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People Skills: A Single Word Can Make the Difference!

 

As The People Skills Coach™, I often coach and teach about words that make or break communication in professional and personal relationships.

 

Unfortunate is one such word.

 

The dictionary listing of unfortunate wouldn’t give the impression it could cause people skills trouble.

Unfortunate …

1. suffering from bad luck
2. unfavorable or inauspicious

 

When our words offend or actions harm others, labeling it unfortunate can be a deadly people skills mistake.

 

Using the word unfortunate about serious offense or hurt is insulting to the victims of the offense because the word underplays the impact.

 

It sounds like a mere oops.

 

By trivializing the impact, we put the relationship at risk.

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Replace that one word — unfortunate – with any one of these words:

Deplorable or
Terrible or
Bad

… and we remove the confusion and take ownership of the impact.

Although the dictionary has those meanings listed third:

3. regrettable or deplorable

 … few people think of or hear this meaning when someone says:  “That was unfortunate.”

 

People Skills Lesson – Be Clear & Caring

1. Be clear and accountable. When hurt feelings, negative emotions, or harm and broken trust are at hand, being clear about remorse re-secures and sustains the relationship.
2. Confusion and trivializing put it at risk.

Before speaking, ask yourself which you would want to hear: “Sorry, that was unfortunate” or “What I did was terrible – I’m very sorry.”

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Professional and personal relationships are slowly built and quickly broken.

Even ONE word can make a big difference!

 

Question: What other words/phrases have you found break trust quickly?

 

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

Image licensed from Istock.com.

Related posts:
People Skills: Integrity & Authenticity
Words can woo or wound; create bonds not scars.

©2011-2013 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, workshops, keynotes, and DVDs that turn interaction obstacles into interpersonal success for customer service, teamwork, and leading change. Kate fills the gaps of diversity with business wins. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results.

Customer experience leaders — customer experience even in large volume is about the ultimate positive moment for each customer. Even in the face of high volume delivery challenges, super customer experience is about individual customer satisfaction and success.

When you believe and act as if customer experience is mostly about the collective picture, the individual customers become nameless and faceless. The customers feel like they’re in a cattle call — to borrow an expression from the theatre world!

Image of cattle call audition by itselea via Flickr Creative Commons License.

Customer Experience Leaders: Are You Leading a Cattle Call?

Here are true customer stories of the cattle call effect and an easy fix for each!

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From Nameless to Human

When Alex received her flood insurance renewal notice, it arrived with a confusing letter about rate increases. She called for clarification, gave her name and how long she had been a customer. The insurance rep replied: “Ma’am there have been rate increases ….and so ma’am there’s nothing we can do.”

Alex replied, “I mentioned my name is Alex. I’ve been your customer for 15 years. Will you please use my name and treat me as your customer? And by the way I am not debating the rate increase I am just asking for clarification.”

Cattle call effect: High.

Customer experience score: Low.

Easy Fix: Address customers by name!

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From Narcissism to Customer Focus

When the mortgage company holding Pat’s mortgage was bought out by a larger one, Pat received notice of the change. A mortgage payment was coming due and he had a question about where to send the payment. When Pat called, the rep repeatedly mentioned paying online or using a credit card over the phone.

Pat mentioned that he prefers to pay by check and just needs the address. The rep again mentioned online payment or credit card. Pat became annoyed and said: “I pay my own way — by check. Do you have an option to receive payment by check? Else I will move my mortgage even if it means refinancing through another company.” Rep then gave Pat the address to pay by check.

In this example, the mortgage company wanted Pat to do what was good for them not him.

Cattle call effect: High.

Customer experience score: Low.

Easy Fix: If you have different payment options, offer them for the customer’s choice and satisfaction. Company narcissism is not a success strategy for customer experience!

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From Input to Output

Every year Sally goes to the same mammography center for her yearly mammogram. She is an educated health care consumer and always keeps copies of her test results for her records. She returned for her yearly mammogram and once again asked for copies of her films. The technician replied: “We’ve gone digital and everything is stored on the system now.”

