GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

My friend and fellow Customer Experience (CX) expert Brittany Hodak and I recently began a 52-week series for 2024 titled Shep and Brittany’s Super Amazing Show. In the second episode, rather than talk about what to do in 2024, we shared several tips on what not to do. More specifically, it’s about what we should stop doing. That inspired me and I thought it would be fun to put together a list of twenty-four (24) CX things to stop doing in 2024.

Now, this is important: Not everyone or every company is doing any or all of these. You and your organization may not be guilty of even one of these, but discussing the list can get you thinking about other things to stop doing or give you an idea of something to start doing. So, here are 24 things companies do that annoy their customers and that need to stop:

1. Stop wasting your customers’ time. If you can’t do something for them, tell them. Help them find alternatives. Don’t string your customer along.

2. Stop with long hold times. This is a major way of wasting a customer’s time. Along with this are those recorded messages that say “we are sorry and respect your time” … but we’re still too busy to answer your call. If you can’t stop long hold times, tell the customer how long it will be with an option to call back.

3. Stop using outdated technology. Your competitors will start using newer technologies, and guess what? Your customers might notice.

4. Stop using company jargon and technical language your customers might not understand. They become very frustrated.

5. Stop with the irritating “pop-ups” on websites. People hate when they land on a website and a window pops up before they can start reading the content. Then another, and sometimes another! There’s a right time and right way to do it. Keep the customer in mind when you allow “pop-up windows” on your website.

6. Stop saying, “No problem,” when your customer says, “Thank you.” Was it a problem? Of course not. For some reason, this has become a standard response, and even if it really wasn’t a problem, it is just the wrong response. Just say, “Your welcome,” or, “My pleasure.”

7. Stop with unnecessary apologies. Some people say, “I’m sorry,” again and again. I’m not suggesting you don’t apologize to customers when there is a problem or complaint. You should, but don’t over-apologize. It’s not necessary. An apology at the beginning of taking care of the conversation is appropriate. And a “thank you” and final apology at the end is always appreciated. But repeatedly saying “I’m sorry” could come across as defensive and insincere.

8. Stop focusing only on your customers when working on your CX and service initiatives. Employees must also be considered. A great customer experience starts with a great employee experience.

9. Stop spamming customers with too many unwanted messages.

10. Stop sending your customers generic messages (promotions, notes, emails, etc.). If you’re going to send a message, find a way to personalize it. And even if it is personalized, go back and re-read number nine.

11. Get out of the “one-size-fits-all” mindset. This falls under the topic of personalization, but this is not about a marketing message. We must recognize and embrace people’s differences in today’s diverse culture.

12. Stop causing friction. What part of your process could go away? Do you force your customers to take extra steps to do business with you? Find ways to eliminate anything that causes friction.

13. Stop ignoring your customers’ feedback. If the customer takes the time to share a comment, thank them, and if it is appropriate, do something with it.

14. Stop arguing with customers, even when they are wrong. I’ve written this many times before: The customer is NOT always right, but they are always the customer. So let them be wrong with dignity and respect.

15. Stop making your customers wait for you to respond. Get back to people within an appropriate time. Don’t make them wait.

16. Stop being inflexible. If you have standards and processes that customers don’t like, they will find someone else to do business with. NOTE: Some standards could fall under compliance of legal standards. It’s okay to not be flexible on those!

17. Don’t hide add-on fees from your customers. Some hotels are upsetting their guests with resort fees that can only be found in the small print.

18. Stop nickel-and-diming your customers. This is different than hidden fees. It’s about the customer accruing an extra charge every time they turn around.

19. Stop being afraid to tell your customers bad news. They may not like the news, but they will appreciate hearing about it from you directly.

20. Stop making customers come to you when you can go to them. When it comes to convenience, always put the customer first.

21. Stop ignoring your employees’ suggestions. People on the front line are more in sync with customers than anyone. Make it easy for them to let management and leadership know about opportunities to improve.

