KateNasser.com

Customer experience leaders — customer experience even in large volume is about the ultimate positive moment for each customer. Even in the face of high volume delivery challenges, super customer experience is about individual customer satisfaction and success.

When you believe and act as if customer experience is mostly about the collective picture, the individual customers become nameless and faceless. The customers feel like they’re in a cattle call — to borrow an expression from the theatre world!

Image of cattle call audition by itselea via Flickr Creative Commons License.

Customer Experience Leaders: Are You Leading a Cattle Call?

Here are true customer stories of the cattle call effect and an easy fix for each!

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From Nameless to Human

When Alex received her flood insurance renewal notice, it arrived with a confusing letter about rate increases. She called for clarification, gave her name and how long she had been a customer. The insurance rep replied: “Ma’am there have been rate increases ….and so ma’am there’s nothing we can do.”

Alex replied, “I mentioned my name is Alex. I’ve been your customer for 15 years. Will you please use my name and treat me as your customer? And by the way I am not debating the rate increase I am just asking for clarification.”

Cattle call effect: High.

Customer experience score: Low.

Easy Fix: Address customers by name!

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From Narcissism to Customer Focus

When the mortgage company holding Pat’s mortgage was bought out by a larger one, Pat received notice of the change. A mortgage payment was coming due and he had a question about where to send the payment. When Pat called, the rep repeatedly mentioned paying online or using a credit card over the phone.

Pat mentioned that he prefers to pay by check and just needs the address. The rep again mentioned online payment or credit card. Pat became annoyed and said: “I pay my own way — by check. Do you have an option to receive payment by check? Else I will move my mortgage even if it means refinancing through another company.” Rep then gave Pat the address to pay by check.

In this example, the mortgage company wanted Pat to do what was good for them not him.

Cattle call effect: High.

Customer experience score: Low.

Easy Fix: If you have different payment options, offer them for the customer’s choice and satisfaction. Company narcissism is not a success strategy for customer experience!

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From Input to Output

Every year Sally goes to the same mammography center for her yearly mammogram. She is an educated health care consumer and always keeps copies of her test results for her records. She returned for her yearly mammogram and once again asked for copies of her films. The technician replied: “We’ve gone digital and everything is stored on the system now.”

Sally replied: “I would like copies for my records. Is it possible?” The technician replied, “Yes it’s possible but why would you want that? We store them on the system. Are you going to a breast specialist ….blah blah blah.”

Annoyed, Sally replied again: “I like to keep copies for my records. When can I have the films?” The technician finally told her that they would prepare them and call her w/i one week for pickup.

Cattle call effect: High.

Customer experience score: Low.

Easy Fix: Listen to the customer’s request and respond from there. In this case the technician was thinking not from the customer input but from their standard process. Better to go from customer input to output than from standard process to a cattle call response.

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Large organizations do not have to deliver impersonal cattle call customer experience. Brands have proven for years that they can win the hearts and loyalty of their customers when they focus on the customers.

Go from cattle call to WOW
with individual care and people skills in every aspect of the customer experience.




Image of cattle call by Arse_Shoots via Flickr Creative Commons License.

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

Other helpful customer experience posts:
Super Customer Experience: Like a Shiny New Car!
Customer Experience: Loyalty Through Narcissism?
Customer Experience: People Skills for Profitable Connection

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

Super Customer Experience: Honor the Customer

Image by: J-Rod85 via Flickr Creative Commons License.

Businesses that deliver a super customer experience, do so with actions that honor the customer as a person.  As a business owner or leader, if you think of what you consider to be a super customer experience — you will find that it honors you.

Here’s a true super customer experience story from Twitter connection Jeff Allen, @bjaj1:

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The year was 1999 and I was rewarding myself for two good years of sales performance with a new car — a Chrysler 300M – their newest model. I purchased from a well respected local dealership – Hayes Chrysler in Larenceville, GA.  After the purchase I started having new car model issues with several annoying trips to service.  The dealership was responsive and persistent in resolving the issues.  Ultimately a computer upgrade in that model eliminated all the issues!

I took it in for a routine maintenance 3 months later, I mentioned to them that something didn’t seem right with the paint job. It looked cloudy not crisp and clean like the showroom model.  He connected me directly with the factory rep who looked at the car and said yes indeed there was a problem.

He offered 3 options: A free bumper to bumper 100K warranty or a new paint job. I told the rep I wasn’t interested in the warranty and was impressed with the offer of a paint job yet wanted to hear the 3rd option.  The rep said … or a trade in. 

