KateNasser.com

People skills give your occupational skills the power to succeed with others.  You can have tremendous expertise in any field and yet fall short of your goals if your behavior offends others. 


One of the worst people skills mistakes is to presume that bluntness is acceptable to others.  Bluntness must be invited.  It is based on trust.  When you assume it’s OK to be blunt, you are demanding trust instead of first building trust. 


Professionals with great people skills use caring honesty instead of bluntness.  Over time they build trusting relationships that may invite and allow bluntness (an emotion filled perspective).


Here is a recent true story. It illustrates what happens when you throw out all professional people skills and use uninvited bluntness.  What’s your view on the effectiveness of the email below?

Image by: Sweet Dreamz Design via Flickr Creative Commons License.

People Skills: Uninvited Bluntness – Wins or Loses?

Here’s what happened today to a very accomplished graphics designer.  She, by the way, has outstanding people skills as well as masterful graphics ability.  She is very successful, widely respected, and highly ranked in her field and on social media.  A PR pro approached her via email suggesting that some of her own clients might want to use the graphics designer’s services.  Here’s the email.

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“Dear _____. I dropped by your site again tonight and noticed you did a little housekeeping. Brava! When I visited the other website you sponsor, it’s hardly professional, has extremely low traffic ranking, and is horribly designed.

For the high quality of work you do, I wouldn’t associate you with such a clearly amateur site.  And I’m not certain if I’d mentioned it previously but at least for the sake of page load time, it would benefit you greatly to redo your site into a WordPress CMS. It would load faster and lay out on multiple pages and increase your site page hits. You already have the graphics and while you’re the graphics specialist, I’m the web girl. Talk to me if you want to fast forward to much easier website management for yourself on the back end. It would also make for a better experience for your visitors.

I have clients that may want to use your services.

Thank you.”

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People Skills Related Questions

1. What would you think of the PR pro if you received this email?
2. Does this PR pro sounds like a “pro” to you?
3. What is this pro’s main message?
4. How effectively does she deliver the message?
5. Would you want to connect and work with this person?

People Skills Rewrite

What if the email were worded this way …

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“I dropped by your main site tonight. Your graphics design work is outstanding. I see your graphics genius throughout your portfolio. I have great ideas for you on improving the performance of your websites regarding layout, viewing ease, and load time. Let’s combine your graphics expertise with my “web” know-how. I can also make the back-end website management easier and help you create an even better experience for your visitors.

I do have clients that may want your graphics design services and would love to talk to you soon. Is Monday a possibility?

Truly looking forward to it! Thank you.”

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People Skills Principles That Win

• Find out if someone wants your tough advice before you give it.
• Speak the negative as positive improvements. This shows you to be helpful not critical.
• Use confidence; it sustains others. Avoid arrogance; it burdens others.
• Civility and tact don’t weaken a message; they help others embrace it.
• Allow for differences of opinion. Stating opinion as fact makes you seem closed-minded and boorish.
• Show basic respect to all. Patronizing adults weakens your influence.

The first email patronizes the graphics designer by applauding her website clean-up. That’s like saying to someone, “I see you cleaned your house. Bravo.” She calls the graphics designer’s second website amateurish and then offers help. This broadcasts a desire for power not the ability to collaborate.

People skills give your occupational skills the power to succeed with others. That’s far better than trying to seize power. Here’s to success through great people skills!


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

Related Post:
7 Steps from Brutally Blunt to Helpfully Honest

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, 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™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

People skills Twitter Chat: March 10th, 2013. TOPIC: #Peopleskills in Social Media WHEN: Sunday, 10AM EDT/3pm GMT.

Image designed by: Kimb Manson Graphics Design for Kate Nasser.


When you think about how much time we spend online today, people skills in social media are worth exploring. Emails, texts, and social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google hangouts, offer us many chances to successfully or unsuccessfully connect.

What makes the difference? People skills which include emotional intelligence, communication, manners, and etiquette.

Let’s gather this Sunday March 10th and explore online people skills.

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People Skills Twitter Chat – Online & Social Media Do’s & Don’ts.

