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Professionals with great people skills (soft skills) win big in sales, customer service, teamwork, and leadership. They tend to lead better because they understand people, collaborate more easily, sell more by hearing what customers aren’t saying, and shine by anticipating customers’ needs for service.

How well you can read people and interact with them determines your professional success. I was reminded on New Years Eve of how great people skills can help you win big in other ways.

The Funny Story!

As we waited for the clock to strike twelve, someone suggested we play the board game Apples to Apples – this new game of funny comparisons. I had never played. My sister Mary Ellen had and explained the rules.

In each turn there is a question and a selector who decides which card/answer of all those played is the winning answer. The person who played the selected card/answer wins the point.

Ooh — my how to read people skills went into overdrive. For each question, I thought about the selector, what s/he cares about and how s/he makes decisions.

Point after point went to me. They started saying, Hey how are you doing this? I replied “Beginner’s luck?”. I won the game. It wasn’t luck and I am not psychic. I simply thought first about the decision maker and what matters to her/him. That drove my actions.

“Seek first to understand then to be understood.” ~Saint Francis of Assisi

Win Big With Great People Skills

1. To lead and inspire innovation, get comfortable with diverse personality and natural conative styles. Tap innovation where it lives — in your team members’ minds!
2. To collaborate better on teams, see how others see things and how they see you. Present your unique ideas in ways they can understand.
3. To change careers, explore how that new discipline sees things differently then add your experience. You will win big.
4. To increase sales bridge the gap between your outlook and your customers’ and then make them successful.
5. To deliver truly memorable customer service, step outside of your own perspective and into theirs.

Develop your people skills to win big in life.


What win have you had in your personal or professional life from great people skills? Please share your story in the comments section below to help and inspire others.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, inspires people to growth and professional success in leadership, customer service, sales, and teamwork through her keynotes, workshops, DVDs, and consultations. See this site for the stellar success she has fueled.

Customer loyalty, the desire for customers to return to your organization instead of your competitors, can be secured with one primary focus: prevent the question mark in their minds. I have taught this for many years to business leaders and customer service reps (also known as CSRs).

I am inspired to write this post on customer loyalty after reading The Primary Fuel of Dissatisfaction by Bob Champagne. He states that fear and uncertainty are the primary fuel of customer dissatisfaction and I wholeheartedly agree.

When you think of the statistics showing that most people are averse to change, it must take strong emotion for customers to overcome their resistance to change and move on to your competitors. People change when the fear of changing is less than the fear of staying the same.

When you create a question mark in your customer’s mind, you give them motivation to change. You increase their fear of staying and run the risk of losing their loyalty!


Prevent the Question Mark for Customer Loyalty

Build trust.

1. Do you both see and foresee their needs? If not, they question your reliability.
2. What level of knowledge and customer service people-skills do all your employees have? If it is low at the front lines, they question if a competitor can do better?
3. How well and how fast do you recover from product and service problems? Else they will question your commitment and capability.

Deliver the customer’s success.

1. Especially in service businesses, give your expertise, advice, and guidance before giving the customer exactly what they request. Else they will question if a competitor can offer this quality and protection.
2. Stay current. If your business is not keeping pace with your customers’ business changes, they question who else can deliver?

Make it personal, make it easy, make it happen, make it memorable!
People do business with those they like and trust. If they like you yet mistrust your capability and reliability, you lose their loyalty. If you are capable and reliable yet distant or difficult to work with, they question if they can get quality, as well as ease and connection from your competitors.

Whether you are running a small business or a large sales and service organization, for customer loyalty prevent the question mark.

My advice: Have all your teams review every aspect of product design, sales, and service with one criterion — what could create the question mark in our customers’ minds? Then get to work on erasing those question marks.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach uses her 21 years of experience in customer care to advise and teach large corporations, medium size companies, and technical organizations to capture customer loyalty and deliver truly memorable service.

Leadership, teamwork, sales, and customer relations hinge on great people skills and communication. Most business owners and corporate leaders agree that it is the great questions that develop rapport, build understanding, and unearth solutions and ideas. True — except questions that don’t ask.

