Ever ask your customer service reps what do the customers think is a great experience? Regardless of your industry, the CSRs are close to the customers’ honest opinions. If you give them a chance, they could answer the question:

What’s Our Super Glue of Customer Experience? 

Here is some of the super glue of customer experience …

1. Being remembered beyond the name. When customers’ preferences are recalled in real time — not just noted in a database that the customers completed themselves — there is a sense of belonging.




2. Easy to do business with. The definition of easy varies by customer base including generations, occupational focus, educational background. Everything online may seem easy to one generation and maddening to another. Nonetheless, easy will always be at the top of the list.




3. Flexibility! When company procedures can flex and bend to the customers’ needs, customers experience the ultimate in care. Why? Because it fits them, their lives, and their businesses. It’s obstacle free.




4. Be top notch! Know your customer base and deliver the best product or service in their eyes. There is debate on this in light of Steve Jobs’ alternate approach to product development. I see both approaches working. Consider how people rebelled when new Coke was introduced — and they brought back Coke classic.




5. Prevent disasters. Customers are glad when you don’t have problems in delivering service. They are elated when your knowledge, experience, and foresight, prevent disasters in their business or life.
   
   

6. Deliver welcome surprises. In everyday life, customers rely on themselves. When they must reach out, they wonder what will happen. When the happening is beyond their expectations, the experience shines.




7. Memorable in uncommon ways. Quick story: I go for a yearly mammogram. I ask for the same technician each time because her interpersonal skills and sense of humor turn a stressful dreaded ritual into a memorable experience. She makes a difference. I could go to a center closer to my house yet I might end up with Rhonda the compression robot. I’ll pass on that thanks. (See you next year Flo!)

Do you know what your customers think? Would you get the same answers from all your teams? From the customers?


What is our super glue of customer experience? This one simple question can begin the discussion that will unite understanding and produce outstanding customer experience.


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.

---

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.

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

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

Graphic by: Kimb Manson


Customer Service – Stripped to the Core

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

Empathize!



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

Ask for their name before their ID number!



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

Listen with an open mind!



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

Follow-through!



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

Study up!



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

It’s a one-to-one match!



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

Go to the well!



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

Maintain heart health!



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

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


Lead the future of customer loyalty …

---

Listen
Emapthize
Assess
Deliver

Don’t leave it behind!

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

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

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

---

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

There are universal customer complaints that echo through time. They paint a picture of the human need to be understood and helped.

Whether you have been delivering customer service for decades or are part of the new generation, join the movement to rid this world of these age old complaints.

Add your #13 to this list of the 12 most universal customer pleas to change customer service.

12 Most Universal Customer Pleas

---

Drop This, Keep That – Please!

1. Drop the squeeze page as the greeting to your website. We don’t want to be squeezed before we get to know you. Keep the squeezing for later in the date!




2. Drop the voice response menus that make sense to you not us. Keep the humans – at least they can dialogue!




3. “There’s nothing I can do. I’ll transfer you.” Drop the first part and keep moving us to those who can help. Telling us you can do nothing is maddening. Connecting us to those in the know is the way to go.




4. Drop the speech recognition unit that interprets “re-order supplies” as “birth order surprise”. Keep any technology that helps deliver timely accurate service.




5. Drop the scripted monologue and keep an open mind. When you open with a dialogue, we open our wallets and offer our loyalty.




6. Drop the confusing coupons – buy two at a single price and get the second at 50% off. Keep us from having to guess what math you use!




7. If we smile, please return the favor. Drop your straight face and keep smiling.
   
   

8. Drop the slow refund routine else we keep filling your queue with angry calls.




9. Keep us in the know. When you drop the communication about our problems, we think you are doing nothing.




10. Drop the prove you wrong attitude. Keep in mind that for every action there is an equal reaction. Every ouch you inflict on us pings back an ouch on your financial success. Every empathetic moment you extend to us earns you our gratitude.




11. Keep sharing our information among you. With the technology available today, we shouldn’t have to repeat ourselves. If you drop the teamwork, we question your commitment — and competence.




12. Drop the customer satisfaction survey that has no room for our true feedback. If you want to understand what we expect, let us (customers) design your customer survey! It will keep you very aware of what we truly care about.

---

What would you add to this list? What timeless universal complaint would you like to drop forever?

Yours in service,
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.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, inspires and trains corporate teams, customer care professionals, call center agents, and technical support teams in the greatest people-skills for customer service. See this site for workshop outlines, customer feedback, and footage to view. Turn interaction obstacles into business success — book Kate now.