Sally replied: “I would like copies for my records. Is it possible?” The technician replied, “Yes it’s possible but why would you want that? We store them on the system. Are you going to a breast specialist ….blah blah blah.”

Annoyed, Sally replied again: “I like to keep copies for my records. When can I have the films?” The technician finally told her that they would prepare them and call her w/i one week for pickup.

Cattle call effect: High.

Customer experience score: Low.

Easy Fix: Listen to the customer’s request and respond from there. In this case the technician was thinking not from the customer input but from their standard process. Better to go from customer input to output than from standard process to a cattle call response.

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Large organizations do not have to deliver impersonal cattle call customer experience. Brands have proven for years that they can win the hearts and loyalty of their customers when they focus on the customers.

Go from cattle call to WOW
with individual care and people skills in every aspect of the customer experience.




Image of cattle call by Arse_Shoots via Flickr Creative Commons License.

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

Other helpful customer experience posts:
Super Customer Experience: Like a Shiny New Car!
Customer Experience: Loyalty Through Narcissism?
Customer Experience: People Skills for Profitable Connection

©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 TOPIC: What Our Mothers Taught Us on #PeopleSkills.

WHEN: Mother’s Day, Sunday May 12, 2013 10AM EDT/7am PDT.

Here’s a time converter to assist all of you around the globe in converting 10am EDT to your local time.

A Different Format for Special Mother’s Day Chat!

Instead of our normal structured questions, I will post a one word topic every five minutes and we will tweet what our mothers taught us about it!

So collect your family people skills wisdom from the ages and get ready to share it this Mother’s Day in #peopleskills chat.

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

Shout Out of Gratitude

To mothers, step mothers, Godmothers everywhere and all those who have filled those roles without the official title. Thank you for your incredible sacrifice, love, strength, and compassion.

Join People Skills Twitter Chat Sun. May 12th ’13 10am EDT/7am PDT.

If you would like to suggest some of the one word topics for this special Mother’s Day chat, please note them in the comments section below by Saturday May 11th. **What our mothers taught us about ___________ in people skills.

I also invite you to join the Google+ People Skills Community to be a part of all the people skills discussions not just on Sundays but everyday 24×7.

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Hope you will all join in the #PeopleSkills Twitter chat to explore What Our Mothers Taught Us On People Skills, this Sunday May 12, 2013 10am EDT/7am PDT.

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

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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 OneQube, Hootsuite and TweetDeck.

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


Chat with you this Mother’s Day Sunday May 12, 2013 10am EDT in #PeopleSkills Twitter Chat: What Our Mothers Taught Us on People Skills.


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: Influence Through Giving?

As we live, we influence others. Our words and actions impact others in ways that influence their response to us. It’s not always the response we desire.

In leadership, teamwork, sales, and customer service, what we do influences others and can breed various results. It’s not always the result we desire.

How can we use great people skills to get closer to our desired response and result? First we must get much closer to the people. Classic wisdom is that the precursor to influence is seeing others’ views and building trust. But what are the precursors to those!?

People Skills: Precursors to Seeing Others’ Views & Trust

Assuming we want to influence not manipulate, the magic happens when our selflessness and purity of heart are clearly visible.


The hard work of selfless giving builds trust.

People Skills: Precursors to #Peopleskills Influence Image by: owly9

• Escape the trap of our own comfort.

  The comfort of trends, data, and standard approaches. The comfort of how we prefer to interact. When we give up our own comfort to focus on others, the trust flows.

  When we focus on our own comfort or tell others we will do whatever they are comfortable with and don’t, the relationship grows cold. Trust drops or even disappears. Our influence with them hangs by a thread and eventually breaks.





• Suspend our own goal.

  Our goal affects what we say and what we do because it affects what we can see and hear. When our actions are not producing the results we want with others, it’s because others can see that our goal is not to see theirs!

  Blindness doesn’t influence; suspending our own goal to see others does.




• Welcome influence before we influence.

  When we are open to ideas — to being influenced — we then earn the trust to influence. Influence is not a monologue; it’s a dialogue. It’s not defining great listening as silence; it’s listening to the other person the way the other person defines great listening. Influence is both care and authenticity, not just authenticity.