I told him I didn’t want to take a hit on 3 month old car with 13K miles.  The rep quickly said … you won’t take a hit.  There’s no  cost.  A new car for the one with the defective paint job! I said it’s a deal, shook his hand, and thanked him for taking such good are of a me.

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Super Customer Experience: Honor the Customer …

• With trust.

  The rep acted with trust that the customer was reporting the truth. He didn’t suggest that the customer had done something to make the paint job cloudy.

• With integrity by owning the problem.

  When customers buy a shiny new car like the one in the showroom, deliver that — not a repainted one. It honors the trust the customers gave when they bought a shiny new car from you. It also says to the customer: You deserve the reward you were giving yourself — a shiny new car. Now for 14 years he has felt that Chrysler also honored and rewarded him. He has told this story to everyone and now I tell it to you.

• With ease.

  When a customer is disappointed for any reason, make it easy for them to voice their views and easy for them to get and be happy with a remedy.

When business leaders of non-luxury products and services hear these true stories, they often think it applies only to high end markets. Not true.

All customers expect to receive the same quality as they were shown and sold. Chrysler didn’t upgrade Jeff to a more expensive model. They simply lived up to what he was shown and sold. No excuses, no mistrust, no tap dance of conditions.

Super customer experience is not complicated when core beliefs of trusting and honoring the customer emerge consistently with authenticity and ease. Ask your teams, how do we honor the customer and how can we do it better? And watch the super customer experiences happen before the customers’ eyes!


What super customer experience story will you share with us to continue the learning?


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

Related Posts:
Customer Service Defined to Be Unforgettable
Customer Experience: People Skills Create Profitable Experience

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

Customer Service Recovery: People Skills Deliver Care Not a Defense!

There is one persistent human temptation that threatens customer service recovery — the urge to defend in difficult moments.

Grateful for image by: Craig1Black via Flickr Creative Commons License.

Through 25 years of working with customer service and technical support teams, I have seen it happen over and over. Instead of delivering care, the defensive phrases come out and enrage customers further.


What concerned me recently was the advice of a customer service consultant in a blog post about diplomacy in customer service recovery. 

I was alarmed when I read her #1 tip — to tell the customer this (defensive) statement:

“I’m trying to help you.”

Customer Service Recovery – Deliver Don’t Defend!

People skills allow you to deliver great customer recovery with definitive caring statements like “I will help you” not defensive reactions like “I’m trying to help you.”


When customers here the phrase “I’m trying to help you”, they hear the defensive suggestions:

• I’m doing my best …
• Things take time …
• You’re being unreasonable …
• You’re not treating me well …

Even a positive tone of voice cannot turn the phrase trying to help you into a great customer service recovery statement. It casts doubt over whether you care and whether you can help. Doubt sinks recovery.


How can you overcome the urge to defend?

1. Be aware of your own frustration level. The more frustrated you become, the greater the chance you will reply defensively!
2. Pause your conversation every time the customer frizzles. The pause produces an empathetic response instead of a defensive reaction.
3. Picture yourself at the finish with a satisfied customer — because you cared and helped.

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Even if the customer continues to frizzle, stay in the moment of care. Don’t lapse into defensiveness. It makes it tougher on them, tougher on you, and leaves a terrible lasting impression — even if you resolve the issue.

You and your entire technical support and customer service teams can handle the most difficult moments with care and skill. I am here to help with customized workshops.

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

Related Posts:
The Emotionally Intelligent Mindset for Super Customer Experience
5 Things to Think w/Rude Customers for Customer Service Recovery

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

Customer experience: What comes to mind when you hear that phrase? What about your customers? When they hear the phrase, customer experience, what do they picture?

What do they imagine you doing when delivering super customer experience to them? Is their image the same as yours?

Have you asked them? Do you truly value the customer perspective or just value their money? Tough words, I know. It’s not a criticism.

It is an experienced-based heartfelt reminder that

company narcissism doesn’t breed customer loyalty.

Customer Experience: Win Loyalty Through Narcissism

Would you believe this if it were a news headline?

Or would you sooner give your trust and loyalty to a company who asks you what is important in customer
experience rather than designing it from their perspective?





In a recent customer experience CX 404 podcast with Andrew Maher, he described this situation:

One of his customers, a large financial institution, has a big customer experience center to which they never bring customers. They use it for designing and testing the customer experience. They also have a double digit negative Net Promoter Score (NPS) and are pleased that theirs is higher than all their competitors.

