CSRs

Leaders: Do You Treat Your Customer Service Reps Like Adults?

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, IT

In customer service organizations and technical IT (information technology) customer service teams, I see a lingering trend of leaders treating front line customer service reps, global service desk agents, and technical support analysts like children.

Selfless, professional caring is an adult emotion and behavior yet managers treat reps as children who need to be monitored, controlled, scored, and highly directed.

Leaders, Treat & Engage Customer Service Reps Like Adults Image by: BetterWorks

Key Question on Engaging Customer Service Reps:

Do you score your reps performance or do they first review their customer interactions and note the improvements they will make?

If they first assess their performance, you are treating your customer service reps and IT global service desk analysts like adults. You engage in dialogue with them and brainstorm interaction improvements. You are treating them as valued employees entrusted with the weighty responsibility of customer service.

Bravo! They own both the concept and the delivery of customer care. When you engage them in self-assessment, they will engage the customers with spirit and skill.

The result will far exceed that of the directive parental approach in other call centers, BPO contact centers, and IT front line service desks. Businesses with highly engaged employees experience five times the success of other organizations for the employees have a voice in their responsibilities and a personal stake in the results of their performance.

Engage front line reps like trusted adults:

Give them access to professional customer service training so that their self-assessments will be based on high quality standards. If their assessments miss the mark completely, you will have both your experience and professional standards to teach and coach them.
Allow them to give feedback to each other as team members working toward the shared goal of outstanding customer service.
Engage them to increase the standards they will reach. You will be amazed at how high they will set the bar.
Tap them for front line service improvement ideas while you as leader take on the bigger challenges of breaking down silos and process barriers to outstanding customer service. The reps and front line team leaders are rich with insights from working with the customers.

Interestingly, initial self-assessment in performance reviews has been the standard for over 20 years with professional jobs in organizations. Yet on the front line of customer service, the model is parent/child.

The very traditional “leaders judging the reps” approach is a non-starter for today’s customer care.

To ask employees to suggest customer service improvements requires that leaders first ask the reps to assess their current performance and valuable improvements. Excellence is achieved through mutual assessment, dialogue, and shared ownership based on respect and trust.

Employee engagement in customer service is overdue yet never too late. I’ve worked with thousands and would be pleased to work with all of you to engage their talents with ownership and a true stake in the outcome.

What winning customer service employee engagement steps have you taken that you will share with us in the comments section below?

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

The Performance Appraisal Treadmill

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

6 Comments »

Psychological Barriers to a Super Customer Experience

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits

In the past I have written that great choices create a super customer experience. A recent jaw dropping experience at the Hilton Garden Inn once again shows that the opposite is also true. Bad choices burn customers.

Many of these bad choices are driven by psychological barriers. Awareness of these psychological syndromes gives managers, CSRs, reps & agents the ability to make better behavior choices and deliver super customer experience.

Psychological Barriers Can Destroy Super Customer Experience Image by:ian boyd

Psychological Barriers to a Super Customer Experience

Which of these have you witnessed in service reps, agents, and managers?

Cognitive Dissonance: When a person’s self-image or view of performance is in conflict with facts or another person’s perception, denial can set in.
Example #1: When Jason, the general manager at the Hilton Garden Inn realized the horrible things Karen the front desk manager said to me, it was in conflict with his existing view of her.

Burning behavior: He clearly declared that her behavior was unacceptable yet slipped into cognitive dissonance and thus burned my experience with “she is a good manager.”

Caring behavior: Instead of changing the reality to meet his perception of Karen, he could instead admit the failure and the dissonance. “Her behavior is unacceptable and I must admit quite surprising to me.” Or simply admit the failure and keep the dissonance to his own private thoughts.

Example #2: A patient said to a dental hygienist during a cleaning, “That’s painful. I am in pain.” The hygienist’s view of herself was that she does not inflict pain. What she was hearing didn’t fit with her self-image.
Burning behavior: She simply responded, “Well there will be pressure!” in a sing-songy voice. In her mind she was applying pressure not inflicting pain. She offered no empathy because that would require her to accept that she had inflicted pain. The patient never went back. She told the story of the samurai hygienist to the next caring hygienist she found.
Caring behavior: The next hygienist said: “I am sorry. I can put some fluoride on your gums to ease the pain then continue.”

Cognitive dissonance burns customers because most don’t see that the rep or manager is the one struggling psychologically. Customers believe at that moment that the statements and behavior are a direct reflection of what the manager or rep thinks of them. This is a huge risk to super customer experience and loyalty.

Defense Mechanisms. Karen’s defense mechanisms were in full swing when I objected to her giving my room number to the cab driver. She was unable to accept that her actions were out of line and change course.
Burning Behavior: Karen made it a win/lose between her and me. When you define customer interactions as win/lose, you trap yourself and in the end your company loses.
Caring Behavior: Define interactions as win/win from the start. In that mindset, changing course is not backing down. Changing course is a logical way to finding a mutually agreeable road.