Despite the trend today on social media to define influence as reach, lasting influence comes from the hard work of selfless giving. There is no greater influence than that.

Something to consider whenever the outcomes are not the ones desired.


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

Related Post:
What’s So Hot About Humility Anyway
12 Most Beneficial People Skills to Influence Others

Grateful for image of tree branches by Marius Waldal and Image of ice crystal by owly9 via Flickr Creative Commons Licenses.

©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.

Super Customer Experience: Honor the Customer

Image by: J-Rod85 via Flickr Creative Commons License.

Businesses that deliver a super customer experience, do so with actions that honor the customer as a person.  As a business owner or leader, if you think of what you consider to be a super customer experience — you will find that it honors you.

Here’s a true super customer experience story from Twitter connection Jeff Allen, @bjaj1:

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The year was 1999 and I was rewarding myself for two good years of sales performance with a new car — a Chrysler 300M – their newest model. I purchased from a well respected local dealership – Hayes Chrysler in Larenceville, GA.  After the purchase I started having new car model issues with several annoying trips to service.  The dealership was responsive and persistent in resolving the issues.  Ultimately a computer upgrade in that model eliminated all the issues!

I took it in for a routine maintenance 3 months later, I mentioned to them that something didn’t seem right with the paint job. It looked cloudy not crisp and clean like the showroom model.  He connected me directly with the factory rep who looked at the car and said yes indeed there was a problem.

He offered 3 options: A free bumper to bumper 100K warranty or a new paint job. I told the rep I wasn’t interested in the warranty and was impressed with the offer of a paint job yet wanted to hear the 3rd option.  The rep said … or a trade in. 

I told him I didn’t want to take a hit on 3 month old car with 13K miles.  The rep quickly said … you won’t take a hit.  There’s no  cost.  A new car for the one with the defective paint job! I said it’s a deal, shook his hand, and thanked him for taking such good are of a me.

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Super Customer Experience: Honor the Customer …

• With trust.

  The rep acted with trust that the customer was reporting the truth. He didn’t suggest that the customer had done something to make the paint job cloudy.

• With integrity by owning the problem.

  When customers buy a shiny new car like the one in the showroom, deliver that — not a repainted one. It honors the trust the customers gave when they bought a shiny new car from you. It also says to the customer: You deserve the reward you were giving yourself — a shiny new car. Now for 14 years he has felt that Chrysler also honored and rewarded him. He has told this story to everyone and now I tell it to you.

• With ease.

  When a customer is disappointed for any reason, make it easy for them to voice their views and easy for them to get and be happy with a remedy.

When business leaders of non-luxury products and services hear these true stories, they often think it applies only to high end markets. Not true.

All customers expect to receive the same quality as they were shown and sold. Chrysler didn’t upgrade Jeff to a more expensive model. They simply lived up to what he was shown and sold. No excuses, no mistrust, no tap dance of conditions.

Super customer experience is not complicated when core beliefs of trusting and honoring the customer emerge consistently with authenticity and ease. Ask your teams, how do we honor the customer and how can we do it better? And watch the super customer experiences happen before the customers’ eyes!


What super customer experience story will you share with us to continue the learning?


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

Related Posts:
Customer Service Defined to Be Unforgettable
Customer Experience: People Skills Create Profitable Experience

©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.

Be authentic is the popular advice you hear for success and happiness. It builds trust, right?

Yes as long we are authentic not absolute. Our people skills build trusting connections when we are authentic and still flexible. If we confuse authentic with absolute, we drive people away. Picture the person who often proclaims “this is how I am”. You can almost hear the next statement — “like it or not”.

Grateful for image by: Callumscott2 via Flickr Creative Commons License.

People Skills Success: Be Authentic Not Absolute

1. Authentic builds trust through confidence.

   It shares the confidence with everyone it touches. Conversely, being absolute screams arrogance and drives people away. Authentic is confident enough to bend without losing its essence. Absolute hides it fear of diversity by masquerading as authentic. The disguise doesn’t work. The difference between authentic and absolute is visible through people skills!




