KateNasser.com

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

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

Key Question on Engaging Customer Service Reps:

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

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

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

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

Engage front line reps like trusted adults:

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

Related Posts:
Engage Employees Through Their Entrepreneurial Spirit

The Performance Appraisal Treadmill

©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 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.

Some think that the greatest IT customer service challenge is the technical mindset of the team members. It isn’t. Most everyone who has the desire to deliver customer service can learn to do it well. I have trained thousands to do just that.

CIOs, the biggest challenge continues to be blocked teamwork among the silos. Whether you have outsourced or off-shored your front line, brought it back in house (which is happening more and more), or always had it in house, teamwork among front line and other resolver groups is where your customer service improvements will surface.

CIOs, Resolve the Obstacles to Teamwork for IT Customer Service

• Fake Hierarchies. One of the biggest mistakes IT made was naming support as Level I, Level II, Level III. It has created a fake hierarchy of importance. Although it described the flow chart of how problems are resolved, it minimized the importance of the front line. Customers hope the problem gets solved on the first call and yet the front line struggles to get knowledge and training.

  Many level II and III teams could share more knowledge with the front line for quicker problem resolution. Ask yourselves why they aren’t. The quick answer is time. That’s not the whole picture. Many times they don’t see them as teammates. They complain that the front line doesn’t do enough even when they have never seen how tough a job it is nor sat in those chairs.
  
  Suggestions: Boxer Day (have them shadow/switch roles), shared service levels, physical co-location, reporting into one leader, shared metrics on customer satisfaction, same tracking/ticketing system, team building sessions.




• Politics. Every organization has them yet it can kill customer service and internal customer (employee) productivity. Nonetheless there are IT organizations withholding key productivity tools from the front line — like remote control — because of political jockeying for what groups have the most power. It neuters the front line effectiveness and leaves the customers thinking the front line is of no value. They begin calling up just to get a ticket number and pressuring the front line to make everything a priority one.

  Suggestion: Give the front line remote control to resolve more problems. Don’t turn the front line into ticket monkeys by yielding to power politics. Customers see pure routing centers as a block not a road to productivity.




• The Deskside Bond. One hidden block to teamwork is the bond that deskside support team members have to their customers. As you centralize to a global service desk, customers continue to ask deskside onsite team members directly to come and help them. These team members struggle with how to get the customers to call the front line of service desk for problem resolution.

  Some resort to saying, just call them to get a ticket number rather than championing the skills and value of the front line. Moreover, you may have some team members who don’t think anyone can take care of the their customers they way they do. All of this undermines swift problem resolution and customer service.

  Suggestion:
  Train deskside team members specifically on how to redirect onsite customers to the front line of the service desk.

  I have delivered this people-skills training and practice sessions to deskside teams for years. And with the front line tooled and ready, the deskside team members will have an easier time of redirecting.

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Responsibly pour the tools and knowledge into the front line of IT service desk and you will see customer productivity and satisfaction soar.

Include all teams into the IT service desk structure. Service desk is not just the front line. It is one large team that serves the customers with consistently excellent customer service.

Have all teams working together to proactively prevent problems and the need for customers to call. The front line of service desk learns the big customer picture across the organization. It understands the customers’ urgency, sees the impact of broken technology, and can provide great insights on preventing problems. The other resolver teams have deeper knowledge to build prevention.

Admittedly each customer hopes for a day of zero defects. When problems arise, they just want them fixed as quickly as possible to stay productive.

Resolve the threat of blocked teamwork and see the corporation value the IT organization as a critical partner in productivity.

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

Related Post: CIOs, Are Your IT Teams Truly Customer Focused?

©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™, is a former IT professional. She delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service focus, teamwork, and leading change especially to technical organizations. Kate turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

I am pleased to welcome writer Pattie Roberts as the guest blogger for this post. Her thought-provoking personal stories serve up many lessons. Welcome back Pattie!

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I’ve been thinking a lot about my Uncle Fritz lately.  Every spring, as I begin the early garden cleanup, I see the coffee can “Tin Man” he made for me hanging next to the rose bed, and it makes me laugh and cry at the same time.  I laugh because Uncle Fritz was a delightful nutball – wildly successful as an insurance agent, devoted to my Aunt Franny throughout her long battle with breast cancer, and truly offbeat in the way he expressed himself.

I cry because he was the definitive example of the one key thing that continues to be broken about customer service in American business.  I cry even more when I think about how simple it is to fix it.