When a manager, rep, or agent is defensive, they have basically declared that there is a war and their focus is protecting themselves. Customer service is not a war. It is the continuous improvement and delivery of superior interactions between ourselves and our customers. Otherwise, why would they come back? To fight a war?

Weak self-image. Even after 20 years of teaching customer service, I still encounter one or two reps in each class who admit they cannot say “I’m sorry” unless it is proven they themselves made a mistake.
Burning behavior: I feel for these reps. Their inability to say to a customer, “we are sorry for the impact this had on you” is rooted in a struggle to always feel good about themselves. It will also leave the damaged relationship to smolder in pain as the customer shares their dissatisfaction and disappointment with other potential customers.
Caring behavior: Experience the greatness of putting others’ feelings ahead of your own. A sincere apology for the service team’s failure to deliver outstanding service — bonds, corrects, and heals the wounds.

Overactive Ego The manager, rep, or agent who has to dominate any interaction with a customer comes across as a control freak.
Burning behavior: The mindset, “you need my help so follow procedure and do it my way.” Communication may not be as blunt as that yet the tug-of-war that ensues can leave the customer fatigued and disinterested in your services.
Caring behavior: Share control of the interaction with the customer. Give and take is far easier than any tug-of-war.

Every customer wants service to be easy. Paying their money to handle psychological syndromes, hangups, and barriers isn’t on their bucket list.

Free the customer and yourself from the trap of psychological distress. Embrace reality, make it a win/win, and create an easy super customer experience for everyone!

What other psychological traps would you add to this list?

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please first email info@katenasser.com for terms of use. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service & experience, employee engagement, teamwork, and leading change. Kate turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

21 Comments »

Customer Experience: Every Move We Make, Every Vow We Break

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits

Super customer experience is not a series of learned steps or categorized procedures.
It is continuous improvement and delivery of superior interactions between our customers and — our staff, our products, and our services.

Steps, procedures, and processes are merely the ways that large companies organize their work, train their workers, and lower their risk. They are only tools to handle on a large scale what a small enterprise does well without the complex of rules.

Procedures Can Guillotine Customer Experience

Many of the customer experience horror stories are born of procedures gone mad. They erupt from processes that have conquered thought/reason, empathy, and unfortunately guillotined the customer experience.

Management mistakenly puts so much focus on procedures and adherence to them that the employees delivering service focus on procedures instead of the customer.

The customers are aware of this. They experience procedural focus as uncaring, disrespectful, and dehumanizing.

Conversely when we, as caring intelligent life forms first unearth the input to the experience (the customer’s perspective), we can easily deliver a superior customer experience with personalized care using whatever procedure is needed.

What super customer experience truly requires is awareness before action!

The customer is constantly aware of what they want and aware of us when they want it. Are we aware of them and what they want or just aware of our procedures?

Interaction Before ACTION!

Super customer experience comes from us being aware of the customers’ wants, needs, and expectations before we deliver. Interaction is the time to become aware.

Interaction before action. Whether it’s face-to-face, on the phone, on Live Chat, or even the e-commerce site, awareness must precede action.

Have you ever heard customers rave about an experience by saying: “Your employees executed the internal company procedure so well”?

The early interaction with the customers foretells the outcome. Will it be the beginning of a wonderful movie with a happy ending?

Or will it end with the customer feeling thwarted, silenced, and metaphorically beheaded by our internal procedural focus?

Picture the customers singing Every Breath You Take by Sting.

Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
I’ll be watching you

3 Reminders to Be in Harmony With Customers

We don’t do things for the customers. We do things with the customers and with their input and consent.
Interact before we act. Awareness before action.
Every procedural move we make, every caring vow we break, every procedural claim we stake, they’ll be watching us — and looking for more caring effective alternatives.

I have taught thousands in customer service, customer care, technical support, and contact center teams how to deliver the ultimate customer service while working the procedures behind the scenes. Let’s create a superior customer experience for each and every customer!

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service & experience, employee engagement, leading change, teamwork. Kate turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

9 Comments »

Super Customer Experience: Are Your Teams Tooled & Ready?

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits

How long do you think customers will wait for information and answers? Well Google engineers have found that for people surfing the Web, even 400 milliseconds (the blink of an eye) is too long. Wow.

Now picture your typical customer, pressured for a solution. Double wow.

This age of instant information has increased customers’ expectations of front line customer service knowledge and of the CSRs, agents, and technical support reps (TSRs) that deliver it.

Super Customer Experience: In the Blink of an Eye. Ready? Image by:miuenski

Are Your Front Line Teams Tooled & Ready?

