KateNasser.com

Business leaders, your customers have read your marketing message on commitment to superior customer service. Yet it takes only one moment, one bad experience with a negative attitude for that message to become null and void.

Leaders, are you and your teams — attitude ready? Can you say that team members display a highly positive attitude on each interaction with every customer?

Most leaders reply, “I think so” or “I hope so” and then quote satisfaction metrics to support their claim. The attitude metric for super customer experience must be 100%.

The challenge of excellence is consistency — not repetition.

Customers will always interpret a bad attitude as a sign of personal disrespect. It scrapes emotion and breaks the bonds of loyalty. It creates that horribly inevitable question: Shall I accept this insult? Thus it drives customers away from you and toward your competitors.

Leaders, Are You All Attitude Ready?

Here is a readiness checklist to develop and maintain consistently positive attitudes for super customer experience. Consistent attitude is not scripted and robotic. It is sincere, in the moment, and authentic.

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1. Are front line leaders selected and/or trained to inspire or just to manage? What do they believe is their primary focus? Ask them. For super customer experience, the answer must include “modelling and inspiring” great service. If their answers are mostly a list of tasks including handling escalations, monitoring performance, managing volume, etc…, the team members will not be living a culture of attitude excellence.




2. What is the team’s picture of displaying excellent attitudes? The definition of a great attitude including words like helpful, caring, respectful, warm, friendly, assuring, appreciative, going the extra mile … doesn’t completely drive behavior. Many reps display neutral attitudes and believe they are doing a great job because they are not insulting customers. The customers take this neutrality as lack of caring. It doesn’t produce bonds and loyalty.

   Spot displays of positive attitudes during interview role plays and hire them. Else train with role plays and behavioral displays of positive attitudes to create excellence.
   
   

3. Zero Tolerance of Bad Attitude. After hiring, training, and inspiring excellence, the zero tolerance of reps’ bad attitudes is critical.

   Many leaders today have mistaken the new leadership style of understanding and engagement to be tolerance of bad attitudes and behavior. This is a red herring. Bad employee attitudes and behavior are unacceptable in customer service.

   As a leader when you make excuses and create exceptions, you are creating the culture that will sink super customer experience. You also demotivate those with great attitudes for they want to work in a culture of excellence.

   Listen to reps to understand the tools and other resources they need. Bring those solutions to the table. They must bring their positive attitudes to the customer interaction — regardless of the situation. When my clients ask me: “How long should I coach a negative attitude?” My response is: never. Model and inspire it? Yes. Coach it? No. Reps who choose to display a bad attitude would do better in a non-customer facing position.

   What if great reps, who are consistently positive with customers, slip up in one instance? Anyone can have one bad moment right? Yes but their greatness is evident as they apologize to customers at that moment. They take ownership and make amends immediately. Their professional beliefs shine through. That’s the proof of greatness. They don’t make excuses or run and hide.




4. No shame in leaving policy. Many customer service leaders strive for low employee turnover. It’s understandable from a cost and image perspective. Yet taken too far, this goal can infect morale, performance and results.

   Managers have come to believe that high turnover on their team is an automatic black mark against them. They work to keep everyone there — including poor performers and those ill suited for the positions. Yikes!

   Zappos got it right. They even pay people to leave if it is not a match.

   There is no shame in reps leaving jobs they truly don’t want to do with a positive attitude.

   If turnover is high on your teams, surely check all aspects of the job including pay, training, teamwork, leadership style etc… Fix those issues to attract and retain top talent; don’t keep bad attitudes around just to prove you are a good manager.

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The consistently positive attitude for super customer experience has its roots in these beliefs:

• It is professional and rewarding to serve and give to others.
• Being highly responsible is better than highly entitled.
• People-skills matter as much as occupational skill and problem solving.
• Diversity is fun. It is an exciting way to learn and grow.