The Story

Let me back up to 1987.  My mother had just passed away and, as is typical in many families (especially Italian families like mine), we shared our grief over mountains of food.  One evening we were at dinner at Ventura’s, which to this day remains my favorite restaurant.  As usual, Uncle Fritz presided over the table and made his recommendation for our entrée choices.  “Try the veal,” he exhorted, and everyone but me agreed.

I hadn’t had a good plate of spaghetti and meatballs in a while, and that’s what I wanted.  Besides, I don’t eat baby things.  Like veal.  It’s a quirk, I know, but it is what it is, and it doesn’t really affect anyone but me, so I don’t see it as something I need to ‘fix’.  “You should really try the veal,” he said to me as I was making my final selection from the menu.  Non-sequitur:  as I write this, I am really wishing for some Ventura’s spaghetti and meatballs.

Anyway, I try not to be confrontational over small issues (how could my food preferences possibly matter to anyone but me?), so I said something like “I’m sure it’s delicious but I am really jonesing for spaghetti and meatballs.”  After a couple more exchanges like this we ordered – veal for everyone else, my beloved spaghetti for me.  “Did you order the veal?” Fritz asked me.  Fortunately Aunt Rose interrupted with a glowing anticipatory review of the much-vaunted veal so I didn’t have to answer – again.

This is what happened when our orders arrived.   Uncle Fritz:  “You didn’t get the veal?”  Me:  “I’m really happy with my spaghetti.”  Uncle Fritz: “Here, try a piece” Me:  “No, really, save it for yourself, I’m going to have enough trouble eating all this yummy pasta.”  Uncle Fritz (cutting a big chunk of veal and putting it on my plate):  “Try the veal.”  Me (on the verge of an aneurism): “I don’t want the veal! I don’t like veal! It’s BABY COW! It’s bad enough that we eat grown up cows, we don’t need to eat the BABIES too! Take this off my plate!”  Uncle Fritz (to my father):  “What, she doesn’t eat meat?”

So what does any of this have to do with customer service?  If I am the customer, and Uncle Fritz is the CSR, why in the name of all that’s holy didn’t he listen?  He was sweet throughout the entire exchange, he was never snippy or mean, and he was paying for everyone’s dinner.

I had nothing to complain about except the fact that I was benignly but completely ignored.  He wanted to make me happy, but he was rooted in his own idea of what that was, and oblivious to mine.

I think about veal, Ventura’s, and Uncle Fritz every time a CSR tries to talk me into or out of something I want or need.  Being pleasant, concerned-sounding, and even generous is important, but it’s not enough.

Customer service has to be grounded in listening before anything meaningful can take place between the customer and the company.  Even if the veal is scrumptious.

Some questions to ponder:
- Does passion and caring block good listening?
- Is it caring if the CSR isn’t listening?
- How can we balance passion and listening?

©2012 Pattie Roberts. 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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Guest blogger, Pattie Roberts, is a writer and research analyst in Annapolis MD. You can follow her on Twitter @hughsboo or on LinkedIn.

The Future of Customer Service & Customer Experience Without Silos

More and more C-Suite executives are seeing the business value of a super customer experience. Because B2B and consumer customers have easy access to more experiences and choices, customer experience is becoming a competitive differentiator.

Customer Service Teams

Will this be turning point of recognition that you have long desired?

Historically, leaders have viewed customer service as an expense that fixes company failures instead of brand building moments that contribute to business success.

They have poured resources into other aspects of customer experience (improved product design, redesigned sales channels) all with the view of reducing the need for customer service.

They have also looked for any way possible — from off shoring to automated reps in online chat sessions — to reduce the operational costs of customer service.

Now that customer reactions to those steps have been less than WOW, companies are reconsidering the business value of the culturally focused human touch in building company success. Who better to tap than current global customer service teams?

Customer service teams: Are you ready to embrace the changes needed to fulfill the new role?

Customer Service Leaders: Key Questions to Ready for Success

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Metrics.
How many of your metrics are focused on measuring cost and justifying your customer service teams’ existence vs. measuring customer experience? Of course cost is always an issue. Yet in the new success role you will play, it only takes on meaning if paired with what you are delivering that the customers value.


Re-allocating Agent Time.
Customer service operations managers — how would you react if the leadership asked you to allocate agent time to participate in other customer experience activities — product design review, listening to focus group feedback, participating in projects to redesign the online customer experience? Would you want your agents to contribute to these opportunities or worry that that it would drain your department temporarily or permanently?