2. Authentic invites others to be themselves.

   People skills that show we are authentic welcome others’ authenticity as well. Being absolute and rigid says “I’m OK, you’re not.” This doesn’t breed success. It feels strong yet topples quickly as people push away from obstinacy.




3. Authentic shares energy.

   Authentic has a strong natural energy that attracts many to feel and share. Absolute and inflexible spews energy like an exploding volcano and propels everyone to run for their lives!




4. Authentic piques curiosity.

   Imagine seeing behavior that is very different from how you would behave. If it seems both unique AND authentic, it arouses curiosity. If it seems different but absolute and arrogant, it repels.




5. Authentic communicates an inner world.

   The essence of each of us comes through authentic people skills. Authenticity is a window that opens others to our past, our ethos, our hopes and dreams. Absolute inflexibility communicates ego and is a solid door shutting out connection.

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Being authentic doesn’t rule out empathy and understanding for others. Being absolute does.
Being authentic doesn’t stop us from adapting to people and conditions. Being absolute does.
Being authentic doesn’t promote closed-mindedness. Being absolute does.

Question: How can you be authentic without falling into the trap of being inflexible? See authenticity as a journey of growth not a single destination.

Where has your journey of authenticity taken you with others?

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

Related Post: People Skills: Integrity & Authenticity

©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.

Customer service people skills are a gold mine of success.  Why?

Customer service people skills connect at the depths of human need.  Everyone loves to feel respected, honored, and valued! Think about you as a customer. Isn’t this true?

How deep do you and your teams go with customers?

Do your customer service people skills create profitable connection?

Beyond the standard mindset of caring for customers’ tangible needs, lies a gold mine of profitable connection through people skills. Let’s explore!!

A champion feels — elevated, accomplished, and elated. Interact with customers to make them feel like champions!

Greet them with heartfelt enthusiasm. It elevates!

Understand their goal line beyond the request. Help them accomplish it.

Elate them with care and action don’t deflate them with procedural details.

Heroes are beloved and honored for their courage and action. Honor customers as our heroes!

Customers courageously overcome fears and doubts and choose us.

Customers’ actions (choices & purchases) keep us alive.

Customers put their name on the line and refer their network to us.

Customers courageously give us feedback to make us more successful.

Customers give us the gift of their personal trust.

Customers expand our horizons through theirs.

Our customer service people skills must treat them like our heroes!

Customers want and are worthy of our respect!

Let our customer service people skills show them respect as individuals vs. treating them like a transaction number.

Let’s empathize with their struggle vs. labeling them as difficult.

Let’s start by trusting them vs. guarding with mistrust.

Let’s respect them by connecting in their channel vs. making them come to us.

Let us make their day easier vs. adding to their burden.

Customer service people skills honor the customers for who they are. When we adapt to their personality styles, we respect them as individuals and create profitable connections. When we give them a little extra for no extra money, our gratitude and respect elevate them.

For years we have lived with the motto, people do business with those they know, like and trust.

The deeper truth is: People do business with those who respect, honor, and value them! Customer service people skills based on emotional and social intelligence are the pathway to profitable connections.


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

Gratitude for featured images to: Sweet Dreamz Design via Creative Commons License.

©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.

People Skills Twitter Chat Empathy – The Deeper View. Sunday Feb. 10, 2013 at 10AM ET/3pm GMT. Hashtag #peopleskills.

Graphic by: Kimb Manson Graphic Design


Empathy has taken center stage in many discussions today.
We read about it and experience it in:

• Successful family relationships
• Anti-bullying programs
• Career success in global market
• Cross cultural understanding
• Leading a new generation in the workplace

Organizations like Roots of Empathy are showing full commitment to develop social and emotional competencies in children with a special focus on empathy. Many great leaders from Mother Theresa to Martin Luther King, Jr. have focused the world on empathizing instead of judging and labeling.

Since empathy is sensing and understanding what other people feel and experience, let’s use our people skills Twitter chat time this Sunday Feb. 10, 2013 to build a deeper view and understanding.

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People Skills Twitter Chat Empathy – The Deeper View

Join us this Sunday Feb. 10, 2013 at 10am ET/3pm GMT on Twitter #peopleskills to explore …

• Where does empathy come from?
• What blocks you from receiving empathy?
• How does empathy impact your life, your work, and society?
• What connection if any is there between humility & empathy?
• and much more … !