The rule, the customer is always right, has survived over a century as a quick way to instill a strong sense of customer in all employees.

Despite its detractors, it has breathed life into customer service and sales and filled the gaps during uncertain moments.

As new graduates enter the workforce, many will be glad to know that customers’ views breathe life into this old being right rule.

The customers’ views about the following are always right — always count:

1. Urgency. – Theirs not ours.
2. Business or personal impact. – To them before us.
3. Critical factors. – From their perspective over ours when there is disagreement.
4. What they expect of us. – Work hard and smart to achieve it.
5. How they want to be treated as people. – Completely right.

The key to living this old rule in today’s world is to remember that we may disagree or say no even when the customer’s view is right for them.

Whether we say no for ethical reasons, legal restrictions, limited capabilities, or strategic mission, we must still treat the customers’ views with respect. They have insider insight we will never have regardless of how well or how long we know them. The decision of where to buy is theirs.

Their views are the lifeline for our success. Respecting their views preserves that lifeline for the long term. Acting as if we always know better, suffocates the customers’ views and could forever sever our lifeline of insider insight.


Benefits of The Customer Is Always Right Rule

It helps establish a customer centric culture.

Guides all employees to sell to and serve the customer well within the strategic mission of the business.

Increases our listening especially when our experience tries to drown it out.

Keeps us in service mode even when business is booming.

Fills the gaps during uncertain moments.

Shows constant gratitude and desire for future business.

Expresses respect for the customers’ insight and perspective.

Builds trust for current and future business and often with more openness for our views and expertise.

---

Basically, it keeps customers coming back and interested in what we have to offer. Not a bad payoff for one old rule.

Yours in service,
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.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times. See this site for customer service workshop outlines and business results. Fill the gaps in customer service and teamwork with business wins – book Kate now.

With 8 People-Skills Steps!

Customer service in most cases is a case of sudden relationship. Often it is a startling sudden relationship in a tough moment. Longer term relationships like account based sales provide advantages that sudden relationships don’t have.

This comparison sheds light on the challenges that customer service reps (CSRs) and technical support analysts face on every contact.

Sudden Relationship Challenges

• No existing rapport for interaction with
• Little or no prior knowledge of expectations and
• No history of results thus
• Little trust or confidence to smooth the way


Trust and Openness of Longer Relationships Image by:Liz Smith

Longer term relationships develop and enjoy:

• Understanding from observing people’s patterns of behavior with
• History of results that develop a working comfort building
• Time-based trust and openness that allow for more candor

Because the startling sudden relationships of customer service lack the longer term bonds of understanding and trust, the CSRs, reps, agents, and technical support analysts must adapt to each customer.

They are developing a relationship, solving a problem, and building trust all at the same time! This is why they cannot candidly say whatever they want. It is too startling to customers.

Instead, the best CSRs and technical support analysts turn sudden relationships into bonds.

Here are the 8 people-skills steps they take:

1. Greet courteously with the respect of formality and the sincerity of some informality.
2. Create quick connection by spotting the customer’s personality type and adapting to it.
3. Capture attention by detecting the customer’s listening style and using it.
4. Make it easy to communicate by using the customer’s jargon and language.
5. Close the gap by paraphrasing the customer’s perspective.
6. Smooth the emotion by caring without taking anger personally.
7. Show urgency appropriate to the situation.
8. Deliver help and solutions.

Sudden relationships with customers can turn into bonds of satisfaction, loyalty, and referrals when you make the moment easy, productive, and memorable. Well worth it for the business and truly appreciated — when you are the customer.

Yours in service,
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.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times. See this site for customer service workshop outlines and business results. Fill the gaps in customer service and teamwork with business wins – book Kate now.

Working on the front lines of customer service can be wonderful or terrible. It depends on your mindset – on what you picture — not on the customer. Surprised?

It’s actually good news. What happens when you interact with others is not completely random. Success is within your grasp because what you picture, you create!

It’s not voodoo. It simply that what you picture or think about, you focus on, say, and do.

Customer service starts with picturing that you can make a positive difference.

If instead you picture difficulty or conflict, you will focus on being right, being heard, and being in control. All of this creates the difficulty you pictured at the start.


The Story

---

I walked into the airport luggage service office when I arrived at my destination and my luggage didn’t. As the line inched forward toward the service rep behind the computer, I noticed that each person leaving the office was surprisingly calm.

