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A recent trip to a Bath & Body Works with my mom proved to be both a humorous and insightful customer experience. The young cashier, wearing a headset, scanned my mom’s items and then started the prescribed cross-selling of other scents. Alas success was not in her grasp because details did derail her.

The music was blaring in the store and the cashier was mumbling quickly. I could only hear the last word of each question. I laughed hysterically as I watched and listened to this ridiculous interaction between my mom and the cashier.

Cashier: Blah blah blah coconut? Mom: “No”.
Cashier: Blah blah blah cucumber melon? Mom: “No”.
Cashier: Blah blah blah mango? Mom: “No”.

In fact, my mom told me later she didn’t even hear the scents. She found the loud music and mumbling cashier annoying and not being able to read lips, she refused to buy anything else.

The Details of a Great Customer Experience

1. Care about what the customer cares about. If your demeanor, behavior, and actions are all about what your company care about , the customer won’t care about you.
2. Make it conversational. Robotic inaudible questions don’t sell. A slightly slower pace with a tone of a real question, makes the difference. Just last week, a cashier sold me some new chewing gum with a sincere question: Would you like to try it? It’s really good and a steal at this price?
3. Make it personal and personable. Many retail stores like Victoria Secret and Bath & Body Works have their sales associates on the floor wearing headsets. This one detail inhibits a great customer experience. It inhibits customers from approaching the sales associates. They look busy. They look preoccupied. They look as if their job is to listen to whomever is speaking into their ear instead of to the customer.
4. Know and remember the difference between the customer’s experience and managing the customer experience. Leaders and managers like things routinized to make them easy to measure, analyze, and supposedly improve.

   Yet I ask leaders, when the details of those prescribed procedures create a bad customer experience — which they will — what exactly do your measures guide you to improve? I daresay no manager or leader will know how much money and potential customer loyalty they missed from my mom’s disgust.

Let empowered sales and service associates use great people-skills to engage customers for great results.

If you want to give your associates and reps a rule to follow, this one will create a great customer experience:

Make it easy, make it personal, make it memorable!


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

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers transformational customer service workshops that put the care back into customer care. Across diverse industries and verticals, Kate’s 21 years of experience and insight create stellar results. See this site for outlines, footage, and customer testimonials.

A positive attitude and enthusiasm are essential tools for sales and customer service. A recent study at the Wharton School of Business showed how mood affects customer service performance.

Customer service representatives (also known as a CSRs) who start the day with enthusiasm and a positive mood deliver better service throughout the day. Most would agree that the same applies to sales teams’ success.

So the more enthusiasm in sales and service the better, right? As a mindset or mood, yes.

As a communication style, über enthusiasm can overwhelm and turn off the customer. In other words, there are ups & downs to enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm’s Ups & Downs

1. Enthusiasm for customer service shows the customer you care. When it drives you to do all the talking, it tells them you don’t care enough to listen.
2. Enthusiasm in technical support drives you to solve even the toughest problems for customers. When you show the customer enthusiasm for broken technology, they think you care more about technology than you do about them.
3. Enthusiasm for the products and services you sell, captures the customer’s attention. When you spew it like a geyser, you stop the development of great customer relationships.
4. Enthusiasm sustains your objectivity and commitment when facing an irate customer.  When you ooze enthusiasm on an irate customer, you come across as insensitive. Your actions lack empathy.

Sales and service tip: Before you take off on an exciting ride, make sure that you and the customer are together!

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers keynotes and workshops that take sales and service teams from inspiration to action! Her results are legendary. See this site for more information.

Whether you are a customer service leader or a customer, you have most likely witnessed great customer service reps (CSRs) or technical support reps. dealing easily with difficult situations. What makes the best CSRs successful is that they define the moments as difficult situations not as difficult customers.

CSRs can change tough situations into successful outcomes with listening, empathy, knowledge, and action. They can’t change people and the best CSRs know this.

In fact, the best CSRs actually beat a common mistake most people make in everyday life — attribution error.

Attribution error is the tendency to over value personality-based explanations for the observed behaviors of others while under-valuing situational explanations for those behaviors. (Source: Wikipedia).

Stated simply, we think it’s something inside of the people that makes them act badly. Meanwhile when it is our own behavior, we are more likely to attribute it to external conditions.

Since the best CSRs free themselves from the grip of attribution error, they shine and succeed at:

1. Empathy. They walk easily in the customers’ shoes because they believe external conditions have caused the customers’ behavior. If instead you attribute the behavior to something evil or sinister inside of the customers, how or why would you empathize?

 

1. Empowerment. They believe that they can fix external conditions and this fuels their desire to work through the details and with the customers.