Succeeding on the Finer Points of Attitude
When customer service job applicants say that they like the feeling of helping others, dig deeper before hiring them. Will they only like it when the customer is being nice? If they are keying off how they themselves feel, they may struggle when the customer is not happy. Conversely if they see it as a professional goal to serve others, they can give empathy without getting it back.

Responsible vs. Entitled: One rep emailed his front line manager with the following request — “I would like to work from home three days a week. How can you make this happen for me?” This rep will not give superior customer service. There is no sign of responsibility, people-skills, or professional giving.

People who love to solve problems and do it well don’t always do well in customer service. If their focus is tunnel visioned on the end result, they may overlook the customers’ human needs for positive interaction along the road to the solution.


If you are a rep and or manager who loves and lives diversity, learning, responsibility, and professional giving, you are creating a culture of positive attitudes and super customer experience. You are strengthening the profession for the good of all those it touches. Bravo to you all!

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

Related Posts:
Psychological Barriers to Super Customer Experience

The Challenge of Excellence is Consistency Short video.

©2012 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 coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on delivering the ultimate customer service experience, leading change, employee engagement, and teamwork. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

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 to a Super Customer Experience

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

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1. 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.




2. 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?




3. 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.




4. 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.

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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™

Related Post: Simply Great Choices Create Super Customer Experience

©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.

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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.

A recent CBS Sunday Morning Show featured behind the scenes details of derogatory names companies have for their customers.

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Some Wall Street firms refer to their investors as “muppets”.

Airlines nickname their infrequent passengers “hillbillies or Clampetts” referring to the old TV show The Beverly Hillbillies.

They dub very frequent customers as “Platinum Trash”.

Credit card companies nail the tag “deadbeats” to their customers who pay their balance in full every month.

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As a customer service/experience pro, I listened with some outrage, sadness, and then wonderment.

The leaders of these companies don’t get it  Even if they don’t use these words themselves, they have not done enough to establish a positive culture of valuing the customer.

THE Threat to Superior Customer Experience

Corporate Narcissism

Loving Everything But the Customer

Misapplied Thinking That Fuels This Threat

• Freedom of speech. Freedom of speech does not justify hating the customers. If you cannot respect customers, then perhaps it’s best not to build your livelihood on serving them.




• Bluntness relieves stress. There are days when individual workers may find working with customers frustrating. They may blow off some steam privately and offline to relieve the stress.

  Yet the leadership is there to correct that course to ensure it doesn’t become a culture of disrespecting the customers. Leadership is there to teach and remind everyone what it feels like to be a customer and what the customer means to the business.




• Treat the employees well and they will treat customers well. Not necessarily. If leadership and employees treat each other well and collectively disrespect the customers, it will not produce superior customer experience. You cannot hide loathing.

I travel a great deal and can always spot flight attendants and hotel staff who think positively about the customers and those who don’t.

I’m not psychic. It’s in every gesture and word they say. It’s in their proactive help or their indifferent delay.

When company leaders tolerate thinking that degrades customers – even behind the scenes — they are agreeing to it. From thinking comes attitudes and daily behavior with long term strategy not far behind.


How Sad
Picture flight attendants thinking, “I wonder how many platinum trash I will grovel around today?” Can you imagine flight crews dreading the boarding process with so many hillbillies?

Will these crews come across as personable and caring or resentful, impatient, and patronizing?

Do the employees of credit card companies know the value of a customer who pays their balance in full every month? It would be much more valuable to have each employee know that than to foster or tolerate corporate disgust of customers. If there is no business value, why keep them as customers?

As for Wall Street, the world has witnessed the outcome of runaway disregard for customers and their money. From the epithet of investors as “muppets”, we can see the thinking that produced the second greatest economic crisis in modern history.


Good News
There are many companies who have established a customer valued culture that inspires the thoughts and the actions of all employees.

There are airlines now helping the customers as they traverse airport concourses as well as on the flights. They are using kool technology, like Ipads, yet realize that the care comes from the heart.