• What online #peopleskills challenges have you seen or experienced?
• How do your online goals affect your #peopleskills behaviors?
• Where/when are #socialmedia #peopleskills extremely important?
• What are main #peopleskills differences between face-to-face and online?
• What online #peopleskills DO’s are high on your list?
• How have great online #peopleskills impacted you?
• What are your #peopleskills DON’Ts in #SocialMedia?
• IF you could ban ONE online #peopleskills behavior, what would it be?
• How have your offline #peopleskills helped you online?
• What #peopleskills advice would you give our youth?
• What online #peopleskills could our youth teach us?
• … and much more.

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Please join all of us in the People Skills Twitter chat to explore Online and Social Media Do’s and Don’ts!. Hashtag #PeopleSkills Sunday 10am EDT/3pm GMT.

REMINDER: Daylight Savings Time starts in the USA this Sunday March 10th at 2am. Set your clocks ahead one hour — maybe before you go to sleep Saturday night. For those in the UK, your clocks don’t change until the end of March.


We have only one rule in People Skills Twitter Chat: Respect for all even when we disagree. Everyone is welcome!


TIP: If you have never been in a Twitter chat, you may find it helpful to log on to Tweetchat.com, enter hashtag #peopleskills, and sign in to your Twitter account. Tweetchat will insert the hashtag automatically for you and you will see all the tweets on one screen. Other tools available are Hootsuite.com and TweetDeck.com.

I am the moderator of the chat and will be happy to answer any questions you have in advance: Email me.


Chat with you this Sunday March 10, 2013 in People Skills Twitter Chat – #Peopleskills in Social Media & Online Communication!


Until then, as always, I wish you bonds of happiness and success!

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

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, 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™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

People skills can be used for good or for evil. When we use people skills with integrity, we lift everyone to new heights of success and happiness. 


Those who use people skills for purely selfish gain, manipulate instead of influence.  They are egocentric chameleons.


I posed a question on social media: What do you think when you hear the phrase people skills? Answers varied. Yet enough people replied “manipulation, chameleon, fake” that I am inspired to write this post.


People skills are not a synonym for manipulation. The difference lies in:

Integrity & Authenticity

People Skills Integrity & Authenticity

It is important not to mislabel all people skills as fake. People skills filled with integrity can create possibilities that no other skill can achieve.

Being suspect of all people skills builds a culture of mistrust that demoralizes. The pessimism drains the spirit from life and the possibility out of business success.

People skills with integrity …

• Are the bridge to understanding
• Honor others’ ideas without surrendering ours
• Turn divisive camps into high performing teams
• Develop customer loyalty
• Enable collaboration for innovation
• Ease the pain of change & boost commitment
• Enhance leadership results
• Engage employees to maximum contribution

People Skills Authenticity

Authenticity in people skills seems to raise an even greater debate than integrity.

How can we be authentic and still adapt to others? Isn’t that the definition of a chameleon? Don’t you lose yourself in adapting to others?

Nope. Adapting doesn’t mean surrender nor a masquerade.

Adapting is …

• A pause to understand, not a change in identity
• A discovery of what is better together, than alone
• A juncture of common ground not complete capitulation
• An exploration of self growth not submission to a conqueror
• A temporary accommodation to each others’ need for mutual gain

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Image by: MattNJohnson via Creative Commons License.

When we adapt to customers’ needs, there is mutual gain.
When we accommodate differences in personality types, we live and work better together.
When we seek to understand team members, we lead and collaborate with greater success.
When we explore how others view the world, we grow beyond our existing limitations.


Certainly when we spot scam artists, selfish boors, and egotists that pound our spirit, we can choose not to adapt nor accommodate them. Once burned, twice learned. These folks operate without integrity. Healthy skepticism is warranted.


Yet we needn’t shut down our people skills to guard against these moments. We can combine our people skills with intellect, practical experience, and intuition for magnificent success in work and true happiness in life.

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


Related Posts:
People Skills – Showing True Empathy
12 Most Beneficial People Skills for Success When You Have Little Power
What’s So Hot About Humility Anyway?

