It’s wedding season! In particular there’s a very important wedding that just took place, and of course I’m talking about William and Kate. Naturally, my morning routine of watching Good Morning America had been infiltrated with coverage of the “Epic Event”.

As part of its coverage, ABC found anyone they could who was attending the wedding and interviewed him/her about useless information. For some reason, I actually paid attention to the interviews last week. Glad I did… One young guy they interviewed was not only the very close Step-2nd Cousin of Prince William, but also happened to be one of the co-founders of Quintessentially, “the world’s leading private members’ club with a global concierge that provides a unique brand of service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.” Never hearing of this before, I was intrigued to see what something like that costs. After being made fun of by my “in-the-know” girlfriend for never …

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Everyone needs help once in awhile. When you contact a company about a question or an issue, you enter this realm. You’re looking for an answer, and your fingers are crossed that the person who answers on the other end has one. But sometimes they need help too, (everyone, remember?) so they may need to pass you along to a co-worker or manager that can handle your needs better. It’s during this hand-off where there seems to be giant room for improving service across all companies. You just explained yourself to the first person reached, you may have a detailed story with layers of complexity that led you to needing help. Now you’re speaking to the second person, and it’s the dreaded “broken record” scenario. Same account or order information needed, same story told.

This is an area where companies can differentiate themselves, improving the customer experience substantially. Nobody likes repeating themselves, especially when they’re describing …

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We deal with sites that offer sub-par service by not awarding them the STELLAService seal. Other groups, like the RevZilla.com Team, choose to handle bad service in a slightly different way….

What do you do to “shoot down” bad service?

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American Express released survey results last week concluding that “Americans will spend 9% more with companies that provide excellent service”.  We’re suffering from a bit of deja vu here at STELLAService ( we released a similar study (in partnership with Ovum)  this past March and reached an eerily similar conclusion). 

All joking aside, we’re thrilled that American Express reached  the same conclusion after conducting their own survey.  Their findings provide further reinforcement that delivering excellent customer service is of the utmost importance to consumers and can positively impact a company’s bottom line. In the world of ecommerce, websites currently displaying the STELLAService Seal are taking full advantage of this fact by signaling to consumers upfront their commitment to excellent customer service.  As if customers ready to spend more for great service isn’t enough, the study also found that people “spread the word …

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Here at STELLAService, we try not to name names when complaining, but I’m sure you can think of a company whose customer service call hold times are consistently so long that you have to block out a time for it in your schedule.

What if I told you that you’ll never have to wait on hold again? Meet LucyPhone, a free service dedicated to preventing the many headaches, neck cramps, and frustration caused by long hold times. Featured most recently in a New York Times article and also on Lifehacker and The Consumerist blogs, LucyPhone does the holding for you. Log on to LucyPhone.com and create your free account. Back on the homepage, you can search for the company within their existing directory of used numbers, or enter the number you wish to call. You then enter your own phone number, and click start. Within seconds, LucyPhone calls you, and reminds you how things work, then connects you to the number you entered online. Things start off as they normally would, until you get put on …

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Say hello to Watson, IBM’s latest supercomputer and biggest side project of the last decade. Watson is (by far and away) the world’s most sophisticated and intelligent “question-answering machine.” It has the ability to rapidly answer complex questions that are asked in “natural human elocution”, or in other words, everyday speech.

Normally, question-answering computers such as search engines or interactive voice response (IVR) systems,  are limited to keywords and specifically constructed sentences. Have you ever dealt with an IVR on the phone? As John mentioned in his post earlier this month, IVR systems can render worthless if your responses aren’t clearly communicated.

With millions of dollars of computing power and countless algorithms behind it, Watson is able to decipher and understand a question, search its massive database for the relevant information, compile a list of the most probable answers, and produce a sensible …

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Earlier this month, New York Senator Charles Schumer proposed radical legislation that would create cost incentives for companies to keep customer service jobs in the United States. His proposal charges companies a $0.25 excise tax (a big number!) on calls transferred to call centers outside of the country. As you’re probably aware, many American companies outsource their customer service representative (CSR) positions to foreign countries because of reduced labor costs, a practice that many feel reduces the quality of service provided and also takes jobs away from Americans.

In addition to penalizing companies who outsource this function of their business, the bill would also require companies to disclose (via an automated voice system, I’d imagine) which country a customer service representative is handling a call from. This requirement would lift some of the fog from the hazy call center landscape and provide online shoppers with unprecedented insight as to how …

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When it comes to the understanding how important it is for a business to make its customers feel good, some people just get it. Or – well – they more than get it, they understand that it means everything. It can make a business, break a business, and most importantly differentiate a business.

Stan Phelps is one of those people who “gets it.” While the video on his website is four minutes long, it took less than thirty seconds before I was intrigued. Stan is a marketer and author of the upcoming book, “Marketing Lagniappe: In Search of Your Purple Goldfish.” I’m excited to read it.

“Lagniappe?” you might ask, “And purple goldfish?” They’re carefully chosen words.

Phelps explains lagniappe (pronounced lăn-yăp) both by definition, “a small gift at the time of purchase, or an extra or unexpected gift or benefit” and also through a quote by Mark Twain: “It’s the equivalent to the 13th roll in a baker’s dozen, something thrown in for …

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If you want to see amazing robotics at work look no further than the 2 minute clip below, which is a glimpse into the warehouse of…diapers.com? Believe it or not the site is an e-retail giant, expected to bring in more than $300 million in revenues this year selling baby supplies to busy parents throughout the country. The company has built a loyal following by providing excellent customer service, selection and free overnight shipping on most products. One of their impressive competitive advantages lies in the inventory management and packaging systems they designed and utilize:

Now the co-founders of the company have set their sites on bringing convenience to everyone (not just parents) with the planned launch of Soap.com this July. The site will carry more products than imaginable (25,000 at launch and 100,000 by the end of 2011), offering a plethora of daily essentials across numerous brands (read more here). Combining their expertise in shipping and inventory …

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Zappos made headlines this week for a pricing glitch that occurred on a sister website, www.6pm.com. For a few hours the price on every item was capped at $49.95, even if the actual price was say, $250 for a handbag. The error was caught but not before costing Zappos an estimated $1.6m, according to Aaron Magness, director of brand marketing and business development at Zappos. The problem was a simple programming error, a glitch caused by a few  incorrect characters in a line of code.

Fittingly, the biggest headline grabber out of this story has been Zappos’ response to the situation. Despite having the full legal right to cancel all sales that occurred under false pricing (this is listed in their terms of service), Zappos is honoring every purchase made during the “deep discount” session. As if Zappos needed more arrows in their quiver about putting customers first. Bloggers and journalists have been laying serious praise on how the situation was handled, so much …

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