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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 Kate Nasser.


Chat with you this Sunday in People Skills Twitter Chat Empathy – The Deeper View. Hashtag #peopleskills.


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 allow us to communicate honestly without offending others. When we are mindful of others’ needs and views, we can find the right words and skills to express without excoriating them.

One phrase that surprisingly excoriates others is:

“I am surprised by your …”

Does that surprise you? Let’s consider what it can mean to others.

Image by: Sweet Dreamz Design

People Skills: Effects of the ‘Surprised By’ Statement

• The phrase “I am surprised by your …” immediately highlights a gap between you and them. That’s where it can excoriate.
• It sets up an image of you judging them. That’s how it can excoriate them.

Examples to Illustrate

• I am surprised by your commitment. Is this a compliment? What does this statement truly mean? When leaders say this to a team member, is it a criticism of past behavior or applause for current effort?
• You have surprised me with your talent. Well what did you think of them before? A lummox of limited value?

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Skip the gap and the judgmentalism. When we are pleased with someone’s behavior, let’s express our full pleasure. “I am thrilled with your commitment.” “Your talents impress me.”

When we believe it is essential to reference past behavior, let’s do it honestly and with care. “In the past, I wanted more commitment from you. I am very grateful for it now.”

Without the innuendo of the phrase, “surprised by”, we take full ownership of our opinion and expectation. It is respectful not judgmental. Our message is clear and caring.

Our people skills smooth the way to bonds of success by being mindful of the impact of our choices.
The path is clear. The rewards for all are great.

Question: What other phrase excoriates others – whether we intend it or not?

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

Related Post: People Skills: Replace the Deadly Don’t You Think

©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.

Customer experience loyalty is born of satisfying customers especially during intense need. When customers are on the move, their needs are peaking. Businesses who meet those needs — in the moment and on the move — win their loyalty.

Whether the customer is a growing company on the move or individuals physically on the move, those who make their journey easy and successful win customer experience loyalty.

Business Leaders: Win Customer Experience Loyalty on the Move!

4 Reasons We Win Customer Experience Loyalty on the Move

• Feeling of Need.

  When people are on the move, everything around them is on the move. The unknown is greater than the known. Products and services that turn unknown into known, relieve stress, deliver comfort, and win customer loyalty.

  Whether it’s one of many mobile apps that deliver instant answers or consulting services that move everyone past the roadblocks to success, meeting intense need on the move wins customer experience loyalty!

• Desire for Freedom from the Ordinary.

  Although being on the move can be scary, it is simultaneously freeing and exciting. Customers value products and services that move them past the dreary and mundane.

  They are loyal to what uplifts and carries them forward when they want to move from feeling ordinary to living the extraordinary!

• Image of Value and Readiness.

  In a competitive business world, on-the-move information and solutions do more than solve problems. They make the businesses who deliver the information and solutions on the move seem ultra valuable and worthy of loyalty.

  Products and services that give businesses this readiness win loyalty by enabling them to win their customers’ loyalty. Social media’s success is partly driven by this momentum. It facilitates more connections to resources, experts, and answers enabling more success — on the move!

• Need for Loyal Servants.

  When we are on the move with our customers, we show them our loyalty. As the saying goes, “we have their back”.

  Our products and services are customers’ loyal servants — that build their loyalty to our businesses. This takes relationships with our customers from brief to bonded and from transactional to transformational.

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Movement creates risk and the intense need to handle it. Whoever meets that intense need builds intense trust — the precursor to customer experience loyalty. Businesses in trouble become loyal to those who move them out of trouble. Consumers become loyal to products and services that meet their personal and professional needs on the move.

When we travel the customers’ journeys and meet their needs, they have no need to look elsewhere. When we are their loyal servants, we move their minds from “will they be there for us?” to “of course they will be there for us!”

What journey is your customer on and how will you meet their intense need — on the move? I am here to help you create that loyalty with your customers.

We will turn the risk of movement into the momentum of success!

