Archive for the ‘Customer Service’ Category

Geek Squad Chief Inspector Robert Stephens founded Geek Squad with $200 and a bicycle in 1994. Best Buy and Geek Squad entered joint operations in 2002, and today Geek Squad is “Serving the Public, Policing Technology and Protecting the World” with over 20,000 service professionals available to help people solve computer and electronic equipment problems. Geek Squad City, in Louisville, encompasses four acres and is the base for Geek Squad service locations around the world. Their locations, by the way, are called precincts.

I love their branding – the nerdy cars, the black and white …

Wayne Gretzky, hailed by the NHL, sportswriters and others as the greatest hockey player of all time, was amazing. He played 20 seasons, scored more goals than anyone in NHL history and was a gentleman in a sport notorious for brawling. Analysts often say that his success was because he didn’t simply play great hockey and react to what was happening. He anticipated where the puck would be and the moves his opponents would make.

Taking a Wayne Gretzky approach to customer service can give you a huge advantage over competitors. Good and even excellent …

It was hard to miss Greg Smith’s recent resignation from Goldman Sachs. The bank’s former executive director published a scathing resignation essay in The New York Times accusing his company of being unethical, ripping off clients, and of all outrages, calling clients Muppets!

There are many lessons from this including how not to resign from your job, how to avoid burning bridges (or leaving them in a complete fireball as Smith did) and the fact that Muppets is a derogatory term (who knew?). What I want to cover is the importance of how we refer …