 

1. Listening. The best CSRs value listening as critically as surgeons value their instruments. It is through listening that they find the external conditions they must fix.

 

1. Knowledge. They also use the knowledge of previous customers’ behaviors to prevent future attribution error. The best CSRs have proven to themselves that external conditions cause many of the difficult situations — not malicious customers intending harm.

 

1. Well-timed Action. CSRs caught in the grip of attribution error, often try to push irate or upset customers to calm down. The best CSRs know that listening and well-timed communication calm the customers and unearth the external conditions leading to action.

The implication for training CSRs is quite clear. Have them do a simple exercise like using another company’s website. As they encounter challenges, do they blame themselves for the difficulty or do they blame external conditions like website design, or internet connection speed etc…? Then raise the issue of attribution error.

The next time upset or irate customers call, the CSRs’ attitudes will be far more empathetic. If you have empowered them to take action, you will also see fewer call escalations to team leaders and supervisors.

BONUS: Lower stress. CSRs who view tough moments as difficult situations that they can fix, experience less stress and greater fulfillment. Now that’s motivation!

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™
M.A. Organizational Psychology

©2011-2012 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.

Related post: Hiring, a Natural Call to Customer Serivce

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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.

Customer loyalty, the desire for customers to return to your organization instead of your competitors, can be secured with one primary focus: prevent the question mark in their minds. I have taught this for many years to business leaders and customer service reps (also known as CSRs).

I am inspired to write this post on customer loyalty after reading The Primary Fuel of Dissatisfaction by Bob Champagne. He states that fear and uncertainty are the primary fuel of customer dissatisfaction and I wholeheartedly agree.

When you think of the statistics showing that most people are averse to change, it must take strong emotion for customers to overcome their resistance to change and move on to your competitors. People change when the fear of changing is less than the fear of staying the same.

When you create a question mark in your customer’s mind, you give them motivation to change. You increase their fear of staying and run the risk of losing their loyalty!


Prevent the Question Mark for Customer Loyalty

Build trust.

1. Do you both see and foresee their needs? If not, they question your reliability.
2. What level of knowledge and customer service people-skills do all your employees have? If it is low at the front lines, they question if a competitor can do better?
3. How well and how fast do you recover from product and service problems? Else they will question your commitment and capability.

Deliver the customer’s success.

1. Especially in service businesses, give your expertise, advice, and guidance before giving the customer exactly what they request. Else they will question if a competitor can offer this quality and protection.
2. Stay current. If your business is not keeping pace with your customers’ business changes, they question who else can deliver?

Make it personal, make it easy, make it happen, make it memorable!
People do business with those they like and trust. If they like you yet mistrust your capability and reliability, you lose their loyalty. If you are capable and reliable yet distant or difficult to work with, they question if they can get quality, as well as ease and connection from your competitors.

Whether you are running a small business or a large sales and service organization, for customer loyalty prevent the question mark.

My advice: Have all your teams review every aspect of product design, sales, and service with one criterion — what could create the question mark in our customers’ minds? Then get to work on erasing those question marks.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach uses her 21 years of experience in customer care to advise and teach large corporations, medium size companies, and technical organizations to capture customer loyalty and deliver truly memorable service.

Leaders, team members, and customer service reps (CSRs), have known for a long time that a sincere apology is a perfect way to rebuild trust after mistakes or trouble. One of my popular posts, The Perfect Apology and the One Word That Destroys It, gives valuable info on how to do it.

Yet I find that many, including a fair number of technical professionals, struggle with apologizing because they think it publicizes their weaknesses and faults. They think it diminishes who they are and reduces their potential success. Ironically, the apology is perfect chance to build trust in yourself and strengthen your chances for long term professional success.

Consider the Perfect Chance to Build Trust

Those you have hurt by your words or actions are already aware of your mistakes and weaknesses.  Not apologizing makes you look weak not strong. They can see that you are afraid to apologize and it diminishes your professionalism.

An inability to admit mistakes, apologize, and lead onward publicizes a lack of self-trust. When leaders assess potential for promotion, they pass over those who do not trust their own inner strength.

Some claim that this is not self-trust; it is self-confidence. I say — not completely. Self-confidence is that underlying strength for daily actions. Yet even the most confident people face situations or moments when self-confidence fails. Often when their actions or words have caused pain or trouble.

At that moment, you must be able to take a chance — a leap of faith — and trust yourself to recover without denial from whatever embarrassment or shame you feel. Offering an apology is a perfect chance to build trust in yourself and rebuild others’ trust in you.

Why?

Because accountability and integrity show a deep inner strength and inner strength is a heck of a billboard!


How has apologizing brought you professional success?

©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.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers insight and experience to turn interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshops, keynotes, footage and DVds.

