Customer Service Pyramid

Illustration of four people brainstorming around a desk with a lightbulb filled with puzzle pieces above them.

Our customer service pyramid is an innovative,  effective, yet simple model of delivering excellent customer service.

It’s the product of 20 years of my academic and professional research and practice!

Customer Service Pyramid with sections labeled Language, Respect + Appreciation, Empathy, and Communication.

Effective communication is the foundation of exceptional customer service. Throughout their journey, customers constantly interact with your customer service teams and frontline staff — whether in person, over the phone, via email, text, or online chat.

We’ll help you effectively communicate with each and every customer — including persons with disabilities, customers experiencing stress and anxiety, individuals with neurological differences, older adults, and customers who don’t speak English fluently.

Effective empathy is the ability to fully and accurately understand your customer’s experience. This understanding allows you to address their challenges and needs quickly and successfully. Plus, it improves communication and relationships with your customers — while building lasting trust.

Respect and appreciation are what every customer expects. Customers want a balanced, trusting relationship with your team — so that they can work with you to find successful solutions.

Language is a powerful tool that’s often overlooked in customer service. Individual-first language serves multiple purposes:

  • Helps your customers understand what you say or write the first time they hear or read it

  • Conveys respect, appreciation, understanding, and compassion

  • Facilitates problem-solving and collaboration with your customers

Overlapping translucent colorful silhouettes of human profiles on a white background.

Empathy is not an easy task!

Empathy is the ability to understand the way your customers experience and perceive the world. It’s not an easy task! Each and every customer is a unique individual. As humans, we are complex and nuanced.

Our brains are wired differently. We have different talents, strengths, and challenges. We develop different skill sets, acquire different knowledge, and go through different experiences. We choose different paths in life.

Each of us lives in and is shaped by multiple cultures. Our family, circle of friends, neighborhood, faith community, profession, and workplace — each of these groups has its own distinct culture. We also build new cultures when we start our own families, friend groups, and communities.

Our training programs will help your frontline staff understand your customers and their needs on an individual level. The field of empathy has been growing substantially over the last decade. We’ve been at the forefront of both its research and practice.

Ensure clear, respectful, and empathetic communication with each and every customer!

Diverse individuals with disabilities interacting and working.

Customers with disabilities

With both visible and invisible health conditions

Two facing head profiles, one orange with chaotic scribbles, the other blue with a neat spiral, connected by a pink line.

Customers with neurological differences

With traits of autism, ADHD, and dyslexia

A young woman and an older man smiling and holding hands, with speech bubbles above them.

Older adults

Aged 60 and above

Illustration of a girl sitting with a somber expression, surrounded by clouds.

Customers who are in crisis

Experiencing stress or anxiety (e.g., during medical emergencies or neighbor disputes)

Family gathering with members dining and barbecuing outdoors.

Multicultural customers

Across family and community cultures

People with technology around a globe and speech bubbles with greetings in different languages.

Customers who don’t speak English fluently

Limited English and Non-English Proficient