In our last article we covered the reasons why employees need guidelines, not just rules. This article shares some specific guidelines on how to engage with customers. When customers are positively engaged, they’re more likely to be satisfied. Satisfaction can become loyalty and this leads to overall increased profitability.

Each and every person in your organization has the opportunity to create a positive impression on your customers — to impact their experience and potentially convert them from a lukewarm satisfied customer to a red-hot loyal customer.

From full and properly stocked shelves, to offering a friendly smile, or guiding a customer to a sought after product, the way you treat your customers will determine whether they return, or move on to the competition.

Exceptional Customer Service is always about the customer — it’s understanding and responding to their needs — making them feel special.

Here is a simple 4-step formula to help employees remember how to GIVE exceptional customer service each and every time they interact with customers.

These guidelines work whether you are dealing with a customer for the first time or whether it is a repeat visit. They also work well when dealing with a customer complaint.

Greet: Greet every customer with a smile, make eye contact. This lets them know you see them and are ready to help. Asking “how may I help” rather than waiting for people to approach will create a positive experience. Greet your customers in a friendly and approachable manner and adjust your tone according to their needs — your greeting would be different for a customer asking for information versus one who might have a problem and is a bit upset.

In every case, you want to let the customer know that you are ready to listen and respond to their needs — and help build long-term loyalty.

Interact: Listen carefully to each customer’s request. Are they looking for help? Do they have a complaint? Be careful not to jump to conclusions about their needs, and never take their comments personally. Remember, customers often don’t express their needs clearly and ask their real question. So make sure you listen for the real question behind the question.

Choose your attitude — be courteous, friendly and polite. A positive, caring attitude will sooth even the angriest customer and will turn a satisfied customer into a red-hot loyalist. Help them — make it easy for them to accomplish their outcome faster, easier and more conveniently — and you will create long-term loyalty.

Verify: After you have listened to understand their needs, make sure your actions address their opportunity or concern? It is often a good idea to confirm with them what you have heard and then whether the solution you propose will address their need — before taking action. For example, if they ask your closing time — what they might really want to know is “what the latest time they can receive service”. Or if their preferred brand is not available, you could ask how often they would be purchasing, and potentially offer to order the product for them.

Little will be accomplished by rushing an answer or hurrying off to solve an issue they don’t have. There is little value in taking action that the customer doesn’t need.

Express Thanks: Always say “thank you” — it makes all the difference. Customers often express thanks when they receive help from a sales person or change from a cashier, but it really should be your team expressing thanks to your customers for their business. Letting your customer know their business is appreciated is an essential part of making them feel welcome and valued.

No two customers are ever alike, so train your staff to follow these 4 simple steps to GIVE exceptional customer service: Greet, Interact, Verify and Express Thanks.

Plus it’s a lot more fun talking with people and sharing in their positive experience than standing around counting the minutes until your shift ends.

Remember; without customers we have no business — without repeat customers we are out of business!

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This is the first in a series of six articles that will examine different aspects of delivering exceptional customer service and how it leads to increased overall profitability.

Over the 6 part series, we’ll discuss techniques that you can implement to improve the performance of your employees — always with an eye firmly fixed on improved profitability

This first article is focused on 4 key elements that your employees need so they can provide superior customer service to the people they come into contact with on a daily basis, whether it’s on the telephone or in person.

Attitude Is The Key
A positive attitude cannot be taught — it is part of our hard-wiring. Employees need the right attitude when they’re at work because a negative attitude is like a cancer that spreads quickly. A positive attitude can also spread quickly but that’s a good thing.

Your attitude affects the work you do and your relationship with fellow workers, customers and management. If your attitude is bad, then you’re not going to do well in any service environment.

Don’t let other people’s bad attitude rub off on you either. It’s easy to let it happen if they’re particularly loud or overbearing. Keep things light and you’ll reap positive rewards, maybe not today, but down the track.

Customer service is a people business. Some of them may be angry or upset, but it is our job to deal with those emotions. Keeping a positive helpful attitude will help.

Empathy
To help customers get what they want; we first need to empathize with them — to put ourselves in their shoes to better understand what they want. We need to treat every customer as an individual instead of a number. We need to treat every customer as if they were the only one for the day.

You may have dealt with 30 customers before this one but they don’t know that. Nor do they need to know it because it’s not their concern.

Show them you care about their problem; that you are there to help them achieve a successful outcome for themselves. Without this key characteristic, an employee can never be taught how to provide exceptional customer service.

Accountability
Regardless of who is at fault concerning a customer issue — if anyone — each employee must accept accountability to deal with the issue. Customers don’t care who made the mistake — they simply want things fixed or their problem solved.

Accountability isn’t about blame; it’s about finding resolution for a customer who is unhappy with your product or service. Often a simple apology on behalf of the organization if the customer is unhappy will start the process of customer recovery — then the employee can take action to correct the situation.

As the representative of the organization, the customer is counting on each employee to make things right. Even if the employee can’t personally resolve the issue, they should be able to make sure the customer gets to speak to the person who can.

