Customer Service Jeopardy

This friendly opening line, spoken or written, is the first thing a customer hears or reads from a representative, setting the tone for the interaction.

What is a greeting?

This nonverbal cue, including posture, facial expression, and gestures, often communicates more to an in-person customer than the words used.

What is body language?

This vocal quality, separate from the actual words spoken, conveys attitude and warmth to a customer over the phone.

What is tone of voice?

This skill, ranked among the most important in customer service, means fully concentrating on what a customer is saying rather than planning a reply while they talk.

What is active listening?

This popular customer service maxim holds that a company never gets a second chance to make this kind of impression.

What is a first impression?

This response, offered early in a complaint conversation, acknowledges a customer's frustration without necessarily accepting blame for the underlying problem.

What is an apology?

This technique involves repeating a customer's concern back in one's own words to confirm it was understood correctly.

What is paraphrasing?

This term describes passing a complaint up to a supervisor or specialist when a frontline representative cannot resolve it alone.

What is escalation?

This internal system logs each customer complaint, along with the steps taken to resolve it, so patterns can be tracked over time.

What is a ticketing system?

This principle holds that resolving a complaint quickly, ideally on a customer's very first contact, prevents the issue from requiring repeated follow-up.

What is first-contact resolution?

This telephone feature temporarily pauses a call and plays music or a recorded message while a customer waits.

What is hold?

This friendly closing line, such as "Best regards" or "Thank you for your patience," ends a customer service email on a warm note.

What is a sign-off?

This standard practice confirms receipt of a customer's email within a short window, even when the full answer will take longer to prepare.

What is an acknowledgment?

This practice repeats key details, like an order or account number, back to a caller word for word to catch errors before they cause problems.

What is a read-back?

This phone system directs an incoming call to the next available representative based on preset rules, rather than ringing every phone in an office at once.

What is call routing?

This metric measures the average length of time a customer waits on hold or in queue before reaching a representative.

What is average wait time?

This metric measures how satisfied a customer felt with a specific interaction, usually gathered through a short post-contact survey.

What is CSAT?

This metric measures how much effort a customer had to put in to get an issue resolved, based on the idea that reducing friction builds loyalty.

What is the Customer Effort Score?

This metric tracks the percentage of customers a company keeps over a given period, the inverse of churn.

What is the retention rate?

This metric measures the average amount of time it takes to fully resolve a customer's issue, from first contact to close.

What is time to resolution?

This emotional response, expressed through a statement like "I understand this is frustrating," shows a customer their feelings are being taken seriously.

What is empathy?

This practice avoids interrupting an upset customer, letting them finish expressing their frustration before a representative responds.

What is letting the customer vent?

This technique uses a customer's own name during a conversation to make the interaction feel more personal and less adversarial.

What is using the customer's name?

This technique offers a customer a choice between two acceptable solutions, giving them a sense of control over the outcome.

What is offering the customer a choice?

This practice has a representative briefly pause a heated call to reset their own emotional state before continuing the conversation.

What is taking a brief pause?

This retailer's legendary customer-first culture, chronicled in countless business case studies, includes a famously generous return policy.

What is Nordstrom?

This term describes giving a customer something extra and unrequested, like a free upgrade, purely as a goodwill gesture.

What is a surprise-and-delight gesture?

This online shoe and clothing retailer built its brand on customer service stories, including a representative who once overnighted a best man his shoes for free.

What is Zappos?

This concept describes tailoring service by remembering a returning customer's past preferences or prior issues without making them repeat themselves.

What is personalized service?

This forward-looking service approach anticipates a customer's need before they even ask, such as offering an umbrella when rain begins during a scheduled visit.

What is proactive service?