Statements that masquerade as questions — that don’t ask but rather tell — are a true people skills killer.

Replace Questions That Tell with Those That Ask

1. Don’t you think … ? At best this question sounds like you don’t want to hear opinions and at worst comes across as passive aggressive or accusatory.  This is a people skills killer.
   The simple change to what do you think increases rapport and understanding.




2. Why don’t you …? Generally what follows is a statement of what you want the other person to do.  It also puts the other person on the defensive.  This is a people skills killer.
   People will respect you more when you state your ideas as a suggestion.  “Here’s one idea … what do you think?”




3. Wouldn’t it be better …? This question is actually a statement “I think it would be better …” posed as a question.  Although not as damaging as don’t you think, it still risks insulting the other person.  A people skills killer.
   Better to state your opinion and ask for opinions or combine the two with What if …? The latter doesn’t insult and invites other ideas.




4. Could you help me? Although it sounds harmless, it shrinks away from the true question “Will you help me? Show others you honor their choices by affording a true option to say yes/no.

Statements that masquerade as questions are people skills killers. They confuse, accuse, manipulate, and sometimes insult.

True questions honor others — even in disagreement. They communicate respect, openness, and a commitment to collaboration. Leadership, teamwork, sales, and customer relations gather momentum and dimension with true questions.

I think it’s well worth it. What do you think?


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

The focus on professional workplace people skills, also known as soft skills or interpersonal skills has never been higher. They are instrumental in business success.

Do your professional workplace people skills and emotional intelligence equip you to disagree without showing disdain? Without inflicting the sting of the sneer face to face, on the phone, and online?

Wherever or whenever you slip and show disdain, the results of your sneer are disastrous and long lasting. Although the sneer shows your communication weakness, the pain it inflicts weakens others’ abilities to work with you.

Some executives claim that they forgo all civility to ensure honesty, truth, and end results. My reply: You can be honest, truthful, and achieve great results without disdaining others and inflicting the sting of the sneer.

How can you best avoid slipping and sneering?

1. Identify your sneer triggers.
2. Know and remember your true goals.
3. Employ professional people skills to interact and even disagree.

To identify your sneer trigger(s):
Write down one or two of your pet peeves — situations, behaviors, or attitudes that regularly frustrate or anger you.

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Example: A director of membership at a spa got frustrated when an irate customer vented for awhile on the phone. She slipped and said, “Do I get a chance to speak?” Ouch! She stung her customer with a verbal sneer. Her words showed disdain for the customer’s behavior.
The director’s sneer triggers: Feeling she is not in control and not being listened to.
True customer service goal: To empathize, rebuild trust, and resolve the customer’s issue.
Professional people skill to achieve it: Classic irate customer handling technique not a disdainful remark.

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Showing disdain does not produce honesty. How open will employees be with you, the leader, if they risk being stung with a sneer? If they exhibit certain behaviors you believe will hurt the organization and block results, simply outline why and how you want their behaviors to change.

Arrogance and disdain will not create the change. Emotional intelligence and clear communication are the instruments for success in leadership, management, customer service, sales, and teamwork.

Being emotionally intelligent about your own sneer triggers and using professional people skills instead of disdain will enable you to meet your goals and produce great business results.

“Sarcasm is not a form of humor; it is a form of anger. Choose wisely.”

What sneer triggers lead you into emotional un-intelligence?

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach delivers workshops, coaching, and consultations to replace interaction obstacles with interpersonal success for results in business. She now celebrates her 22nd year in business working with corporations, federal government, and mid-size businesses.

In the continued hunt for financial success, sales and customer service leaders benefit from these 3 green principles.

1. Learn from our customers not about them. Customers do business with those they like and trust.  Customers have greater reason to trust and like us if we bond with them in two-way learning.  The principles of going green focus on learning from the environment for a win/win – preserve it and make our lives better. Biomimicry takes this green principle to great lengths and tremendous innovation. We can innovate for our customers when we learn from them.
   




2. Create sustainable relationships. Going green means giving back.  What can we contribute to our customers beyond what they purchase?  Resource connections, ideas, just-in-time help? We can build the trust and say thank you to customers by volunteering our brainstorming talent to some of their issues. This too is a two-way renewable (green) effort; it allows us to learn more from them which might produce additional business for us (green).
   