It sounds as if they believe it’s impossible to wow the customer. This is a very limiting belief. It drives companies to give up reaching out and simply live in the comfort of their own views. They then make this limiting belief come true.


Don’t get trapped. You can wow the customers when you involve them and think from their perspective.

• Think we not us vs. them.

  Search every aspect of your business to see where us vs. them has created narcissism. For example, are you living the popular yet misguided mantra “employees first, customers second”? There is no need for ordinal thinking here. Replace it with: “We the entire company serve the customer! Inspire with it. Lead with it. Live it.




• Realize that digital is a people connector.

  Search every aspect of your online interaction with customers from your website portal, to online account statements, and social media. Does your digital design and interaction reflect the customer perspective or mostly your company perspective?




• Customers’ views are not that random.

  The views are different from yours because they aren’t you yet they are solid not fickle.




• Seek and destroy the silo effect.

  Internal silos foster narcissism. Large organizations have many departments. When those departments live as silos and work within themselves, it creates narcissism. Many companies are breaking these silos through the chief customer officer (CCO) function. It’s a great start. Yet it can fail if the culture doesn’t support it. Seek and destroy the silo effect!

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Grateful for above featured image by Peter-Ashley via Flickr Creative Commons License.


The trap of narcissism isn’t a new customer experience problem. Computer applications’ design often skipped user input. It caused major trouble, plenty of expensive redesigns, and lots of mutinies. It undermined respect and loyalty to the IT departments and left an unfortunate legacy that affects many IT organizations to this day.


Conquer the narcissistic urge with the belief that you can and will succeed with the customer — not just with their money.

Regardless of the size of your organization, you can wow ‘em and win their loyalty. Think of them. Involve them. Deliver from their perspective and they will come — and come back.


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

Related Posts:
15 Essential Beliefs to Deliver a Super Customer Experience
Leaders, Are Your Customer Service Limits Actually Roadblocks?
Leaders, THE Threat to Super Customer Experience

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

Leaders, how is customer service defined in your organization? In Wikipedia, you will find customer service defined as the provision of service before, during, and after a purchase.

Customer service defined this way (as an operation) inspires few to the heights of service greatness. It does lead to structured processes, procedures, scripts, and metrics that leaders often mistake for customer service.  As a result these procedures don’t produce unforgettable customer service.

To deliver unforgettable customer service, start with this simple effective definition:

Image designed by: Kimb Manson Graphics for Kate Nasser. All rights reserved.

Build procedures, processes, employee training, teamwork, online and self-service portals around this definition — delivering knowledge with care.

How far-reaching is customer service defined this way?

Does it apply to …

• All industries? For example, Finance, Retail, Healthcare, Legal, Pharmaceuticals, Utilities, Hospitality, Dining, Airlines, Education, Bridal, Home Repair … Yes.
• Help Desks and Technical Support?  Yes.
• Service to employees within an organization? Yes.
• Service to external customers of an organization? Yes.
• Business-to-business and consumer customer service? Yes.
• Online customer service? Yes.
• Self-service portals? Yes.
• Does it work for business, non-profit, academia, and government? Yes.

 

Why Does It Matter How Customer Service is Defined?

A definition held in the mind affects behavior.

If your organization thinks of customer service as a department, you won’t see the cross teamwork needed to deliver great customer service.

If your organization thinks of customer service as an operation, you won’t create strong customer relationships through empathy and care. Even if you develop them through the sales reps, you will see those relationships decline when service doesn’t include care.

Many in the customer service profession define customer service is an attitude of caring. Yet those in the operational aspect often find that definition lacking. They say: “Where is the delivery?” You must deliver something!

This brings us to customer service defined as:

Knowledge delivered with care to make life easy for the customer!


You can modify this customer service definition to reflect your business. For example,

Knowledge and solutions delivered with care to make life easy for the customer.

Knowledge and solutions delivered with care to make it easy for the customer to be productive.

Knowledge and solutions delivered with care to make it easy for the customer to be profitable.

The key components to include are delivery (of something) and the aspects of care and ease. They build mutual bonds of success for your organization and your customers!


Question: In your organization, is customer service defined to take you far and high? I am your resource and very interested to hear your perspective.


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

Related Customer Service Post:
Super Customer Service Experience: Picture It, Lead It, Create It!

©2009-2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

Super customer service experience starts with more than a vision statement. It starts with a vivid picture of what is super customer service experience. To picture it, lead it, and create it, leaders must engage their organization in imagining the wow.

Grateful for Image by:SirWiseOwl via Creative Commons License.