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

Related Post:
Super Customer Experience: Feelings Aren’t Random

©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 affect every aspect of our lives — work, relationships, and our future. The pool of experience is vast and we can learn much from each others’ similar and diverse views.

To enhance our people-skills, I have …

Created the Peopleskills community on Google + and

The #Peopleskills Twitter chat that will launch on Sunday Jan. 27, 2013 at 10am ET/3pm GMT.

We will explore people-skills for leadership, teamwork, customer service, entrepreneurship, career success, dealing with conflict, emotional intelligence, and social intelligence. We will also delve into the deeper impact of people-skills on trust, personal growth, harmony among diverse people, give/take and happy living.


What people-skills wisdom will you share from your experience and what do you hope to learn?

Save the date – Sunday Jan. 27, 2013 at 10AM ET/3pm GMT — and join in the Twitter chat that will take us all to places of learning that we’ve never explored! If you have never been in a Twitter chat, you may find it easier to log on to Tweetchat.com to participate as it enters the hashtag for you on every Tweet.


I welcome your chat topic ideas, questions and suggestions. The hashtag will be #peopleskills and I look forward to this exciting new exchange!


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.

Super customer service experience is about positive feelings but leaders grouse “we can’t build a business on the randomness of feelings.”  Well in super customer experience, feelings are not random. We just need to look in the right place.

The feelings are behind the impact – coming and going!

Capture the Feelings Behind the Impact!

Customers come for one of two desired feelings: ease their pain and/or experience gain. What we do results in one of two feelings for the customers — positive or negative.

• The Impact of Their Problem.

  Instead of getting caught up in just the details the customers speak, we need to hear the impact of their problem or request. When a network is down and the customer can’t do their work, it’s the impact of this void that causes the feelings. Understand the impact and we capture the feelings that tell us how to deliver a super customer experience.




• The Impact of Our Approach.

  At every connection with the customers, our approach — conversation, empathy, processes, design, decisions, and actions — affect the customers’ pain or gain. When we first understand the impact of their problem, we can choose appropriate actions for a positive impact and super customer experience.




• The Impact of Previous or Repeated Trouble.

  It’s easy to deliver a super customer experience when there has been previous or repeated trouble — if we hear the feelings of frustration behind the impact. The customers are craving relief from pain and confusion; the relief we give is amazingly positive!




• The Impact of Heart-Based Service.

  If we live a narcissistic culture and focus on our success, our approach and connection often increases the customers’ pain and reduces their gain. As we focus on our procedures, we leave them stuck in frustration and far from the gain they seek. As we push self-service to reduce costs, we alienate those who need interaction to work with us. As we ignore their suggestions for improved service, we tell them that our view is more important than their needs. From this we lose them to the competition who sees the pain and void we left behind.

  If instead we approach every aspect of customer experience with a culture of heart-based service, we meet their expectations by relieving their pain or delivering a gain. We earn their trust, gratitude, and repeat business. From the heart, never fails with customers.

  [A special thanks to executive coach Lolly Daskal for the phrase "heart-based". She inspires thousands around the globe with her heart-based leadership programs and her weekly leadfromwithin chat on Twitter.]

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Leaders often ask me: What is the one thing that everyone in the organization should do to deliver super customer experience?

Listen for the feelings behind the impact and take the approach that relieves the pain and delivers the gain.

This year, I will have many workshops and sessions on this very topic. Join in the learning and receive the gains!

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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 Moments
Leading Superior Customer Experience: Turn Off the Power

©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.

In my recent leadership post Breed Accountability Not Blame, many leaders applauded my definition of accountability as the profitable practice of initiative, ownership, and follow-through.

With that as a solid vision, I have worked with many leaders on converting a culture of blame to accountability. This is especially true for leaders who are moving into an organization where blame has paralyzed the teams in fear and hung success out of profitable reach.

Leaders, Convert From Blame to Accountability

In one very telling case, a leader was taking over for a previous information technology (IT) leader who had actually cultivated a heavy CYA culture. Fear and blame had completely squashed initiative, ownership, and follow-through.

