They say Corporate America has no sense of humor. Are they right? Find out by following Write The Company a consumer humor blog consisting of crazy consumer affairs and customer service letters about everyday products, services and brands and what the companies behind them had to say about it. Each week Zengage brings […]
I travel. A lot. Last year I did around 200000 miles in the air and all of it was with Air New Zealand on their own, or their code share partners, flights. I spend a lot of time talking about what an amazing experience travelling with Air New Zealand is, and I wanted to take […]
Apparently, you can be a content strategist without knowing it. In June of 2008, after years of working as a writer, I got tapped by a recruiter looking to fill a content strategist position at eBay. Looking at the job description, I wouldnt even have guessed I was qualified. After some tests and an interview, […]
As we described in Tip of the Week: Review Ticket Resolution Times with Reports, you can get a good snapshot of your support tickets using the Zendesk graphical reporting available to all accounts (go to the Report page under the Manage tab). If you want to do some more heavy duty analysis, however, it’s best […]
A few days ago on Zengage, Ben Kepes wrote about the different ways a business might approach Twitter, with some examples both good and bad. Like any tool, Twitter is only as good as the person — or in this case, the company — using it. Knowing why your business is on Twitter is crucial […]
The Zendesk forums have let us turn support into a community activity. By tapping into the knowledge of our user base, we can provide the right answers sooner — without increasing our headcount. — Megan Etzel, Customer Relations Coordinator Animoto is a web-based video creation platform that lets anyone quickly and easily create professional-quality videos […]
Over the past few years, we have seen a fundamental breakdown in the confidence and belief that individuals are willing to place in large organizations and in the people who run them. When asked to rate the ethics of various professions in a recent Gallup poll, Americans ranked those who represent big business and big government near the bottom. Only 12% of respondents rated the ethical standards of business executives as high or very high. Members of Congress fared even worse at 9%.
Part of an ongoing series about how you do support. Based in Shaker Heights, Ohio, Monarch Teaching Technologies, Inc. creates technology-enhanced solutions that provide effective and cost-efficient support for children with special learning needs. We recently spoke with John Haprian, Vice President of Operations at Monarch, about how support works at their organization. Describe how […]
When it comes to effecting change within an organization, it might sometimes appear that we have divergent themes going on here in the Zengage blog. On the one hand were firm proponents of the bottom-up’ approach that says that organizational change is most readily created from the grass roots line workers adopting tools, developing […]
It wasn’t all that long ago when the idea of “Do-It-Yourself” was associated primarily with craft hobbies and home repair. But recent technologies have facilitated our ability to undertake a variety of new DIY projects, from video and music production to publishing, and it’s becoming far easier for us to become producers, not just consumers, […]
In a recent Zendesk Tip of the Week, we talked about the importance of speaking your customers’ language and how to implement multiple languages on your Zendesk. Zendesk itself is based in the U.S. and while most of our customers speak English, we do have a significant and growing population of non-English-speaking customers. Some of […]
Mark Burstiner explains why he’s called the Engagement Leader over at Squarespace (as opposed to say, the Community Manager) Right now, while digital media is causing a massive shift, brands are finally starting to get wise, and are starting to hire Community Managers. The problem with that title, as Alex Hillman has pointed out, is […]
Is your company targeting customers with personalized marketing emails and web content? It should be. The reason is simple: Customers like it. A new study by Forrester Research for email service provider e-Dialog, based on a web survey of 2,000 users in the U.S. and U.K., revealed strong consumer preferences for personalized emails. Customers want […]
We’ve all heard it before: “Try it risk-free — or your money back.” By now, the money-back guarantee has become a staple of the modern consumer relationship. It’s so familiar we often forget it’s there. But one place it’s not usually found is Apple’s App Store. That’s because Apple takes 30% of each sale and […]
How to Manage Your Own PR – inc.com Getting the most PR bang for your buck – by doing it yourself. Good advice. On this Safari 5 Reader Hysteria – nikf.org We’re mostly an Apple shop here, and so jumped over Safari 5. I am loving the Reader featured described here, but apparently the fact […]
Last week we looked at the roll call of the worst customer service offenders, it seemed only right to follow that up this week with a look at some easy to follow tips for those wanting to receive great customer service. All too often we focus on the business side of things and what it […]
I recently stumbled across Banksimple; I was stunned and bemused by their mission: building a better bank through SaaS. It’s bold and I look forward to their launch. How do they intend to do it? In addition to simplifying the banking product and process, they also emphasize great customer service: Big banks see hedge funds […]
Lala, a popular streaming music store and service, shut its virtual doors over the Memorial Day weekend. The closure was announced about a month ago, along with much chatter about the possibility that Apple, Lala’s new owners, had shut the service down in order to incorporate it into some sort of iTunes streaming cloud. That […]
New AT&T data plans for iPhones, iPads, more – news.cnet.com A description of AT&T’s new data plans, which are surprisingly good; and more importantly which includes the proviso that “nobody will be forced to switch”. If you like your plan, you can keep it. A good example of how to handle pricing changes (Ahem). This […]
Recently we posted about [intlink id=”2879″ type=”post”]customer service and how it relates to tipping[/intlink] in the hospitality industry. That post generated a bunch of comments around the place and since it was in part driven by an almost four year old New York Times article about The Linkery, a San Diego restaurant, we thought it worthwhile […]
Doc Searls, of Cluetrain Manifesto fame writes about the importance for businesses and consumers to manage relationships, not each other: You dont click on an accept button when you go into a restaurant or a bike shop, even though the legal contexts of your actions are plentiful. Thats because you and the owners of the […]
Thanks to all who met up with us in New York last Thursday! Good times. More photos on Flickr.
A recent article in Business Week talked about USAA and the fact that it’s had multiple top results in Business Week’s customer service ratings. The USAA offers insurance, banking and investment services to members of the U.S. military and their families. In the article they give the example of a Military employee who is able […]
In the world of customer service, we all love to share our bad experiences – the canceled flight, the forgotten appetizer, the terrible call center support agent, and so on. While there are many lessons to be learned from negative experiences, we can also identify and learn from our good ones. We heard a story […]
