The Seven Secrets to Getting Better Service
by JoAnna Brandi
While I'll never make excuses for poor service, since I believe delivering Exquisite Customer Care is within anyone's reach, I can understand why some service givers react that way they do. Some customers are downright ornery! So in a turn of events in this Customer Care TIP, instead of teaching how to give good service I want to share with you how you can GET good service.

How's Your Communication Software Working?
by JoAnna Brandi
Why do some people communicate so effortlessly, easily getting what they need and want? Why is it that some people consistently get results? Why is it that there's always one person in a company who can calm down an angry customer - and even turn the person into an advocate? What do these people have that others don't?

Are You Getting the Sixty Percent Advantage?
by JoAnna Brandi
Companies that use the customer experience as a competitive advantage have leaders that put their focus on creating a great place to work as much as (if not more than) creating a great product or service at a great price.  They know that an engaged and happy workforce is a prerequisite to having engaged and happy customers. But you knew that, didn't you? So what are you doing about it?

Are You a Hero?
by JoAnna Brandi
One day during a training session while discussing the impact of the negativity (the group was experiencing), a young man in the group seemed less than interested. His body language told me he was not in sync with me or with the others. I called him on it. "Tim, you don't seem to agree with some of the things I'm saying. "That's not how it is for me," he replied. "I see how everyone here is so affected by these angry customers and how they react. I don't feel the same way, in fact I LOVE angry customers!" The best I could say was, "Tell me more."

Twenty One Years, Twenty One Insights 
by JoAnna Brandi
Imagine if you will, that every business sits atop a tripod - three legs, needing to be in balance to keep the business stable. Each leg represents a set of relationships. One is "External", the second is "Internal", and the third I call "Inner" is about the relationship each of us has with ourselves and our work.  I call this the Working Relationship Tripod and it forms the operating system for my thinking about what makes organizations and individuals thrive. 

What Kind of New Year Will You Create? 
by JoAnna Brandi
As a leader, how you see the world matters. How you think matters and how you communicate matters.  A lot. According to author and University of Michigan professor Kim Cameron, the single most important factor in predicting organizational performance - twice as powerful as any other factor - is the ratio of positive to negative statements. Research has revealed that in high performing organizations that ratio is about 5:1. I'll pause while you let that sink in.

Seven Things Every Customer Facing Person Needs to Know Now: The "Get Real" Guide to Having a Good Day Every Day
by JoAnna Brandi
Since it's especially critical in these challenging times to take EXQUISITE care of the customers you already have, here are seven things every customer facing person needs to know in order to do that kind of an outstanding job. 

How Zen It Is! 
by JoAnna Brandi
As we practice being present - really showing up in our work; as we practice being positive - making the effort to look for the good and refocus our attention; as we practice being patient - to be calm in the face of craziness, we will find ourselves enjoying work more. We will find ourselves enjoying others more, and we will find that customers prefer doing business with us.

Are You Delivering Happiness? 
by JoAnna Brandi
We need emotionally intelligent people bringing all of themselves to work in order to create the kinds of consistently positive emotions that keep the customers coming back, with money and with friends. Every company I know has already cut costs to the bone - now it's time for Positive Leadership strategies and generating more value.

Where's The Love? 
by JoAnna Brandi
Does your company suffer from E.D.S. - Empathy Deficiency Syndrome? Where do you have the opportunity to add more empathy and understanding to the customer interaction? How can you notice a customer struggling with your system, your forms, your processes, your website, your policies? What can you to make sure your team "feels" the customer's pain and reacts appropriately? What can you do to get your team more engaged in helping the customer feel the love?

Optimal Conditions
by JoAnna Brandi
Every time I think of the term "optimal conditions" I remember the time I had the opportunity to study with Dr. Olaf Isachsen, author of the 'Joining the Entrepreneurial Elite' and 'Common Sense Isn't That Common Anymore.' Dr. Isachsen has the ability to distill complex ideas down to simple concepts and often has a sentence or two that ends up in my "keeper" file and as the subject of one of my tips.

What's All This Talk about Value?
by JoAnna Brandi
Value has a lot of elements. Price is only one of them. Value is both tangible and intangible. Value is what the Customer says it is. Value is relative, not fixed. Value changes over time depending on what the Customer needs and desires. Value is an equation. It's up to you to find out what components of value are right for your customers - and what value you, personally, contribute.

Are You Managing To Thrive?
by JoAnna Brandi
Tips, tricks and techniques are all good to have, but it is our capacity to sit with the big questions, to change from the inside, to cultivate and nourish cultures where people can grow and have good work and customers can feel our caring that will build sustainable businesses.

What Can a Good Question Do For You?
by JoAnna Brandi
David Cooperrider, who helped develop 'Appreciative Inquiry" (AI), encourages us to stop looking at business as a problem to be fixed and start looking at it as a mystery to be discovered. AI involves the ability to ask questions that will strengthen the system's capacity. The focus on strengths - both individuals and organizational - is a strong foundation of the Positive Psychology movement.

Spread the Love
by JoAnna Brandi
Devotion is the feeling or showing of great caring, commitment and loyalty to the customer. It's dedication, it's enthusiasm - it's LOVE! When you create a business a customer loves coming back to, they come back and they bring friends. They say nice things and experience joy when they interact with you. Do something nice for your customers Valentines Day (and everyday.) Spread the love, spread the joy. 

