KateNasser.com

As we work tirelessly to deliver super customer experience, I find and fix common everyday mistakes that drive customers away.

Recent experiences focus me today on ways we imprison customers which do everything but build loyalty. You might think imprisonment is too strong a word. Yet that is what customers report.

Give customers a get out of jail free card — fix these mistakes!

Ways We Imprison Customers!

1. Endless Loops. This is definitely #1 on the customers list. Beyond the endless unclear phone menus (voice response units – VRUs, IVRs), customers also feel imprisoned by agents, reps, and CSRs with poor skills.

   The Story: A business owner needed to become a credit card merchant. The sales rep was clear, focused, and offered a great deal. The business owner signed up. The sales rep reported that the support team would send an email with account # and temporary password. Support would then call to finalize everything.
   

   

   Super Customer Experience: Loyalty Not Imprisonment! Image: iStock for Editorial Use.

   
   The business owner received a phone message from support saying “By now you have received your email with account # and password. Please call me, Mindy, at this phone number and extension.” The business owner left Mindy a message saying “We never received the email. Please let us know what to do now.”

   Mindy left a second, third, and fourth message saying the exact same thing as her first message! When the business owner finally spoke on the phone with Mindy, she continued to say “you should have received the email by now.”

   Imprisonment: The business owner finally said, “Time is money. Move me forward or I will cancel my account.”

   Customer service is forward not stagnant. To customers, stagnant feels like imprisonment.

   Release customers from status quo prison! For a super customer experience, move them forward to the solution.

   Question: Where in your organization do customers get stuck in the status quo?




2. Lack of teamwork. Multiple teams engaged in service with little or no teamwork leave customers trapped in a maze. Customers must jump between teams to get a solution or jump out of the maze and choose freedom. That’s not conducive to customer loyalty.

   For super customer experience, deliver a single point of solution not multiple points of failure. Build teamwork with shared technology, mutual service level targets, and one service culture.

   Question: How many teams in your organization must work together to deliver a super customer experience? Do they all give it the same priority? If not, customers end up imprisoned in the maze.




3. Tunnel vision. A less evident yet still common mistake, thinking only from the company or agent perspective. Super customer experience requires seeing things from the customer’s view. Else the customers feel ignored and overlooked — imprisoned in solitary confinement.
   Cultural tunnel vision in global service leaves customers in the dark.
   Rigid script reading and poor listening slam the door shut.
   Websites with poor e-commerce design drive customers away — to well-designed easy-to-use sites.

   Shine the light of customer awareness throughout your organization to free customers from solitary confinement and to value them in your organization.

   Question: Where in your organization is tunnel vision blocking super customer experience? Expand the vision. Replace the tunnel with bridges to the customers and to your success.

Customers want information and solutions that meet their needs. Online, in person, or on the phone, they seek positive easy experiences to get what they want. Imprisonment is not positive nor easy. It makes them want to break out, run away from the stress and find success elsewhere.

Think customer care not customer control. Think bonding not bondage. Think customer!

I look forward to working with you, leaders, and your teams to create super customer experience.

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

Related Posts:
Super Opportunity to Improve Every Customer Experience
Simply Great Choices Create Super Customer Experience

©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, customer experience, teamwork, and leading change. For 23 years, she has turned interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer testimonials and results.

Delivering a super customer service experience is all about the choices. Simply great choices can create it! Poor choices can destroy it.

Frustration with the customer is often at the heart of those poor choices. In fact, frustration with customer behavior can make poor choices very tempting.

The best in customer service find something else even more tempting — the strength and skill to resist temptation and choose greatness!

Frustration, Temptation & Simply Great Choices

The strength to choose service greatness rests within your professional identity.

How do you want to be known? What do you picture as greatness? If service is not in that picture, your attitude and behavior will yield to frustration.

If you want to create super customer experience, here are 7 common frustrations, temptations and the simply great choices!

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1. Your Frustration: The customer wants to speak before you or more than you.
   Temptation: Seize control of the conversation and talk over the customer. Poor choice.
   Great Choice: Let them talk! Your response will be far more accurate the more you understand.




2. Your Frustration: The customer wants something non-standard. This takes time, thought, effort, and takes you out of your normal pace.
   Temptation: Show your exasperation and label the customer as difficult. Poor choice.
   Great Choice: Show your interest — even excitement — in doing and learning something different. This is the chance to WOW ‘em.




3. Your Frustration: You want the customer to completely populate your contact database before you help them and they want some information without being locked in your detailed procedure.
   Temptation: Ignore their preference and continue on with your questions. Poor choice.
   Great Choice: Get basic identifying information like name, account # and then focus on what they need! Once you have the solution underway, validate or get other personal information for your database. Focusing on the customer delivers a super customer experience. Focusing on your database doesn’t.




4. Your Frustration: The customer is upset and venting their anger.
   Temptation: Lecture to them (i.e. There is no reason to raise your voice, I am trying to help you). Poor choice.
   Great Choice: Let them vent. When they are done, empathize and take action. Fix the situation, not the customer! If you don’t, your competitor will.




5. Your Frustration: The customer waits until the last minute for help and has an urgent need.
   Temptation: Tell the customer they should have called you sooner. Poor choice. Criticizing them for poor planning leaves an emotional scar on them that will burden you next time — if they come back.
   Great Choice: Determine whether or not you can meet this urgent need. If yes, do it. Being the customer’s hero is a super customer experience! If you truly can’t, let them know that and refer to other resources that might be able to help them. Expressions of good will and effort build future trust.