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, 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™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

There is a phrase becoming popular in the customer service world that threatens both the customers and all of us in the profession. It’s a phrase we need to decry and banish from our vocabulary especially in the powerful world of social media.

The phrase we need to remove is: “Fire the customer!”

This threatening phrase:

• Diminishes our integrity instead of building trust
• Undermines our caring purpose rather than succeeding through care
• Broadcasts selfishness and greed vs. radiating greatness
• Declares customer service to be a power struggle instead of a partnership
• Makes all customers who read it more defensive instead of cooperative
• Teaches a new generation of customer service professionals a skewed view
• Projects a tug-of-war mindset rather than a winning collaboration

Are there times when we can’t meet a customer’s need or expectation? Sure.
Yet how we part company — and speak about — echoes our brand throughout the global reach of social media.

For those business owners proudly using the phrase “fire the customer” all over Twitter, Facebook, and beyond, it’s worth a moment to consider an alternative.

The times I have not been able to continue with a customer, I have said:

“Although I cannot meet your needs and must pass on this opportunity, I wish you success …”

I am not “firing the customer”, as the current threatening phrase likes to power tout. I am firing myself! How we say things in difficult moments affects the future of our brand.


Current customers and social media tell future customers what we believe; they wonder how we will treat them. Every tweet, every post, every statement tells the world what we think of customers as a whole.

Customers talk about us too; what they say is actually up to us!

I vote to give superior customer service — not to be superior over customers. What do you want customers to say about you and your brand?


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

Related Posts:
Free Your Mind to Give Superior Customer Service in Difficult Situations
What Do We Want Customers to Feel, Experience, and Remember?

©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, 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™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Every so often I write about specific words or phrases that can ruin an interaction or destroy your professional people-skills image in one quick moment. Most of them are subtly insulting, evasive, and/or manipulative.

Today’s deadly phrase is:

Don’t You Think?

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It is a statement masquerading as a question.

It sneakily demands agreement while posing as an option.

It is high pressure with low integrity.

It blocks listening by starting with a negative.

It pretends to engage yet disengages.

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“Don’t You Think”

• Makes you look like the great pretender.
• Suggests others’ views are unimportant or stupid.
• Makes you seem narrow minded or bull headed.
• Subordinates others to you.

A close cousin of “don’t you think” — “I’m sure you agree”– has the same passive aggressive vibe and negative effect on your professional people-skills image and on other people.




Better People-Skills Alternatives

• I think … If you are going to express your opinion, state it clearly as your opinion. Transferring your opinion to others as “don’t you think”, is presumptuous, patronizing, and rude.
• What do you think of … This simple question opens true respectful dialogue that can lead to new options, positive relationships, and true agreement. Feedback turns a monologue into dialogue and true communication.
• What if we … In casual conversations where you might use “don’t you think”, this alternative has a positive tone and invites feedback instead of demanding agreement.

Whether you are a new graduate beginning your career, a seasoned team member establishing new relationships, or a leader building employee engagement, a “don’t you think” will keep you from the prize of positive interaction.

Instead, establish an authentic, respectful, open-minded reputation through every word you say.

Your professional people-skills prowess will open doors to opportunities you never dreamed possible.


Question: Is there another word or phrase that you would add to the deadly list?


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

Related Posts:
Professional People-Skills: Change One Unfortunate Word
The Perfect Apology and the ONE Word That Destroys It

©2012 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 coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

How long do you think customers will wait for information and answers? Well Google engineers have found that for people surfing the Web, even 400 milliseconds (the blink of an eye) is too long. Wow.

Now picture your typical customer, pressured for a solution. Double wow.

This age of instant information has increased customers’ expectations of front line customer service knowledge and of the CSRs, agents, and technical support reps (TSRs) that deliver it.

Are Your Front Line Teams Tooled & Ready?

Super Customer Experience Info Checklist

• Can your front line reps see what the customers see on the Web? Can they at least see your own company website? In my consulting work, I often here the incredible answer, no.