3. Inspire customer service & sales teams with purpose. The green movement has gained strength over the years because of people with strong purpose and commitment. They were able to spread and sustain the cause with this purpose. We can inspire our teams with purpose — build sustainable relationships and innovate for the customer — and gain tremendous results in morale and performance for us. Once again a two-way renewable (green) effort with positive financial (green) business results.
   EXAMPLES:
   Ask customer care and customer service teams: “What have you learned from the customers and how do we translate that into improved customer service, better interaction, and innovative services?”
   Give sales teams incentives to bring lessons learned from customers back to design teams and contribute new product ideas.
   

Win/win is not old fashioned logic. It brings people into a trust bond that lasts longer than a one-up event. Learning from the customers, giving back beyond the purchase (the “&)”, and inspiring our teams to innovate, sustains and renews our financial success. That’s very green!

What other principles or lessons from the green movement can we apply to sales and customer service? I encourage your thought-filled comments and discussion below. Add your voice.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers innovative and inspired people-skills keynotes and workshops for customer service, teamwork, sales, and leading change.

Ever meet someone who is very good with people – all different types of people?  In the workplace you see their professional people skills shine in various situations.    You wonder, “What makes them so successful with diverse people and in widely different situations?”  Look more closely or speak with them and you will find the best professional people skills develop from these four practices.

As you read each point, note one thing you do well and one thing you will do to improve.


Practices: Best Professional People Skills

1. Know Yourself Very Well. Your social style/personality type. Your hot buttons. Your fears. Your pet peeves. Your odd quirks that bother other people. Your natural talents. Your work ethic. Your definition of a happy life. Your definition of success…
   
   
2. Observe and listen to others. This is the critical step for developing outstanding professional people skills.  Observe and listen in order to constantly learn more about other people.  The data you collect is the fuel and the guidance system for successful interactions.  Those with outstanding professional people skills are always learning about others!
   
   
3. Practice Flexibility. Most people interact with others by treating them the way they, themselves, want to be treated.   Unless the world is full of clones, this will not breed great interactions. 
   The best in professional people skills use the data they have collected about others to adapt to others.   To do this you must believe flexibility is a sign of strength not weakness.  Flexibility is a skill that allows you to work with diverse people in a wide range of situations. 
   Most importantly, do not mistake flexibility for indecisiveness.  The best in professional people skills use flexibility for successful connections with others – and achieve tangible results.
   
   


Flexibility & Balance for People Skills Image by:Lady_K

4. Achieve Balance.
   How balanced are you in your professional people skills?
   • Balance your drive for action with empathy for others’ needs.
   • Balance honesty with diplomacy to communicate your message clearly without brutality.
   • See the details that others focus on while compiling the big picture.
   • Balance your knowledge and expertise with input from others.
   • Know when to push ahead with your thoughts and when to pull back to deliver your thoughts at the right moment.
   • Balance your need for bonding with respect for others’ need for independence.
   • Deliver even the toughest news with respect for the humans involved.
   • Lead change with inspiration and grit.

Think of all the applications of the best professional people skills.  Leaders who can inspire both morale and great results.  Soaring sales when you connect with customers and understand and meet their needs.  Successful, cost effective, and timely completion of projects from clear communication & teamwork.  

Professional people skills build trust and collaboration that deliver results!

I have noted 4 practices above.  Is there a 5^th and 6^th?  What would you add?

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach delivers workshops, keynotes, consultations, and DVDs that develop your professional people skills. See this site for more information and what others have said about her sessions.

The challenge of excellence is consistency. One of the biggest risks to excellence is habit and repetition.

Excellence is not a repetitious reproduction of the result from last time.  To be consistently great — to create excellence each time – you must start with a fresh attitude each time.  As a result you have the chance to deliver a better result each time.

The goal of excellence unleashes energy, innovation, and commitment.  The results of repetition are often boredom, assumptions, bad listening and a contrived result that fails.  The key lesson is to never confuse repetition for consistency.  In the workplace the implications are far and wide.

