Don’t be a Dilbert With Your Customer Service… The 10 Commandments of Customer Service

George Roberts

December 29, 2010

At OpenView Partners, after investing growth capital in companies, we focus on helping expansion stage software company founders, CEO’s and management teams scale their businesses across all operational areas, including customer service. Everybody always talks about Customer Acquisition Cost and Customer Lifetime Value. We understand the difficulty and expense while adding new customers and also how managing to keep those customers over the long run adds real value and enhances a company’s exit strategy.

I was doing my weekly reading when I came across a blog on HubSpot that I enjoyed and thought I would share with you. It was titled “The 10 Commandments of Customer Service” and they are listed below:

  1.  Listen
  2.  Teach
  3.  Pay Attention
  4.  Ask the Right Questions
  5.  Don’t interrupt
  6.  Apologize
  7.  Focus on Solutions, Not on Blame
  8.  Put Yourself in Their Shoes
  9.  Treat Free Product Users as Customers
  10. Laugh, Smile and Have Fun

You can read more detail behind the 10 Commandments here. Enjoy the blog and pass it on to your management teams and employees. We even created a section on our OpenView Labs site dedicated to Managing Customer Development. There you will find some other interesting customer service ideas. Don’t be a Dilbert with your customer service…

All the best!

G

Venture Partner

<strong>George Roberts</strong> is a Venture Partner at OpenView. He enjoys partnering with companies and helping them achieve their goals through strategy, focus and operational execution. From 1990 to 2003, George spent 13 years at Oracle Corporation, most recently having served as Executive Vice President of North American Sales. While at Oracle, George was responsible for over $1 billion in revenue and more than 2,000 employees, reporting directly to the company’s CEO and Chairman, Larry Ellison.