Help Desk

Best CSRs: Key Link in the Chain not Life in Chains

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, inspiration, IT

Customer Service Reps (CSRs), call center agents, customer care associates, technical support & help desk analysts, are often tethered to a desk or a pager. The best ones are key links in the chain of service or sales and don’t see it as a life in chains.

Important Link or Life in Chains Image by:VersaGeek

How do they achieve this zen like state working in what so many others consider to be a stressful and confining job?

Here are the answers I have collected over the last 20 years of teaching these inspired CSRs and technical support professionals:

  • Chained to the desk or a pager means you are focusing on yourself. Remembering you are a key link in the chain keeps you focused on the customer.
  • Satisfaction comes from knowing that you helped — made their life easier, found the solution, made the experience fun, lifted them up.
  • On tough days, I take pride in how great I am under pressure.  Other CSRs buckle, I don’t.
  • I never let envy of other jobs rob me of the joy of my current life.
  • Before working as a Technical Support analyst, I was in the Coast Guard patrolling in the Gulf of Mexico. I was shot at daily by drug running boats.  Trust me, tech. support work is not stressful!

Service is different than servitude (a life in chains). The former you choose that latter you don’t.

Choose your attitude every day.  Why let angry or rude customers change your choice?

Choose to see the value in what you do — a key link in the chain.

Choose to educate yourself about business success by learning directly from the customers.

Choose to be a CSR, Help Desk or Technical Support Analyst at an enlightened company.

Choose, as leaders, to enlighten your organization’s approach to customer service and to help change your industry with your enlightened view.

Choose to evolve and grow every day of your life.

Which mindset will you choose?

Life In Chains?

or

A Key Link in the Chain of Success



You can choose to be a strong link for others if your mindset is one of service — not of servitude!

©2010-2012 Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you would like to re-post or re-publish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com for permission.  Thank you for intellectual capital.

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, continues to inspire legendary service attitudes and behaviors across generations, industries, and professions. Her keynotes, workshops, and DVDs re-energize commitment and delivery of outstanding customer service experiences. Authentic, intelligent, and humorous — book Kate Nasser to transform your next service initiative.

The Best Language for Superior Customer Service

Posted in Customer Service, People-Skills, Soft Skills

The best language for superior, truly memorable customer service is the language your customer understands. If your reaction is “no kidding”, please give this topic another moment’s consideration. I am not speaking purely about languages like English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Swedish, Arabic, etc… I am not even speaking just about avoiding the use of slang expressions or your company’s many acronyms to ensure superior customer service.

The best language for superior customer service is language that describes your knowledge in ways that the customer can truly understand. It doesn’t matter whether you are delivering internal customer service to employees of your organization or external customer service to those that buy your products/services. If your customer doesn’t understand what you are saying, it isn’t superior customer service. I wouldn’t even call it customer service.

What does describing your knowledge in language the customer understands truly include?

Best Language for Customer Service Image By:Nancy Wombat

A. Explaining everything from the customer’s perspective and interest vs. your expert view.

B. Using online and print forms that speak to the customer not from your software system’s design. Have you seen many well designed forms — those that don’t need explanation?

C. Designing bills and other financial statements that present info a way a non-financial expert thinks. Bank statements often prominently display “average daily balance” at the end. The number I want to quickly see is ending balance not average daily balance. A hotel bill I once received at Mohonk Mountain House resort displayed the information as double entry accounting — credits/debits. My reaction was “Are you joking?”. Most non-financial people don’t think in terms of double-entry accounting and many don’t even understand double-entry accounting. The makers of Quicken financial software built their business around this simple fact.

D. Presenting website information — especially the online buying process — with words that customers understand vs. words that the finance and technology departments use.

Superior customer service requires that you communicate all your knowledge in ways the customer understands.

What other examples would you add to the list?

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, addresses all the frontiers of communicating with diverse customers for superior customer service. Her newest training DVD Customer Service USA – What They Expect Coast to Coast & Everywhere in Between (click to preview) covers the regional differences throughout the USA and Canada to truly satisfy North American customers.

Speak From Inside Your Customers’ Head for Best Service

Posted in Customer Service, IT, Speaking and Events

My passion is customer service and teamwork.  So I was very pleased to deliver a key session at the International Help Desk Conference Las Vegas, NV.

“Conversations with Customers: Best & Worst Moments”
The session was recorded. If you want a copy of the CD, please contact me.

Metrics don’t create great service. They measure great service that you create through the conversation. In fact, the conversation is the customer’s metric — voice-to-voice and online.



When conversing, speak from inside the customer’s head.

  • Value the customer’s need for help – that’s why you are in business.
  • Use the customer’s language and jargon — not yours.
  • Respect the customer’s expertise and add yours to it.
  • Use the customer’s perspective when choosing your focus.
  • Embrace the customer’s business priorities and deadlines to satisfy them.

Lastly, make the service experience easy and enjoyable for the customer.  View this related post GPS Your Brain to Work Other Personality Types if you want to deliver customer service at the highest level.

I welcome your contributions in the comment section below.  If you wish to share the info in this post with others, I ask only that you credit this site.

Yours in service … Kate

Transitions? Ask Kate,The People-Skills Coach

Posted in Coaching Professional

As a coach, I specialize in transitions to help professionals meet some specific goal.  The transitions are from one behavior to another to achieve something new, different, or more.  

Some recent examples: 

  • A Help Desk manager who wanted to be more assertive after receiving performance feedback in that light.
  • A manager who wanted and needed better presentation skills for many aspects of her job.   She found the coaching fun and productive. 
  • A systems analyst who wanted to relocate from the east coast to New Mexico and live a very different life.  She did not know where to begin to have this new life.   She is there now!
  • A big thinker type – great at generating ideas, brainstorming, and creativity – needed to communicate with more focus.  The big thinker now uses an email template we created to communicate for impact. 

Why tap a coach?  Transitions from one behavior to another require more than just learning a new skill.    For most, it means overcoming blocks that stop learning and change.   There are many books out there about changing your career, your life, your outlook.  Ever read one and still no change?  As a coach, I inspire you to action!

ASK Kate!  This blog gives you the opportunity to pose your transition questions to me directly and get transition steps at no cost — until the end of March 2009.   I have extended this offer through the end of April 2009 to include followups to the International Help Desk Conference.   Many don’t want to post their questions here preferring instead to email me.   Either way is fine.

Let’s get started … Kate Nasser