Meanwhile the company was changing and needed an IT organization that could engage, innovate, initiate, and collaborate for success. The new leader called me and asked if we could undo years of fear and get IT employees to fully engage. My answer was: Yes we can if you and your leadership colleagues will support encouraging words with daily actions that empower employees and value their talents.

From Old Bucket to New Bucket – Key Steps to Success

• Identify the change needed without blaming the previous leader.

  You must show the teams in every conversation that you truly welcome their ideas. To undo years of a blame culture, you will need to encourage, reinforce, and show appreciation for participation. It is simple behavioral reconditioning that builds trust if you do it with heart and commitment.

• Promote participation & recognize ideas.

  You must show the teams in every conversation that you truly welcome their ideas. To undo years of a blame culture, you will need to encourage, reinforce, and show appreciation for participation. It is simple behavioral reconditioning that builds trust if you do it consistently with heart and commitment.

• Allow them to hold you accountable.

  One of the most powerful ways to teach the employees the difference between blame and accountability is to ask them to hold you accountable to your promises. As they offer ideas, show initiative, and engage, team members get to speak up if you fall into blaming behavior rather than shared learning.

• Rebuild the definition of teamwork and team success.

  Results are not the only thing that take a beating in a culture of blame. Teamwork suffers terribly as team members protect themselves from each other. I have actually used the old bucket/new bucket theme in many team re-building sessions to replace all the mistrust with a new sense of collaborative hope and profitable actions.

• Meet individually with team members who continue to resist.

  Some team members will take longer trust you and the promise of a new culture. Meet individually with them and listen to their concerns. Highlight what talents you see in them that can make a difference given the company’s challenges. Have them set some goals using their talents and follow up regularly. Emotional intelligence is your most appropriate skill in this case.

• Lead with a passion for learning and results.

  Converting a culture of blame to accountability takes a passion for learning as well as committing and producing. Some leaders mistakenly hold back honesty and coddle the employees. This is not leadership. It damages success as much as the blame culture.

  Learning is about moving forward to prevent the same mistakes. Learning strengthens the team members and the company. It builds critical thinking and unstoppable success. Replace all your “why didn’t you” assaults, with open-ended questions and participative discussions on root causes and solutions. Solidify the future with next time agreements and shared ownership.

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As you eliminate the last vestiges of fear and resentment, you will free the teams to be accountable for success.

You will witness improved communication and collaboration that bring shared ownership to life without the scourge of scapegoating and blame. You will see team member pride and honor in responsibility.

I will help you make it happen and welcome your questions, challenges, suggestions and ideas!

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.

Various comments on my last post — Don’t Fire the Customer, Fire Yourselves! — showed that many use the phrase “fire the customer” as a display of power.

In the aftermath of abusive customers or the challenge of clients who constantly change their minds, some leaders and business owners use that damaging phrase to validate the organization’s position and use it to re-motivate frustrated and demoralized teams.

Yet, the power playing approach leaves a trail of trouble for the teams, the customer service culture, and the company’s reputation and brand.

Turn Off the Power for Superior Customer Experience!

Power struggles establish the dynamic as right vs. wrong.

Customer experience is about perspective and connection.

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Power words, like “firing”, conquer & crush.

Customer experience is about awareness, empathy, uplift, and success.

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Power-based motivation like “employees first, customers second” sets up a win/lose mentality.

Superior customer experience is about win/win!

“When you lead and serve for power, get ready for a power failure!” There is no greatness in either/or.

Turn off the power struggles, power words, and power-based motivation. If you want to use power, give it to your customers to give you free feedback — communicated with basic respect.

Turn on the listening and learning. Turn on creative exploration for effective problem solving. Turn on innovative thinking for customer satisfaction. Turn on the honest diplomacy to set limits in abusive situations. Turn on the joy of delivering superior customer service.


Lead a culture of excellence for improved performance based in continuous learning — not in power.

How will you ignite the customer service greatness in your organization?

I welcome your perspective in the comments section below. And I am ready to help you the way I have helped countless others in the last 23 years.


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

Related Posts:
Leadership success: Think Balance Beam Not Mountain Top
Super Customer Experience: Customers & Us in Harmony

©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.