When I reached the service rep, he handled my problem with empathy, accuracy, and calm confidence. Before I left the room, I said to him: “I teach customer service to large corporations and reps tell me how stressed out they are. How do you stay so positive with so many people in here complaining?”

He replied: “Kate, if they’re smiling when they come in here … they’re in the wrong room!”

---

He understood what people would naturally feel and he became the picture of a man making a difference.

Picture the positive and you reduce your fear. Result: Increased listening that guides the interaction to success.

Picture the positive and you feel influential with no need to control others. Result: A collaborative success instead of a target shoot.

Picture the positive and you project empathy and connect sincerely. Result: You make a difference and that is great customer service.

One informed rep with a positive attitude and one customer-friendly policy of delivering luggage created a positive customer experience instead of a social media rant.

What you picture you create!

What will you and your teams picture before you all start work tomorrow? I hope that it’s caring for customers and making a difference.

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


Related post: Customer Service, Key Link in the Chain not Life in Chains

©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.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers workshops, keynotes, and consultations that inspire the ultimate interaction with customers. Leaders have been booking Kate to bring both her customer service experience and intuition to their success — repeatedly. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.

The call came in from a Human Resources training manager at a major pharmaceutical company. The IT department had reorganized technical support teams and their customer service and teamwork had taken a tumble.

She and her experienced HR trainers had tried yet they and the IT professionals didn’t click. She called, as other managers have, because my years in IT (information technology) uncover the unspoken teamwork and service challenges as I teach and facilitate. It has been a recurring theme in my business.

When you want to train technical support in customer service and teamwork –beyond the surface of certification– it’s critical to understand the technical mind.

So much customer service training is focused on training people whose natural focus is other people.

You must use a different approach to develop a strong people focus, cross teamwork, and customer service skills in professionals with a rigorous occupational focus — technology, finance, medical, and legal.

Although medical schools are starting to screen applicants for both scientific and people-skills aptitudes (New for Aspiring Doctors: The People-Skills Test), this dual focus is not an established selection criterion in all the technical fields.

Nonetheless, technical support teams are very capable of outstanding adaptable people-skills for teamwork and customer service. Some have it naturally, a few struggle, and most respond very well when taught in a way that makes sense to them.

When will they most need specialized customer service and teamwork training?

1. In times of great change like reorganizations, mergers, or new executive leadership
2. Before high pressure initiatives that also pressure their customers like major technology or operational shifts
3. In readying to support high performance business units – the executive suite, sales, revenue critical operations, life/death situations in healthcare, and a highly mobile workforce
4. Before centralizing or expanding for global technical support

I look forward to working with you during these transitions to ensure outstanding IT customer service and teamwork.

From my 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, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers workshops, keynotes, and consultations that inspire the ultimate interaction with teammates and customers. Her prior career in IT and extensive technology focused customer base make Kate the perfect choice for training technical teams in people-skills for teamwork and client service. See this site for workshop outlines and customer feedback.

What customers experience before, during, and after they interact with you holds the secrets to sales, service and customer loyalty. Today it seems most leaders focus primarily on the after to build the before for next time.

In my corporate career and now for many years in business, I have held two questions in my mind when dealing with customers:

What did the customer experience before this?

What do I hope the customer will think after?

Customer Experience the Before & After Way

Image by: MikeBlogs

Using the before & after way, you gain insight to make the sale and deliver great service. Customer loyalty emerges from the bond initiated at the beginning. Start with insight not procedures.


BEFORE
A sampling …

1. What specifically has driven the customer to seek assistance now?
2. What obstacles has the customer experienced that brings us to this moment?
3. What successes or failures has the customer had prior to this?
4. What effect has this had on the customer?
5. What loyalties has the customer formed and why?
6. What loyalties has the customer broken and why?
7. What has changed in the customer’s world that delivers energy to your efforts?
8. What has remained stagnant that will retard and drain the momentum of your solution?

From your experience, what would you add to this list?

AFTER
Write three simple clear sentences that you hope the customer will say about you after. Then ask yourself, does the customer care about those things? If not, rewrite your after expectations and then make them happen.

From my 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, please email, info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers workshops, keynotes, and consultations that inspire the ultimate interaction with customers. Leaders have been booking Kate to bring both her customer experience and intuition to their success — repeatedly. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.

To us as customers, satisfaction is very Gestalt. The “whole” is greater than the sum of its parts. We experience customer service not as a series of details and transactions but as one total experience.

The companies who get customer loyalty – gestalt it.