  I ask, why not? “Because we don’t want them to surf the net. Only the teams that monitor social media can see the Web.” Huh?

  Wake up call from customers: “If we can see it, we expect front line reps to be able to see it too!”




• Do the front line agents and all other teams use the same tracking system software (without cumbersome interfaces that create errors)? For a super customer experience, customers expect that all involved in delivering service will be able to see what they need.

  Checkpoint: How many of your customers are dissatisfied because your service and support teams cannot access the same customer information? In today’s world of instant information, the customers don’t even think this could be happening. Instead, they just think you don’t care about them.




• Do your front line technical support reps have remote control to the customers’ desktops? For customers with computer problems, remote control as an option has eliminated their stress, sped up problem solving, and increased their satisfaction. Many customers will grant permission for the rep to use remote control, yet many front line teams don’t have it.

  Advice: Give front line technical support reps remote control. Don’t let organizational politics, internal turf wars, and hierarchical structure keep this wonderful technology from the front line.

  Customers tolerance for front line technical support reps who can only route tickets to problem solvers continues to decrease. In today’s world of instant information, it seems antiquated and illogical and a far cry from a super customer experience!

It can be a big challenge in large companies to have seamless integration of systems and information. Yet the technology is available to make it happen and customers assume you will have shared information.

They expect it, in the blink of an eye, for super customer experience.

Will this challenge make it to the top of your 2012 goal list? They surely hope so!

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Question:
As a customer, what other information would you want and expect the front line teams to have?

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

Related Posts:
Customer Experience: Customers & Us in Harmony
Does Customer Service Fix Failure or Build Success

©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. BS Mathematics. Masters Organizational Psychology. Former techie!!

Social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, give us many opportunities to express our opinions to strangers. This often creates first and lasting impressions on people who have never met us.

Many would like to believe that authenticity — at any length — wins the day. This wishful thinking overlooks that people react differently to those they know versus those they don’t.

Relationships and the trust they build give interpersonal context to what is said.

Without those preexisting relationships, raw authenticity can come across as rude, self-absorbed, boorish, rigid, disagreeable, and even bullying.

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Traditional civility added to modern day social networking delivers greatness to social media presence.

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Modern People-Skills Reminders for Social Media Greatness

These tweaks create and preserve a positive impression with authenticity.

1. If it sounds like an order, it can turn people off. When we add the word please, it becomes a request.




2. If a connection’s general behavior is a bother, we have the choice to unfollow/unfriend them. This may be a better choice than issuing them an order that everyone sees. One Twitter connection tweeted me, Stop tweeting quotes about … Everyone can see his tweet. What impression of him do you think it leaves?




3. Many people see sarcasm as a form of anger. The less they know us, the greater the chance when it’s directed at them. Perhaps this old rule applies well: If we can’t say something in a positive way, don’t say anything at all.




4. Questioning people’s motives — even with formality — can sound accusatory. “May I inquire as to why you are doing this?” sets a condescending tone requesting justification. Although analytic personalities find special comfort in knowing why, non-analytics see it differently.

   If we like what someone is doing on social media and want to understand the value of it, then best for us to say exactly that. State the positive and it will be seen as positive.




5. Stating opinion as fact can leave a negative impression; stating opinion as opinion can invite a healthy positive exchange of opinions!




6. We leave a positive impression by owning our own feelings instead of assigning them to others. Statements like, “You are trying to discredit my opinion” can come across as insecure and childish. I like what Eleanor Roosevelt said: “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.”




7. People see listening and discussing as a positive sign of openness and strength. Arguing, bashing, and condemning can leave scars on our image and those bashed.

Civility provides a cushion of respect that eases hearing and acceptance of an authentic honest message. Bluntness lacks that civility and creates emotion that blunts listening and comprehension.

I vote for civility. It doesn’t undo authenticity. It allows others to see it.

What’s your vote?

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


“Words can woo or wound; create bonds, not scars.”

Related Post:
Honesty May Hurt but Blunt Burns Forever

7 Steps From Brutally Blunt to Helpfully Honest

©2012 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™, 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.

