Hoyt Mann

PhaseWare

As co-founder and president, Hoyt oversees all operational aspects of the business, including sales, marketing, service delivery, and customer support. His extensive resume encompasses over 15 years as an innovator, entrepreneur, and overall technical evangelist with leading Dallas-based companies, including EDS, EpicRealm, MCI and OpenConnect Systems. Before forming PhaseWare Inc., Hoyt served as director of engineering for RamQuest Software, providing executive support to Founder and CEO Randall Nelson.

3 Steps to Exceptional Customer Feedback Management, Part 1

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Posted on 2011-10-18

Part 1 of 3
Step 1: Capture Feedback - Every company needs to have some way of capturing feedback from their customers. There are plenty of different ways to receive useful feedback from your customers. There are many different ways to gather direct feedback; Phone, Email, Forums, Surveys, Polls to name a few.

Forums are great because people from all over the world can join together and share different ideas and thoughts on specific topics. There’s a great article explaining forums in more detail if you have any questions about their specifics. It gives everyone a voice. Forums are a great way for you to get a feel for what your customers are feeling or thinking about your business or a specific...

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When VOC Calls - Listen

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Posted on 2011-09-28

I don't know about your newspaper, but mine seems full of bad news today. Housing prices are sinking, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas says the economy is near stall speed, and Reddy Ice Holdings is in danger of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.

Real downer, dudes and dudettes. But do not let these types of goings on rattle your cage, especially if you are about to cast an eye at slashing customer support. You have a gold mine there in case you don't know it.

Your customers are feeling the pinch, just like you. Ask yourself, do I feel like making any cash outlays right now? Or would I like to know my vendor has my back until things stabilize but making sure what I already have keeps working right and that I learn about any great deals quickly?

These are the same feelings your customers have. And you should be able to tell from the feedback you get whenever one of them contacts your organization. If you are doing it right,...

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Laying a Foundation for the 3 Basic Elements of Customer Service

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Posted on 2011-09-14

In keeping with this week's theme of three essential elements of customer service I wanted to talk about the C-suite's role.

In our top-down, hierarchical paradigm that has persisted over many decades, we tend to think of the C-suite as the top of the pyramid, the apex of the business. Over time this can cause a disconnect between the executive officers and the rest of the business. Decisions are made without really feeling the consequences because all the layers between executive and the rank and file dull any pain through spinning any bad news to sound not so bad.

The truth is, the C-suite is the foundation for the business. This is where company culture is set and where any change must start in order to successfully steer the business in a new direction. As the executives think, so goes the company.

In...

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Moving From Customer Service to Customer Experience

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Posted on 2011-07-26
Customer Experience....the phrase is certainly in the air these days, along with the pollen here in North Texas. With so many references to it, articles about it, and just plain mentions it can make you feel like you need to jump in there and do something about it.

Don't. Just jump in, that is.

Like everything in business and life, while it is important to carpe diem, some planning is in order first.
- Determine what kind of experience you want your customers to have with your business.
- Identify what, if any, type of experience your customers feel they are having now.
- Elicit feedback from them to find out ways to make the experience more pleasant, exciting, educational, or whatever other type of experience you are trying to build.
- Finally, build that experience.
What kind of experience to offer?

What kind of business do you have? How do you want people to feel after dealing with your company?...
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The Impact of the Successful CXO on Customer Experience

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Posted on 2011-06-28

Nobody seems to know how the economy is going. Housing and other sectors are still down, some other sectors are up, others holding steady. Business owners and C-suite members seem to be holding their collective breaths to see what may happen in the next few months.

It is a balancing act. But it is one that we have met before and will likely meet again in the future. Thus is the nature of business. Perhaps even a reason some of us are in the business....that feeling of piloting by the seat of your pants, wondering if you are going to be a success or a failure.

But I believe, whether your business succeeds or fails, it matters very much how you conduct your business. Treat others with respect and a failure can still be viewed as a hero. Treat others poorly and even the very successful will find it hard to gain true respect and admiration.

What does this have to do with the customer experience? Everything.

The customer experience culture starts at the top....

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Customer Service is a Stranger on the Train

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Posted on 2011-06-21
Last week in Dallas a commuter train broke down in a small tunnel on a day when there were a lot of passengers traveling from the downtown area after a parade for the Maverick's basketball team winning the championship. Many of those passengers were new to the system and unfamiliar with most of the processes such as purchasing tickets and learning their way around getting on and off the train.

After the breakdown, having waited for quite some time with no word from the driver about what had happened and what they needed to do, some of the people opened the doors, got off the train, walked up the tunnel and walked back to one of the stations. It is likely that some who would not have gotten off on their own followed others.

After several days some information came out:
- The transit authority scolded the passengers for getting off the train, citing safety issues. No apology was released.
- The train driver said he had made several announcements about...
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Customer Service Success: Strategy and Execution Must Be Intertwined

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Posted on 2011-05-04

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

"Making a distinction between strategy and execution can do great damage to a corporation."

This was taken from an article in the Harvard Business Review entitled "The Execution Trap" by Roger L. Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

The premise of this article is that, somehow, strategy and execution have become two separate activities performed by different sets of people who don't communicate.

Strategy is performed by upper management, who has the responsibility for creating the map (Customer Service is Central to Our Business Vision). Execution is performed by the lower rank worker bees who are responsible for driving the bus (customer service representatives actually talking to the...

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The Impact of Customer Service on Customer Loyalty and Word of Mouth

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Posted on 2011-04-12

"Executives need to be educated on the impact of problems on customer loyalty, the failure of most customers to complain, the potential impact of service on loyalty, and impact of service on Word of Mouth."

Natalie Petouhoff, et al. The Economic Necessity of Customer Service. Business Process and Applications Professionals. Forrester, Inc. January 21, 2009

This was from some material I gathered for a report on customer service optimization. It struck me as strange that the C-Suite inhabitants could remain blithely unaware of customer service's effect on customer satsifaction. After all, customer service is the first, and often only, part of the business that a customer interacts with.

But I can also understand how customer service and support became the poster child of poorly paid and minimally guided employees. It is unfortunate that some bad apples have ruined the whole barrel. But that is what has...

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