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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.

As business leaders, we focus on delivering value to our business customers. We take time to understand their challenges. We apply innovation and experience to move their corporations ahead. We do most of the giving in return for the business with fair trade in mind.

It is win-win business to business (B2B) success until customers’ ethics give us business leaders a tough challenge. If you are a new business owner, young entrepreneur, or new leader, this post may help you ready yourself for this surprise:

How do you respond to a customer who asks to take and use your work further without any additional payment?

Most strategists and consultants will tell you to anticipate this during initial discussions and come to agreement before doing the work. Sound advice — when it works.

Here is a situation in my business where I am surprised by customers’ ethics despite my foresight and pre-sale discussions.

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On the second day of delivering my training programs, customers ask the following:

1. Our HR department is hearing good things about this training program and would like to observe so they can develop something similar and do it in-house.

or

2. Another consulting firm is here and one of their leaders would like to sit in on the training to develop something similar and use it for another area of our business.

These last minute requests are of questionable ethics. The customers are asking you to freely hand over use rights for the training program under the guise of developing something similar — and for no extra fees beyond what they are paying for just the delivery.

As awkward as this is, you still have the choice to say no and preserve the business relationship. Consider these positive replies that get you back to win-win and fair trade.

• I would be happy to meet with them after this training to discuss what they want and the fees associated with it.

or

• Sounds like a great business opportunity for me to work with the rest of your corporation. There are additional fees we must address before they can join in. Are they all available to meet after today’s program?

or

• What you are asking for is beyond the agreement for this delivery. Let’s talk after the program with those involved in order to develop an appropriate fee quote.

You do not have to work for free or cave under last minute pressures to have good customer relationships. Preparation is valuable yet be ready to handle these last minute surprises!


Experienced business leaders: What other answers would you like to share with new business owners and young entrepreneurs?

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, is celebrating her 21st year in business developing and delivering people-skills training programs for excellence in customer service, customer relations, teamwork, and leading change. See this site for more information.

National Customer Service Week starts Oct. 4th, 2010. It is a time to celebrate customers, customer service, customer service agents, technical support reps, and to highlight key behaviors for truly memorable customer service.

I will write many posts for the next five weeks in anticipation of National Customer Service Week and today’s topic is — “The Folly of Being Defensive” when customers criticize your service.

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Picture It! A customer tells you that your team didn’t get back in touch with them, has been unresponsive, missed a deadline, gave them an incorrect answer, was rude and non-empathetic, or a host of other negative information.

What Some Teams Hear. You are no good. They then explain to the customer why the customer service was bad in an attempt to recover their image. Being defensive like this is pure folly. Why? It has the exact opposite effect.



What the Customer is Really Saying. Help me and rebuild my trust. The truly memorable response includes empathy for the inconvenience, attention to fixing it now, and in some cases, compensation for the inconvenience and trouble. Once you have solved the issue in question, you might provide information on how this error will be prevented in the future if it was a serious error.

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The folly of being defensive in business is that it reduces trust, makes working with you difficult rather than easy, and demeans your professional image. Avoid this defensive dribble.

You will regain customer’s trust when you take ownership of your mistakes, offer a sincere apology for the trouble, and fix the errors. It sends out a cheer of integrity, caring, and professional competence. It is worth celebrating. It is truly memorable. It will echo for quite some time. It delivers progress to your business and sets you apart from the average.

What else makes for truly memorable customer service? What do you expect as a customer?

©2010 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, is widely known for transforming customer service from average to truly memorable. Her workshops, webinars, and DVDs distinguish from others in their ability to activate behavior changes in your global customer service teams. Preview Kate Nasser’s new training DVD on regional customer differences in America http://katenasser.com/training-dvds.

In a recent post on Bury These Phrases for the Best Teamwork, I buried the phrase “I am sorry you feel that way …”. It is a masquerade of an apology that scars team relationships.

One visitor to my blog, asked me if it was acceptable, however, to say that to an irate, angry, or upset customer? She went on to say that in several training workshops on how to handle irate or angry customers, they teach this and actually require the CSRs to say it. “So that you do not need to verbalize an apology, use I am sorry you feel that way to diffuse the emotion and move on to solving the issue at hand.”

This is an abomination. Irate customers are adults who have lost trust and that is where the emotion begins. They want to be heard. The worst thing you can do is dance around and try to avoid responsibility.

I have been teaching how to handle irate customers for 20+ years and cringe at the thought of anyone teaching dedicated CSRs or technical support reps to say I am sorry you feel that way.

It is as bad as calm down and relax. In essence you are telling the customer that their emotion is unacceptable and that you are not responsible.