Super Customer Experience Info Checklist

Can your front line reps see what the customers see on the Web? Can they at least see your own company website? In my consulting work, I often here the incredible answer, no.
I ask, why not? “Because we don’t want them to surf the net. Only the teams that monitor social media can see the Web.” Huh?

Wake up call from customers: “If we can see it, we expect front line reps to be able to see it too!”

Do the front line agents and all other teams use the same tracking system software (without cumbersome interfaces that create errors)? For a super customer experience, customers expect that all involved in delivering service will be able to see what they need.
Checkpoint: How many of your customers are dissatisfied because your service and support teams cannot access the same customer information? In today’s world of instant information, the customers don’t even think this could be happening. Instead, they just think you don’t care about them.

Do your front line technical support reps have remote control to the customers’ desktops? For customers with computer problems, remote control as an option has eliminated their stress, sped up problem solving, and increased their satisfaction. Many customers will grant permission for the rep to use remote control, yet many front line teams don’t have it.
Advice: Give front line technical support reps remote control. Don’t let organizational politics, internal turf wars, and hierarchical structure keep this wonderful technology from the front line.

Customers tolerance for front line technical support reps who can only route tickets to problem solvers continues to decrease. In today’s world of instant information, it seems antiquated and illogical and a far cry from a super customer experience!

It can be a big challenge in large companies to have seamless integration of systems and information. Yet the technology is available to make it happen and customers assume you will have shared information.

They expect it, in the blink of an eye, for super customer experience.

Will this challenge make it to the top of your 2012 goal list? They surely hope so!

Question:
As a customer, what other information would you want and expect the front line teams to have?

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service experience, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results. BS Mathematics. Masters Organizational Psychology. Former techie!!

2 Comments »

Hiring My Pleasure Employees for Super Customer Experience

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits

As I read 7 Horrible Phrases Job Applicants Say That Are Warning Signs, I discovered seriously bad advice that can ruin your customer service hiring.

It suggests that if a job applicant uses the phrase my pleasure or no problem, they will not serve customers well. It claims these are bizarre phrases showing the applicant it out of touch with customers.

My Pleasure Employees Deliver Super Customer Experience

Quite the opposite is true.

In fact, these my pleasure employees deliver super customer experience.

Hiring agents, CSRs, reps, and specialists who find serving a pleasure sustains customer experience in a way that training can’t.

The author and those he consulted have misunderstood this time honored phrase of deep service and civility. The phrase my pleasure is not, as he proposes, a focus on the employees’ needs.

My pleasure is a shortened version of:

My pleasure to serve you …
It is a pleasure to serve you
It is a true pleasure to be in service to you and others

The phrase no problem is a shortened version of no problem doing anything you request.

Many brands use the phrase my pleasure — from high end hotels to fast food chains like Chick-Fil-A restaurants.

Yet even if you believe that your customers would not like these traditional expressions of civility, employees with naturally giving hearts can learn to say other phrases. The retraining is quite simple. Not hiring this natural service talent would be a serious error of omission and disastrous for customer experience and your brand.

The Bonus of Morale

Employees who feel it is a pleasure to serve have self-sustaining morale. When you have enough of them on one team, the teamwork shines as they unite in this spirit. Their can-do attitudes make the difficult, easy and the mundane, special.

I would hate a simple misunderstanding about these phrases lead you to exclude the very customer service employees that will treat customers with pleasure and deliver super results.

Unless you detect true signs of selfishness or immaturity in the interview, hire this natural talent.

My pleasure and no problem are not red flags in hiring. In fact, they are green lights to super customer experience!

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on the ultimate customer service experience, teamwork, and leading change. Kate turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

14 Comments »

Customer Service: Does Our Experience Dull Our Empathy?

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, IT

Former customer service agents and tech support reps often have empathy for customer service and technical support teams. They remember the pressure and are considerate.

It begs the question: Why do many customer service and tech support agents forget the experience of being a customer?

Experience should make it easier to give empathy, right?

Or Does Experience Dull Empathy?

Experience and knowledge can blind customer service agents and tech support reps to customers’ …

Emotions of needing help
Fear of not knowing
Frustration of being delayed in lengthy procedures
Impatience with being routed and transferred
Anger at being trapped in the maze of customer support
Vulnerability of having to trust others with their success

Experience and knowledge deliver confidence and a sense of control — the very things that lower fear and vulnerability. Unfortunately for some agents and reps this reduction in vulnerability also dulls their empathy.

And the saga isn’t over yet. When you add the pressure of customer service work to the picture, it often makes agents and reps even less empathetic to customers.

Consider: When you are under incredible pressure do you care less about other things that normally bug you? You just want to get rid of the big pressure so you minimize or overlook everything else?

YET … to the customer the things you want them to overlook still matter!