If you want to create super customer service experience, don’t start with a lecture. Start with games of imagination.  There is so much focus today about games to engage and motivate yet many still focus on the competitive aspect of games. 


Instead, engage employees in games imagining what super customer service looks like, feels like, and delivers!

Super Customer Service Experience: Picture It!

Leaders fear that if they ask employees to imagine the ultimate customer service, they may come up with ideas that will bankrupt the company. Fear not. Boundaries and rules exist in life. That doesn’t mean we stop living. Games can have boundaries/rules and that came make them more challenging!  Just make sure that the rules aren’t directives.  If you are telling them what to think, it’s not a game of imagination.



When I run these games with teams in customer service workshops, I am incredibly psyched by the tremendous service experience pictures they create. It is an honor to be in the “front row” seeing this amazing pictorial. Leaders engage in the games not as leaders but as equals. They are lifted up by their teams imagination.  The seeds of customer service innovation emerge.

Super Customer Service Experience: Lead It!

Now that the ideas are flying, you must lead them to keep the spirit and energy going. From imagination to assessment to creation, resist your need to apply metrics to it right now. It’s way too soon. The teams are innovating the actions of customer service experience AND their attitudes. Measure them at this early stage and you shut the innovation down. Be a Buoy of Inspiration & Balance.

Super Customer Service Experience: Create It!

By now the teams are soaring with spirit. They feel that they are the engines of great customer service experience. They will implement the seemingly smaller changes with ease. As you all consider the larger innovations they have imagined, continue to engage them in the creation. How can you do this when they are on the phones?


Rotations off the phone to participate in creating the new world are smart and cost effective. Include people from all aspects of customer experience not just the service aspect. Together they create teamwork, buy-in, and accountability. Leaders don’t create great customer service experience from above. They do it with teams! Teams can even create some of the metrics. These metrics will make sense, fuel service excellence, and everyone engaged to deliver excellence.


If you want to truly inspire your customer service teams to a super level of performance, get them to picture it, lead it with you, and create it everyday. Want more ideas? Just let me know!


How do you picture super customer experience?


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

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

People Skills Twitter Chat Empathy – The Deeper View. Sunday Feb. 10, 2013 at 10AM ET/3pm GMT. Hashtag #peopleskills.

Graphic by: Kimb Manson Graphic Design


Empathy has taken center stage in many discussions today.
We read about it and experience it in:

• Successful family relationships
• Anti-bullying programs
• Career success in global market
• Cross cultural understanding
• Leading a new generation in the workplace

Organizations like Roots of Empathy are showing full commitment to develop social and emotional competencies in children with a special focus on empathy. Many great leaders from Mother Theresa to Martin Luther King, Jr. have focused the world on empathizing instead of judging and labeling.

Since empathy is sensing and understanding what other people feel and experience, let’s use our people skills Twitter chat time this Sunday Feb. 10, 2013 to build a deeper view and understanding.

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People Skills Twitter Chat Empathy – The Deeper View

Join us this Sunday Feb. 10, 2013 at 10am ET/3pm GMT on Twitter #peopleskills to explore …

• Where does empathy come from?
• What blocks you from receiving empathy?
• How does empathy impact your life, your work, and society?
• What connection if any is there between humility & empathy?
• and much more … !

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We have only one rule in People Skills Twitter Chat: Respect for all even when we disagree. Everyone is welcome!


TIP: If you have never been in a Twitter chat, you may find it helpful to log on to Tweetchat.com, enter hashtag #peopleskills, and sign in to your Twitter account. Tweetchat will insert the hashtag automatically for you and you will see all the tweets on one screen. Other tools available are Hootsuite.com and TweetDeck.com.

I am the moderator of the chat and will be happy to answer any questions you have in advance: Email Kate Nasser.


Chat with you this Sunday in People Skills Twitter Chat Empathy – The Deeper View. Hashtag #peopleskills.


Until then, as always, I wish you bonds of happiness and success!


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

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

Leaders customer service is change. Every aspect, every moment, is change in action.

When customers call, it is to change the current situation to a more satisfying one. When they make a purchase, they use it to change something in their work or life.

Does your organization think customer service is primarily change?

Featured Image by: ClaraDon

Leaders Customer Service Is Change!

Do your customer service teams see themselves as change agents?

Do they know how to create change on every customer interaction?

Do they engage in cross teamwork to effect each change?

Do you lead and engage them to create change with each customer?

………………… OR …………………..


Have you given them the impression that the goal is status quo?