As other airlines redesign planes to have more economy plus seats with extra leg room in coach class and fully reclining seats in business first, hopefully they will redesign the culture to value everyone who buys and flies. Why improve anything for people you view as trash?

As companies like Ritz-Carlton, Nordstroms, and Zappos, and outstanding hospitals like St. Jude’s Childrens’ Hospital and magnet nursing centers continue to shine their customer care for all to see, we can encourage leaders in other companies to see the true benefit of a customer valued culture.

Call to Action
CEOs and their leadership teams of confused corporations would do well to look at how companies have embraced customer value.

Delivering superior customer service experience doesn’t come from fancy technology, or marketing, or metrics, or branding. It starts at the heart of how a company thinks about customers and brings that thinking to life in its strategy, policies, and interactions.

Thoughts breed actions and many companies ask customers for feedback on their actions. What are your customers saying about your thoughts and culture? That’s worth exploring.

I am honored and thrilled to be working with many companies and professional practices that want to move beyond surveys and go all the way to a customer valued culture.

April is customer loyalty month. Let’s get started!


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

Related Post: Simply Great Choices for Super Customer Experience

Special thanks to CXJourney on Twitter for sending me the URL link for the airline story.

©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.

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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.

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.

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

Ways We Imprison Customers!

1. 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?




2. 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.




3. 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™

Related Posts:
Super Opportunity to Improve Every Customer Experience
Simply Great Choices Create Super Customer Experience

©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.

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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.

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!

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!

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1. 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.




2. 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.




3. 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.




4. 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.




5. 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.




6. 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.




7. 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.

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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™

Related Post: Be Plentiful & Ready to Deliver Super Customer Experience

©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.

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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 experience surveys have been standard procedure for most businesses and corporations for many years. The delivery mechanism and the assessment of answers have gone high tech.

Yet there is one super opportunity to improve every customer experience survey and it requires a double vision.

We generally think of the customer experience survey as a way to understand our customers. Yet the survey itself also speaks volumes to our customers about our customer service and experience philosophy.

We think about what our customers are telling us. That’s good! Yet what is our customer experience survey telling our customers about us?

The quick answer might be that we care enough to ask their opinions. OK, that’s a start.  Yet do we really ask their opinions?

Does the typical customer experience survey ask for true opinions for improvement or mostly for votes?  There are the comment sections yet do customers receive a timely response? Do comments turn into corrective action?

Social media has become the venue for customers to get a response.  It begs the question, why haven’t customer experience surveys played the same role? As a customer, I fill out many surveys with concrete suggestions. I never hear anything back nor see results from my survey energy.  What has been your experience as a customer?

Does the customer experience survey measure what we in business care about or what our customers care about?

Or do the primarily structured survey questions broadcast that we think we know what’s most important? When we don’t respond to suggestions, does it say we don’t care? Or worse, that customers have to complain in public via social media to get a timely response?

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Super Opportunity for the Customer Experience Survey
Acknowledge that the survey markets our customer experience philosophy and make every survey a two-way street.

1. Ask: What do you think of this customer experience survey?
2. Ask: Does it reflect what’s important to you?
3. Ask: What would you add to this survey? What would you eliminate?
4. Ask: What would make it easier to complete this survey?
5. Invite customers to help redesign the customer experience survey.
6. Connect the experience dots: Have social media teams review and respond to customer experience surveys A customer shouldn’t have to complain — and in public no less — to get our attention. If we respond to suggestions before the complaint, it says we truly care.




EXAMPLES

Lengthy hotel surveys ask many voting style questions in multiple categories yet often do not ask questions that relate to special needs.
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They ask much about the appearance of the lobby yet nothing about the comfort of the desk chair in the room where customers spend time working on their laptops.

Retail exchange forms with online clothing purchases ask the reason code for the return. Many of the reasons are valuable to improving future buying experience.
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The one blatantly missing is: “I don’t like how the garment looks on me.” If online retail wants to create the true clothing buying experience, this addition would speak volumes. Else this customer experience survey says, we don’t care about the bigger picture of how you look.

