Chip R. Bell's Blog

She was over-the-top friendly. Her eye hugs made you feel you were in the presence of a forever friend. As she rang up my purchase at the checkout counter of the well-known department store, she commented on my cowboy boots. “You’re either from Texas or you got a heap of cowboy in your blood,” she teased as she bagged my purchases. Then she added, “I put a discount coupon in your bag for lemonade. You know you are gonna need extra lemonade for picnics pretty soon!”

As I thanked her for her del...

I was fortunate enough yesterday to get my second COVID-19 vaccine. It was a giant relief, one that more than compensated for twenty-four hours of arm soreness. It was the peace of mind that, despite vaccine shortage or administrative challenges, I am now protected—at least 95%. The feeling of anxiety-reduction was significantly different than I felt after the first vaccine. Your customers are no different.

Customers can view excellent service as an exception, a fluke, or an accident. Someone ...

Boating is one of my passions. Few hobbies are more peaceful than a slow boat ride with your favorite beverage around the breathtaking lake on which I live. Or, more exciting than the hard pull of a large big mouth bass on a fishing line off the front of my pontoon boat.

One of the features on my boat is the trim button on the throttle. Like the gas pedal on a vehicle, the throttle controls the speed of the boat. The trim button embedded in the throttle controls the outboard engine’s angle in ...

There is an antique story about an old donkey who fell in the farmer’s abandoned well.  Crying out, the donkey alerted the farmer who summoned his nearby neighbors to help him get the donkey out of the deep well. Their efforts proved totally fruitless. So, the farmer made a decision. Since the donkey was old and the well needed to be filled with dirt, he would ask his neighbors to get their shovels to help him bury the old donkey while filling up the abandoned well.

When the donkey realized hi...

It is a question I get a lot from customer service leaders. They are convinced there is a missed tactic that, if implemented, would have the C-suite camping out in the contact center and inviting customers to board meetings. When I outline a number of possible approaches—translate CS yardsticks into the metrics of the bottom line, provide concrete links between customer affinity and the ROI, find ways to bring the voice of the customer into the conversations in the boardroom–they usually tell me...

It is a grocery store clerk mantra I typically hear as my groceries are being scanned and bagged. And, I am tired of it. I want to be surprised—tickled pink by what I found I was not looking for. Don’t give me mundane, functionally accurate, and “good enough.” Make my heart race, my mouth water, and my sight filled with eye candy that I never would have anticipated. Let go of strict consistency, predictability, and plain (a.k.a., safe) vanilla.  Give me a treasure hunt that makes me giggle, swoo...

Fireside chats can generally yield surprising depth and insights. When the chat leader is a CEO and the audience includes high-potential leaders at an executive training retreat, it can be doubly poignant and powerful. Fireside chats afford a crucible for candor and a forum for authenticity. Ten years ago, I was a trainer at the retreat and a guest at the after-dinner fireside chat.

“What are the most crucial qualities of a great leader?” was the question an armchair participant shot point bla...

My river house in the mountains of North Georgia just got fiber optic high speed Internet. In Internet talk, we went from 10 mpbs to over 100 and the capacity to stream TV instead of using a pricey satellite dish. But one of the older TVs needed a fire stick to interface with the Internet. We wanted a 4K, not a 1080. I called Target in Athens to inquire if they had an Amazon Fire Stick 4K in stock; they did. So, on our way to the river for the weekend, my wife and I stopped to buy the fire stick...

All my life, I thought leaves departed trees in the fall because they got too old to hang onto the branch and gravity bested their grasp. It does not work that way. Trees literally release their leaves from the limb. Here is how a leaf becomes the prey of gravity.

As days get colder and shorter, trees create a hormone that sends out a chemical message and triggers the creation of cells that appear at the spot where the leaf stem meets the branch. These abscission (root word for scissors) cells...

First, thank you Chip for allowing me to offer this guest blog. Chip is one of the most talented and seasoned customer experience professionals globally, and I am grateful for his colleagueship and support.

Most business owners and leaders want to provide experiences that drive customer engagement, loyalty, and referrals. However, designing and consistently delivering experiences that emotionally resonate with customers is daunting in the best of times, let alone in a pandemic! Sadly, many com...