Customer experience surveys have been standard procedure for most businesses and corporations for many years. The delivery mechanism and the assessment of answers have gone high tech.

Yet there is one super opportunity to improve every customer experience survey and it requires a double vision.

We generally think of the customer experience survey as a way to understand our customers. Yet the survey itself also speaks volumes to our customers about our customer service and experience philosophy.

We think about what our customers are telling us. That’s good! Yet what is our customer experience survey telling our customers about us?

The quick answer might be that we care enough to ask their opinions. OK, that’s a start.  Yet do we really ask their opinions?

Does the typical customer experience survey ask for true opinions for improvement or mostly for votes?  There are the comment sections yet do customers receive a timely response? Do comments turn into corrective action?

Social media has become the venue for customers to get a response.  It begs the question, why haven’t customer experience surveys played the same role? As a customer, I fill out many surveys with concrete suggestions. I never hear anything back nor see results from my survey energy.  What has been your experience as a customer?

Does the customer experience survey measure what we in business care about or what our customers care about?

Or do the primarily structured survey questions broadcast that we think we know what’s most important? When we don’t respond to suggestions, does it say we don’t care? Or worse, that customers have to complain in public via social media to get a timely response?

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Super Opportunity for the Customer Experience Survey
Acknowledge that the survey markets our customer experience philosophy and make every survey a two-way street.

1. Ask: What do you think of this customer experience survey?
2. Ask: Does it reflect what’s important to you?
3. Ask: What would you add to this survey? What would you eliminate?
4. Ask: What would make it easier to complete this survey?
5. Invite customers to help redesign the customer experience survey.
6. Connect the experience dots: Have social media teams review and respond to customer experience surveys A customer shouldn’t have to complain — and in public no less — to get our attention. If we respond to suggestions before the complaint, it says we truly care.




EXAMPLES

Lengthy hotel surveys ask many voting style questions in multiple categories yet often do not ask questions that relate to special needs.
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They ask much about the appearance of the lobby yet nothing about the comfort of the desk chair in the room where customers spend time working on their laptops.

Retail exchange forms with online clothing purchases ask the reason code for the return. Many of the reasons are valuable to improving future buying experience.
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The one blatantly missing is: “I don’t like how the garment looks on me.” If online retail wants to create the true clothing buying experience, this addition would speak volumes. Else this customer experience survey says, we don’t care about the bigger picture of how you look.

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We can reinvent the customer experience survey to produce more than a metric based scorecard. We can have it reflect an open door that truly welcomes, listens to, and responds to customers’ feedback in a timely manner.

We can even have it be the vehicle of valuable dialogue, two-way understanding, and trusted exchange that builds long term loyalty.

Are you ready to review your customer experience survey? I’m ready to help you with objective insight.

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


Related Posts:
Customer Experience Super Blooms When We Flex.
The Best Customer Experience: Customers & Us in Harmony

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

When has fear kept you stuck in a rut? At a fork in the road in your career? When your business stagnates in a bad economy? In a dead end situation that others tell you to leave?

As a coach, I hear clients describe their ruts. Fear has them stuck like gum on a shoe. Meanwhile one single step can remove the gum and get them moving.

When you want success, know you must change yet feel stuck, don’t let fear be the gum on your shoe.

Break free by finding people who have been through something similar — who no longer have gum on their shoes of course — who will share the steps that got the gum off their shoes!

It sounds obvious and here’s the logic.

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1. Fear of taking a step is lessened by learning from those who have survived the step.
2. Fear of the unknown is countered by those who now know the unknown.
3. Fear of acting oddly during the change turns to knowing smiles when you hear how they felt and behaved.
4. Fear of being wrong crumbles under the evidence of their experience.
5. Fear of being alone on the journey is eliminated when you travel it through their success.

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Well established support groups and their members thrive on these principles. Still many people have issues not defined by any established support group.

Fear not. Online chatters, social media friends, bloggers, authors, and professional coaches all have life experiences to share.