Networking to Build the New Role.
Customer service managers — are you currently networking with your peers in other customer experience departments? How are you actively working to break the silos and build success for the company with other teams involved in customer experience?


Retraining Agents.
On customer service teams where there has been an extreme focus on cost metrics (e.g. average handling time), you may need to un-train and retrain agents for this broader role. Are you open to this?

Also, if you have also set the culture to be highly competitive between agents by publishing individual agent metrics, you may need to build collaborative skills to work with other customer experience teams and to focus all on unity of purpose.

This change is low risk and high return. There are many customer service teams who have met their performance metrics without agent competition and internal collaboration improves the customer experience.


Reorganization.
OK customer service managers — now for the tough question. If leaders were to float the idea of reorganizing to integrate customer service teams into other customer experience departments, would you resist? This is difficult for it may mean a dramatic shift in your role and career.

Overcome the fear of this change by realizing the potential for your career in having exposure to these new opportunities. Just as your agents will flourish from this cross pollination of professional development, so will you.

Be aware of the signs that you are holding on and resisting change:

• Insisting it won’t work because the cultures and goals of the various teams are too diverse. Instead establish the new goal of a seamless customer experience and build one culture to match it.
• Foretelling catastrophe in operational performance if these changes are made. Performance has to match the newgoal!
• Interpreting the idea of reorganization as a condemnation of all your efforts to date

Address the last one by stepping up and proactively lobbying to replace the old fixing failure view of customer service departments.

Show leaders in your company that you and customer service agents can build bridges between all customer service & experience teams for the success of the company.

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If you truly want to rid your customer service teams of the fixing failure role, step up and champion the idea of a seamless super customer experience.

The future of customer service and super customer experience will be built without silos. Customer service managers — why not lead the way?

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

Related Posts:
Super Customer Experience in Harmony With Customers

Leaders, Foresee the Burdens of Needy Customers

©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish 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.

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

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

Experience should make it easier to give empathy, right?

Or Does Experience Dull Empathy?

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

Related Posts:

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

Best CSRs Beat Attribution Error in Customer Service

 

©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, workshops, and keynotes on customer service experience, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

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.

Email is still alive and well. How about the people who received your last email? Was the email clear, concise, and respectful? Or did emotion creep in and rile the issue and people’s sensibilities?

As I teach people skills to corporate teams, they continue to raise one persistent issue – how best to respond to negative emails. Without a doubt, we can diffuse a negative email more effectively through true conversation than through another email.

Beyond that, take steps to ensure that the email we write is not negative — lest we start or feed an e-war!

Let us never forget that …

The E of Email Does Not Mean Emotion

Wouldn’t we feel silly saying to a teammate or customer, I will send you an “emotion mail” later today. Yet workplace colleagues write them!

A recent emotion mail sent to me by an online colleague (not a customer) serves up some great lessons. Here’s the original emotion mail and an alternate approach.

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Hi Kate,
I find your blog posts to be consistently well-written and valuable. They nicely reflect my own sentiments towards customers too. It’s my hope that by sharing links to them on Twitter and other SM platforms, readers benefit from the insightful material and you benefit from the exposure you clearly deserve.

After reading your most recent post – which I was about to post on Twitter – I noticed this in the footer: “If you want to re-post or republish this post …”. If it were anyone else I would have immediately decided that I don’t have time to address the ambiguity and never post anything from them again.

However, in this case, I’m assuming that I may be misreading your intent. Please clarify: is your statement intended to dissuade people from posting links to your material on Social Media platforms?

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The emotion about addressing the amibguity and never posting anything from them again minimizes the compliments of the opening paragraph.

If we were to send this type of email to a teammate or a customer, it could put the relationship at risk.

What if the email were written like this:

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Hi Kate,
I noticed the footer on your blog post “If you want to re-post or republish …”. Wasn’t sure what it meant. Is it OK to put the links to your blog posts on Twitter without permission each time? I find your blog posts valuable and love to share them. Let me know! Many thanks…”

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Which version of the email would you rather receive — the original or the alternate approach?


4 Tips to Turn Emotion Mails into Positive Emails

1. Know our purpose for sending the email. In the original emotion mail above, what is the purpose? To clarify the meaning of the footer? or to vent frustration about being confused? If we admit the true purpose to ourselves, we can choose not to send the negative email and send a positive one instead.