Follow the rules

Read the script

Make sure the customer follows the procedures

Handle each call as prescribed

Escalate any exceptions (changes) to management

How and why does this misstep start?

Seeing change as chaos triggers an exaggerated need to stabilize.

Desire to stabilize creates rigid standards of control instead of valuable guidelines.

Standards then become something to maintain.

The primary focus is then, mistakenly, on maintaining the status quo.

Harmful Impact

It undermines employees’ sense of urgency to the customer — critical to service excellence and customer loyalty.

It dampens employee initiative, learning, and motivation to serve.

It leads an organization to narcissism. Employees focus of company preservation instead of customer satisfaction as the path to company success.

When the company vision is self-preservation customers leave.

Leaders Think Balance Not Stability!

Seek balance in change not stability in maintaining the status quo.

Build balance by adapting to great inputs from the customer.

Apply balance during change to prevent fatal chaos.

Achieve balance around a central truth – customer service is all about change.

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Leaders customer service is forward not back. It’s momentum and change and customers must feel it from your agents. Customers don’t come to maintain the status quo; they leave when you do.

Inspire employees to care. Train them to unearth and fulfill customers’ wishes. Lead and empower them to be the customers’ change agents not just customer service agents. The safety of status quo is an illusion.

Inspired empowered agents with a sense of urgency to effect change create powerful bonds of customer loyalty — and your company success.

Discussion: What else feeds this desire for control & status quo? I welcome your thoughts in the comments section below.

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

Related Posts:
Leaders, Win Customer Loyalty on the Move!
Capture Impact Behind Customers Feelings – Coming and Going!

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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. M.A. Organizational Psychology. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Customer experience loyalty is born of satisfying customers especially during intense need. When customers are on the move, their needs are peaking. Businesses who meet those needs — in the moment and on the move — win their loyalty.

Whether the customer is a growing company on the move or individuals physically on the move, those who make their journey easy and successful win customer experience loyalty.

Business Leaders: Win Customer Experience Loyalty on the Move!

4 Reasons We Win Customer Experience Loyalty on the Move

• Feeling of Need.

  When people are on the move, everything around them is on the move. The unknown is greater than the known. Products and services that turn unknown into known, relieve stress, deliver comfort, and win customer loyalty.

  Whether it’s one of many mobile apps that deliver instant answers or consulting services that move everyone past the roadblocks to success, meeting intense need on the move wins customer experience loyalty!

• Desire for Freedom from the Ordinary.

  Although being on the move can be scary, it is simultaneously freeing and exciting. Customers value products and services that move them past the dreary and mundane.

  They are loyal to what uplifts and carries them forward when they want to move from feeling ordinary to living the extraordinary!

• Image of Value and Readiness.

  In a competitive business world, on-the-move information and solutions do more than solve problems. They make the businesses who deliver the information and solutions on the move seem ultra valuable and worthy of loyalty.

  Products and services that give businesses this readiness win loyalty by enabling them to win their customers’ loyalty. Social media’s success is partly driven by this momentum. It facilitates more connections to resources, experts, and answers enabling more success — on the move!

• Need for Loyal Servants.

  When we are on the move with our customers, we show them our loyalty. As the saying goes, “we have their back”.

  Our products and services are customers’ loyal servants — that build their loyalty to our businesses. This takes relationships with our customers from brief to bonded and from transactional to transformational.

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Movement creates risk and the intense need to handle it. Whoever meets that intense need builds intense trust — the precursor to customer experience loyalty. Businesses in trouble become loyal to those who move them out of trouble. Consumers become loyal to products and services that meet their personal and professional needs on the move.

When we travel the customers’ journeys and meet their needs, they have no need to look elsewhere. When we are their loyal servants, we move their minds from “will they be there for us?” to “of course they will be there for us!”

What journey is your customer on and how will you meet their intense need — on the move? I am here to help you create that loyalty with your customers.

We will turn the risk of movement into the momentum of success!

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

Related Post:
Super Customer Experience: Feelings Aren’t Random

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

Super customer service experience is about positive feelings but leaders grouse “we can’t build a business on the randomness of feelings.”  Well in super customer experience, feelings are not random. We just need to look in the right place.

The feelings are behind the impact – coming and going!

Capture the Feelings Behind the Impact!

Customers come for one of two desired feelings: ease their pain and/or experience gain. What we do results in one of two feelings for the customers — positive or negative.

• The Impact of Their Problem.