Customer Service Valentine

Dear Customers,

Customer service work was not my life’s goal. I did it to make money and pay the bills. Then came the surprise — you served me!  So here’s my reflection and valentine to you.

When you yelled, you taught me about your pain and how best to ease it.

When you took forever to decide what you wanted, you taught me patience and that has served me well.

When your views were so different from mine, you taught me about diversity and made me grow.

When you were disagreeable and nasty, you taught me to cherish the true joy in my life.

When you told me your whole story, you expanded my horizon.

When you told me how to deliver better service, you invested in my future.

When you asked to speak with someone else, you made me believe in teamwork.

When you called, you showed me what trust is all about. You could have called another business.

When you called back and also told your friends, you taught me the true meaning of thanks.

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I now offer you this valentine of deepest thanks because — you served me. I owe you one!

[©2011 Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ.
If you would like to re-post or re-publish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com for permission. Thank you.]

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Leaders, what changes do you want to effect? Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach has inspired leaders and staff in countless industries and professions to the heights of customer relations, teamwork, and leading change. Her inspiration and insights transform all those she teaches. Call now to schedule Kate.

For years I have been able to spot job applicants who are drawn to service careers. They excel at it. They have an ease, commitment, and skill that makes them, what I call, the naturals in customer service. Theirs is a calling to customer service work and they answer that call very well.

Leaders, spotting and hiring those with this natural calling to customer service work gives your business a competitive advantage. It gives you the trust to empower these naturals to wow the customer. Since they need little if any supervision to deliver outstanding customer service, the customer experiences the ultimate in care and action — in the moment, every time.

What will you spot in potential hires who have a a natural calling to customer service?

Naturals in Customer Service do all these things …

1. Accept the absurdity of life without using sarcasm toward the customer.
2. Easily adapt; need for control is low.
3. Brilliantly balance objectivity and caring.
4. Initiate both caring and action.
5. Know that they can’t change others — only their own perspectives and reactions.
6. Love diversity and are inspired and excited by it. Non-judgmental.
7. Exhibit a high sense of ownership and teamwork.
8. Understand the big picture and show attention to detail; they follow-through.
9. See and hear far more than what the customer is saying and use it well.
10. Continuously learn from interactions and quickly reapply this insight.
11. Love to serve because of the giving — not to be liked or loved in return.

Be wary of job applicants who say they like customer service work because they enjoy hearing thank you and being appreciated. When the difficult customers are there and the thank yous aren’t, these types become frustrated and do poorly. Remember, customer service work is about caring for others not about the customers caring for you.

Job applicants: If you a natural, you will be happiest working for an enlightened company who sees the business value of outstanding customer service to every customer or working for high end customer care departments (in traditional companies) that focus on their top level customers.

Leaders/Employers: The one thing a natural in customer service does not do well is work in very highly structured scripted departments with loads of supervision and rigid rules. If this is how you operate, select nice people whom you can train to work specifically the way you want them to perform. Your customers will not have the ultimate customer experience yet you will spare yourselves the upheaval of the naturals leaving your company.


©2011 Kate Nasser, Somerville, NJ. For permission to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach is widely known for her insight and 20 years of experience in customer service for the ultimate customer experience. Her workshops re-energize caring and activate follow-through. See this site for workshop outlines and what so many have said about the results.

Customer Service Reps (CSRs), call center agents, customer care associates, technical support & help desk analysts, are often tethered to a desk or a pager. The best ones are key links in the chain of service or sales and don’t see it as a life in chains.

How do they achieve this zen like state working in what so many others consider to be a stressful and confining job?

Here are the answers I have collected over the last 20 years of teaching these inspired CSRs and technical support professionals:

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• Chained to the desk or a pager means you are focusing on yourself. Remembering you are a key link in the chain keeps you focused on the customer.
• Satisfaction comes from knowing that you helped — made their life easier, found the solution, made the experience fun, lifted them up.
• On tough days, I take pride in how great I am under pressure.  Other CSRs buckle, I don’t.
• I never let envy of other jobs rob me of the joy of my current life.
• Before working as a Technical Support analyst, I was in the Coast Guard patrolling in the Gulf of Mexico. I was shot at daily by drug running boats.  Trust me, tech. support work is not stressful!

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Service is different than servitude (a life in chains). The former you choose that latter you don’t.

Choose your attitude every day.  Why let angry or rude customers change your choice?

Choose to see the value in what you do — a key link in the chain.

Choose to educate yourself about business success by learning directly from the customers.

Choose to be a CSR, Help Desk or Technical Support Analyst at an enlightened company.

Choose, as leaders, to enlighten your organization’s approach to customer service and to help change your industry with your enlightened view.

Choose to evolve and grow every day of your life.