2. Simple and clear beats wordy and emotional. People get scads of emails. We increase the chances that people will read email by keeping it simple and politely getting to the point. The best part of emotion to use in an email is emotional intelligence (EI).




3. The more emotion we use at someone, the harder it is to effect a change. If we want a teammate to change some behavior, using emotion at them can make it tougher for them to do just that — even if they agree with our requested change! Let them change while saving face. Less is more in this case.




4. Formal sometimes seems rude. Surprised to read this? When we have something negative to say, couching it in formal language doesn’t make it positive. It sounds like formal negativity and can seem rude to others.

   If we have something negative to say to a teammate, best to communicate what we want instead of what we don’t want. State how we want to be treated instead of how we don’t want to be treated. Use I statements instead of you statements. This avoids accusations and still communicates honestly, clearly, and respectfully — in a positive manner.

My advice to corporate teams: “We shine in people-skills when we communicate positively not negatively and forward not back.”

It’s critical in delivering customer service and truly appreciated in teamwork.


What other tips will you offer here to turn emotion mails into positive emails?


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 blog post in part or in whole, please 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 consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes on the ultimate customer service experience, teamwork, and leading change. Kate turns interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

As I spend more time online for blogging, for business, and for personal purchases, I am struck by how many websites show no customer focus.

They show selfishness, desperation, and an insatiable craving for market research data.

It’s as if these websites have one people-skills message:

We are selfish!

Would you stand in front of a customer and say that to deliver an oustanding customer experience?

Pop-up ads at the very beginning, hidden contact information, squeeze pages that immediately ask for name and email, surveys that interrupt — all break 3 important rules of outstanding customer service experience:

1. Make it easy for the customer to find what they want and to contact you.
2. Listen and help before asking the customer to help you.
3. Deliver value to capture loyalty; don’t desperately capture the customer.

It reminds me of an in-person experience I had at a L’Occitane store.

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I walked in and picked up the exact moisturizer I always used. I went to the checkout and the sales associate asked me if I needed anything else. I quickly said “no thanks and I’m in a hurry” and handed her my credit card. She held it in one hand and then picked up another product to upsell me. And then another all while holding my credit card hostage!

When I asked for my credit card back, she suddenly rang up my one purchase. I never went back and stopped using their products. Out of curiosity, I just checked their website and guess what — a pop-up squeeze page appeared right away.

I clicked twice to exit.  I don’t pay to be trapped.

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Companies that think customers owe them information before buying, have the customer service experience backwards.  Perhaps if they experience a reversal of fortune, they will reverse course and deliver value to capture customer loyalty.


Every website has a people-skills message and a personality. What is your website’s message? Is it selfish or giving? Does it capture the customer’s attention with content and value or does it just try to capture the customer?


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 and teamwork, turning interaction obstacles into business successs. 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.

Book Review

What must a creative person do to turn their creativity into profit — in a society that sees it as illogical?  Western culture and business teach, emphasize, and laud left brain thinking. Yet creativity, thinking more from the right brain, leads to innovation which keeps business fresh and forward.

Graphics artist and entrepreneur, Kimb Tiboni, tells you exactly how to do it. In Illogical Success she chronicles her living memoir of building a business from creativity.

This engaging book is more than a “how to” for hopeful entrepreneurs. Illogical Success will liberate anyone from the myth that planning and traditional logic is the only path to success.

As The People-Skills Coach™, I was drawn to Kimb’s business by her innate understanding of people and the people-skills approach to business success. I knew within 30 seconds the first time I spoke with her that she understood the essence of customer.

Her right brain ability to think and process context, emotion, shading, and estimation is applied to both artistic creation and interaction with customers. For artistic entrepreneurs, this is success.

Illogical Success Highlights

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Keep your sensors in the on position. Opportunities come not from your plan but from keen awareness and great interaction.

Overcome the limits that left brain thinkers gave you as a child and use your creativity for artistry and business. Tap your creativity don’t trap it.

Pamper your patience to create your artistry for left-brain customers!

Manage your ego with steel toe designer boots when customers are not happy.

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Illogical Success will appeal to diverse audiences.

It delivers inspiration, support and how to’s for parents who want to better guide their creative teenagers, for cutting edge educators who want proof that a creative path is not folly, and of course for budding artists who want to build and handle their own business instead of hiring a handler.