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We can reinvent the customer experience survey to produce more than a metric based scorecard. We can have it reflect an open door that truly welcomes, listens to, and responds to customers’ feedback in a timely manner.

We can even have it be the vehicle of valuable dialogue, two-way understanding, and trusted exchange that builds long term loyalty.

Are you ready to review your customer experience survey? I’m ready to help you with objective insight.

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


Related Posts:
Customer Experience Super Blooms When We Flex.
The Best Customer Experience: Customers & Us in Harmony

©2011 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.

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

A recent routine eye exam was one of the most bizarre – and horrible — customer experiences I’ve ever had.  It was stressful and unnerving. In hindsight, it’s oddly humorous.  



Here’s the story and the 10 humorous people-skills’ lessons on my bizarre customer service experience.

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My eye doctor retired. I met one in a social setting, checked out her credentials, and made an appointment for my annual exam. I expected the eye exam would take about an hour give or take.

Two and half hours later I emerged from the office of an obsessive nut case who had actually invented a different kind of eye chart that she admitted was tougher to see.

Declaring she was a perfectionist, she wanted to know every aspect of my medical health and gave me a political speech about how she was collecting information for the government without sharing names. She even lectured me on how to wash my hands — a task I mastered years ago.

She and her assistants tried to enter all my info into computers during the exam and ran between rooms to find the problem when information was not showing up on all the computers.

I returned to my office with only 45 minutes to prepare for a videotaped interview on the future of customer experience. Ironic isn’t it? I couldn’t have imagined that timing!

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10 Extreme Lessons on Bizarre Customer Experience

1. Perfectionism inflicts stress and pain on others. It’s not a customer care goal! It’s a disease. Get thee to a therapist.




2. If customers are expecting something routine, you better hang up a neon sign if it’s going to be oddly different — and I don’t mean that weird eye chart of hers!




3. If you care for technology more than your customers, pray that the technology needs your service and can pay you! The humans won’t be back.




4. Innovation needs explanation especially if you make the common and comfortable — new and stressful. Where can I buy a traditional eye chart? Maybe I’ll give myself the eye test and someone can stand by and tell me how many I got right.




5. Put the customers too far out of their comfort zone and they will put you out of their lives and out of all those they tell!




6. Manipulate your customers to get what you want and next time they will go to someone who will give them what they want – a simple routine eye exam.




7. Trap a customer with your extremely obsessive need for information and they will see you as selfish or crazy. Neither trait produces customer loyalty.




8. Treating every customer the same is not great service especially if you treat them like ignorant fools who don’t know how to wash their hands. Each customer wants you to treat them as the unique person they are.
   
   

9. Time is a precious resource. Abuse the customer’s time and they may say it’s time for them to go — without singing “I’m so glad we’ve had this time together”.




10. Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to see how your customer wants to be treated. How’s your vision? Better than this doctor’s?

Customer care is noteworthy when you keep your sight keenly focused on the customer’s needs and deliver service with that vision.

So what’s up Doc? Can you read the “EI” on the chart? If not, maybe it’s time for a routine eye exam and some corrective lenses.

From my professional experience to your success,
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.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes on customer service, teamwork, and interpersonal success in business. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

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

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

Empathize!



2. 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!



3. 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!



4. 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!



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

Study up!



6. 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!



7. Behind every customer is limitless potential. Cultivate the future.

Go to the well!



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

Maintain heart health!



9. 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 …

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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™

©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 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.

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

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Drop This, Keep That – Please!

1. 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!




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




3. “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.




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




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




6. 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!




7. If we smile, please return the favor. Drop your straight face and keep smiling.
   
   

8. Drop the slow refund routine else we keep filling your queue with angry calls.




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




10. 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.




11. 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.




12. 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.