Behind the scenes, they manage a myriad of details and transactions across all channels and for multiple customers; with the customers, they focus on a unique total experience for each one.

1. They adapt to each customer instead of pretending that each customer is the same.
2. They make the process and interaction easy. The customers and their happiness come back to them.
3. They move through the procedures to solve the problems; they don’t highlight the procedures to the customers.
4. They prevent the upset customer knowing that positive breeds more positive and negative seeks a large empathetic audience.

They also know that each time they interact with a customer, it continues and adds to the experience.


A Recent Story.

A business hotel conveniently located has served me for years. +
They empower whatever I need to do. +
They remember me each time I go back. +
They have made it a home away from home. +
They offered to reinstate expired reward points. +
They just gave me outstanding interpersonal treatment as I made a new reservation.
———————————
TOTAL: A continuously positive experience not a series of positive experiences. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts!

The continuous whole creates emotional loyalty that individual transactions do not. It prevents the question mark in the customer’s mind. “Why wonder if there’s something better when I already know I will be cared for?”

There is no end to the customer loyalty you can build if you continue to build one whole. Get loyalty — gestalt it!

Yours in service,
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.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers customer service and teamwork training and improves your company’s customer loyalty quotient. Preview and purchase her unique DVD Customer Service USA – Regional Differences That Matter.

The title of this post, Customer Service: High Touch B4 High Tech, might suggest I am resurrecting the old debate about the value of technology. I’m not. I write today to raise the flag on a new trend that maliciously undermines great customer service and the customer experience.

Business leaders, business owners, and their customer service teams are placing more focus on high tech than on connecting with the customer.

High tech delivers many capabilities to the customer experience — choice of self-service, automated confirmations, shared knowledge bases, inventory checks, timely shipping, and the list goes on and on. Yet a high tech focus alone does not create great customer service — not even online.

1. E-commerce sites designed without a true customer focus are maddening to use and dissuade customers of all generations from returning.
2. Websites that hide their contact info and phone number send a negative message to the customer — “don’t bother us”.

In face-to-face customer service (retail, hospitality, etc…), a focus on high tech is even more damaging. I witness front desk agents at hotels standing sideways to the customers because the computers are at a right angle to the desk. Face-to-face customer service means “look at and care for the customer” — not talk over your shoulder.

I see retail sales associates walking around wearing headsets. This may look cool to the young generation yet it sends a negative message to many customers — “I’m busy”. Victoria Secret, Bath & Body Works, Staples, etc… are doing this and it diminishes the customer experience.

Conversely, Macy’s flagship store in NYC has blended technology into the customer experience very well. In the shoe department, the sales associates have hand held devices to check inventory for sizes. What a great use of high tech to facilitate and support the customer experience. They have had self-service price check scanners for quite awhile making shopping easier and more profitable.

Bravo Macy’s. Your high tech supports a faster more informative connection to and for the customer.


What have you experienced as a customer? Great high tech supporting customer service or — businesses focusing on high tech instead of focusing on you? Please share your story in the comments section below.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, former techie turned people-skills guru delivers advice and training workshops to business leaders and their teams that transform customer service and teamwork. See this site for more info and customer reflections.

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.]

---

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.

Twenty years of planning and delivering customer service training have produced this advice for leaders. You can do much to ensure and extend the value of any expert customer service training.

Make the training stick and create a new movement for the ultimate customer service experience with these steps.

Extend Value of Customer Service Training. Image by:KimbManson Graphics

STEP #1. Before selecting any training, write down what you want your customers to experience. Use customer feedback and your business goals in this process.  Communicate with all leaders and staff — not just the customer service front line.  Look for and resolve the discrepancies in the definition. If you are not of one mind, training participants will interpret and use the skills purely from their own definition.

STEP #2. Prepare your staff on how to learn from an expert. Customer service staff often develop an emotional attachment to the way they have handled customers — especially the challenging situations. They hold onto their methods as a life vest or buoy yet these methods are more protective of them than helpful to the customers. A simple statement from you at the beginning of the training — encouraging them to open up to the expert’s experience — is very effective!

STEP #3. Be the initial champion of the movement to improve customer service. Communicate what you expect of all staff in making the ultimate customer service experience come to life. Why should staff change behavior if you aren’t exhibiting this commitment and importance of the change?

STEP #4. After-session visual reminders of the skills are standard and effective. Visual reminders of customer service spirit and the ultimate customer experience turn the inspiration generated during training into a customer service movement. Shirts, buttons, signs, daily start huddles, peer coaching, frequent use of customer feedback, weekly lessons learned, and celebrating commitment, make the skills come to life every day.

