A successful CEO recently asked my customer service consulting and training practice to help him with a customer service puzzle that his company was trying to solve:

On the one hand, his team was already stellar at the "smiles" part of customer service. He had successfully assembled a phenomenal team adept at charming customers and creating pleasant experiences when all was going well. Customer feedback was generally positive, and internal operations ran smoothly.

However, the CEO felt his company was lacking a solid strategy for dealing with more complex situations. He asked me, "Is this just the nature of customer service? Are we all just winging it, hoping our personalities will carry the day?

I told him that having exceptional employees is undeniably a vital ingredient in customer service success. You need to hire individuals who are prone to behaving in a customer-friendly manner, day in........

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