.  The person it was next to apparently didn’t see the pencil, and as it turned out, he was not the person who dropped it.

The pencil had been dropped by a teenage boy in the pew behind the man whose foot appears in the picture.  As service ended, I pointed the pencil out to the man but before he could pick it up, the teen who had dropped the pencil did pick it up.

Now all of that doesn’t seem to be anything that important to write or talk about, does it?  What was interesting is that during the ten or fifteen minutes that the pencil lay on the floor, four or five people walked right by the pencil.  None of them bothered to pick the pencil up, nor did they point it out to the man who was closest to the pencil.  A few of those were young children.  You would have thought they might have anxiously grabbed the pencil.  But no, they went right on by.

The mother stepped next to the pencil but went right on by, as did one or two other adults.  Did none of these people see the pencil?  Or did they not care that it was there and that they almost stepped on the pencil?

I’m thinking that they were oblivious to the pencil.  Their eyes may have seen the pencil, but their brain was fixated on something else.  After all, as Christians wouldn’t you think that one of these people would do the courtesy of picking up the pencil for their neighbor, or at least point it out? 

So why did this pencil suddenly gain such importance?  What triggered me to think about it?

Almost every day or night I see people driving with a light out, a brake light not working, driving with their bright lights on in traffic, or driving without lights in dark or bad weather.  I’m sure that sometimes it’s just a matter of “it just happened, and they haven’t gotten around to fix it yet…”

Right?

Uh huh?  I wonder how many people drive day after day and never bother to check out their lights, turn signals, etc.  I’ll bet some don’t bother to change their oil until something goes wrong.

Now what does all of this have to do with helping your business?

If you don’t notice little things in your business until they become big things, it is probably costing you money.  It may get you into big trouble.  If you have a web link that doesn’t connect properly, you may be losing potential sales.  If you have a little money missing now and then, and if you dismiss it or ignore it thinking “it’s only a little” that costs you money and may cost you much more.

I know!  It happened to me.  A little money was missing from my business once.  Money that wasn’t mine but that I was responsible for.  I didn’t totally ignore it.  But I didn’t take the right action in trying to solve the problem.  I wasn’t oblivious.  I was frustrated.  It cost me money.  It eventually cost me that business.  It almost got me thrown in jail.

Before you drive your car the next time, take a moment to check your lights to see if they work.  Check your brakes.  Your oil.  When you do this, I hope you will remember this blog and make sure you check the lights at your work or your business.

 

Years ago, when I was working on my bachelor’s degree at Westwood College, my literature instructor was in favor of a pass/fail grading system as opposed to letter grades, A, B, C, D, F, etc.  He had bought into the idea that letter grades created more stress for students and did not necessarily reflect their actual ability.  I disagree with this thinking on a couple of points.  I do think pass/fail may be acceptable for certain subjects, say like basket weaving… etc.…  (Ok, I’m being facetious.)

I asked Curt (the instructor) a question after class. 

“Curt, if you were having open heart surgery, would you want a doctor that got straight A’s at Harvard Medical School, or would you want some guy that just passed his classes at John Doe State University?”

After thinking about it for a second, Curt agreed that there should probably be a grading system for certain courses.

Do you think?

Accountability matters.  Accountability shows up in many ways.  It can be a recording of your income and expenses.  That’s pretty important when you want to know your financial situation, whether personal or business.  It can be counting the number of people who enter a sporting event, necessary to know due to fire regulations.  Or it can be the number of non-citizens allowed to enter your country. 

Accountability is also necessary when disciplining your children.  Failure to hold your children accountable for their disobedience leads to adults who will be disobedient.  I think we can all see how that’s going today.  Well, many of us anyway.

It used to be that your WORD mattered.  The Bible says that you do not need to “swear an oath” on anything, but let your Yes be Yes and your No be No.  But if you do not hold yourself accountable for what you tell people you will do, your WORD will not be worth anything.  Nobody will believe or trust you.  That makes life much more difficult.

As mentioned in my conversation with Curt, there are times where accountability may not be as important as other times.  This is where some common sense is needed.  Today we seem too often to allow people to make excuses for their shortcomings and failures.  Sometimes it may be ok to excuse someone for being late for work, or for breaking something, etc.  But when we allow someone to regularly make mistakes, or even worse, to intentionally do wrong, or evil, then accountability is out the window, and the consequences will be much worse for all involved.

As a Christian, I believe that Jesus died for my sins.  God gives me grace and overlooks my shortcomings.  But, as Paul says in the New Testament, does that mean I can just keep on sinning?  Of course not.  I am supposed to learn from my mistakes and try to do better.  We are all imperfect and are going to screw up at times, maybe many times.  But instead of beating us up for our failures, we need to learn from them, be accountable to what we are supposed to do or be and keep trying to improve.

If you do that, I am quite sure you will be able to look back at your journey with a better attitude and celebrate your successes.

I will be further discussing Accountability and Common Sense in Episode 78 redux, of Coach Mike Now livestream on Rumble.com.

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