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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.

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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.

What customers experience before, during, and after they interact with you holds the secrets to sales, service and customer loyalty. Today it seems most leaders focus primarily on the after to build the before for next time.

In my corporate career and now for many years in business, I have held two questions in my mind when dealing with customers:

What did the customer experience before this?

What do I hope the customer will think after?

Customer Experience the Before & After Way

Image by: MikeBlogs

Using the before & after way, you gain insight to make the sale and deliver great service. Customer loyalty emerges from the bond initiated at the beginning. Start with insight not procedures.


BEFORE
A sampling …

1. What specifically has driven the customer to seek assistance now?
2. What obstacles has the customer experienced that brings us to this moment?
3. What successes or failures has the customer had prior to this?
4. What effect has this had on the customer?
5. What loyalties has the customer formed and why?
6. What loyalties has the customer broken and why?
7. What has changed in the customer’s world that delivers energy to your efforts?
8. What has remained stagnant that will retard and drain the momentum of your solution?

From your experience, what would you add to this list?

AFTER
Write three simple clear sentences that you hope the customer will say about you after. Then ask yourself, does the customer care about those things? If not, rewrite your after expectations and then make them happen.

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


©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want 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 workshops, keynotes, and consultations that inspire the ultimate interaction with customers. Leaders have been booking Kate to bring both her customer experience and intuition to their success — repeatedly. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.

To us as customers, satisfaction is very Gestalt. The “whole” is greater than the sum of its parts. We experience customer service not as a series of details and transactions but as one total experience.

The companies who get customer loyalty – gestalt it.

Behind the scenes, they manage a myriad of details and transactions across all channels and for multiple customers; with the customers, they focus on a unique total experience for each one.

1. They adapt to each customer instead of pretending that each customer is the same.
2. They make the process and interaction easy. The customers and their happiness come back to them.
3. They move through the procedures to solve the problems; they don’t highlight the procedures to the customers.
4. They prevent the upset customer knowing that positive breeds more positive and negative seeks a large empathetic audience.

They also know that each time they interact with a customer, it continues and adds to the experience.


A Recent Story.

A business hotel conveniently located has served me for years. +
They empower whatever I need to do. +
They remember me each time I go back. +
They have made it a home away from home. +
They offered to reinstate expired reward points. +
They just gave me outstanding interpersonal treatment as I made a new reservation.
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TOTAL: A continuously positive experience not a series of positive experiences. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts!

The continuous whole creates emotional loyalty that individual transactions do not. It prevents the question mark in the customer’s mind. “Why wonder if there’s something better when I already know I will be cared for?”

There is no end to the customer loyalty you can build if you continue to build one whole. Get loyalty — gestalt it!

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


©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want 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 customer service and teamwork training and improves your company’s customer loyalty quotient. Preview and purchase her unique DVD Customer Service USA – Regional Differences That Matter.

Relationships can sometimes be damaged with ONE word. The word entitled is one such word. For some it conjures up images of pride, excess, privilege, and even laziness. Yet for others it uplifts and gives a sense of security.

However, if we change that ONE word from entitled to deserving, the negative connotations seem to disappear and the positives remain.

Perhaps because there is a balance to the word deserving.

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It suggests giving and thanks.
It describes effort and earning.
It connotes quality and trust.
It sustains and doesn’t drain.

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Which sits better with you?

A leader that is entitled to your trust or deserving of it?

A company that is entitled to your customer loyalty or very deserving of it?

An employee that is entitled to a promotion or truly deserving of it?

A parent that is entitled to your respect or deeply deserving of it?

A friend that is entitled to your attention or clearly deserving of it?

A spouse that is entitled to your love or certainly deserving of it?

As the leader, the company owner, the employee, the parent, friend, or spouse, which would you prefer to be — deserving or entitled?

Which means more to you? Which means more to those in your work and personal life? When people agree on this, it breeds harmony in organizations, teams, and families. When they differ, it can cause ongoing conflict.