The best agents and reps overcome the dulling effects of experience and pressure by:

Being aware of how they feel outside of work when they are customers.
Repeating the following before each shift, one call at a time! This focus delivers empathy.
Picturing the customer relaxing as their reassuring words manage customers’ emotions and experience meets customers’ requests and solves problems.
Embracing the true role of service and support — to make life easier for the customer and/or get them productive again!

Agents — abandon the myth that your job is simply to solve the problem. Your job is to deliver a wonderful experience while solving the problem.

Turn your experience into a channel of empathy and an easy win for each and every customer!

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Best CSRs See Key Link in Chain, Not Life in Chains

Best CSRs Beat Attribution Error in Customer Service

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, workshops, and keynotes on customer service experience, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

8 Comments »

Customer Service & IT Support Leaders: Do You Hear the Envy?

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, IT

For decades, leaders have heard the same outcry from customer service, call center, and technical support teams: “We have to treat the customers well even when they are yelling at us. Why do they get treated better than they treat us?”

Service and support leaders, managers, and team leads ask me: “Kate, how do we counter that? Beyond our efforts to treat team members well, what’s the answer to this endless outcry?”

It depends on what you think the team members seek. If you hear it as an outcry for equality and fairness, you might be tempted to say “because they are the customers” or the old standard “the customer is always right.” Your reply affirms that it is not an equal relationship.

Well fairness and equality may be part of what customer service and tech support teams want. Everyone deserves to be treated with basic human respect and most organizations do not tolerate true verbal abuse on either side.

Customer Service & Tech Support Leaders: Do You Hear the Envy?

Nonetheless, the outcry continues.

I can affirm, after 23 years of training these wonderful teams, that the other part of the outcry is envy.

It’s understandable how agents, reps, analysts, and associates could envy the customers’ privilege of:

Showing anger and dissatisfaction; they can’t.
Receiving help; they give it and often don’t get help from other teams.
Participating in industry conferences; they rarely see the light of day.
Attending training for professional growth; they have limited access.
Having time to work projects completely; they are expected to perform well while simultaneously clearing the queue.
Working a regular schedule with holidays and weekends off; they often work shifts or are on-call.
Being respected and valued; few top leaders recognize service and support as vital to the organization.

Leaders, The Impact of Envy in Customer Service
The risk and impact of this envy is worthy of your attention.

It stops teams from consistently delivering the ultimate in customer service. If their heads and hearts don’t love being in service, they won’t.
Unchecked envy emphasizes the feelings of unworthiness and diverts valuable focus from service to the imbalance.
It impacts the teamwork critical to delivering outstanding service.
Unaddressed envy can fuel high staff turnover. Some turnover is healthy for service teams. High levels are a warning sign of a service organization in trouble.

Understanding this has given many leaders and me the chance to cultivate a non-envy culture that inspires and delivers service greatness.

Through workshops, we have helped the front line managers, supervisors, team leads, and staff to replace envy of customers’ privileges with pride in:

Breadth of knowledge
Continuous learning through experience
Great ease and style in working with people — valuable and not everyone has this prowess
Multi-tasking and ability to work under pressure
Professional skill of being empathetic and objective — many doctors don’t even have this
Inspiring yourself and others to excellence

To build and sustain a non-envy service culture, it is necessary to help service team members discover a sense of fulfillment. I rarely hear the cry of envy from service team members who are fulfilled in other ways.

Fulfillment squelches envy whether it comes from their family life, years of work experience, inner peace, gratitude for having a job, comparison to previous jobs, or a tremendous high from reaching results in the face of adversity.

Leaders, showing appreciation and recognition for service team’s work and helping them build a positive service team identity feeds fulfillment. Working with your peer leaders of non-customer facing teams to build the cross teamwork necessary for mutual success feeds fulfillment.

Declare your vision to your teams and ask them for their insight on how to achieve it. Telling does not engage excellence; asking does.

Offer training to develop their professional skills. Budget for temps to cover service demands while service team members present a case study of their achievements at an industry conference.

Face team problems, like envy, stress, and morale, and your teams will achieve success.

I look forward to helping you take your customer service and tech support teams from inspiration to action.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service, customer experience, teamwork, and leading change. For 23 years, she has turned interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer testimonials and results.

4 Comments »

Super Customer Experience: Loyalty not Imprisonment!

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits

As we work tirelessly to deliver super customer experience, I find and fix common everyday mistakes that drive customers away.

Recent experiences focus me today on ways we imprison customers which do everything but build loyalty. You might think imprisonment is too strong a word. Yet that is what customers report.

Super Customer Experience: Loyalty not Imprisonment

Give customers a get out of jail free card — fix these mistakes!

Ways We Imprison Customers!

