Last week, on a sweltering, sun-filled afternoon, I happened to be driving through a small town and noticed this hole-in-the wall restaurant… I couldn’t help but notice “FINE FOODS” emblazoned on the awning.

It wasn’t very long ago that I was shopping for a very specific product and learned that a specialty retail outlet had just what I needed. Three days later, I had an opening in my morning schedule, which made it possible for me to go and pick it up. I called the store to make sure that they were open, no answer…

Tuesday was the first full day of the Contact Center Conference and Expo 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve met a wonderful variety of contact center staff and leaders and I had the opportunity to attend several excellent sessions. I could write for a long time trying to recap the various sessions, but you’d get bored with that! Instead, I’ve pulled three things that stuck out to me today.

We hear so much about customer satisfaction, but is “satisfaction” enough? Moving a step beyond to delighting – even astonishing — our customers helps build loyalty that keeps customers coming back. What does it take to create an astonishing experience? I had one of those experiences recently and I saw 3 things I’d like to share with you.

1. It’s not the customer’s job to make your life easy. It’s your job to make the customer’s life easy.

2. Worst. Oversell / under deliver Best: Over Deliver Period

3. It’s your responsibility to understand what the customer really wants.

How do you know whether to buy the most expensive cutting edge technology… or, less expensive, slightly outdated technology? Do you have answer for your organization?

I recently traveled to the windy city on an overnight business trip. After I checked into my hotel room I was astonished to discover that the room had unique breath mints that were designed to match the trendy hand soap. As a marketer, I appreciate the time and detailed effort that goes into building brand equity and the thought behind delighting customers. I was amazed. They had gone above and beyond what I expected from my hotel room… or so I thought…

“Where do your employees spend most of their time?”…the response I hear most is on the phone or in email…CRM is usually not in the top 2….so how are companies making the most of their investment when they purchase a  CRM product?

Today’s technology has advanced to the degree that solutions you may be researching can provide a flavor of the same functionality…for example…Avaya, Siemens, Cisco, Interactive Intelligence, Hosted Products, can all provide…*IP Telephony, Unified Communications, Contact Center Applications (ACD, IVR, Recording)…. so the difference isn’t in the apples to apples functionality…the goal should be to find your orange?

This past February we’ve had record snow fall in the Midwest and with the recent news about the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti, conversations regarding disaster recovery have been on the rise. Will we likely see an 8.XX earthquake….hopefully not…but many of you might remember the “Hurricane” that blasted through the Midwest last spring. That event actually put businesses, out of business, for hours-even days…so nature i.e. wind, rain and snow can have a critical impact on your business if you’re not prepared.