Which mindset will you choose?

or

A Key Link in the Chain of Success

You can choose to be a strong link for others if your mindset is one of service — not of servitude!

©2010-2012 Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you would like to re-post or re-publish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com for permission.  Thank you for intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, continues to inspire legendary service attitudes and behaviors across generations, industries, and professions. Her keynotes, workshops, and DVDs re-energize commitment and delivery of outstanding customer service experiences. Authentic, intelligent, and humorous — book Kate Nasser to transform your next service initiative.

Are your customer service representatives, CSRs and technical support teams, working with customers in other countries? How strong are their intercultural people-skills? Immigrants, ex-pats, and companies doing business in other countries can be far more successful with just a little more attention to intercultural people skills (also known as soft skills). If you want a job, a sale, or a great customer service review, step outside of your own perspective and use an intercultural approach. Customers and employers make decisions from their cultural zone not yours.

Two Examples

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Canada and the USA share a common language not culture.

Nick Noorani writes on the blog The Expatriate Mind Nine Soft Skills No Immigrant Should Be Without: “Skilled immigrants often focus on improving technical skills. After coming to Canada, they are shocked when they are told they have no Canadian experience.” Then he cites an example where a courier needing his signature asked him for his John Hancock — an American expression to be sure. Yet the courier was working in Canada!

CSRs outside the USA.

Many USA customer service call centers are now located outside America (some in Canada and some off-shore). How well do the CSRs in Canada and off-shore understand the regional differences across the USA? Adapting to these differences as you speak to American customers distinguishes your customer service from those that don’t adapt. Intercultural adaptation builds customer loyalty.

I have outlined these American regional differences and how to adapt in a new customer service training DVD: Customer Service USA – What They Expect Coast to Coast and Everywhere in Between.

You already provide phone and web technology to connect your CSRs and technical support teams with your customers. Turn that connection into a profitable loyal bond with intercultural training. For companies with USA customers, this means adapting to regional differences – North, South, East, West, and everywhere in between. In Canada there are both cultural and regional differences that global companies can learn and embrace to build Canadian customer loyalty.

For companies doing business interculturally, the key to customer loyalty is:
Learn the differences
Respect the differences
Love the differences &
Find the fit!

I welcome your comments, contributions, and feedback below. For information on purchasing the training DVD, please click on the link above.

Please visit this blog again for many other people-skills posts on customer service, teamwork, and intercultural connections.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, is a highly respected soft skills, customer service, and team building trainer. In her new training DVD, she shares 20 years of first hand experience working with customers in every region of the USA. Tap this experience for your company!

Kudos and a heartfelt thank you to Verizon Wireless CSR Lori-El.

Customer service rep (CSR) Lori-El worked through confusing issues on my account with an inquisitive intelligent approach while taking care (and I do mean care) of me. I would definitely rate her as one of the best call center CSRs I have had in recent times.

In the last blog post I focused on The 25 Worst Customer Service Stories to Train the Best CSRs.

Today I am very pleased to outline how the best CSRs act in delivering customer service. Please add your best actions in the comments field below.

Best CSRs Action Checklist

Verizon Wireless CSR Lori-El did this well in delivering customer service.

1. Sincere conversation not a scripted recitation.
2. Listens for the customer’s personality and demeanor and then maps actions to it.
3. Listens to every piece of information the customer offers without jumping over words.
4. Shares control of the call with the customer instead of driving it through a predetermined path.
5. Listens to the customer’s level of knowledge and speaks to that level (not above or below).
6. Thanks the customer for input during the call not just at the end.
7. Apologizes once for the length of time it is taking to resolve it and keeps moving on resolving it!
8. Asks permission to access the customer’s records and then uses the information to go the extra mile.
9. Continues to listen to related questions and answers them clearly.
10. Uses confusing moments to learn and then teach the customer instead of saying. “I don’t know.”
11. Is honest about current obstacles to resolution and then finds a work-around!
12. Sounds happy to be at work even when doing overtime or having a tough day.
13. Streamlines future contact by giving an updated phone number to call.
14. Uses positive forward focused language instead of negative phrases.
15. The conversation shows responsibility and initiative in resolving the problems. Never blames the customer.
16. Resolves the current issues and then considers the customer’s future needs and forecasts solutions. (e.g. If you switch to a Blackberry or SmartPhone you might encounter this problem and we can fix that as well.)
17. Tone of voice throughout the call is sincere, focused, and action-oriented.  Closing remark reflects that as well.

Please feel free to add your best actions to this list in the comments field below.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers customer care and customer service workshops, webinars, and DVDs globally. Her intuition and experience with people is a valuable resource to your business success. Read what other customers say about her results – click “endorsements” on this site.