Endless Loops. This is definitely #1 on the customers list. Beyond the endless unclear phone menus (voice response units – VRUs, IVRs), customers also feel imprisoned by agents, reps, and CSRs with poor skills.
The Story: A business owner needed to become a credit card merchant. The sales rep was clear, focused, and offered a great deal. The business owner signed up. The sales rep reported that the support team would send an email with account # and temporary password. Support would then call to finalize everything.

Super Customer Experience: Loyalty Not Imprisonment! Image: iStock for Editorial Use.

The business owner received a phone message from support saying “By now you have received your email with account # and password. Please call me, Mindy, at this phone number and extension.” The business owner left Mindy a message saying “We never received the email. Please let us know what to do now.”

Mindy left a second, third, and fourth message saying the exact same thing as her first message! When the business owner finally spoke on the phone with Mindy, she continued to say “you should have received the email by now.”

Imprisonment: The business owner finally said, “Time is money. Move me forward or I will cancel my account.”

Customer service is forward not stagnant. To customers, stagnant feels like imprisonment.

Release customers from status quo prison! For a super customer experience, move them forward to the solution.

Question: Where in your organization do customers get stuck in the status quo?

Lack of teamwork. Multiple teams engaged in service with little or no teamwork leave customers trapped in a maze. Customers must jump between teams to get a solution or jump out of the maze and choose freedom. That’s not conducive to customer loyalty.
For super customer experience, deliver a single point of solution not multiple points of failure. Build teamwork with shared technology, mutual service level targets, and one service culture.

Question: How many teams in your organization must work together to deliver a super customer experience? Do they all give it the same priority? If not, customers end up imprisoned in the maze.

Tunnel vision. A less evident yet still common mistake, thinking only from the company or agent perspective. Super customer experience requires seeing things from the customer’s view. Else the customers feel ignored and overlooked — imprisoned in solitary confinement.
Cultural tunnel vision in global service leaves customers in the dark.
Rigid script reading and poor listening slam the door shut.
Websites with poor e-commerce design drive customers away — to well-designed easy-to-use sites.

Shine the light of customer awareness throughout your organization to free customers from solitary confinement and to value them in your organization.

Question: Where in your organization is tunnel vision blocking super customer experience? Expand the vision. Replace the tunnel with bridges to the customers and to your success.

Customers want information and solutions that meet their needs. Online, in person, or on the phone, they seek positive easy experiences to get what they want. Imprisonment is not positive nor easy. It makes them want to break out, run away from the stress and find success elsewhere.

Think customer care not customer control. Think bonding not bondage. Think customer!

I look forward to working with you, leaders, and your teams to create super customer experience.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service, customer experience, teamwork, and leading change. For 23 years, she has turned interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer testimonials and results.

9 Comments »

Simply Great Choices Create Super Customer Experience

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, IT

Delivering a super customer service experience is all about the choices. Simply great choices can create it! Poor choices can destroy it.

Frustration with the customer is often at the heart of those poor choices. In fact, frustration with customer behavior can make poor choices very tempting.

The best in customer service find something else even more tempting — the strength and skill to resist temptation and choose greatness!

Deliver Super Customer Experience With Simple Choices Image by:Shannonnnnnnn

Frustration, Temptation & Simply Great Choices

The strength to choose service greatness rests within your professional identity.

How do you want to be known? What do you picture as greatness? If service is not in that picture, your attitude and behavior will yield to frustration.

If you want to create super customer experience, here are 7 common frustrations, temptations and the simply great choices!

Your Frustration: The customer wants to speak before you or more than you.
Temptation: Seize control of the conversation and talk over the customer. Poor choice.
Great Choice: Let them talk! Your response will be far more accurate the more you understand.

Your Frustration: The customer wants something non-standard. This takes time, thought, effort, and takes you out of your normal pace.
Temptation: Show your exasperation and label the customer as difficult. Poor choice.
Great Choice: Show your interest — even excitement — in doing and learning something different. This is the chance to WOW ‘em.

Your Frustration: You want the customer to completely populate your contact database before you help them and they want some information without being locked in your detailed procedure.
Temptation: Ignore their preference and continue on with your questions. Poor choice.
Great Choice: Get basic identifying information like name, account # and then focus on what they need! Once you have the solution underway, validate or get other personal information for your database. Focusing on the customer delivers a super customer experience. Focusing on your database doesn’t.

Your Frustration: The customer is upset and venting their anger.
Temptation: Lecture to them (i.e. There is no reason to raise your voice, I am trying to help you). Poor choice.
Great Choice: Let them vent. When they are done, empathize and take action. Fix the situation, not the customer! If you don’t, your competitor will.

Your Frustration: The customer waits until the last minute for help and has an urgent need.
Temptation: Tell the customer they should have called you sooner. Poor choice. Criticizing them for poor planning leaves an emotional scar on them that will burden you next time — if they come back.
Great Choice: Determine whether or not you can meet this urgent need. If yes, do it. Being the customer’s hero is a super customer experience! If you truly can’t, let them know that and refer to other resources that might be able to help them. Expressions of good will and effort build future trust.

