Jeff Mowatt, BComm, CSP
Customer Service Strategist
Certified Professional Speaker

Influcence with Ease®

Customer Service Articles by Jeff Mowatt

Here, you'll find links to literally dozens of articles written by customer service strategist and professional speaker, Jeff Mowatt. The articles below are approximately 750-950 words each. You are welcome to reprint them as an ongoing column or as stand alone articles. Feel free to make minor edits to customize to suit your unique needs. When reprinting, please send us a copy of your publication that includes our articles. To receive automatic updates when Jeff releases a new article, please email us directly at info@jeffmowatt.com.

Important! When reprinting any of our articles or tips, please be sure to include Jeff's bio/contact information EXACTLY as it is shown at the bottom of each article, and ensure that the link to www.jeffmowatt.com in that section is a LIVE link. Thank you!

In addition to Jeff's full length articles below, click here to check out Jeff's 30-second training tips.

You can also hear Jeff's opinion on how to improve customer service, increase spending per customer, and motivate customer service staff. Just click on Interview with Jeff Mowatt.

Articles on Sales and Customer Service

Managing Customer Waiting Lines

Greeting Customers and Establishing Trust

Influence and Persuasion Skills

Dealing with Upset Customers

Articles on Leading a Service-Focused Team

Customer Service Trends/Strategic Planning

Juggling Projects, Customers and Administration

Retaining and Motivating Frontline Staff



Managing Customer Waiting Lines:

Article: Managing Multiple Customers - 5 tips for juggling customers, callers and walk-ins

You know the scenario... your workday is running smoothly and manageably when suddenly you find yourself dealing with one customer in front of you, another on the phone, while a third arrives with just a quick question. When organizations bring me in to conduct customer service seminars, I find this is one of the most frequent challenges frontline employees ask me to address. While there are no absolute rules for juggling customers (you need to adapt to your workplace's business realities) here are 5 tips that we find work well for our clients in reducing stress and boosting customer loyalty...

Article: Yes, I Mind Waiting - 10 ways to reduct lineup stress for staff and customers

How do you let a cashier know that you're in a hurry when you're waiting in line? a) look at your watch and shake your head, b) sigh, huff, and roll your eyes, c) complain to others in the line, d) say to the person at the till, "We're in a hurry here!", e) all of the above. If you answered positively to any of these options, then you're like most of us whodefinitely do mind waiting. Lineups are frustrating. They are barriers that prevent customers from fulfilling necessary and oftern tedious tasks. That means that if you don't manage your lineups properly, you'll lose business due to customer frustration. Not to mention your staff will be stressed-out. That's a lose/lose scenario...


Greeting Customers and Establishing Trust:

Article: For Openers - Five greetings that bost sales to walk-in visitors

Quick, what's the typical greeting used most often by 60% of retail stores? You're right if you guessed, "Can I help you?" The visitor's usual response, "No thanks, just looking." The problem is the walk-in customer is never "just looking." They came into the premises because at some level they perceived a need. This greeting only reminds visitors that they're not here to buy. Lousy selling strategy...

Article: Getting Your foot in the Door - 7 steps to successful cold-calling

"The problem with my salespeople is they're not cold calling enough!" That's the concern I hear most often from sales managers and business owners when I speak at conventions on how to boost sales. Yet when I examine their cold calling strategies, I generally find they're ill conceived...

Article: Grand Intenetions to Greater Sales

I learned a powerful lesson about selling from a 15 year old. My wife and I had just picked up a dog from the humane society. On the way home, we stopped at a pet store to pick up some dog food, a dish, and a leash. I'm figuring this stop will take eight minutes. That was before we met the store's teenaged employee, 'Tina.'...

Article: Making Connections - How to creat rapport with anyone in under 30 seconds

We all know the power of first impressions. How people perceive us during the first few seconds of an encounter has a major influence on whether they will trust us, be attracted to us, or want to do business with us. To create a positive first impression, we need to know how to connect immediately with others regardless of their age, gender, ethnic background, mood, or the situation...

Article: The Shocking Truth About Your Image - Four bizarre reasons customers may not like you

Whether it's fair or not, we are often judged on first impressions. This harsh reality is nowhere better seen than in today's ultra-fast business world where customers size-you-up in a nano-second based on your personal image. Since their impression of you will determine whether or not they want to do business with you, the impact on your career and on your organization's bottom line can be staggering...

