Don Crawley, Author.

Word of the Week: Attention The word of the week is attention. As in, pay attention to what your customer is saying and doing. That’s part of the difference between good and bad customer service. Quote of the Week: Customer Loss There’s an often-repeated quote that says, “68% of customer loss is due to perceived […]

Attention! (and Bad Customer Service)

Don Crawley, Author.

Word of the Week: Respect The word of the week this week is respect. Respect comes in two forms. Probably, the most common way of thinking about respect is in how you feel about another person, based on their words and deeds. We often say that someone must earn respect. It’s internal, it’s about your […]

How to Show Respect

Don Crawley, Author.

Word of the Week: Should The word of the week is should, a popular topic in self-help circles. That probably seems a little odd, but here’s why it’s the word of the week. Janet, my wife, and I were talking about the direction of her professional life. Like millions of others, her life has been […]

“Shoulding” All Over Yourself and Misguided Self-Help Myths

Don Crawley, Author.

We’re changing the format and the name of the Compassionate Geek blog starting with this post. You can think of the new format as a weekly motivational triple-play. In fact, that’s what I’m calling it: The Weekly Motivational Triple Play. We’ll publish one new post per week, reflecting a positive point of view. Each post […]

How to Be a Powerful Uplifting Presence: A Positive Point of View

Don Crawley, Author.

This is a story with a simple solution for poor customer service. I like word puzzles. The New York Times puzzles are an ongoing distraction for me, whether it’s a crossword puzzle or their accursed spelling bee. There’s even one called Vertex, which is a mindless connect-the-dots puzzle. Their puzzles are well-designed and thought-provoking (except […]

A Solution for Poor Customer Service

Don Crawley, Author.

In a breakout session on how to improve your emotional intelligence at IT Nation Explore, an attendee commented, “You say to avoid saying things like, ‘You make me so happy’ or ‘you make me so angry’ because it gives power to the other person. Yet, you also say to be assertive and tell the other […]

How to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence for Great Relationships

Don Crawley, Author.

The 4 Quadrants of Urgency and Importance How is your time management? Are you spending your time on activities that are important or are you wasting your time on activities that don’t matter? Author Stephen Covey’s urgency/importance four-quadrant time management model is a powerful tool you can use to prioritize how you spend your time. […]

Prime Time Management

Don Crawley, Author.

This technician’s checklist is for anyone in customer support who responds to service tickets and requests. It’s also for anyone who deals with end-users, other customers, and coworkers. When preparing to respond to a support ticket or service request, even an informal one, be sure to go through the following checklist. IT Customer Support is […]

Technician’s Checklist for Customer Support

Don Crawley, Author.

We build customer support systems to take excellent care of our customers, but some clients just want to go around them. Does this sound familiar? Bypassing Customer Support Systems Terry, an owner of a mid-sized MSP wrote: “I’m wondering if you have anything on voicemail, specifically an outbound voicemail message on the owner’s mobile or […]

When Clients Bypass Customer Support Systems

Don Crawley, Author.

For most of us, dealing with an angry or abusive customer is upsetting, even nerve-wracking. Still, sometimes it happens. When you know how to handle an angry customer, you can turn situations around, save relationships, and keep your stress levels under control. Here are five critical success factors in dealing with difficult customers (or anybody […]

How to Handle an Angry Customer (Includes Video)