We’ve all had frustrating experiences with customer service, but Americans are especially ticked-off lately — and they’re taking it out online. 

According to the National Customer Rage Survey, a record 74% of Americans encountered a product or service issue last year and 43% of respondents admitted to yelling at a customer service rep. And that’s if they could even get a human on the phone, since the single biggest cause of customer resentment was automated systems.

For small businesses, the consequences are real, from lost sales to negative reviews. (According to Harvard Business School, a business can generate 5% to 9% more sales for every star increase in its Yelp rating.) Whether your business has a phone line, live chat, or just email, make sure that delighting your customers is the goal, not an afterthought.

At business.com, we strive to create excellent content and an engaged community. Our newsletter b. has been off to a great start these past eight months, but we need your help to make it even better. 

Magic Words: Wharton professor’s confident language tips.

Podcast: The Business of Sports analyzes winning NFL plays.

You can be sloppy at work if the BBQ food truck is parked outside your office for lunchtime, or if it rains during a company hiking trip — but you can never be sloppy when it comes to payroll.

That’s because 1 in 6 employees say they would quit their job after a single inaccurate paycheck, and nearly 25% have received one, according to an Intuit survey. What’s more, employees at small businesses report they’re 14% less likely to always be paid on time. Payroll mistakes destroy morale and retention, and that’s before the potential tax penalties.

With QuickBooks Payroll, business owners can confidently make fast unlimited payroll runs and get automatic tax calculations on every paycheck in all 50 states. Employees can even access pay stubs and W-2s, and safely view PTO balances and withholding allowances online. 

QuickBooks Payroll delivers big business benefits on a small business budget, and 24/7 callback support means you’ll get answers anytime — even if you’re standing in line for that BBQ food truck. Save 50% for three months when you buy now.

(Source: Harper Business)

Jonah Berger is a Wharton School professor and a world-renowned expert on natural language processing, change, word of mouth, influence, consumer behavior, and why things catch on. He consults for organizations like Apple, Google, Nike, Amazon, GE, Moderna, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Speaking with power or confidence isn’t something you’re born with; it’s something you can learn.

In 2004, researchers conducted an experiment about choosing a fi­nancial adviser. Participants were told to imagine that they had inher­ited some money and were looking for an adviser to help them invest it. Participants would check the adviser’s judgments against the stocks’ actual performance.

Adviser A said that there was a 76% chance that a particular company’s stock would increase in value, and the stock ended up going up. Similarly, Adviser B said that there was a 93% chance that another company’s stock would increase in value, and it went up as well. And while the more restrained counterpart thought a stock had an 18% chance of going down, the more extreme adviser thought it would be more like 3%.

In terms of accuracy, both advisers were equally good. One might think that people would prefer the moderate adviser. After all, given the uncertainty around perfor­mance, their more moderate estimates would seem more reasonable.

But that’s not what happened.

In fact, when choosing advisers, almost three-quarters of people picked the more extreme one. They preferred guidance from someone who expressed greater confidence (seemed more certain), even though that confidence outstripped advisers’ actual ability to estimate market trends. This is because when people speak with certainty, we’re more likely to think they’re right.

Consequently, words like these not only convey predictions, they also shape action. If someone says it will definitely rain, you’ll pack an umbrella; if someone says that it might or could rain, many of us will leave the umbrella at home.

Words like “might” or “could” are called hedges. They’re used to ex­press ambiguity, caution, or indecisiveness.

We hedge all the time. But without our realizing it, hedging can undermine our impact because while we’re sharing our thoughts or recommendations, by hedging, we’re simultaneously undercutting them.

Saying a solution might work, I think this is the best restaurant, or it’s probably time to fix the engine all suggest someone is uncertain. And while being cautious can sometimes be a good thing, by making communicators seem less confident, hedges undermine their ability to influence others.

If someone’s uncertain that a potential solution will work, why move ahead with it? If it’s not clear that the restaurant is the best, maybe I’ll just eat somewhere else. And if the mechanic isn’t sure it’s time to fix the engine, not only will I skip the repair, maybe I’ll find another me­chanic who seems more knowledgeable.

When saying “She’s a great hire” or “We should do this,” it’s already our opinion. After all, we’re the one saying it. So prefacing the statement with “I think” or “In my opinion” limits our impact. It makes us seem less confident that others will draw the same conclusions, which makes others less likely to follow our lead.

To convey confidence, then, ditch the hedges.

From the book: MAGIC WORDS by Jonah Berger. Copyright © 2023 by Jonah Berger. Printed courtesy of Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

A lot of sports podcasts cover breaking news (ESPN Daily) and feature documentary-style, deep-dive profiles (30 for 30). But there isn’t anything else quite like The Business of Sports: NFL Business Podcast.

Host Andrew Brandt spent a decade playing for the Green Bay Packers and then another decade as the team’s vice president. He’s also director of the Moorad Center for Sports Law at Villanova University.

Brandt gets into the nitty-gritty of how teams’ CEOs, agents, lawyers, and other sports-industry professionals work behind the scenes. Big-name guests, including current and former players, discuss the nuts and bolts of how franchises and leagues (especially the NFL) function when the cameras stop rolling. This includes things such as draft-season negotiations or how new owners attempt to change a team’s culture.

You can find the weekly podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audible, and other major platforms.

(Source: Twitter)

“Which candidate will do the best job? It’s hard to know for sure, but if one speaks with certainty, it’s harder to believe they could be wrong. After all, they just seem so confident.”

— Jonah Berger

Written by Jonah Berger and Ali Saleh.

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