Bacal's Wayback Machine For Government

I've been writing about government issues for decades, and decided I'd post some older material to see if it's still relevant to readers. TWENTY YEARS OLD. Have things changed?

Government Tends To Self-Destruction and Inefficiency

Customer Service In Government Archives

We've selected the best and most thought provoking articles written Robert Bacal about customer service, and in particular about how government serves and could serve its stakeholders and constituents. Some of the views are controversial, which is part of a process to stimulate critical thinking about customer service.

Copyright Note: While the material on this page is copyrighted, you are permitted to make copies to distribute to your government colleagues, internally, provided you do not post to any online venues open to the public. In other words, email, intranet, print are fine, on the Internet or social media sites, not permitted.

Customer Service In Government By Robert Bacal

Better Service From Government Means Someone Has To Pay For It.
There's a push for better service from governments, but at some point, you can't improve it without citizens paying for it via taxes and user fees.

Lest We Forget How Poor Customer Service From Government Was
It's easy to knock government for its poor service, but they've made huge strides over the last decade or two. Let's not forget. Here's a then and now look.

Natural Disasters - Are Government Employees Skilled in Dealing WIth Frustrated and Emotional Citizens?
It's been a bad year for natural disasters, and it highlights the need, not just for having technical support available in times of crisis, but also the need to have well trained government employees who are forced to deal with a stressed, often angry population.

Government Employees Face The Most Difficult Customer Service Situations Anywhere
Working in government in customer-facing jobs is the hardest customer service role in the world. In this article we explain why, and provide some tips for members of the public, and government staff.

Government and Customer Service - Why People Perceive the Government As Being Poor At Customer Service?
Why is that the government seems to be so poor in the customer service area. While not an apology for government, this articles explains some of the reasons. It's simply not so simple as one might think.

Gathering Customer Satisfaction Data Every Staff Member A Researcher
An older article that highlights the importance of having all customer-facing staff members collect data, and provide data and interpretation to their managers as part of increasing customer satisfaction.

Solving The Government Customer - Do Governments Really Have Customers
Do governments actually have customers? Indeed, they do, and there are a number of reasons for governments to step up their efforts to provide customer service, even to those they regulate.

Customer Interactions - The Angry, Irate and Desperate Government Customers

Are You Making The #1 Mistake When Dealing With Angry Customers classic
A classic article and one of our most popular, this outlines the most frequent (and well intentioned) mistake made when dealing with angry customers.

Customer File - Success With Difficult Customers - The Mind Set
A short article that focuses on half of the two elements needed to provide customer service to difficult customers. This deal with mind set, and attitude. The other part? Skill.

Referring Customers - An Important Part of Customer Service - How Not To Pass The Buck -
No customer likes to feel like the customer service representative is "passing the buck". Learn when and how to refer customers elsewhere, and how to do it in a way that doesn't constitute "buck passing."

Understanding Angry Customers
By understanding the psychology of angry customers, you can improve your ability to deal more effectively with them, and provide professional service while, at the same time, reducing stress.

Customer Service and Social Media Issues

Customer Service and Why We MUST Get More Find Grained In Our Discussions To Improve It - Five Guidelines
Many of the discussions about customer service and customer experience consider "the customer" as having the same expectations about service and experience, regardless of location, industry and so on. Similarly, we talk about businesses as if there is one way to provide service, and that's not true. To improve service and customer experience we need to think and operate realizing the huge diversity that dictates what businesses do.

The Myth of Going Where The Customers Are (Customer Service and Social Media)
It's all wrong. Customers don't care whether their problem is fixed on the phone, or via e-mail, on Twitter, or wherever. They just want it fixed quickly, conveniently and with no hassles.

Complex Systems The Source of Majority of Customer Service Failures
It seems like poor customer service occurs at the individual employee level, but for the most part, the majority of customer service failures come from systems that are so complex that the odds of failure is huge. It's an important concept that anyone involved in customer service, as provider or customer, should understand.

Seven Reasons Why Social Media Negatively Affects Customer Service and The Customer Experience
Despite the claims made by social media gurus and advocates, social media hasn't, isn't and will not result in better customer service. Here are seven reasons why.

Survey Based Research On Customer Behavior and Use of Social Media Often Very Misleading
A must read for anyone that relies on survey research to make decisions about customer service levels provided to customers. Robert talks about the discontinuity between what people say and what people do, and how it affects the survey results.