I love a good list of customer service ideas, and since it’s the New Year, I thought it would be appropriate to share a list.  These customer service questions are for you to ask yourself and others in your company.  These are conversation starters you can use to have discussions about delivering amazing customer service.

  1. What three things do you do best that differentiates you from your competition? Really look at how you are different.  What is it that your competitors can’t say about themselves that you can say about yourself?
  2. You can’t be the best at everything, so what is it you are not good at doing?  Don’t try to change what you are not good at.  Focus on what you are good at and improve upon where you excel.
  3. What does your competition do that you can learn from?  By the way, don’t copy the competition.  Learn from them and improve on what you learn.
  4. What do you do to make people want to be around you at work?  The focus of this question is on your internal customers.  Do they enjoy working around you?  If so, why?
  5. What, if anything, do you do to come up with creative and innovative ideas?  Does your company have some type of employee suggestion program?
  6. How does your company train employees in customer service and relationship building skills?  Many times companies spend a lot of money and time on training technical skills.  The best companies also train soft skills, like customer service.
  7. What policies or processes stand in the way of delivering amazing customer service, and can they be removed?  In other words, how easy is it to do business with you?

What questions would you add to this list?

This article first appeared on Shep Hyken’s Customer Service Blog and was written by Shep Hyken. You can read the full version here.