Your Frustration: Customer doesn’t follow an important procedure and it causes the customer, and you, repeated problems.
Temptation: Patronize the customer with an insipid rhetorical question like do you remember I said to enter your account id not your phone number? Poor choice. Patronizing the customer is professionally immature and disrespectful.
Great Choice: Simply give the customer the answer again. Courteous honest answers help and don’t hurt. After you have helped them, ask if there is anything you can do to make it easier for them next time. You might also review any written instructions or online design to see how to make it clearer.

Your Frustration: The customer wants to ask questions along the way and you want to go through your whole presentation or explanation first.
Temptation: Tell the customer to wait until you are done. Poor choice. You are telling the customer that you are more important than they are.
Great Choice: Dialogue with the customer; put their needs first. You will meet your needs through theirs and deliver a super customer experience.

The feeling of relief from venting your frustration on the customer is very short lived. It ruins your company brand and your personal and professional reputation.

When you choose great listening, adaptability, patience, reasonableness, competence, and agility for sudden needs, you deliver truly memorable and super customer experiences.

Question
What other frustrations do you have with customers? Add them in the comments section below and I will help you deliver a super customer experience. I deliver the antidotes to your frustration!

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

14 Comments »

What’s Our Super Glue of Customer Experience?

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits

Ever ask your customer service reps what do the customers think is a great experience? Regardless of your industry, the CSRs are close to the customers’ honest opinions. If you give them a chance, they could answer the question:

What’s Our Super Glue of Customer Experience?

What's Our Super Glue of Customer Experience Image by:Abhishek Jacobs

Here is some of the super glue of customer experience …

Being remembered beyond the name. When customers’ preferences are recalled in real time — not just noted in a database that the customers completed themselves — there is a sense of belonging.

Easy to do business with. The definition of easy varies by customer base including generations, occupational focus, educational background. Everything online may seem easy to one generation and maddening to another. Nonetheless, easy will always be at the top of the list.

Flexibility! When company procedures can flex and bend to the customers’ needs, customers experience the ultimate in care. Why? Because it fits them, their lives, and their businesses. It’s obstacle free.

Be top notch! Know your customer base and deliver the best product or service in their eyes. There is debate on this in light of Steve Jobs’ alternate approach to product development. I see both approaches working. Consider how people rebelled when new Coke was introduced — and they brought back Coke classic.

Prevent disasters. Customers are glad when you don’t have problems in delivering service. They are elated when your knowledge, experience, and foresight, prevent disasters in their business or life.
Deliver welcome surprises. In everyday life, customers rely on themselves. When they must reach out, they wonder what will happen. When the happening is beyond their expectations, the experience shines.

Memorable in uncommon ways. Quick story: I go for a yearly mammogram. I ask for the same technician each time because her interpersonal skills and sense of humor turn a stressful dreaded ritual into a memorable experience. She makes a difference. I could go to a center closer to my house yet I might end up with Rhonda the compression robot. I’ll pass on that thanks. (See you next year Flo!)

Do you know what your customers think? Would you get the same answers from all your teams? From the customers?

What is our super glue of customer experience? This one simple question can begin the discussion that will unite understanding and produce outstanding customer experience.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

5 Comments »

Our Future is Behind Every Customer

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, inspiration, Leadership, People-Skills

This year for National Customer Service Week, I ask each of you to look behind every customer.

For a moment, don’t look at metrics, scripts, forms, procedures, the structure, the flashing queue light, the long line, or the clock. Look behind every customer to discover the true need, the future, and success. Our future is behind every customer.

Graphic by: Kimb Manson

Customer Service – Stripped to the Core

Behind every customer is the unknown yearning to be known. That’s our future of customer loyalty.

Empathize!

Behind every customer ID number, is a person with a name whose needs we can fulfill. That’s our future. That’s success.

Ask for their name before their ID number!

Behind every customer question – odd, crazy, simplistic, or repetitive — is a chance to move them to the future and success.

Listen with an open mind!

Behind every customer is another person whom we impact with our actions. Our care is growth for both. That’s our future and theirs.

Follow-through!

Behind every impatient customer is our future success with the tough times of life. That’s a future of skill and ability.

Study up!

Behind every customer are the factors that define great service to them. Look behind the customer to reach that future.

It’s a one-to-one match!

Behind every customer is limitless potential. Cultivate the future.

Go to the well!

Behind every customer is the heart of our success. It beats for our future.

Maintain heart health!

Behind every customer is a wealth of knowledge free for the taking. Learn!

Is there a #10? What would you add to this list?