If staff strongly resist this last step, you may be facing either a deeper morale issue or a reflection of your leadership style. Perhaps you have created a democracy rather than empowered teams all working toward the organization’s vision and goals.

To extend the value of training, develop a culture of visible spirit and learning. It inspires, engages, and encourages teams to deliver the ultimate customer service experience.

What other steps have you taken to create a highly effective customer service culture?

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, is widely respected for her insight, expertise, and skill in inspiring and delivering advice and training for the ultimate customer service experience. See this site for what others have said about the training and for workshop outlines.

For years I have been able to spot job applicants who are drawn to service careers. They excel at it. They have an ease, commitment, and skill that makes them, what I call, the naturals in customer service. Theirs is a calling to customer service work and they answer that call very well.

Leaders, spotting and hiring those with this natural calling to customer service work gives your business a competitive advantage. It gives you the trust to empower these naturals to wow the customer. Since they need little if any supervision to deliver outstanding customer service, the customer experiences the ultimate in care and action — in the moment, every time.

What will you spot in potential hires who have a a natural calling to customer service?

Naturals in Customer Service do all these things …

1. Accept the absurdity of life without using sarcasm toward the customer.
2. Easily adapt; need for control is low.
3. Brilliantly balance objectivity and caring.
4. Initiate both caring and action.
5. Know that they can’t change others — only their own perspectives and reactions.
6. Love diversity and are inspired and excited by it. Non-judgmental.
7. Exhibit a high sense of ownership and teamwork.
8. Understand the big picture and show attention to detail; they follow-through.
9. See and hear far more than what the customer is saying and use it well.
10. Continuously learn from interactions and quickly reapply this insight.
11. Love to serve because of the giving — not to be liked or loved in return.

Be wary of job applicants who say they like customer service work because they enjoy hearing thank you and being appreciated. When the difficult customers are there and the thank yous aren’t, these types become frustrated and do poorly. Remember, customer service work is about caring for others not about the customers caring for you.

Job applicants: If you a natural, you will be happiest working for an enlightened company who sees the business value of outstanding customer service to every customer or working for high end customer care departments (in traditional companies) that focus on their top level customers.

Leaders/Employers: The one thing a natural in customer service does not do well is work in very highly structured scripted departments with loads of supervision and rigid rules. If this is how you operate, select nice people whom you can train to work specifically the way you want them to perform. Your customers will not have the ultimate customer experience yet you will spare yourselves the upheaval of the naturals leaving your company.


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

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach is widely known for her insight and 20 years of experience in customer service for the ultimate customer experience. Her workshops re-energize caring and activate follow-through. See this site for workshop outlines and what so many have said about the results.

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

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

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

The Value of Customers

1. Customers spark innovation through their demands. Embrace your innovators.
2. Customers give you an advanced education about people. Respect your “teachers”.
3. Customers pay for your performance.  Give your best show.
4. Customers keep your company alive. Feed your blood.
5. Customers blow your horn. Herald your trumpeters.
6. Customers are your future Wikipedia. Make many entries.
7. Customers are your tweeps on Twitter.  Tweet them right.
8. Customers are your reputation. Protect it.
9. Customers are gold. Mine for it.
10. Customers are your greatness. Cherish and nurture it.
11. Customers are human. Help humankind.
12. Customers are your muse. Be inspired. ~Kalin Bracken
13. Customers share their remarks with others. Be remarkable. ~Joan Koerber-Walker

I welcome your additions to the customer value creed in the comments section below.

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

©2009-2012 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.

---

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on the ultimate customer service experience, teamwork, and leading change. Kate turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Do your customer service and sales teams truly have a passion for serving customers that produces memorable moments and customer loyalty?

In this keynote presentation, I take all your sales and customer service teams On the Road Again to discover The Geography of Customer Service.  America is a very diverse country and even Americans are not aware of the differences in customer service expectations between North, South, East, West, and Midwest. Understanding these differences and adapting your professional soft skills to map to the customers’ expectations produces success and customer loyalty.

To book Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, for your next keynote on professional soft skills for customer service and sales, call or email her directly. Contact info is on this website.  Feel free to leave your comments about this footage in the comments section below.

---

Keynote delivered at the 10th Annual Signature Customer Service Conference in America. Footage shot by Cid Hunter, www.itvproductions.com, Los Angeles, CA.