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Each month, our print publication Customer Service Newsletter provides in-depth information and ideas to help readers better manage their service operations.

But we often have valuable background material, additional information, or related resources that we just can’t fit in the newsletter. Listed below are a wide range of documents that add further insight and understanding to the articles in Customer Service Newsletter.

Click here to learn more about Customer Service Newsletter.

September 1, 2010

Customer service compensation is still being impacted by economic conditions — The September issue of Customer Service Newsletter reports on the results of CSN’s 2010 Salary and Incentives Survey. Follow this link to additional tables on regional pay differences for customer service positions and survey participants’ ratings of “most useful” performance motivation tools.

SafeLite aims to turn problem customers into promoters — The current issue of CSN takes a close look at the Executive Services team that SafeLite AutoGlass put in place to turn customers with problems into SafeLite advocates. Here’s a look at the service principles that the Executive Services team lives by.

August 1, 2010

Boost loyalty by becoming more proactive — This month’s issue of Customer Service Newsletter offers suggestions from Holly Zoba of Signature Worldwide on how to make your service efforts more proactive. For more ideas, here is an article from the CSN archives on how two U.S. companies use proactive service to set themselves apart from competitors.

July 1, 2010

Performance appraisals should be an ongoing, two-way process — In the July issue of Customer Service Newsletter, Sharon Armstrong talks about how customer service managers can make their performance appraisals less threatening and more effective. In the following excerpt from her book, The Essential Performance Review Handbook, Armstrong discusses how supervisors and employees can prepare themselves for upcoming performance appraisals.

June 1, 2010

What should you look at when measuring service performance? — In an interview reported in the June issue of Customer Service Newsletter, Richard D. Hanks, author of Delivering and Measuring Customer Service, talked about what to measure when measuring customer service performance. This excerpt from his book talks about the importance of “sticking to the basics.”

May 1, 2010

Are you modeling good communication practices for your reps? — In the May issue of Customer Service Newsletter, Stacey Hanke offers a range of strategies to help managers communicate better with their frontline staff. Here she provides some additional tips.

April 1, 2010

Reps are spending less time on the phone with customers — Here is a sampling from Customer Service Newsletter’s most recent Service Standards and Benchmarking Survey of what some companies see as their most important or unique customer service metrics.

March 1, 2010

Steady progress for email, self-service options — The lead story of this month’s issue of Customer Service Newsletter offers a first look at some of the results of this year’s Standards and Benchmarking Survey, focusing on types of service and service channels. Here is additional data from the survey on hours of service by geographic region.

Should you be thinking about using at-home service agents and supervisors? — In this issue, Matt McConnell, CEO of Knowlagent, which provides online talent management tools for call centers, answered questions that CSN readers have about the use of at-home agents. Here’s a Knowlagent white paper, which answers a number of additional questions.

February 1, 2010

CSN selects the year’s best customer service books — The lead story in the February 2010 issue of Customer Service Newsletter (CSN) offers the editor’s selection of the top customer service books of 2009 — and the first couple of months of 2010. To provide readers with an additional sampling of some of these titles, here are some brief excerpts from several of those titles.

January 1, 2010

2010: More of the same, or a glimmer of hope for customer service? — The lead article in the January issue of Customer Service Newsletter offers a range of ideas from a variety of experts on what customer service managers can expect to encounter in the year ahead. Here are some additional comments from two of those experts.

December 1, 2009

How do I convince reps that complaints are opportunities? — In the December issue of Customer Service Newsletter, the “Ask the Panel” column offered a number of strategies for helping reps understand that complaints are opportunities for positive change. In addition, panelist Jeanne O’Brien of Mile-Hi Foods Company notes that it is equally important that reps handle those complaints professionally. Here is the eight-point process for complaint handling that her frontline reps use.

November 1, 2009

Will your service operations be affected by the Swine Flu? — The lead article in the November issue of Customer Service Newsletter looked at the timely preparations Language Services Associates (LSA) has made to ensure continued service to customers should its business — and in particular, its call center — be affected by the Swine Flu. Here’s a detailed outline of the steps LSA has taken, including preparation and preventive measures, business continuity plan triggers, and Phase I and Phase II steps of LSA’s business continuity plan.

October 1, 2009

What can my reps do during downtime? — What can you do to keep reps productive when the phones stop ringing? Here are additional suggestions from one of Customer Service Newsletter’s panelists.

How to retain experienced workers — Customer Service Newsletter’s “Service News and Notes” page reported on a study for the health care industry by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on employee retention best practices.

September 1, 2009

Recession puts serious pressure on customer service salaries — The September issue of Customer Service Newsletter reports the results of CSN’s 2009 Salary & Incentives Survey. These additional tables offer data on regional pay differences for customer service positions and survey participants’ ratings of “most useful” performance motivation tools.

August 1, 2009

How to attract and retain Millennials as service reps — In the August issue of Customer Service Newsletter, Joanne Sujansky and Jan Ferri-Reed, authors of Keeping the Millennials, offer advice on attracting and hiring Millennial employees to customer service jobs as well as managing with Millennials in mind. Following is some additional material from our conversation with Joanne Sujansky about how to manage performance metrics with Millennials, as well as some specific advice on how to provide performance feedback to Millennial employees.

July 1, 2009

Are you customer-focused or operations focused? — This article in the July issue of Customer Service Newsletter offers insights from Shep Hyken, author of The Cult of the Customer, on how to create and maintain a customer focus in your organization. The following transcript of CSN’s entire conversation with Hyken provides a wealth of additional service-related information and advice.

June 1, 2009

Should you be looking at reps’ engagement levels? — An article in the June issue of Customer Service Newsletter discusses the characteristic behaviors of “engaged” and “disengaged” employees and how they can affect organizational productivity. The following self-assessment tool from Rivetmaker Consulting will help managers determine if “disengagement” is an issue for their work force.

May 1, 2009

Getting started in customer service benchmarking — In the May issue of Customer Service Newsletter, Alton Martin of COPC Inc. talked about the benefits and pitfalls of contact center benchmarking. In a recent Webinar, he took participants through some of the process. Here’s a look.

April 1, 2009

“Is the economy affecting your service center performance?” — What are the most important or unique customer service standards reported by companies participating in Customer Service Newsletter’s most recent Service Standards & Benchmarking Survey? We’ve assembled a sampling.

March 1, 2009

Creating an all-inclusive service culture — Customer service is part of the mission and training of every employee at Whelan Security. And the company’s core values were created to support that service-oriented culture. Here’s a look.

The phone is still the channel of choice for most customers — This issue of Customer Service Newsletter looks at data from the latest Benchmarking Survey on service channels, degree of rep specialization, types of service provided, and hours of service. Here is some additional data from the survey on hours of service by geographic region.

February 1, 2009

Can we improve AHT without diminishing service levels? — The “Ask the Panel” column in the February issue of Customer Service Newsletter looks at strategies for managing CSRs’ average talk time. Panelist Jeanne O’Brien of Mile Hi Foods recommends creating a call evaluation form that can be incorporated into a broader training and evaluation program.

January 1, 2009

With the economy stalled, what can service managers expect in 2009? — The January 2009 issue of Customer Service Newsletter offers perspective and advice from a number of service experts on what to expect in 2009. Here’s some additional advice from two of them.

New Year’s resolutions for customer service reps — This month’s issue of SkillSharpener included 12 New Year’s resolutions for customer service reps. The resolutions are reproduced here as a mini-poster, which you may print and distribute.