Site NavigationAt Your Service: Gaining the Competitive Edge
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More time is spent in stressful work. We have less time for leisure. Standards are changing. Aging baby boomers want to enjoy work; they demand service. The ever-growing demand for more customer service focuses us on gaining the edge.
Smart entrepreneurs treat customers more than right. And managers need to become trainers of customer service.
Top people seem to already have an edge in grasping the rapport-building service mentality. We discovered long ago that people often do not buy on the basis of need and people do not sell based on their breadth of product knowledge. People buy people; the buyer buys you. All of us have bought at least one item we do not need and we bought it out of the relationship we developed over a two-to-10 minute period with the salesperson.
Managers can coach customer service representatives to answer the phone, channel potential buyers to salespeople, answer questions, handle complaints and calm agitated customers.They must handle huge volumes of calls and be compassionate while being efficient! Most people view this is an impossible task. It is not.
Here are the five basic steps of servicing a customer with grace and control:
Be clear on your purpose.
What do you want the customer to do, think, or feel after your communication with them? Managers are smart to coach people to write it down! In the do column, you may list: pay, renew, expand the order, and fill out the form correctly. In the think column may be: think we are an excellent company; think our product is worth the investment.
In the feel column may be: feel taken care of; feel they are in capable hands. When people are clear on their purpose and write it down in their own words, their focus improves. It is also the necessary step to provide focus for the next four steps.
Be appropriate.
Appropriate is one of the best words in the English language. The dictionary definition is proper, fit, and suited to a given purpose. To the manager or entrepreneur who is a service person, this means that every word uttered, every action performed must be suited to the purpose they defined in Step #1
If your purpose is that this customer come back, would you be rude to him to prove your point? Of course not. If your purpose is having the customer think your company is professional, would you answer her query as to the whereabouts of a salesperson, Oh, she's around here somewhere. Ridiculous. These comments defeat your purpose. They are not suited to your given purpose, so they are not appropriate. But how do you stop these sentences before they come out of your mouth? This leads us to the next step.
Know your hot buttons and do not get sucked in.
Certain words or phrases used by customers push our buttons.
Examples:
What are you gals doing over there anyway? It is your fault. Why is your product so expensive? Be aware of what your hot buttons are. Make a list; read it over; desensitize yourself, so the next time you hear one of them, you do not have to lash back with a defensive remark, or a yeah, but. Instead, you can ...
Push the pause button to gain control.
Our pause button separates us from the animals. Some customers you know act like stimulus-response machines. Their upsets are consistent and predictable.But your reaction does not have to be. When you are aware of your hot buttons and one gets pushed, you can pause - very briefly - and choose the appropriate response. One appropriate response is described in the following final step of customer service.
Give the customer six-second empathy.
Using empathy is demonstrating with words that you understand what the customer is saying and how they are feeling. It is a statement that is sincere, succinct, and specific. A good one takes only six seconds. I understand how frustrating it is not to get the information when you want it.
Six seconds.
It sounds like you are very upset. I see you need our full cooperation. Six seconds. A sincerely empathetic statement can defuse a hostile customer. It also gives you time to think of the response.
These five steps have proven effective for thousands of people and will prove effective for you.
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