Article: Test Your Telephone Effectiveness - Find out if your phone practices are winning or losing customers

If your customers aren't impressed by you or your co-workers on the telephone, they can switch businesses by merely hanging-up and dialing the competition. So, your telephone skills can have a significant impact on your business and your career...


Influence and Persuasion Skills:

Article: Creating a Customer Feeding Frenzy - Four tools that amke you simply irresistible

I swore to myself that I would not buy anything as I walked into the carpet factory in Deli, India. The only reason I was entering at all was because I was part of a tour group and this was the last stop. By the time I left the factory however, our busload of worn-out tourists had been transformed. We were energized, laughing and most importantly, laden with purchases. I, having sworn to myself that I wouldn't buy anything, walked out with carpet in hand and had spent over six hundred dollars. The salesman in the factory had successfully created a customer feeding frenzy...

Article: Crucial Questions to Superior Sales

When your customers aren't sure which of your products or services they should buy, consider this handy tool that not only helps create clarity, but also positions you as a trusted advisor. I'm referring to a time-test sales tool known as SWOT. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. When I do customer service and sales seminars and speeches for groups, I often hear this is one of the most useful tools people learn. Here's how to ask SWOT questions.

Article: Selling Yourself Short? - How to stand-out without lowering your price

Is what you do for a living perceived by potential customers as being a mere commodity; more or less the same as others in your profession? When that happens, customers revert to the easiest differentiator - price. The outlook gets worse as you realize that somewhere in the global economy there is likely someone offering similar products or services for a cheaper price. And with the internet it's easier for your customers to find them. What's most frustrating is when you know your products and services are indeed different, but customers don't seem to get that and put you in the same category as everyone else. The good news is you can change customer perceptions by changing the way you describe what you do...

Article: Phrases That Pay - Simple statements that increase your perceived value

Quick - name two words which, when frequently used by waiters and waitresses, increases tips by 12%. (Hint: it's not please or thank you)...

Article: The Humility Advantage - How Less Ego Creates More Sales

See if this applies to you or your team members in your organization: You've been working in your industry for several years. Your responses to requests from customers, prospects and co-workers are fast and accurate. You know your stuff and your product knowledge is one of your greatest strengths. If this is the case, then the bad news is that your extensive knowledge may also be one of your greatest weaknesses. The reason - you may be inadvertently coming across as being arrogant and insensitive...

Article: When Talking to Strangers - 3 reasons potential customers may distrust you

Interesting to hear the response from managers when asked about what factors impact sales. Many will reference the economy, customer demographics, competition, and recent innovations. While those factors certainly play a role, I often find, when brought in to train sales and service teams, that employees inadvertently chase away new potential customers. It usually happens within the first 10 seconds of customer communication, and most employees have no idea that they are committing these offenses. See if this is true in your organization. Consider these three reasons potential customers may distrust you or your team members...

Article: 30 Seconds to Significant Sales - How to up-sell without turning off your customer

If you and your employees aren't trained on effective ways to upsell, chances are you either offend customers by being too pushy, or leave money on the table that customers would have willingly spent with you. Either option is costly...


Dealing with Upset Customers:

Article: 10 Ways to Break It to Them Gently - Diplomacy tips that keep customers

When corporations ask me to train their employees on enhancing customer retention, I find one skill-set that is frequently weak - how to diplomatically give customers bad news. Unfortunately, the task of giving bad news goes with almost every job. You may have to inform your customers of a price increase, of a product being out-of stock, or that their children aren't allowed to use your coat rack for rappelling practice...

Article: Keeping Customers When Things Go Wrong - Five keys to turning upset customers into fans

When it comes to dealing with dissatisfied customers, most business owners and managers believe that money back guarantees and/or exchange policies will fix the problem. Lousy strategy. Money back guarantees and exchanges may fix the problem, but they do nothing to fix the relationship. Policies don't fix relationships - people do...


Customers Service Trends/Strategic Planning:

Article: 7 Keys to Creating a Customer Focused Culture - Walking the Talk of your Mission Statement

"I'm just doing this until something better comes along - like retirement!" If that sums up the attitude held by some of your employees, then imagine the negative impact on teamwork, productivity, and especially on customer loyalty. Chances are that you, as a business manager or owner, are committed to satisfying customers. But what are you doing about employees who see their jobs merely as 'fillers'? Business leaders need to create an environment that motivates employees to want to take care of customers. Unfortunately, the conventional methods to create a customer-focused culture through mission statements have often fallen short...