6. Your Frustration: Customer doesn’t follow an important procedure and it causes the customer, and you, repeated problems.
   Temptation: Patronize the customer with an insipid rhetorical question like do you remember I said to enter your account id not your phone number? Poor choice. Patronizing the customer is professionally immature and disrespectful.
   Great Choice: Simply give the customer the answer again. Courteous honest answers help and don’t hurt. After you have helped them, ask if there is anything you can do to make it easier for them next time. You might also review any written instructions or online design to see how to make it clearer.




7. Your Frustration: The customer wants to ask questions along the way and you want to go through your whole presentation or explanation first.
   Temptation: Tell the customer to wait until you are done. Poor choice. You are telling the customer that you are more important than they are.
   Great Choice: Dialogue with the customer; put their needs first. You will meet your needs through theirs and deliver a super customer experience.

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The feeling of relief from venting your frustration on the customer is very short lived. It ruins your company brand and your personal and professional reputation.

When you choose great listening, adaptability, patience, reasonableness, competence, and agility for sudden needs, you deliver truly memorable and super customer experiences.

Question
What other frustrations do you have with customers? Add them in the comments section below and I will help you deliver a super customer experience. I deliver the antidotes to your frustration!

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

Related Post: Be Plentiful & Ready to Deliver Super Customer Experience

©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.

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.

Customers remember moments. The truly memorable customer service moments move them to tell others about you, your products, your customer service. How would you make yours truly memorable – in a positive way of course?

Be unique and different within the context of your brand.

CDBaby.com does that at the moment of arrival! What is CD Baby? It started as a one person business in a garage and grew up to be the largest distributor of independent music. It’s run by musicians and their creativity shows even before you play the CD.

Here’s the memorable packing slip that arrived with the CD:

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Thanks for your order with CD Baby!

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow. A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterward and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, March 3, 2011. We hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.

In commemoration, we have placed your picture on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh…
We miss you already. We’ll be right here at http://cdbaby.com/, patiently awaiting your return.

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Kudos to CD Baby. They make it memorable in ways that connect and enhance their brand. Notice how often people share stories of a baby, a picture of a baby, a video of out of unique behaviors of a baby. (If you don’t believe me, check out how many baby videos have gone viral on YouTube).

CD Baby uses the theme of caring for a baby to show how much they care for you the customer. They also make it truly memorable with a bit of outrageous humor. The story telling gives them the chance to repeat their company name in a memorable yet non-annoying way. This is no cost creative caring that makes customer service as memorable as a baby!

What stories will you share here about truly memorable customer service that you have received? I will be right here waiting … sigh.

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

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers customer service, teamwork, and communication workshops, keynotes, and DVDs filled with true stories that teach memorable lessons. See this site for more information.

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.

My work for 20+ years has focused on truly memorable customer service for your business acclaim and customer loyalty. Yet some of my recent experiences as a customer, bring me to write this post for businesses of all sizes, industries, and professions. Please feel free to add your customer service wisdom on delivering outstanding service and increasing customer loyalty.


Customer Service Wisdom to Up Customer Loyalty!

1. Make it personal. Know your customer then greet and treat them that way. Don’t treat your known customers as unknown. A true loyalty killer.









Customer Service: Make it Easy to Enjoy Image by:LarryMac

2. Make it easy for the customer. Bureaucracy kills customer loyalty.




Procedures can kill listening and that kills customer loyalty. If you are going to use scripts, they should be guidelines to discussion not marching orders!









Customer Service - Make it Happen. Image by:UggBoyUggGirl




3. Make it happen. Train, assess, and empower staff to serve. If the reps can’t deviate from a strict procedure, they cannot serve the customer. Inspire and empower them to make it happen.










4. Make it memorable. Customers remember moments and consistently memorable service. Many leaders have mistaken this to mean routine repetition. This contrived approach kills loyalty. Create a culture and practice of caring and follow-through to produce authentic sincere moments to remember — each and every time.

Inspire, train, and empower your staff to: Make it personal, make it easy, make it happen, make it memorable. It is still the way to up the loyalty!

I welcome your customer service wisdom in the comments field below.


[©2011 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.]

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers customer service workshops and keynotes to diverse industries and audiences for truly memorable customer service and business success. See this site for topics, outlines, and success stories.

Social media has expanded the reach and diversity of professional networking.  It has not replaced the people skills (also known as soft skills or interpersonal skills) needed for successful networking.  Those that humanize their social networking with memorable people skills capture business deals, media exposure, and interviews for plum jobs. The following key principles, done well, make all the difference!

People Skills to Humanize Networking

Humanizing: Ask about them. Goals, networking goals, interests, specialties, etc… to be a substantive connection for them       versus

Impersonal:  “Are you a member of _____?”  This is not a great opening line nor the primary focus of anyone’s life. Do you care about knowing them or just finding people who belong to a similar group?

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Humanizing: Reply with a statement that shows interest in them and then add something about you. Make the connection by connecting into what they have told you versus

Impersonal: Replying purely with your information.

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Humanizing: Disagree without being disagreeable. The ideas may be different yet the “I’s” can still respect each other versus

Impersonal: Telling them they are wrong.

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Humanizing: Express your preferences as preferences versus

Impersonal: Speaking in command mode. One day on Twitter, someone sent me the following tweet: “Stop tweeting on the naysayer theme.” I un-followed him immediately.

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Humanizing: Express gratitude from the beginning and acknowledge their help publicly/privately versus

Impersonal: Using phrases like “now that you are on board”. That was the first message I received from a brand new connection. People might jump ship after that opening!


What else would you add to this list on humanizing networking? I welcome your ideas in the comments field below. Learning is the fuel for great people skills.

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 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 thought provoking workshops that re-energize customer service, teamwork, and leading change.

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 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.