Product Knowledge and Training
The first thing all employees must have before they interact with your customer is the appropriate on-boarding training and product knowledge. It doesn’t matter if they’ve worked for a similar company or industry before, they’re now representing your business — and resultant, should do things in a manner that reflects your values.

Employees must have the necessary training material/manuals so they can do their job properly. But it’s not enough to simply hand them a book and send them out to do battle. You have to go through the material with them so they gain an understanding of what to do — and also why they do it.

“What” to do is the rational side of the equation. The technical on-boarding may take a few hours or a few weeks, depending on the nature of the job. Some roles require on-the-job training and that’s fine — but everyone should know where to find information if they need it, quickly and efficiently, so customers aren’t kept waiting and are only given the correct information.

The other side of the equation is “why” — the emotional side. The emotional on-boarding may require more time and ongoing reinforcement and should build on the attitude that was identified during the hiring process. Spending time with co-workers who demonstrate the brand values through their behaviours is also essential — as are the stories that are shared across the organization about how we treat one another and our customers.

Understanding the values that informed your decisions when you developed your branded customer experience is often more important than simply knowing the process — because it ensures the employee starts to think like you and understand what motivates the organization.

Without this emotional connection with your organization — they will only follow direction and will never become a true ambassador for your organization. Only once these values are ingrained, will employees treat all customers in a manner consistent with your organizational values.

Keep these 4 things in mind when thinking about potential employees. The first 3 are essential elements of their character and the fourth is your responsibility. Without these 4 key elements, you will never have a strong customer service culture in your organization.

In our next article, we will be covering Why Employees need Guidelines, not just Rules.

When discussing the “How to’s” of building an engaged culture, we hear lots of talk about “reinforcing the positive” and “catching people doing things right”, but what happens when people are doing things wrong and we need to provide corrective direction.   Specific steps need to take place to get the person moving in the proper direction while still keeping them positive and motivated.

Most importantly, you must focus on the situation or issue versus the person, while sharing a more appropriate course of action. We all need to avoid falling into the trap of confusing criticism with constructive feedback.

Constructive feedback is information-specific, issue-focused, and based on observations, while criticism is a personal judgment about a performance effort or outcome, usually given is general and vague manner, focused on the person, and based on opinions or feelings

These steps you will help you have more success.

1. Describe: Start by describing what the person did accurately and concisely. Be objective and neutral — remember, how we say something is just as important as what we say. Provide specifics of what happened and do not exaggerate or minimize the situation. Focus on the positive contribution.
2. Explain: Explain the impact of the behaviour on the customer, team or organization. These need to be observations of what you have seen or heard — not your interpretations or opinions. Observations are factual and non-judgmental. It is helpful to start focused on ‘I’. ‘I notice’, ‘I have seen’ or even I have been told’. This will help keep the discussion issue focused. Avoid using ‘but’, ‘although’ or ‘however’ to link this to the first section. These words create contradictions and send a mixed message that effectively negates any positive message you started with.
3. Suggest: Suggest specific changes that you would like to see made and explain what you want the person to do differently. The more specific, the more likely they person will be able to implement the suggestion next time.
4. Commit: Seek a commitment to change. Be clear on the consequences of continuing in this vein. Seek an agreement about the new, modified behaviour. In extreme cases, be clear of the consequences of not making these changes — but again be objective and neutral to minimize this sounding like a threat.

Example: One of your team is being described as harsh or bossy when providing direction to other team members.

Describe: Bill, I really appreciate that you have taken ownership of this project and are providing clear, well thought-out input on what next steps are needed. I wanted to let you know how valuable this is to the team and the overall success of the project.

Explain: I notice that sometimes when you provide direction to other team members, you are very quick and specific when giving input — which sometimes creates the impression that you don’t value their input and think that only your way is the correct way.

Suggest: I’d like to suggest that you take some time to understand why they did it the way they chose and what next steps they are considering. Then building on their ideas, share some additional thoughts on how they can accomplish their goal.

Commit: That way, they will feel that you are adding to their thoughts and helping them be more successful. Does that make sense? Would you give that a try next time and let me know how it works?

Feedback should be given, as close as possible to when the performance incident occurs so that the events are fresh in everyone’s minds. When feedback is given well after the fact, the value of the constructive feedback is lessened.

The exception may be when giving negative feedback. Sometimes when a negative incident happens you may need time to get your thoughts in order before you give negative feedback (coming on too strong or in an angry manner will negate any good you hope to achieve). Giving the feedback tomorrow rather than immediately will come across as far more constructive — and tomorrow is still timely.

Lastly — and hopefully these go without saying — your feedback should be person-to-person versus in writing. The very nature of feedback is a mentoring/coaching activity, which should be done verbally and informally. You should also provide positive feedback in the same manner at least as often as you provide corrective feedback.

By focusing on the positive and keeping the discussion fact based when providing correction, you are able to modify and build new behaviours, without challenging their current behaviours. What do you think? Is it worth a try?