Lead the future of customer loyalty …

Listen
Emapthize
Assess
Deliver

Don’t leave it behind!

Offer: Subscribe to this Smart SenseAbilities™ blog and download your thank you gift poster of Our Future is Behind Every Customer. Print it and hang in your customer service area for continued inspiration!

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes for customer service and teamwork — that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results.

12 Comments »

Universal Customer Pleas: Drop This, Keep That — Please!

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, People-Skills, Soft Skills

There are universal customer complaints that echo through time. They paint a picture of the human need to be understood and helped.

Whether you have been delivering customer service for decades or are part of the new generation, join the movement to rid this world of these age old complaints.

Add your #13 to this list of the 12 most universal customer pleas to change customer service.

12 Most Universal Customer Pleas for Better Customer Service

12 Most Universal Customer Pleas

Drop This, Keep That – Please!

Drop the squeeze page as the greeting to your website. We don’t want to be squeezed before we get to know you. Keep the squeezing for later in the date!

Drop the voice response menus that make sense to you not us. Keep the humans – at least they can dialogue!

“There’s nothing I can do. I’ll transfer you.” Drop the first part and keep moving us to those who can help. Telling us you can do nothing is maddening. Connecting us to those in the know is the way to go.

Drop the speech recognition unit that interprets “re-order supplies” as “birth order surprise”. Keep any technology that helps deliver timely accurate service.

Drop the scripted monologue and keep an open mind. When you open with a dialogue, we open our wallets and offer our loyalty.

Drop the confusing coupons – buy two at a single price and get the second at 50% off. Keep us from having to guess what math you use!

If we smile, please return the favor. Drop your straight face and keep smiling.
Drop the slow refund routine else we keep filling your queue with angry calls.

Keep us in the know. When you drop the communication about our problems, we think you are doing nothing.

Drop the prove you wrong attitude. Keep in mind that for every action there is an equal reaction. Every ouch you inflict on us pings back an ouch on your financial success. Every empathetic moment you extend to us earns you our gratitude.

Keep sharing our information among you. With the technology available today, we shouldn’t have to repeat ourselves. If you drop the teamwork, we question your commitment — and competence.

Drop the customer satisfaction survey that has no room for our true feedback. If you want to understand what we expect, let us (customers) design your customer survey! It will keep you very aware of what we truly care about.

What would you add to this list? What timeless universal complaint would you like to drop forever?

Yours in service,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, inspires and trains corporate teams, customer care professionals, call center agents, and technical support teams in the greatest people-skills for customer service. See this site for workshop outlines, customer feedback, and footage to view. Turn interaction obstacles into business success — book Kate now.

31 Comments »

Customers’ Views Breathe Life Into Always Being Right Rule

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, Sales

The rule, the customer is always right, has survived over a century as a quick way to instill a strong sense of customer in all employees.

Despite its detractors, it has breathed life into customer service and sales and filled the gaps during uncertain moments.

As new graduates enter the workforce, many will be glad to know that customers’ views breathe life into this old being right rule.

Customers' View Breathe Life into Always Right Rule & Our Business

The customers’ views about the following are always right — always count:

Urgency. – Theirs not ours.
Business or personal impact. – To them before us.
Critical factors. – From their perspective over ours when there is disagreement.
What they expect of us. – Work hard and smart to achieve it.
How they want to be treated as people. – Completely right.

The key to living this old rule in today’s world is to remember that we may disagree or say no even when the customer’s view is right for them.

Whether we say no for ethical reasons, legal restrictions, limited capabilities, or strategic mission, we must still treat the customers’ views with respect. They have insider insight we will never have regardless of how well or how long we know them. The decision of where to buy is theirs.

Their views are the lifeline for our success. Respecting their views preserves that lifeline for the long term. Acting as if we always know better, suffocates the customers’ views and could forever sever our lifeline of insider insight.

Benefits of The Customer Is Always Right Rule

customer centric culture.

Guides all employees to sell to and serve the customer well within the strategic mission of the business.

Increases our listening especially when our experience tries to drown it out.

Keeps us in service mode even when business is booming.

Fills the gaps during uncertain moments.

Shows constant gratitude and desire for future business.

Expresses respect for the customers’ insight and perspective.

Builds trust for current and future business and often with more openness for our views and expertise.

Basically, it keeps customers coming back and interested in what we have to offer. Not a bad payoff for one old rule.

Yours in service,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times. See this site for customer service workshop outlines and business results. Fill the gaps in customer service and teamwork with business wins – book Kate now.

23 Comments »

Customer Service: Turn Startling Sudden Relationships into Bonds

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, People-Skills, Soft Skills

With 8 People-Skills Steps!

Customer service in most cases is a case of sudden relationship. Often it is a startling sudden relationship in a tough moment. Longer term relationships like account based sales provide advantages that sudden relationships don’t have.