  Instead of getting caught up in just the details the customers speak, we need to hear the impact of their problem or request. When a network is down and the customer can’t do their work, it’s the impact of this void that causes the feelings. Understand the impact and we capture the feelings that tell us how to deliver a super customer experience.




• The Impact of Our Approach.

  At every connection with the customers, our approach — conversation, empathy, processes, design, decisions, and actions — affect the customers’ pain or gain. When we first understand the impact of their problem, we can choose appropriate actions for a positive impact and super customer experience.




• The Impact of Previous or Repeated Trouble.

  It’s easy to deliver a super customer experience when there has been previous or repeated trouble — if we hear the feelings of frustration behind the impact. The customers are craving relief from pain and confusion; the relief we give is amazingly positive!




• The Impact of Heart-Based Service.

  If we live a narcissistic culture and focus on our success, our approach and connection often increases the customers’ pain and reduces their gain. As we focus on our procedures, we leave them stuck in frustration and far from the gain they seek. As we push self-service to reduce costs, we alienate those who need interaction to work with us. As we ignore their suggestions for improved service, we tell them that our view is more important than their needs. From this we lose them to the competition who sees the pain and void we left behind.

  If instead we approach every aspect of customer experience with a culture of heart-based service, we meet their expectations by relieving their pain or delivering a gain. We earn their trust, gratitude, and repeat business. From the heart, never fails with customers.

  [A special thanks to executive coach Lolly Daskal for the phrase "heart-based". She inspires thousands around the globe with her heart-based leadership programs and her weekly leadfromwithin chat on Twitter.]

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Leaders often ask me: What is the one thing that everyone in the organization should do to deliver super customer experience?

Listen for the feelings behind the impact and take the approach that relieves the pain and delivers the gain.

This year, I will have many workshops and sessions on this very topic. Join in the learning and receive the gains!

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

Related Posts:
Free Your Mind to Give Superior Customer Service in Difficult Moments
Leading Superior Customer Experience: Turn Off the Power

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

Various comments on my last post — Don’t Fire the Customer, Fire Yourselves! — showed that many use the phrase “fire the customer” as a display of power.

In the aftermath of abusive customers or the challenge of clients who constantly change their minds, some leaders and business owners use that damaging phrase to validate the organization’s position and use it to re-motivate frustrated and demoralized teams.

Yet, the power playing approach leaves a trail of trouble for the teams, the customer service culture, and the company’s reputation and brand.

Turn Off the Power for Superior Customer Experience!

Power struggles establish the dynamic as right vs. wrong.

Customer experience is about perspective and connection.

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Power words, like “firing”, conquer & crush.

Customer experience is about awareness, empathy, uplift, and success.

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Power-based motivation like “employees first, customers second” sets up a win/lose mentality.

Superior customer experience is about win/win!

“When you lead and serve for power, get ready for a power failure!” There is no greatness in either/or.

Turn off the power struggles, power words, and power-based motivation. If you want to use power, give it to your customers to give you free feedback — communicated with basic respect.

Turn on the listening and learning. Turn on creative exploration for effective problem solving. Turn on innovative thinking for customer satisfaction. Turn on the honest diplomacy to set limits in abusive situations. Turn on the joy of delivering superior customer service.


Lead a culture of excellence for improved performance based in continuous learning — not in power.

How will you ignite the customer service greatness in your organization?

I welcome your perspective in the comments section below. And I am ready to help you the way I have helped countless others in the last 23 years.


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

Related Posts:
Leadership success: Think Balance Beam Not Mountain Top
Super Customer Experience: Customers & Us in Harmony

©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

There is a phrase becoming popular in the customer service world that threatens both the customers and all of us in the profession. It’s a phrase we need to decry and banish from our vocabulary especially in the powerful world of social media.

The phrase we need to remove is: “Fire the customer!”

This threatening phrase:

• Diminishes our integrity instead of building trust
• Undermines our caring purpose rather than succeeding through care
• Broadcasts selfishness and greed vs. radiating greatness
• Declares customer service to be a power struggle instead of a partnership
• Makes all customers who read it more defensive instead of cooperative
• Teaches a new generation of customer service professionals a skewed view
• Projects a tug-of-war mindset rather than a winning collaboration

Are there times when we can’t meet a customer’s need or expectation? Sure.
Yet how we part company — and speak about — echoes our brand throughout the global reach of social media.

For those business owners proudly using the phrase “fire the customer” all over Twitter, Facebook, and beyond, it’s worth a moment to consider an alternative.