Let the irate, angry or upset customers vent their frustrations verbally. When they come up for air, there are several statements you can use one of which is a true apology for their experience. Yet if your company truly wants to avoid an apology (why I do not know), at least validate the irate customer’s emotion with something like “Clearly we have upset you. Let’s fix this now…” or “I hear your frustration and I am here to fix it.”

If you want customer loyalty, use “Clearly we have upset you and we are sorry. I am here to resolve the issues.” Stay away from “I understand”. Irate and angry customers are speaking from emotion. Most interpret “I understand” to mean “I understand your pain” which you don’t — and they yell that back at you.

What do you think? When you are the irate or angry customer, would you want someone to say to you “I am sorry you feel that way …”?

By the way, if you want more information on how to stay positive and objective with an irate or angry customer, here are two posts with key images: The Best Mindset and Training to Deal with Irate Customers and 5 Things to Think with Thorny Customers.

©2010 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 top notch workshops on customer service and teamwork people-skills for transformational results. See the workshop outlines on this site.

20 Comments »

The best customer service representative (CSR) training on dealing with and handling an irate customer tells you to not take it personally and suggests appropriate things to say to calm the customer. Yet in the 20 years I have been teaching how to handle an irate customer, the most frequent question CSRs and technical support reps ask me is how to stay objective and not take it personally.

Message to Each CSR: Choose either mindset that makes the most sense to you. Use it and you will stay objective. You can use both. I use #1 every time and add more of #2 when I feel my objectivity slipping.

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1. Don’t seize control! A car stops when the driver applies the brakes, or hits an obstacle, or runs out of gas. You are not driving the car. The customer is driving. If you reach over and try to apply the brakes, the customer will most likely fight back. It’s hard to stay objective when you are in a fight. If you start talking right away, you become the obstacle and the crash leaves dents/scars on you and them. Again, it will be tough to stay objective when you are scarred. If you let the driver and the car run out of gas, you stay objective and ready to help. The driver asks for help when the car can no longer run. Caution: This is not a comic moment. Do not say, “I’ll just wait for you to run out of gas and then you will listen to me.” This is a mindset not something you say.




2. Yours is to Heal! The next time a customer is yelling, picture this: You see a stranger in a restaurant fall and get hurt. S/he is lying on the floor right next to your table yelling in pain. Would you think they were yelling about you and get upset with them? Probably not. It’s the same with your customer. Like a medical professional or a para-medic — yours is to heal.

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A Broken Trust. Irate customers feel they have been wronged. Your company has lost their trust. They want you to know that they have a right to be upset. If you speak too soon, they think you are telling them they are wrong.  Let them have their say. As much as you do not like to hear irate customers, it is a sign that they are still interested in your company. Else they would simply walk away forever and tell everyone they know!

When they are done with the emotion, your empathy and action will resolve the issue. When you do this service recovery well, you may actually turn this irate customer into a loyal customer. It’s possible!

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I look forward to further developing your team’s customer service skills with these workshops: Delivering the Ultimate Customer Experience. The workshops are very participative, high energy, fun, and info-packed.

Take a look this footage on adapting to personality types for a little taste of the fun: Spot and Adapt to Each Customer’s Personality Type.

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

©2010-2011 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, brings passion, intuition, and 20 years of experience to teaching business leaders, owners, and team members how to reach the heights of service for customer relations and business profits. See this site for workshop outlines and DVD footage.

As The People-Skills Coach, I am sponsoring a contest to come up with TWO additional entries for my Customers Value Creed (noted below).   Two winners will each receive a $30 gift card to http://amazon.com.  Winners will be announced on Twitter in National Customer Service Week 2009 which starts Oct. 5th and their winning entries and names featured on the updated blog.

To Qualify: Submit your original short one or two sentence entry in the comments section below by Aug. 31, 2009 and tweet the following text on Twitter: ”#Customers Value Contest spons. by @KateNasser The PPL-Skills Coach, http://tinyurl.com/ng2g75 RT apprec.”

Customers Value Creed

1. Customers spark innovation through their demands. Embrace your innovators.
2. Customers give you an advanced education about people. Respect your “teachers”.
3. Customers pay for your performance.  Give your best show.
4. Customers keep your company alive. Feed your blood.
5. Customers blow your horn. Herald your trumpeters.
6. Customers are your future Wikipedia. Make many entries.
7. Customers are your tweeps on Twitter.  Tweet them right.     
8. Customers are your reputation. Protect it.
9. Customers are gold. Mine for it.
10. Customers are your greatness. Cherish and nurture it.
11. Customers are human. Help humankind.

Using the guidelines provided at the top of this post, please submit your additions to this list in the comments section below. 

Also consider reading the other customer service posts on this blog and signing up for the always free newsletter Smart SenseAbilities in the upper right corner of this page.  I do not sell or share your email address – period.