This comparison sheds light on the challenges that customer service reps (CSRs) and technical support analysts face on every contact.

Sudden Relationship of Customer Service Image by:PurpleMattfish

Sudden Relationship Challenges

No existing rapport for interaction with
Little or no prior knowledge of expectations and
No history of results thus
Little trust or confidence to smooth the way

Trust and Openness of Longer Relationships Image by:Liz Smith

Longer term relationships develop and enjoy:

Understanding from observing people’s patterns of behavior with
History of results that develop a working comfort building
Time-based trust and openness that allow for more candor

Because the startling sudden relationships of customer service lack the longer term bonds of understanding and trust, the CSRs, reps, agents, and technical support analysts must adapt to each customer.

They are developing a relationship, solving a problem, and building trust all at the same time! This is why they cannot candidly say whatever they want. It is too startling to customers.

Instead, the best CSRs and technical support analysts turn sudden relationships into bonds.

Here are the 8 people-skills steps they take:

Greet courteously with the respect of formality and the sincerity of some informality.
Create quick connection by spotting the customer’s personality type and adapting to it.
Capture attention by detecting the customer’s listening style and using it.
Make it easy to communicate by using the customer’s jargon and language.
Close the gap by paraphrasing the customer’s perspective.
Smooth the emotion by caring without taking anger personally.
Show urgency appropriate to the situation.
Deliver help and solutions.

Sudden relationships with customers can turn into bonds of satisfaction, loyalty, and referrals when you make the moment easy, productive, and memorable. Well worth it for the business and truly appreciated — when you are the customer.

Yours in service,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times. See this site for customer service workshop outlines and business results. Fill the gaps in customer service and teamwork with business wins – book Kate now.

5 Comments »

Customer Service, What You Picture, You Create

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, inspiration, People-Skills, Soft Skills

Working on the front lines of customer service can be wonderful or terrible. It depends on your mindset – on what you picture — not on the customer. Surprised?

It’s actually good news. What happens when you interact with others is not completely random. Success is within your grasp because what you picture, you create!

It’s not voodoo. It simply that what you picture or think about, you focus on, say, and do.

Customer Service: If you picture it, you create it.

Customer service starts with picturing that you can make a positive difference.

If instead you picture difficulty or conflict, you will focus on being right, being heard, and being in control. All of this creates the difficulty you pictured at the start.

The Story

I walked into the airport luggage service office when I arrived at my destination and my luggage didn’t. As the line inched forward toward the service rep behind the computer, I noticed that each person leaving the office was surprisingly calm.

When I reached the service rep, he handled my problem with empathy, accuracy, and calm confidence. Before I left the room, I said to him: “I teach customer service to large corporations and reps tell me how stressed out they are. How do you stay so positive with so many people in here complaining?”

He replied: “Kate, if they’re smiling when they come in here … they’re in the wrong room!”

He understood what people would naturally feel and he became the picture of a man making a difference.

Picture the positive and you reduce your fear

Picture the positive and you feel influential with no need to control others. Result: A collaborative success instead of a target shoot.

Picture the positive and you project empathy and connect sincerely. Result: You make a difference and that is great customer service.

One informed rep with a positive attitude and one customer-friendly policy of delivering luggage created a positive customer experience instead of a social media rant.

What you picture you create!

What will you and your teams picture before you all start work tomorrow? I hope that it’s caring for customers and making a difference.

Yours in service,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

Related post: Customer Service, Key Link in the Chain not Life in Chains

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers workshops, keynotes, and consultations that inspire the ultimate interaction with customers. Leaders have been booking Kate to bring both her customer service experience and intuition to their success — repeatedly. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.

7 Comments »

Older Posts »

KateNasser.com

Smart SenseAbilities™ Blog

CSRs

Leaders: Do You Treat Your Customer Service Reps Like Adults?

Engage front line reps like trusted adults:

Psychological Barriers to a Super Customer Experience

Psychological Barriers to a Super Customer Experience

Customer Experience: Every Move We Make, Every Vow We Break

Super Customer Experience: Are Your Teams Tooled & Ready?

Are Your Front Line Teams Tooled & Ready?

Hiring My Pleasure Employees for Super Customer Experience

Customer Service: Does Our Experience Dull Our Empathy?

Customer Service & IT Support Leaders: Do You Hear the Envy?

Super Customer Experience: Loyalty not Imprisonment!

Simply Great Choices Create Super Customer Experience

What’s Our Super Glue of Customer Experience?

Our Future is Behind Every Customer

Universal Customer Pleas: Drop This, Keep That — Please!

Customers’ Views Breathe Life Into Always Being Right Rule

Customer Service: Turn Startling Sudden Relationships into Bonds

Customer Service, What You Picture, You Create

Categories

Recent Posts

Links