The times I have not been able to continue with a customer, I have said:

“Although I cannot meet your needs and must pass on this opportunity, I wish you success …”

I am not “firing the customer”, as the current threatening phrase likes to power tout. I am firing myself! How we say things in difficult moments affects the future of our brand.


Current customers and social media tell future customers what we believe; they wonder how we will treat them. Every tweet, every post, every statement tells the world what we think of customers as a whole.

Customers talk about us too; what they say is actually up to us!

I vote to give superior customer service — not to be superior over customers. What do you want customers to say about you and your brand?


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

Related Posts:
Free Your Mind to Give Superior Customer Service in Difficult Situations
What Do We Want Customers to Feel, Experience, and Remember?

©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

After twenty-three years of teaching how to handle difficult customer moments, I can attest that one truth continues to this day.

Both the obstacle and the pathway to handing difficult moments with customers is in the mind — ours, not theirs.

Image by: Environmentblog via Creative Commons License


Free The Mind to Give Superior Customer Service in Difficult Moments

Most importantly, let’s replace the mind trapping phrase — difficult customers — with the empowering phrase, difficult moments. We don’t resent them. We believe we can change them and work to do just that.

Then replace our desperate lament of “Why Me”, with the mind freeing phrase “What If”.

What If …

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1. The customer has goals I just don’t understand yet?
2. The customer’s personality is just different from mine?
3. There’s an urgency I’m just not aware of?
4. The customer just has insight beyond mine?
5. There are just cultural differences causing stress?
6. The customer just feels confused and worried?
7. The customer is just pressed for time?
8. Trust is still lacking?

And What If …

1. I listen carefully to hear what the customer is saying and not saying?
2. I adapt to the customer’s personality type to build the bond?
3. I explore to detect the urgent pressure?
4. I hear the need instead of an attack to learn the bigger picture?
5. I let the customer set the cultural bent?
6. I clear confusion to relieve the worry?
7. I get right to the main issue to speed the process?
8. I do everything I can to build trust?

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“What if” thinking lights up the creative parts of our brain freeing us from the emotional trap of defensiveness. When we free the mind of labels and blame, we breathe in valuable information, alternate views, and previously undetected possibilities.

Open-mindedness transforms the moment from a heavy burden to superior service. Adaptability speaks commitment and care that echoes throughout the customer’s community.

So next time you feel your blood pressure rising or heart pounding in a difficult moment with a customer, STOP and silently ask yourself these what ifs. This mind freeing approach will lift your spirit and sustain your morale.

Stay inspired!

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

Related Posts:
Super Customer Service: Beliefs to Remember
Best in Service: Key Link in Chain Not Life in Chains

©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please first email me at info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

Leaders of customer service organizations — have you set the bar as high as your customers expect? Do you lower the bar without realizing it and thus retard customer service excellence?

As I work with leaders of customer service teams and IT technical support teams, I see their inspiration sour without their awareness.

So here is a checklist to help you assess whether you inspire all team members to service excellence every day or inadvertently stop them from delivering the best.

Leaders, Are You Souring Customer Service Excellence?

• Letting your own inspiration sour. Do you stay passionate about customer service excellence every day or is your passion waning? When customers give negative feedback, do you welcome it as a gift or justify it with a list of service obstacles? Action: Listen to your own thoughts for one full day. Replace any justification with an inquiry of how to make things better.
  
  

• Skipping daily inspiration of the teams. If you are passionate about service, do you inspire the teams every day or proclaim you aren’t a cheerleader? Developing and leading a culture of service excellence is not about cheerleading.
  Action: Take everyone from inspiration to action with vision, strategy, and mentoring.
  
  

• Blaming customers instead of improving delivery. As customers’ service expectations rise, do your teams hear you calling customers unreasonable? Or do you engage the teams to innovate for customer service excellence?
  Action: Replace blame with curiosity and inventiveness. Blame short circuits success.
  
  

• Accepting second class status. Have you accepted upper management’s definition of customer service as an expense not an asset? It happens to many leaders and skews them to focus only on the metrics that prove cost effectiveness. Cost effective is important yet it is not an inspirational mission.
  Action: Build strong service bonds with revenue generating functions and through them redefine customer service as an asset.
  
  

• Over empathizing with employees’ challenges. Do you lower the bar of excellence to make team members happy? Or do you inspire them to raise the bar and find satisfaction in delivering excellence?
  Action: Empathize with the struggle; engage for solutions.
  