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2008 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

I must admit, I am uncomfortable when someone compliments me about my work. Of course I want people to be happy about my behaviour (performance) and I want positive feedback versus the alternative, but for me, I am uncomfortable responding to praise, or compliments. I’d like to hear something specific about my work rather than some generic comment about me.

For example I prefer: “That was a great idea you proposed for ……” versus “Your idea was brilliant. You’re very creative.” (Okay, I like that too, but I prefer the former).

You’re probably thinking I am over analyzing and I should take all the positives I can get and shut up. Probably good advice, but I can’t change my emotional response to flattery, praise, or compliments — they make me a bit uncomfortable. I prefer a positive comment about the specific behaviour and its effect. Nobody has to add anything personal or gushy to make me feel good. The behaviour speaks for itself.

For instance: “That comparison you used in the first paragraph really helps the reader understand your point.”

Instead of: “You’re a great writer—so eloquent.” Describing the behaviour and the effect is a particularly good approach if you are just starting to provide positive recognition for behaviours.

It also works with someone you may not have a good relationship with. Anything you say to that individual is going to be hesitantly received — they are sensitized to every phrase, gesture, tone, and inflection. If you have a real good relationship with someone, then you have larger margin for error. Some other examples of positive feedback include:

• When you apologized for the inconvenience to the customer who had to wait in line and thanked them for their patience, which really demonstrated our principle of empathy.
• That recommendation you made about _______ really demonstrated your knowledge about that aspect of the business. It will really save us time.
• Your PowerPoint created a buzz after the meeting. The senior team said your presentation made it easy for them to understand the issue and take action.
• I noticed that your email was sent late last night. I appreciate your commitment and know I can count on the project to be delivered on schedule.

Stay away from describing the person and focus on describing the valued-added behaviour and its effect After you have laid the groundwork based on what they did and what effect it had, then you can add personal appreciation. You can then start you comments with “I appreciated you taking the time to….” You have now added a personal touch based on creating a positive relationship of recognition.

Employees want to be acknowledged, to know that the company is aware of their contribution or even more important — their efforts to overcome the limitations of their equipment, unforeseen problems, outdated systems and processes are noticed and appreciated.

People don’t leave companies — they leave Managers. Two of the biggest reasons are; Managers who doesn’t know how to recognize people effectively, and having to work around poor performing co-workers, bad systems and other problems and not being appreciated and acknowledged.

When your feedback describes what they did and what they had to overcome, you defuse any pent up frustration and create a positive, supportive, high performance culture where everyone is working to improve, and where adding value gets noticed.

Try this technique and I guarantee employee engagement will go up and surveys will have positive responses about management and supervision. In addition, turn-over and absenteeism will go down and performance and productivity will go up.

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2009 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

Every business claims they focus on customer service and offer the best to their clients. However, how many really do? If you want to be able to stand out from the crowd and offer truly great customer service instead of just empty promises, here are ten great tips that will help.

1. There are two ways to fix every problem. The immediate solution is to take care of the customer, leave him or her happy, and go on with your day. However, there’s a reason this problem happened. You need to consider how to prevent it from happening again. Your business will be more efficient and you’ll have happier customers overall.

2. Treat your customers like human beings. That means treating them with dignity and not being annoyed at them for interrupting your day. This also means expecting them to act like responsible adults. Too many businesses believe that good customer service means bowing to the whims of every customer with a complaint. That solves the immediate problem of an angry customer, but sometimes it’s not for the best. Know when there’s a real problem that needs fixing and fix it well, but don’t let people walk all over you.

3. Go beyond the minimum to make your customers love you. If there’s a real problem, and you can do just a little more to make a customer’s day, he or she is going to remember it. You’ll get a lot more repeat business and word of mouth advertising if you over deliver.

4. Don’t make excuses. If it’s your fault, say so. Don’t try to blame it on the customer, the circumstances, another vendor, or the position of the moon in the sky. It’s amazing what a difference it can make if you just say “An error has been made, but I will make it right”. Your customer will see you a lot differently if you don’t make excuses.

5. Don’t take it personally! This one’s easy to forget because the customer is directing their frustration at you. However, the customer is angry about the situation, not angry at you, specifically. Taking things personally just introduces anger into the situation and makes it harder to fix the problem.

6. Listen to your customers. Don’t assume you know what they want. They may have some good things to say, even if they’re not experts.

7. Think about what you’re promising. It’s easy to get carried away and offer more than you can easily deliver. If your business is racing from one project to the next, you can’t offer true quality of service. Don’t let this happen. Always pay close attention to what you’re promising, and don’t let a customer talk you into the impossible.

8. Allow the customer to feel like a priority. Don’t answer the phone while filling out a spreadsheet – you’ll sound distracted. Spend the few minutes it takes to really pay attention. Your customers will know the difference and the results will be worth it.

9. Get to problems right away. No one wants to deal with something unpleasant, but if you let a complaint sit, it’s not going to get any better on its own.

10. Follow up! Call after a problem’s been dealt with, or after a customer has received a particularly big order, to find out how things went. Don’t try to sell anything during this call or email. Just find out what you need to know and wish your customer a good day.

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2009 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved