This year for National Customer Service Week, I ask each of you to look behind every customer.

For a moment, don’t look at metrics, scripts, forms, procedures, the structure, the flashing queue light, the long line, or the clock. Look behind every customer to discover the true need, the future, and success. Our future is behind every customer.

Graphic by: Kimb Manson


Customer Service – Stripped to the Core

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

Empathize!



2. Behind every customer ID number, is a person with a name whose needs we can fulfill. That’s our future. That’s success.

Ask for their name before their ID number!



3. Behind every customer question – odd, crazy, simplistic, or repetitive — is a chance to move them to the future and success.

Listen with an open mind!



4. Behind every customer is another person whom we impact with our actions. Our care is growth for both. That’s our future and theirs.

Follow-through!



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

Study up!



6. Behind every customer are the factors that define great service to them. Look behind the customer to reach that future.

It’s a one-to-one match!



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

Go to the well!



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

Maintain heart health!



9. Behind every customer is a wealth of knowledge free for the taking. Learn!

Is there a #10? What would you add to this list?


Lead the future of customer loyalty …

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Listen
Emapthize
Assess
Deliver

Don’t leave it behind!

Offer: Subscribe to this Smart SenseAbilities™ blog and download your thank you gift poster of Our Future is Behind Every Customer. Print it and hang in your customer service area for continued inspiration!

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

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes for customer service and teamwork — that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results.

National Customer Service Week is approaching quickly.  As you prepare to celebrate with your customer service, customer care, help desk, and technical support reps, consider giving them the greatest gift of all.

Procedures and policies that you use with customers need to be both achievable and respectful of customers’ time and needs. Here are two recent concrete examples that teach volumes from the not so friendly customer service procedures.


EXAMPLE #1

NJ Transit system now uses double-decked trains. The upper level has racks above the seats for luggage and other items.  The lower level has no racks or storage of any sort. Space under the seat is not large enough for luggage.  NJ Transit trains stop at the Newark Liberty International Airport stop to drop off and pick up travelers.

I have witnessed travelers with standard to large size luggage board the train and come to the lower level to find a seat. Once there they realize there is no accommodation for luggage. They leave it in the aisle leaning against the seats. The conductor comes through and states the policy: “You must move all luggage out of the aisle and away from your feet.” The customers look up, around, and sit there staring in disbelief. The policy is actually not achievable and definitely not customer friendly. NJ Transit has its struggles with finances since the governor reduced subsidies. It wants us all, including travelers with luggage, to ride the trains. In that case, it must address the needs of its customers with achievable customer friendly procedures.


EXAMPLE #2
NJ American Water requested by mail that each customer call to schedule time to replace the old water meter with a new water meter. I complied and scheduled an appointment three weeks ahead. A few days prior, I called to confirm it and said simply, “I am calling to confirm my appointment this Friday for the new water meter. Do you have me on your list?” The customer service rep asked me for my name and my account number to verify my identity. I complied.

In her dull routine voice, she then asked me for my street address, town, and zip code. She then asked me for my phone number and backup phone number! Meanwhile she hadn’t addressed my question. I was very annoyed and said, “I’ll make you a deal — you tell me whether or not I am on your list and I’ll tell you my phone numbers. She replied “Yes, you’re on the list.”

Out of professional curiosity, I then asked, “Why are you going through every piece of data before offering me any help?” She replied, “We are required to update your customer record when you call.” Trapping customers into playing 20 questions to update records before helping them is not great customer friendly service. Even in technical support, questions for updating records should come after helping the customer unless it is critical to solving the customer’s current problem. First help then update your records.


Give your service and support teams the greatest gift — an opportunity to deliver true customer care with customer friendly procedures and policies.

National Customer Service Week Challenge: Have all reps brainstorm customer friendly improvements to breed passionate commitment to superior customer service.

What customer friendly changes would you like to see?

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers workshops and consulting for truly memorable customer service and teamwork. http://katenasser.com/workshops. On Oct. 4, 2010, she will deliver an info-packed webinar through the Help Desk Institute on spotting and adapting to your customer’s personality type. Email info@katenasser.com.

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National Customer Service Week is the first week of October. This special week brings well deserved attention to dedicated customer service and technical support reps and all that they do. I offer this post to celebrate the people skills of all the great CSRs and TSRs who deliver great service.

Celebrate People-Skills. As your customer service teams celebrate with contests, parties, and picture taking, celebrate people skills (aka soft skills) with a thought for each day! Here are five of mine and one from Tristan Bishop.

1. An authentic smile changes everything. On the phone, in person, and even the words you use in text, chat, emails, and your website design should smile at the customer.  It helps ensure that the customer interaction goes well.
   
2. Treat people the way they want to be treated — not the way you want to be treated.  I call this the diamond bond of customer service!
3. Be the sun, not a thorn. Even with thorny difficult customers, be the sun.  Shine light on the problem to be solved and fix it.  More ideas on this topic: 5 Things to Remember w/Tough Customers.
4. A plane flies well on auto-pilot mode. Customer service doesn’t! Adapt to each customer — personalize and localize including personality type, culture, geographic differences, and generational differences.
   
5. Empathize before you analyze! Show customers you care and they will care enough to help you help them.
   
6. Kindness transcends constraints. ~Tristan Bishop There are obstacles and challenges in customer service and technical support. Kindness to the customer ensures a continued bond while you work to overcome the challenges. To read more: Kindness Transcends Constraints by The Knowledge Bishop.
   

Continuously improving your people skills prepares you to effectively handle any customer service interaction with dignity and success.

What thoughts would you like to add to this list to celebrate improved customer service people skills?

[FYI: If you are looking for the first post in this National Customer Service Week series, it is The Folly of Being Defensive].

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, shines her energy, inspiration, and experienced insights about truly memorable customer service and teamwork on teams in the Fortune 500, governmental agencies, and non-profits. Preview her new training DVD on customer service regional differences in the USA at http://katenasser.com/training-dvds.

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 my previous post I chronicled a recent service experience with a promoter of National Customer Service Week to highlight a common problem of mistaken empowerment with disastrous business results. I recount the same story here, now with a focus on the challenges that customer service and technical support teams face in times of great change.  Here is what happened and customer service insights on change, change resistance, and rebuilding trust.

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The Service Experience

A company actively involved in promoting National Customer Service Week approached me to be an advertising sponsor.  This was the first year they decided to sell advertising sponsorships. They sent information explaining levels of sponsorship, cost, and what each level of sponsorship gave me.  Initial discussions went well. We agreed on the size of the online logo ad pretty easily.  He asked me to send a short paragraph about myself for their first email bulletin. After receiving my text, he replied that the paragraph looked great and they would run it as is. The service experience was easy and well paced.

Things suddenly changed when he sent a proof of the bulletin. I was shocked to see they used only one line from my write-up. To make matters worse, they changed my verbiage into bland, boring words.  His question to me was “WOW, doesn’t it look great?” No it didn’t. I called him and asked what happened? He said, “Don’t worry we want you to be happy. I’ll get back to you.” Before he hung up, I said if we are limited on the number of words, I will be happy to rewrite it. However, the words must reflect my brand.

He emailed me a new version that was slightly longer. Sadly, the words were modified again. To me this was strange behavior and a blatant downward shift in service. It was after hours so I waited until the morning to call him. I left this voice message. “Since I don’t understand what is going on, can’t get any answers, and have no trust that the remaining advertising activities will be handled appropriately, I am going to pass on the opportunity to be a Gold Sponsor.  I wish you continued success.”

He sent me an email saying the source of yesterday’s struggle was the editor of the email bulletin who insisted the bulletin have the same look and feel as it had for the last 10 years! He offered me a discount on the membership and said they would print my paragraph the way I wanted it.  What he didn’t address was the loss of trust from the daylong confusion. When I asked him if he could assure me that my remaining ads, my time, and my brand would not be affected by their internal struggles, he emailed “Evidently you have a bad taste in your mouth about this and it’s best we terminate this relationship”.   

This company, one of the official promoters of National Customer Service Week, undertook a big change – selling advertising sponsorships. What they apparently did not do was change their mindset from continuity and tradition to the new business of representing sponsors for a fee.

Insights

• This economy presents sudden and intense changes that require flexible agile teams.  Nimble teams win business. Lumbering, slow teams lose. Teams that are intensely focused on procedures — like many customer service and technical support teams – may find themselves in the lumbering category and ill-equipped to deliver superior customer service.  How agile are your customer service and technical support teams? There are ways to become nimble and the time to learn is well before the change. Software development teams are transforming to be more agile: Agility Community Summary.
  
  
  
  
  

  Resistance to Change Hurts Customer Service Image:Jorgempf

• When struggles erupt internally, think long and hard before pretending to the customers that things are progressing normally while projecting confusion. As you string business customers along you are impacting their businesses. They walk away for the sake of their businesses. Are change resistant employees costing you customers, reputation, and revenue?

