National Customer Service Week – Celebrate People Skills!
by Kate Nasser | 7 Comments »
National Customer Service Week is the first week of October. This special week brings well deserved attention to dedicated customer service and technical support reps and all that they do. I offer this post to celebrate the people skills of all the great CSRs and TSRs who deliver great service.
Celebrate People Skills Image:Istock
Celebrate People-Skills. As your customer service teams celebrate with contests, parties, and picture taking, celebrate people skills (aka soft skills) with a thought for each day! Here are five of mine and one from Tristan Bishop.
- An authentic smile changes everything. On the phone, in person, and even the words you use in text, chat, emails, and your website design should smile at the customer. It helps ensure that the customer interaction goes well.
- Treat people the way they want to be treated — not the way you want to be treated. I call this the diamond bond of customer service!
- Be the sun, not a thorn. Even with thorny difficult customers, be the sun. Shine light on the problem to be solved and fix it. More ideas on this topic: 5 Things to Remember w/Tough Customers.
- A plane flies well on auto-pilot mode. Customer service doesn’t! Adapt to each customer — personalize and localize including personality type, culture, geographic differences, and generational differences.
- Empathize before you analyze! Show customers you care and they will care enough to help you help them.
- Kindness transcends constraints. ~Tristan Bishop There are obstacles and challenges in customer service and technical support. Kindness to the customer ensures a continued bond while you work to overcome the challenges. To read more: Kindness Transcends Constraints by The Knowledge Bishop.
Continuously improving your people skills prepares you to effectively handle any customer service interaction with dignity and success.
What thoughts would you like to add to this list to celebrate improved customer service people skills?
[FYI: If you are looking for the first post in this National Customer Service Week series, it is The Folly of Being Defensive].
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, shines her energy, inspiration, and experienced insights about truly memorable customer service and teamwork on teams in the Fortune 500, governmental agencies, and non-profits. Preview her new training DVD on customer service regional differences in the USA at https://katenasser.com/training-dvds.
Kate,
These are great reminders and inspirational thoughts for anyone working with customers.
My favorites from the list are ….
#3 Be the sun, not a thorn — tough to do everyday yet very very important with customers AND
#5 Empathize before analyze. As I get busy I jump in and start going for details before acknowledging the impact on the customer.
LOVE this post and will share it with my team.
Dear Kate,
I like very much this post-Celebrate people skills :).
My adding is:
7. True listening of your customer.Try to get an answer from each customer, a feedback about your service provided.
I think customers want to be heard-needs to create a bond between you and the customer.
From them you can receive very good suggestions. In this way you will gain a friend which will come to you again, this will grow your business.
***3.Behaving like a sun instead of a thorn -is great attitude to have and to educate our emotions- in this way-I LOVE THIS! and all others 1,2,4,5,6
all the best,
Simona
Hi Kate,
Great post! Now if only everyone would follow this! I completely agree with Simona’s #7 addition – feedback is so key, and customers need to feel like they’re being heard, otherwise they will never help you help them!
And of course, #1 is great – it’s amazing how easily a customer can pick up a smile over the phone!
Hi Anita,
Just this morning I called my ISP provider for some technical support. His voice was flat, he didn’t say his name, and gave me “std answers”. It surprised me because I have had outstanding support from them many times before. Yet his voice tone and robotic demeanor blew the service experience.
Such slight differences with such huge impact!
Thanks for your contribution. I will be publishing a customer sevice post every week leading into National Customer Service Week. I hope you will visit and share your insights.
Warmest wishes,
Kate
Another great post! I shared this one on Facebook – you should add a “like” button to your posts. 🙂