  

• Spending too much time on operations and not enough time on relations. Customer service excellence is found at the nexus of great relationships and effective operations. An extreme focus on operations buries reps in procedures and makes service feel labored and uncaring to customers.
  Action: Start each day with a service mantra and use procedures as guidelines to make excellence come to life.

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Much can happen to customer service leaders as they raise the flag of customer service in the daily charge for excellence. Upper management’s demands for value and the customers’ never ending expectations can eventually turn your exhilaration into exasperation unless you re-inspire yourselves and your teams daily.

Find the light of your passion and keep it burning bright. If you don’t, how will your teams continue to shine?


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

Additional posts of interest:
Do You WOW Customers w/Every Exception?
10 Winning Beliefs for Superior Customer Experience

©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

Sales and customer service leaders create super customer experience possibilities when they pave the customer’s road with transparency. Poor communication, hidden built in charges, surprise required purchases at the end of the sales cycle risk the sale and damage trust and the brand.

Here’s a story of a recent transaction that damaged the long term customer relationship and 5 ways to ensure this doesn’t happen to your business.

Image by: FutUndBeidl via Creative Commons License.


The Story

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A long time customer of a specialty check printing company got an email noting a limited time offer – two boxes of checks for the price of one.

The customer completed all the online forms and then the website gave an error message. It directed her to “Call customer service at 800 …” The rep who answered asked for all the information and then quickly mentioned a $3.95 special handling fee. The customer replied, “you are going to charge me $3.95 because you have to enter this order after the website locked up?” The rep suddenly said, we can waive that for you.

The rep, now speaking even more quickly, noted the total for the order and said “can we deduct that right now from your account”? The amount was not accurate based on the two for one offer so the customer said “no”. The rep noted she had included the fastest delivery so the customer could get the checks right away. The customer had specified free bulk shipping on the website and told the rep that is what she preferred.

The rep quoted another new total and again said “can we deduct that right now from you account?” The customer, now feeling annoyed, once again said no for it wasn’t the correct amount using the two for one offer. The rep reported that the total included $1.85 for a premium register which was automatically included. When the customer told the rep that she didn’t need a premium register, the rep replied that it has to be included.

The customer then said, “This is the worst marketing and THE most manipulative promotional offer and for that reason I’m out. Forget the order.” Customer then hung up. She then decided she will switch companies once she has used up her current checks.

End of story!

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5 Smart Business Tips for Super Customer Experience

The irony of this story is the basic arithmetic. It was actually a good financial offer since one box of specialty checks was $20.00. Had the company offered, “Buy one box of checks and a premium register for $1.85 and get a free box of your favorite checks”, the customer would have been thrilled.

1. Travel the Road of Transparency. Customers today are very aware of their choices. Many find online price comparisons before they pick your website to purchase your product. Because other products are one click away, be clear and transparent about prices to keep them from clicking away to a more trustworthy company.




2. Market With Gratitude; Don’t Sell From Greed. In the story above, there were so many positive approaches the company could have taken in the promotional offer. “As we approach Thanksgiving ….” or “Here’s a special offer to our long time customers …” Connect the offer to the heart and show what a great financial offer it is!




3. Upsell With Understanding. Confusing the customer may get you a few sales yet it can lose you many customers who get annoyed and walk away. For example, if you want to encourage higher price shipping, note the tracking advantages and then ask the customer what they prefer. Educated customers buy your offers if your offers are truly great.




4. Shine With Transparency in All Channels. When customers have trouble with one of your sales channels that they prefer, it’s crucial you shine in the other sales channel they tap. In the story, the customer had two disappointments before she called — her preferred channel (website) stopped working and she now has to use a channel she doesn’t prefer. When she finally gets through to a rep, she experiences confusion, pressure, and the persistent greedy request to deduct the money from the customer’s account right now! Is it any wonder the customer walked away for good?




5. Thrive in Being Memorable Not Manipulative. Creating memorable moments with the customer in the sale, service, and use of your product or service works every time. It echoes the positive of your brand through social media and personal referrals. It draws customers to you for more of the positive and takes your business far into the future. Manipulation doesn’t draw customers back to you and it echoes the negative to points you can’t even track or measure.

How far do you want your business to go? Are you in it to create a memorable brand that people hold dear and choose every time?

Keeping customers through positive memories costs far less than finding and getting new ones who haven’t read the blogs and social media with reports of murky questionable dealings.

The customers are going to make the decision of what and where to buy. Why not win their hearts with honesty? Something to consider in this age of instant information!


What do you think? Do you have a customer service story of transparency (or lack of it) that illustrates your feelings on this topic?

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

©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please first email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.