My graphics designer, Kimb Tiboni, has chronicled her Illogical Success with personal insight and real life experiences. I have overcome business hurdles and gained inspiration through friends, coaches, and Twitter chats.


Take one step now and leave your story in the comments section below:

One rut you broke out of and how you did it and/or

One rut you want to break out of and two answers you seek.

You want success? Don’t let fear be the gum on your shoe! Reach out and step forward in your life, career, and business.


What stops people from reaching out — when it’s so obvious that it is key to success?

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 coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

When you get busy with success your focus changes and trouble lurks if it blinds you completely. When your career or business finally takes off, do you?

Do you forget people who have formally or informally mentored you? Do you abandon friendships?

Do you recoil when others who helped you now ask for your help? Do you leave people while telling yourself you are still there?

You may have busy blindness!

Signs of Busy Blindness

1. When asked for a time to network, you reply “I am working mega hours per week and the rest of my time is spent with family.”
2. You wait to reply to emails until you want to connect?
3. You send out the December holiday letter summarizing your year to people you overlooked all year

or

4. Post updates about your life online all year at Facebook or Google + and consider that networking.

Do not despair. Busy blindness is curable.


People-Skills Tips to Cure Busy Blindness

• Recognize it. Are there people who made time for you when they were busy? When they try to connect with you now, what is your response?




• Kick your fear that people may want too much time from you. Staying connected doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your success. You still have control over your life.




• Find 5 minutes each day to connect with one person directly via phone, email, or text. Or at least reply to their outreach in a timely manner.




• Subscribe to their blogs. Leave an occasional comment so they know you are thinking of them.




• Oddly enough, ask them for more help. If you are extremely busy, you may find that your network that has helped you before will be glad to help you still. Helpers like to stay connected.




• Turn off the television. You will be amazed at how much time you discover. [Thanks to Jeffrey Gitomer for that one.]




• If you aren’t even watching television, you can afford to hire a part time personal assistant to keep track of your networking. This assistant will schedule a calendar of connections for you, help you to follow up, and keep your network on your radar screen.

Perhaps Katie Couric says it best in her new book: The Best Advice I Ever Got: “Today you may be drinking the wine, tomorrow you could be picking the grapes.”

Either way stay close and connected to the vine!
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.

Related post: Is Anyone There? by Henry Alford. Source: NY Times.

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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.

It is common in a restaurant for the server or maitre d’ to ask you how you like your meal while you are eating. They gather feedback before you are done. Hotels ask their guests how is their stay going.

There are pearls of wisdom in that approach. Gathering feedback before the finish line gives the customer service provider a clearer picture of the customers’ expectations throughout the delivery of service. This tremendously increases the chance for customer satisfaction.

Then why do customer service providers rarely gather feedback during a phone call or webchat? They often ask a customer to stay on the line after the call or chat to complete a feedback survey. Isn’t that a bit late for that customer’s satisfaction?

Customers’ feedback are little pearls that your reps and agents can string together into customer satisfaction before the finish of the call or chat.

I propose that the customers’ would love to give feedback before the finish line. Why else would they use Social Media like Twitter and Facebook when customer service is failing them?

I ask for feedback while I am consulting with clients — face to face, on the phone, or online in a webinar or videoconference. When I am delivering customer service & team building workshops, I ask for feedback at breaks and lunch to see what they are thinking.

Picture your reps or agents asking customers — “how’s my service so far?”

It makes customer service a dialogue — an engagement of the customers’ views during the process. Empowered reps and agents can then adjust their delivery to meet the customers’ needs.

Social media is engaging your customers more than ever before. Are you? Engage them and gather some pearls during the calls and chats.

Business Benefits

1. Dynamic in-the-moment low cost learning about customers’ needs and expectations
2. Creating a loyal customer through listening to them and reaching their finish line
3. Preventing a dissatisfied customer (who seeks an audience) bashing your brand on Social Media
4. Creating memorable moments instead of routine actions — customers remember moments and your brand!

One simple question, “How’s my service so far?” to change course and turn customer service into customer engagement.

Gathering feedback before the finish line gives you preventive and proactive success!