Leadership Implications. What message are you sending to your organization? What attitude are you projecting? Ask your teams, “How do we produce excellent results?” If the answers focus primarily on executing a fixed plan, they may believe that excellence is achieved through repetition. The goal is to be consistently great not repetitiously stuck in one plan.

Sales Implications. Great sales professionals know from experience that a rote repetitious script rarely seals the deal. Assumptions — even with a customer you know well — can lose you the deal as well as the customer relationship. Use the current knowledge about the customer and sharp listening to create appropriate questions, ongoing learning, customized solutions, and an excellent sale each time.

Customer Service & Care Implications. As with sales, customer service and customer care take a fatal turn for the worst when delivered with bad listening and robotic actions. Customers want and respond well to care that seems truly focused on their needs. Consistently great service requires customer service reps (CSRs) to re-initiate listening and caring on each interaction from the moment they start work until they go home. A fresh new positive attitude with each chat consistently delivers excellent service.

For inspiration, think of live performers like musicians, dancers, and athletes. Consider stage actors. They must deliver the same lines every night. If they reproduce those lines the same way each night, they will fall short of an excellent performance. It will seem contrived. Instead, they must create a new excellent performance each night.





What can you do to inspire yourself and your team members to excellence every day?

Here are several ways. Add your ideas to this list!!

1. Before each meeting or interaction, think “Another opening, another show”.
2. Ask “What has changed and how do we still deliver excellence?”
3. Use knowledge, data, listening, and communication to take informed risks.
4. Learn with each fresh new start. The safety of repetition is an illusion.

©2010 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.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach delivers inspirational and substantive keynotes and workshops producing changes in attitudes and behavior for sales, service, teamwork and front line leadership. Her stellar reputation as an engaging, high energy, and intelligent resource is well earned. See this site for more information.

Customer Service Recovery, that chance to correct a mistake and make things right with your customer, can build stronger bonds and affects future sales.  Most would agree that getting things right the first time for customers is always the best. Yet, mistakes do happen.  How you recover for the customer can build stronger bonds with them and affect their future buying decisions!

Are you skeptical?  A VP of Operations in a large corporation told me that the organization selects vendors based on how well they recover from mistakes.  They call the vendor’s references and keep digging until they find this information.

His point about customer service recovery:

“Mistakes will happen.  It’s inevitable.  I need to know if they hold themselves accountable, step up to the plate, apologize, and quickly correct the mistakes or assist us in correcting the mistakes. For us to trust a vendor, we must be able to rely on them in good times and bad!”

A recent experience with a limo driver that I have used for two years reminded me of this.  He was to pick me up last Thursday morning and take me to the airport.  My email to him requested that he pick me up at 9:50 am.  9:50 came and went and so did 9:55. I called and asked him where he was.  He replied, I am picking you up at 10:50 today.  I thought, “Oh NO! Could I have typed it wrong?”   I didn’t have time to wait for him to come so I drove to the airport.  Later that day, he sent me an email admitting that he blew it.  He apologized fully for the mistake and indicated how this would be avoided in the future.

Why do customers and leaders use customer service recovery as a basis for future buying decisions?

1. No matter how often you claim you are reliable and accountable, the proof is in the moment of truth.
2. When you do customer service recovery well, you show the customer just how much you care about them and their business.
3. If you improve your service from what you have learned, you show your company to be a vibrant learning organization that may well last the test of time and global changes. This is worth trusting and leaders buy from these types of organizations.
   

Is it possible to lose business over your mistakes even with good customer service recovery? Yes if the impact of the mistake is so grave that the bond of trust is irretrievably broken. Yet there are many situations where this is not the case. Instead what causes the customer to leave is poor service recovery: no accountability, no apology, no correction.

How well do you and your organization do customer service recovery? If you are the leader, dig for this information! Your potential customers are.

What obstacles to delivering great service recovery does your organization face?

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers transformational workshops, keynotes, webinars, and training DVDs on Delivering the Ultimate Customer Experience. This is her 21st year in business and she continues to deliver new insights each year. See this site for course outlines http://katenasser.com/workshops.

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