KateNasser.com

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.

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.

Even those with good people-skills are bound to annoy others sometimes. When you annoy your boss, you may pay a price you didn’t anticipate.

If these things have happened to you, improve your people-skills so you won’t annoy your boss again!

6 Subtle Signs You Annoy Your Boss

1. You have to enter a blurred CAPTCHA code to get a text or email through to the boss.




2. There is now a speed bump in front of your desk AND one pops up in front of his/her office when you approach.




3. Your spell checker has been mysteriously disabled.




4. Your new office mate never stops talking.




5. Your tele-commuting request is approved and your assigned computer can only run Windows 3.1.




6. You must run an all night video conference and then host a breakfast with top customers.

All kidding aside, people-skills have a tremendous impact on leadership, teamwork, customer service, sales, and business success. I look forward to working with you in training and coaching sessions.

Here are some of my greatest hits:
5 Ways to Sound Helpful Not Patronizing

6 Great Ways to Neutralize Annoying People

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People-Skills Mistakes Won’t Define You If …

Bury These 4 Phrases for Best Teamwork

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6 Ways to Avoid Scaring the Bejeebers Out of Execs

Smart Answers to Handle Jealous Office Teammates

The Perfect Apology and the One Word That Destroys It

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Thanks for your trust, your collaboration, and your business.

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 workshops, keynotes, and consultations that turn interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. Leaders have been booking Kate for 21 years to turn people-skills extremes into business success. See this site for customer results and book Kate now for your next team meeting or special event.

Starting a company? Looking for a job? Attempting to sell your house? Trying to change careers? Get noticed by being different but …

to achieve success — be memorable.

Memorable is not just what makes you different.  Memorable connects you with others in ways that matter to them.

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Memorable affects others.

Memorable creates a story.

Memorable builds a trust.

Memorable sparks an insight.

Memorable fosters respect.

Memorable eliminates doubt.

Memorable comes back to you.

Memorable keeps you present.

Memorable changes their reality.

Memorable reflects value.

Memorable brings you into their future.

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Be Memorable!

Do you have noticeably good planning skills? Add and use foresight to be memorable. Prevent a problem on a project or discover and open an opportunity for your customer, your boss or your organization. Outstanding skills get you noticed. Using them to help others makes you memorable.


Are you a remarkably fast learner? Your boss can hand you anything new and you can do it? That’s good. Learn before the skill is needed and you increase your value. Start today to be memorable tomorrow.


Do you have a special talent for teamwork? Worthwhile in today’s collaborative workplace. Excel at it during times of stress, low morale, or critical change and you will be memorable to every leader.


Are you a people person? Sales or customer service is your sweet spot? Certainly a plus. To be memorable, deliver wonderful service recovery with urgency. Offer customers compensation even for the smallest inconvenience. It builds phenomenal trust and reaps gratitude. You will be memorable!

Kick Start Your Success
The suggestions above are just a few examples. Try these questions to discover how you can be memorable:

1. What three things do most people notice about you? Why? The answer will uncover ways for you to be memorable.
2. What is one strength that people don’t notice in you? Start using it in ways that matter to others.
3. What are two areas in your work or personal life where you see a need, a void, pain, fear, or doubt in others?. Fill the need/void or remove the pain, fear, or doubt. You will be memorable.

How have you been memorable in your work or personal life? Please share your story in the comments section below to inspire others.

To our continued mutual growth,
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 turn interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. Leaders have been booking Kate for 21 years to fill the gaps of diversity with business wins. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.

When you must deliver bad news, do you first confuse? Do you mislabel your dance around the issue as great people-skills and empathy.

If you confuse before bad news, you deliver double pain.

I received the following letter from my health insurance company with instructions to call customer service with any questions:

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Our records show that you are currently covered under of our New Jersey Individual Plans.  This letter is to provide notice that pursuant to N.J.A.C. 11:20-18.6, we are making a change to, therefore not renewing, the current Termination of the Policy/Contract-Renewal Privilege provision in your Policy/Contract.

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Termination? Not renewing? I read the paragraph twice and still wondered, “What the hell is this?”

Do you know? If you are a lawyer, you will probably get it right. For the rest of us it just sounds like confusing bad news. I called customer service as instructed.  Simply put:

The grace period on the policy has changed.

The grace … the grace period! That’s all?  You confuse me and scare me and make me wait in a telephone queue instead of stating it clearly in the letter! Arggh!!

People-Skills Points:

1. Clarity is a gift you give to your employees and your customers. Think of them not you.
2. Clarity is honest. It doesn’t have to be blunt and insensitive.
3. Clarity builds trust which eases future communication.
4. Clarity takes effort. Are your employees and customers worth it?

What else drives people to be unclear in their communication to employees and customers?

©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.

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.