Article: Buying Trends - the Shift to Hassle-Free

You may have noticed in recent years a shift in what it takes to satisfy customers. Customers are now making buying decisions less on the quality of an organization's products and services, and more on the quality of the buying experience itself. If you're a business owner or manager, this trend offers both risk and opportunity. To ensure that your organization profits from this shift in customer loyalty, consider a recent history of buying behaviors...

Article: Chili and Your Intuition - 8 ingredients for making better strategic decisions

As a business owner or manager, what you ultimately rely on most when deciding your company's future, is your intuition. The challenge with so many stakeholders relying on you to make the 'right' decision, is ensuring that your instincts are reliable. Effective leaders hone their intuition the way a chef cooks a pot of chili. Like chili, intuition needs to include the right ingredients and then be allowed to simmer a while. Here are eight ingredients for you to stew on....

Article: How not to Plan your Company's Future - 5 common mistakes when identifying customer needs

When managers plan their business strategies, common sense dictates that these game-plans should be in line with customer needs. The first step in planning is therefore to identify customer preferences. Unfortunately, most conventional approaches to determining customer needs are flawed. Here are five of the most common methods used to gather customer opinions along with their drawbacks. Keep these often-made mistakes in mind when planning your business strategy...

Article: Management Lessons from a Car Wash Guy

If you're serious about strengthening customer loyalty, consider this management lesson I learned from an odd source - a car wash attendant. It's an easy customer service concept that may change the course of your business...

Article: Risky Business - How repeat customers may jeopardize your future

When I speak at conferences and corporate meetings about customer service I often hear managers reminding their team members about the importance of repeat business. The assumption is that if customers keep spending their money with you, they must like you. But is that really true? Many business owners and managers are unaware of the harsh reality that some folks who spend their money with your organization may not enjoy doing business with you at all. The consequences of this can be staggering. Consider the example of my local video store...

Article: Speed Kills - The service standard that does more harm then good

As a business owner or manager, you have probably heard management experts refer to the importance of service standards for frontline employees. The idea is that managers should give customer-contact people a performance goal or service standard by which they can be measured and rewarded. Sounds good in theory. Unfortunately, over my years as a consultant and business advisor, and as a customer myself, I find that some service standards are not only ineffective, they are actually counterproductive. I wonder if this may be the case in your organization...

Article: Telus' Leadership Lesson in Brand Mismanagement

Telus, Canada's second largest phone company, decided to be the first wireless provider to offer to sell downloads of pornographic images and videos. I'll leave it to others to debate the morality of pornography on the Internet. The issue I want to tackle is how 'leadership' in such a large company decided this was a good business decision...

Article: The Myth of Treating People Fairly and Equally

I'll just come right-out and say it. I believe that treating customers fairly and equally is a mistake. It's unprofitable. It belittles customers and employees. And it's unethical. There, I've said it...

Article: When the Cat's Away - Getting better frontline decisions - without you

As a manager, you may assume that the guidance you give to your employees while you're on-site, will translate into them making better decisions when you're away. Unfortunately, the reverse may be true...

Article: When You're the Top Dog - Three keys to leading like a professional

Judging by the way we elect some of our political leaders, you'd think that the three most important qualities to leadership are: popularity, an outgoing personality, and loyalty to your supporters. Coincidentally, these just happen to be the three most outstanding traits of our overweight 6 year old Corgi, affectionately named "Sadie." Sadie is popular with everyone she meets. She's outgoing to the point of being embarrassingly familiar with strangers. And she's loyal - to us and anyone else at the park with a milkbone. Perhaps the only reason Sadie hasn't been elected to public office is that she has breath issues...

Article: What Boomer Women Want - new rules for retailing to these harried customers

When it comes to retailing, it's easy to get distracted by the hype about selling to the upcoming Millennials (twenty somethings) or Gen Xers (thirty somethings). Fine if your products are meant for these groups, but if your target-market is Baby-Boomer women, you'll need to operate quite differently from the current practices of most retailers...

