telephone skills Archives - Micah Solomon: customer service speaker, customer service keynote speaker, author, customer experience consultant, Forbes contributor, influencer and thought leader.

Language Engineering: Finding the right words to use with customers

Language underlies almost all other components of the customer experience. Yet, your company has probably given more thought to the language it uses in marketing campaigns than to the words employees use when having conversations face-to-face with customers. That’s a mistake, because customers don’t generally get their make-or-break impressions of your company from high-minded branding …

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So Long, Steve Jobs (and Frank Lloyd Wright)

By Micah Solomon

The tribute to Steve Jobs that’s been floating through my mind can be found nestled in the bridge of a Paul Simon song, “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright”–his eulogy for an earlier visionary. Architects may come and Architects may go and Never change your point of view. When I run dry I stop awhile and …

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A Customer Service Trend To Embrace–Or Be Left Behind.

By Micah Solomon

From Micah Solomon -keynote speaker, customer service speaker. My battery died briefly on my aging Volvo, and in that gap I lost the stations that had been preset into my car radio. After driving around a few days manually selecting the stations (more or less just one station) I generally listen to, I found myself …

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Self-Service: From Sketchy Backwater to the Mainstream of Customer Service–Or Not?

By Micah Solomon

From keynote speaker – customer service speaker Micah Solomon Richard Carlile, a British publisher, bookseller, and campaigner for press and voting rights, spent 1819 until 1823 in prison for distributing the banned works of radicals and reformists and exposés of officially sanctioned massacres. As soon as he was sprung from prison, Carlile tried to skirt …

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Misguided Customer Service: Beating Little Kids at Chess

By Micah Solomon

From keynote speaker – customer service speaker Micah Solomon Beating Little Kids at Chess When I see customer service employees refusing to budge in disputes with customers over small charges, rushing them out the door when it’s closing time, and a thousand other by-the book, stingy behaviors, it’s troubling to me because it speaks of …

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Only One Perspective That Matters: The Customer's

By Micah Solomon

I recently watched a skillful manager at a Four Seasons hotel field a complaint from a guest who was hesitant about even bringing up her concerns. Guest (after describing a troubling interaction): “Of course, your employee may have a different perspective from mine on how this went down.” The manager’s immediate response: “Ma’am, as far …

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New Customer Service toolkit podcast with Micah Solomon

By Micah Solomon

I think you’ll enjoy this 8 minute customer service radio and podcast interview Greg Corombus did with keynote speaker and bestselling customer service author Micah Solomon (yup, that’s me) for his Business Owner’s Toolkit. My subject: “The Power of Exceptional Service.” In the 8 minutes, we cover whether service has recently gotten better, worse, or …

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The Car Talk theorem of customer service

By Micah Solomon

Some years ago I heard Tom and Ray Magliozzi–the humorous polymaths who host Car Talk on NPR–clue in an exasperated caller to their theory of customer service: Half the companies out there are like Honda – so rarely do they encounter a problem that when they do, the startled dealer is woefully unprepared to handle …

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Consciously creating your corporate culture: Just a frill?

By Micah Solomon

Consciously striving to create a positive corporate culture may sound like a fluffy, expensive frill. But it brings hard-nosed, impossible-to-knock-off results. Ask Southwest Airlines: A host of low-cost, short-haul competitors (Remember United’s “Ted” brand? What, you don’t?) Those copycats are gone now: Southwest’s culture–a culture that’s impossible for …

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Labor Day, customer service, and serving your employees

By Micah Solomon

Labor Day is a good time to remember: you’ll never achieve great customer service without great employees – treated in the manner they deserve. There’s no shortcut here, no way to “game” this. The overlap between the “greatest companies to work for” and the companies with the highest-rated customer service is enormous. Container Store, Costco, …

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