22. Stop relying solely on digital interactions. Some companies have eliminated customers’ ability to connect with a live customer support agent. Don’t become so enamored with technology that you forget that the most powerful relationship builder is the human-to-human experience.

23. Stop with the bad survey strategy. Surveys can be sent too quickly, too frequently and are often too long. A bad survey taints the customer experience.

24. Never stop trying. Never be complacent. Customer service and CX are continuing journeys that must continually be refreshed and renewed to keep up with the competition and your customers’ needs.

Hopefully you didn’t recognize yourself in any of these scenarios that frustrate customers, but if there’s something you need to work on, now is the time. Most importantly, number twenty-four applies to everyone—never stop trying! There’s always something new on the horizon to advance your customer service and customer experience (CX).

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

Image Credits: Shep Hyken

Sign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Customer service is not a department. It’s a philosophy that everyone in an organization must embrace. It’s the same with customer experience (CX), which most people view as a strategy. However, both customer service and experience must be rooted in a company’s culture. Everyone plays a part in the customer’s experience, regardless of how deep they are inside of the organization.

My friend Kelechi Okeke, a certified customer experience specialist in Lagos, Nigeria, recently wrote an article about the potential breakdown across different teams and departments when attempting to create a customer-focused culture. The goal is for the entire organization to work in unison, eliminating breakdowns due to disconnects in messaging, not aligning with the culture and just being so “siloed” the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. I contributed a few ideas to his article and thought I would expand on them and share them with the Human-Centered Change and Innovation audience.

When an organization chooses to be more customer-focused, the decision rests with leadership. The mistake is that the attention is fixed on the front line and anyone in direct contact with customers. Many don’t realize the effort must go much deeper than the customer-facing employees. Some, however, will recognize the disconnect and understand that customer service and experience must be an organization-wide effort that is embraced by all employees.

When we work with clients to create a customer-focused culture, the process starts with leadership and department heads meeting to create a customer service/CX vision I refer to as a mantra. This is a simple one-sentence (or less) statement that is short and memorable. For example, Texas Health Huguley created a purpose statement: “People serving people like those we love the most.” That sums up exactly how they want all employees to treat patients, their family members and other employees. That type of statement isn’t a theme for the year. It’s strong enough to be permanently baked into mission, vision and value statements. The mantra is where it starts. It’s the “north star” that everyone focuses on when it comes to customer service and CX.

Once that mantra is defined, it must be communicated. It needs to be reinforced in many ways through ongoing communication over time. This can be through leadership and management presentations, email signature lines, posters, wall art, promotional items, etc. No matter how long ago the mantra was created, all employees must know, understand and live by it.

The next step is training, which is where many companies fall short, specifically in two areas. Some don’t realize that training isn’t something you did. It’s something you do. It must be ongoing and reinforce the original intent of the training. You can’t take people into a room for a day, train them to be customer-focused and hope they will remember it five years later. Once an employee goes through the initial training, there must be (much) shorter training sessions, even just a few minutes in a weekly or monthly meeting, to reinforce and remind everyone what they need to do.

The second area in which many companies fall short with their customer-focus training is that they only train customer-facing employees, typically people in sales and customer support. As already mentioned, an organization must go deep with its training. Everyone must be trained. Of course, customer support agents’ training will be far different than that for employees in the warehouse. The point is everyone must know how they support the customer’s experience. For example, employees in the warehouse may never need front-line customer support skills, but they must understand that if they improperly pack a product that’s shipped to a customer and the product is damaged en route, that falls on them. They become a significant part of the customer’s experience, yet they never have any customer interaction. The point is that everyone must be trained to the initiative, not just people who interact with customers.

If you focus on the first three steps of the process—creating your mantra, diligently communicating it and properly training all employees—you’re on your way to becoming an aligned organization without the breakdowns of some companies and brands that are set in their old ways.

One final thought on this process. When people and departments—or the entire company—are meeting your customer service and experience goals, let them know. Celebrate successes, share stories and let people know they are doing a good job. Good behavior and success that are recognized beget more of the same!

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

Image Credits: Shep Hyken

Sign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.