What tips for success would you like to share in the comments section below? I welcome your perspective.


©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. For permission to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers customer service and team building workshops that take your people from inspiration to action. Now celebrating 21 years in business, Kate delivers results that are well known in the corporate world. See this site for more information.

Whether you are a new grad, a new leader, a seasoned corporate leader, a small business, or a solopreneur, you can leverage Twitter for learning, growth, and success. If your image of Twitter is a useless stream of info about who is going for coffee or mostly links to squeeze pages that just try to sell you something, think again!

Revisit Twitter and leverage the no cost learning from diverse subject matter experts that freely share and discuss their insights. Unlike LinkedIn and Facebook, on Twitter you do not have to be formally connected to someone to access their knowledge and leverage it for your learning and development.

You can follow anyone and read their tweets and blogs or simply search on your topic of interest and read without following them.

There are go givers like Mike Henry, Sr @MikeHenrySr – who connects and mobilizes people for learning through The LeadChange Group and inspirational gurus like @eleesha, @Dave_carpenter, @InspirationGuy whose tweets lift you up and take you in new directions.

From the academic authors like Bob Sutton, @work_matters Stanford Professor & Author “Good Boss, Bad Boss” & “The No Asshole Rule” to consumers’ favorite author of “Dummy Books” @MarshaCollier, you can connect and learn with them.

Here is a Twitter sampling of the tips, knowledge, and insight waiting for you and it is just a tiny taste:

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Success: “When you make a promise by word or by deed – keep it.” ~ Joan Koeber-Walker, CEO Core Purpose, @CorePurpose @JKWInnovation

Innovation: “There’s such pressure to do, do, do. But if you’re always mentally full, there’s no room for growth, new ideas, & change.”  ~ Mike Brown Founder of Brainzooming @Brainzooming

Leadership: “As a leader, it is important to surround yourself with people who are not impressed with you, but respect you.” ~ Joshua Symonette, former NFL player and Leadership Consultant. @JSym

Success & Winning: “The moment you let your emotions take control, you have lost control. Maintain your composer and you can win. – Michael Symonette (Joshua’s dad).

Professional Success: “Build and nurture a diverse professional network.  The network can be a fabulous source for advisors, sounding boards, idea generators, and business leads.” ~Joe Williams, NASA Scientist, @RikerJoe

Interpersonal Success: “Smiling.  It shows that you are personable and approachable. Consider the potential of this!” ~Matt Reiter @ReiterTweets

Business Success: “Great customer service is the ultimate upsell.” ~Russel Lolacher @RussLOL

Leadership: “Consider the hallmarks – Honesty is about what you say. Integrity is about what you do.” ~Mark Sturgell @pdncoach

Leadership: “What’s worse than failure? Succeeding at what doesn’t matter.” ~Dan Rockwell @LeadershipFreak

Leadership: “It’s not what you say, it’s what they hear.” ~Red Auerbach (Former Coach of the Boston Celtics) – this is one of Dan’s favorite quotes!

Lead Change:“Wise leaders build trust BEFORE trying to drive change.” ~Tristan Bishop @KnowledgeBishop

Initiative & Success: ““We each choose: It’s either the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.” ~Dr. Jim Burns @drjimburns

Coping With Change: “Instead of seeing change as difficult, see it as a path to becoming even better.” ~Gary Loper @GaryLoper

Reward & Recognition: “Be so busy giving recognition to others, that you will not need it yourself.” ~ Jim Rohn This is one of Gary’s favorite quotes!

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And yours truly, @Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, offering my twenty years of experience and natural people skills talent on customer service, teamwork, and leading change. My connections with behavioral neuro experts like Dr. Ellen F. Weber @ellenfweber have expanded my knowledge and horizons.

If you are not leveraging the learning on Twitter, you are overlooking the biggest open forum available for your professional development.

If you are not using Twitter for your business and brand, you are forfeiting the greatest no cost neon sign ever invented. Join us on the new horizon.


If you are using Twitter, what has been your greatest learning or gain? I welcome your contributions to this post in the comments field below.

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