Numbers, Numbers, Numbers
by JoAnna Brandi
It's a real challenge for me sometimes with my "warm and fuzzy" message to appeal to the CEO crowd but I've been doing it successfully now for more than 11 years. How do I convince "C" level execs to take a look at my emotionally based work? Easy. I talk numbers. Not the kinds they're used to seeing which are based on accounting principles - but the numbers that fuel the economics of loyalty.

Making it Easy to Talk to Customers
by JoAnna Brandi
Customers. Gotta love them. We all want more of them and we all want the ones we have to spend a little more time and money with us. These days many customers don't have the money to spend and so the natural tendency is to want to go out and look for new ones who do. It's a great strategy, it's necessary, but it's really only half the story.

Banish Fear, Build Resilience and Keep Customers Loyal
by JoAnna Brandi
I'm talking to lots of people these days who are cutting their budgets. That's necessary and expected in times like these. But, I'm also hearing that some are afraid to invest money (or even time) into training and motivating employees to maintain the kinds of positive attitudes that will keep them healthy and keep the remaining customers loyal. If you're one of them, I dare you to think about that again. While the marketplace is breaking down businesses from the outside in, fear is eroding businesses from the inside out.

Happy@ Work?
by JoAnna Brandi
While Happiness is a choice - a personal choice - it is to a company's advantage to create the kind of working environment and use the kind of leadership practices - that bring out the best in people, help them feel good about work and their contribution to it. Here are seven ways that you can create happier, more engaged employees.

Building a Case for Getting Better
by JoAnna Brandi
Every once in a while I’m looking through my files and I find something that was once shared only with one customer that has great relevance to anyone who deals with a customer. I ran across some notes I’d made for an executive of a large company that I was coaching. He wanted to convince the rest of the team that the "Customer Experience" was so critical to their business that they should be making a large investment in training everyone who touched the customer to go above and beyond, to add discretionary effort, to go the extra mile.

Know Stress
by JoAnna Brandi
We're all so stressed! There's so much to do in our customer service department and only a certain amount of time to do it. We get it done, but at a harried pace. What can we do to alleviate some of the stress? I am answering this question because I want as many people to see this as possible. It’s an important reminder about the response-ability we have for our own healthy state of mind and body. We can’t take great care of customers unless we take great care of ourselves first.

The Real Costs of Losing Customers
by JoAnna Brandi
Another customer walks out of the door or hangs up the phone vowing never to return to your place of business again. What's the big deal? You can't please everyone, right? That's the attitude of many employees these days, or so it would seem from their behavior. Companies that typically begin the investigation of customer cost find that the number is much higher than they would have guessed.

Looking to Thrive? Five Ways to Keep Your Relationships on T.R.A.C.K
by JoAnna Brandi
By evaluating and improving even five relationship qualities an organization can make great strides towards good health. And, as luck would have it have, they form an acronym my clients are familiar with – T.R.A.C.K. It stands for Trust, Respect, Appreciation, Communication and Kindness. When all these qualities are practiced well, relationships thrive and prosper.

Want To Motivate Employees? Here Are Three Tips for Uncovering What Really Turns Them On
by JoAnna Brandi
One of the top challenges in any business is helping frontline employees get and stay motivated as they build customer relationships, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Here are three tips for successfully dealing with this common pain point by creating an environment where employees are inspired to be and do their best.

What's So Special About You?
by JoAnna Brandi
What's makes interacting with you so unique, what personal contribution do you make to your relationships? After all, part of what your company is selling in the "customer experience" is you. Do you know what makes you special?

Is Workplace Happiness a Business Decision?
by JoAnna Brandi
Want a more positive workplace where you and your co-workers feel happy and motivated? The overall message: Happiness creates resilient employees who, in turn, create resilient, thriving companies.

Enjoy Eight Ways That Loyalty Pays
by JoAnna Brandi
The customer experience makes or breaks customer loyalty. With so many choices today, it's the quality of the experience that will determine whether or not they'll come back, purchase more, and refer their colleagues and friends to you.

These Five ‘Positivity Pointers’ Can Help You Enhance Your Customer Experience
by JoAnna Brandi
Positive, life-affirming, optimistic people attract goodness to their lives. They attract positive people and circumstances, and they achieve great results. And why wouldn’t they? They’re a joy to interact with!

No Time or Dollars to Train Your Team? Make the Most of ‘Teachable Moments’
by JoAnna Brandi
There are simple, no-cost techniques managers can implement to maintain ongoing training even as employees are behind their desks. They’re known as ‘Teachable Moments.’

Complain, Complain
by JoAnna Brandi
Although we are constantly being reminded in the business press and by our consultants about the importance of treating our customers well and adding value to their experience - use your own experience as a guide - what's the state of service today?

What's Love Got To Do With It?
by JoAnna Brandi
Customer loyalty is not dead, but it is ailing. It is given only to those companies that earn it and keep earning it by delivering value and positive experiences on a consistent basis.

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You can subscribe to JoAnna's bi-weekly Customer Care Tip for free and find more of her work at www.customercarecoach.com and http://joannabrandi.wordpress.com/ .