I vote to be deserving not entitled. What’s your vote?

From my perspective,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach


©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want 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, explores, learns, and teaches professional people-skills for workplace success. Teamwork, customer service, and leading change are her passions. Her natural intuition about people fills the gaps of diversity for business success. See this site for workshop outlines, DVDs, and customer feedback.

It is common in a restaurant for the server or maitre d’ to ask you how you like your meal while you are eating. They gather feedback before you are done. Hotels ask their guests how is their stay going.

There are pearls of wisdom in that approach. Gathering feedback before the finish line gives the customer service provider a clearer picture of the customers’ expectations throughout the delivery of service. This tremendously increases the chance for customer satisfaction.

Then why do customer service providers rarely gather feedback during a phone call or webchat? They often ask a customer to stay on the line after the call or chat to complete a feedback survey. Isn’t that a bit late for that customer’s satisfaction?

Customers’ feedback are little pearls that your reps and agents can string together into customer satisfaction before the finish of the call or chat.

I propose that the customers’ would love to give feedback before the finish line. Why else would they use Social Media like Twitter and Facebook when customer service is failing them?

I ask for feedback while I am consulting with clients — face to face, on the phone, or online in a webinar or videoconference. When I am delivering customer service & team building workshops, I ask for feedback at breaks and lunch to see what they are thinking.

Picture your reps or agents asking customers — “how’s my service so far?”

It makes customer service a dialogue — an engagement of the customers’ views during the process. Empowered reps and agents can then adjust their delivery to meet the customers’ needs.

Social media is engaging your customers more than ever before. Are you? Engage them and gather some pearls during the calls and chats.

Business Benefits

1. Dynamic in-the-moment low cost learning about customers’ needs and expectations
2. Creating a loyal customer through listening to them and reaching their finish line
3. Preventing a dissatisfied customer (who seeks an audience) bashing your brand on Social Media
4. Creating memorable moments instead of routine actions — customers remember moments and your brand!

One simple question, “How’s my service so far?” to change course and turn customer service into customer engagement.

Gathering feedback before the finish line gives you preventive and proactive success!


What tips for success would you like to share in the comments section below? I welcome your perspective.


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

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers customer service and team building workshops that take your people from inspiration to action. Now celebrating 21 years in business, Kate delivers results that are well known in the corporate world. See this site for more information.

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.

My work for 20+ years has focused on truly memorable customer service for your business acclaim and customer loyalty. Yet some of my recent experiences as a customer, bring me to write this post for businesses of all sizes, industries, and professions. Please feel free to add your customer service wisdom on delivering outstanding service and increasing customer loyalty.


Customer Service Wisdom to Up Customer Loyalty!

1. Make it personal. Know your customer then greet and treat them that way. Don’t treat your known customers as unknown. A true loyalty killer.









Customer Service: Make it Easy to Enjoy Image by:LarryMac

2. Make it easy for the customer. Bureaucracy kills customer loyalty.




Procedures can kill listening and that kills customer loyalty. If you are going to use scripts, they should be guidelines to discussion not marching orders!









Customer Service - Make it Happen. Image by:UggBoyUggGirl




3. Make it happen. Train, assess, and empower staff to serve. If the reps can’t deviate from a strict procedure, they cannot serve the customer. Inspire and empower them to make it happen.










4. Make it memorable. Customers remember moments and consistently memorable service. Many leaders have mistaken this to mean routine repetition. This contrived approach kills loyalty. Create a culture and practice of caring and follow-through to produce authentic sincere moments to remember — each and every time.

Inspire, train, and empower your staff to: Make it personal, make it easy, make it happen, make it memorable. It is still the way to up the loyalty!

I welcome your customer service wisdom in the comments field below.


[©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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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers customer service workshops and keynotes to diverse industries and audiences for truly memorable customer service and business success. See this site for topics, outlines, and success stories.