Whether you buy this book for yourself or as a holiday gift for creatives you know, it will create a new path and a new mark on life.

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



Related Post: Art Institute of Vancouver – Are You Right for Creativity?

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Kate Nasser,The People-Skills Coach™, delivers workshops, consulting, keynotes, and DVDs for customer service, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for more information and customer results.

There is a hidden opportunity for a competitive edge in the wireless service market. Have your call center follow through with the same brilliance that marketing started. If marketing gets the customer to call, hey call center — don’t blow it!

The Story
Marketing, You Got Me. Call Center You Blew It!
AT&T Wireless sent me a mailer about a deal for wireless service. I had been thinking of changing wireless carriers so I opened it, read it, and called the 800 #. Marketing you got me!  

A short voice response menu asked me if I was a current customer or not.  Press 2 and I was put through to a rep.  I thought wow this is great and then the path to success blew up.

The call center rep actually read a sales script without a breath and at the end asked me if I wanted to buy now. Call center you blew it!

Sales and service are not a monologue from you with a burp at the end from me. The scripted call center rep blew the brilliance of the marketing in 12 non-listening seconds.

Wireless carriers take heed — customers today are doing their homework and call with specific questions.

Drop the sales script and start dialoguing. Your marketing-to-sales conversion rate will soar. Lose the script or lose the sale!


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


How do you react to a scripted sales or service rep?


Related Post from BNET: Why Sales Scripts Are a Waste of Time

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. 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™, inspires and trains corporate teams, customer care professionals, call center agents, and technical support teams in the greatest people-skills for sales and service success. See this site for workshop outlines, customer feedback, and footage to view. Turn interaction obstacles into business success — book Kate now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Benefits of The Customer Is Always Right Rule

It helps establish a customer centric culture.

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

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

Keeps us in service mode even when business is booming.

Fills the gaps during uncertain moments.

Shows constant gratitude and desire for future business.

Expresses respect for the customers’ insight and perspective.

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

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

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

©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 that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times. See this site for customer service workshop outlines and business results. Fill the gaps in customer service and teamwork with business wins – book Kate now.

With 8 People-Skills Steps!

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

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

Sudden Relationship Challenges

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


Trust and Openness of Longer Relationships Image by:Liz Smith

Longer term relationships develop and enjoy:

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

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

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

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

Here are the 8 people-skills steps they take:

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

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

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

©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 that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times. See this site for customer service workshop outlines and business results. Fill the gaps in customer service and teamwork with business wins – book Kate now.

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

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

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

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

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


The Story

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

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

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

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

Picture the positive and you reduce your fear. Result: Increased listening that guides the interaction to success.

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

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

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

What you picture you create!

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

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


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

©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 service experience and intuition to their success — repeatedly. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.

The call came in from a Human Resources training manager at a major pharmaceutical company. The IT department had reorganized technical support teams and their customer service and teamwork had taken a tumble.

She and her experienced HR trainers had tried yet they and the IT professionals didn’t click. She called, as other managers have, because my years in IT (information technology) uncover the unspoken teamwork and service challenges as I teach and facilitate. It has been a recurring theme in my business.

When you want to train technical support in customer service and teamwork –beyond the surface of certification– it’s critical to understand the technical mind.

So much customer service training is focused on training people whose natural focus is other people.

You must use a different approach to develop a strong people focus, cross teamwork, and customer service skills in professionals with a rigorous occupational focus — technology, finance, medical, and legal.

Although medical schools are starting to screen applicants for both scientific and people-skills aptitudes (New for Aspiring Doctors: The People-Skills Test), this dual focus is not an established selection criterion in all the technical fields.

Nonetheless, technical support teams are very capable of outstanding adaptable people-skills for teamwork and customer service. Some have it naturally, a few struggle, and most respond very well when taught in a way that makes sense to them.

When will they most need specialized customer service and teamwork training?

1. In times of great change like reorganizations, mergers, or new executive leadership
2. Before high pressure initiatives that also pressure their customers like major technology or operational shifts
3. In readying to support high performance business units – the executive suite, sales, revenue critical operations, life/death situations in healthcare, and a highly mobile workforce
4. Before centralizing or expanding for global technical support

I look forward to working with you during these transitions to ensure outstanding IT customer service and teamwork.

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 teammates and customers. Her prior career in IT and extensive technology focused customer base make Kate the perfect choice for training technical teams in people-skills for teamwork and client service. See this site for workshop outlines and customer feedback.