Article: When 60 Minutes Calls - How to handle the media during a customer service crisis

There are times when being a manager can make you a media target. The larger your organization, the greater the odds of something embarrassing happening that ends up for the world to see on YouTube. Over and over. It could be a spill that causes environmental damage, a defective product that needs recalling, or an employee videotaped sleeping-on-the-job. If you are that manager being asked by a reporter to comment, here are a few tips to ensure that your company's brand and your personal reputation withstand the barrage...


Juggling Projects, Customers and Administration:

Article: Are You Too Busy to Be Productive? - Why customers shouldn't be your first priority

Let's be frank - if you work for a company, then your primary goal is to make money. Period. You may have secondary goals to serve the interests of your customers, employees, and be a good corporate citizen, but your number one priority is strictly return on investment. Profit...

Article: How to Work Less and get more Done

In the days before email, the most pervasive interruption for the average manager was a ringing phone. Now that email is everywhere, including our PDAs, managers receive literally dozens if not hundreds of messages/interruptions/distractions every day. The problem gets worse as employees who are sending email messages within a company can easily send copies, no matter how trivial, to everyone else - including to other managers. The end result is that with the advent of email it's easy for a manager to spend an entire day reacting to other people's priorities. That's why I when it comes to a manager's productivity, email is the silent killer. The good news is some managers have learned to get past the clutter...

Article: Managing Multiple Priorities - How to juggle projects, customers and admin - and still have a life

It may be a popular advertising slogan - our customers are our number one priority. As a manager however, buying into that strategy will actually reduce your effectiveness and damage your business. I learned this the hard way...


Retaining and Motivating Frontline Staff:

Article: Are your People Problems really the issue? - Take this Mini Quiz

I've discovered an interesting phenomenon when organizations bring me in to help 'motivate their people.' They may be suffering from customer complaints, staff turnover, or a lack of teamwork. At first glance, these appear to be front line people problems. What we frequently find however is that most problems involving attitudes and teamwork are actually just symptoms of flawed infrastructures. Let's see if this could be true in your organization...

Article: Becoming the Employer of Choice - How to boost staff loyalty - without buying it

With regional labour shortages intensifying, some managers are struggling to keep even mediocre employees. Unfortunately, far too many managers figure the only way to gain staff loyalty is to buy it. That's a myth - and it's an excuse that you shouldn't accept of yourself or other managers. Of course money is important - but there is another way to gain employee loyalty that doesn't cost a thing....

Article: Making Attitude Adjustments

Not long ago, if a customer service employee fouled-up, he or she was warned, then if improvements didn't happen, was shown the door. In today's workplace however, where it's so difficult just maintaining staffing levels, dismissal doesn't really fix the problem - it just changes the problem. That means it's more important than ever for managers to be able to confront unacceptable employee behaviors without causing the person to simply walk out and get a job elsewhere. Next time one of your frontline employees needs an attitude adjustment, consider these tips...

Article: Motivating your Sales Team - Making More Sales with Fewer Calls

As a manager or sales professional interested in boosting revenues, you've no doubt heard the expression, 'selling is a numbers game'. The idea is that the more potential customers you contact, the more likely you are to make sales. Makes sense in theory but in the real world this belief often reduces revenues. Here's why...

Article: Staffing Shortages? Maybe You're the Problem

Demographers are predicting that staffing shortages are only going to worsen in the coming years. Too many managers mistakenly assume the only way to keep people is to bite the bullet and pay more in salaries, benefits and perks. Unfortunately, those managers are often 'fixing' the wrong problem. Marcus Buckingham of the Gallop organization reported that the number one reason employees quit was their personal feelings about their immediate supervisor. Ask yourself if it's time your company took measures to fix the real problem when it comes to staff turnover - managers and supervisors are not equipped with the necessary skills to make their team members feel valued...

Article: Tea and the Secrets of Staff Retention

Staff retention a concern? That's particularly a challenge for frontline jobs that are considered to be boring. Today's employees do indeed want something more - and it isn't just money. According to the landmark studies in employee motivation spearheaded by Dr. Kenneth Kovach at George Mason University, the number one motivator for employees is interesting work. The real trick is how an employer makes a boring job more interesting. The secret lies in the tea ceremony...

Contact Info:

Contact us at JC Mowatt Seminars Inc.,
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