• Rebuilding trust after difficulty requires more than one attempt and is not done well through email. Business customers and consumers will take time to trust you again.  When you have broken the trust, talk to the person – don’t write. He mistakenly chose email to communicate rather than the phone. He claimed he emailed to give me time to think.  Yet his second email immediately terminating the relationship disproved that claim. He wanted to be in sole control of rebuilding the trust. He wanted to define the only issues that mattered – price and verbiage in the bulletin. He wanted there to be only one offer.  When I didn’t immediately say “OK”, he severed the sales and service relationship. You can rebuild trust if you share control of those moments with the customer. Prove your value on the issues that matter to the customer not just those important to you.

Customers remember moments. How do you want to be remembered?

Please share your insights about delivering superior customer service during times of change. I welcome your comments below.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, has for 20 years delivered customer service and teamwork training for dynamic teamwork and the ultimate customer experience. See footage of her workshops at KateNasser.com and preview her new customer service and sales training DVD about American regional differences.

Nimble companies win business. Lumbering, slow companies lose. Agile companies empower employees to make quick decisions that meet customers’ high expectations and changing business conditions.

What happens when an empowered employee resists change and stops the new revenue stream?

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The Story Behind This Question of Empowered Employees

A company actively involved in promoting National Customer Service Week approached me to be an advertising sponsor. They had decided for the first time ever to sell advertising sponsorships. They sent information explaining levels of sponsorship, cost, and what each level of sponsorship gave me.   Because of my strong commitment to great customer service and brand of delivering customer service workshops I was very interested.  Initial discussions went well.  We agreed on the size of the online logo ad pretty easily.

He asked me to send a short paragraph about myself for their first email bulletin. After receiving my text, he replied that the paragraph looked great and they would run it as is.

Things suddenly changed when he sent a proof of the bulletin.  I was shocked to see they used only one line from my write-up. To make matters worse, they changed my verbiage into bland, boring words.

His question to me was “WOW, doesn’t it look great?” I called him and asked what happened? He said, “Don’t worry we want you to be happy. I’ll get back to you.” Before he hung up, I said if we are limited on the number of words, I will be happy to rewrite it.  However, the words must reflect my brand.

He emailed me a new version that was slightly longer. Sadly, the words were modified again.  It was after hours so I waited until the morning to call him. I left this voice message. “Since I don’t understand what is going on, can’t get any answers, and had no trust that the other advertising activities would be handled appropriately, I am going to pass on the opportunity to be a Gold Sponsor.  I wish you continued success.”

He sent me an email saying the source of yesterday’s struggle was the editor of the email bulletin who insisted the bulletin have the same look and feel as it had for the last 10 years.  He offered me a discount on the membership and said they would print my paragraph the way I wanted it.

What he didn’t address was the loss of trust. When I asked him if he could assure me that my other sponsorship ads for this event, my time, and my brand would not be affected by their internal struggles, he replied “Evidently you have a bad taste in your mouth about this and it’s best we terminate this relationship!”

The editor of the bulletin – one empowered employee in this whole process – stopped the revenue stream in its tracks.

Question

If you were the leader of that organization or team, what would you say to the empowered employee (the editor) as the internal disagreement emerged? Would you focus on total empowerment and talk it out for as long as it took to hear the employees concerns even if it meant missing deadlines and losing revenue?  Or would you remind everyone of the vision of this new undertaking and empower employees on how to make that new vision come true?

I look forward to your comments, learning, and sharing.

(Special thanks to Dan Rockwell, The Leadership Freak for insightful editing of this post before publication.)

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers training for the ultimate customer experience, creating dynamic dynamic agile teams, and coaching on leading change. She teaches how to bridge the gaps of diversity, generations, personality type, culture, and geography for success in this fast paced business world. See footage of her in action at KateNasser.com

Business owners seem to inherently know the value of a customer.  If not, they generally go out of business.  As businesses grow and hire more people, the employees don’t inherently know the value of the customer.

As part of National Customer Service week, I wrote this Customer Value Creed for organizations of all sizes to use as ongoing inspiration for quality customer care.

This creed includes the two winning entries from the customer value contest held back in July-August.  Congratulations and thanks to Kalin Bracken and Joan Koerber-Walker for their winning entries (#12 and #13 below).

The Value of Customers

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.
12. Customers are your muse. Be inspired. ~Kalin Bracken
13. Customers share their remarks with others. Be remarkable. ~Joan Koerber-Walker

Still time to contribute: Although the contest has ended, I invite you to share this creed with your entire organization.  Brainstorm additions to this creed and send your best ideas to me in the form of  two short sentences.  I will feature many entries with the author’s names in an updated blog post by the end of November 2009.

As you share this with others, please credit me as the author and the URL, (http://katenasser.com).

Many thanks and I welcome your comments and entries in the comments field below.
~Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

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.