Critical Elements of Customer Service

1. Introduction to the Course: Welcome to critical elements of customer service course. Welcome to a world where customer service is no longer a one size fits all proposition. Our customers are diverse and have many different needs they expect us to fill, and people who provide good customer service, regardless of the nature of the business, earn psychological benefits in addition to any rewards offered by the company. If you are unhappy in your job, take an objective look at the kind of service you are giving. In almost every case, your job satisfaction mirrors the satisfaction people feel when doing business with you. Giving poor service is a way of beating up on yourself, right? So in this class, we will look at how to recognize that service delivery is an individual response value. Understand how your own behavior impacts the behavior of others. Develop more confidence and skill as a problem solver, communicate more assertively and effectively. Learn some ways to make customer service a team approach. Once again, welcome on board. I wish you a happy learning, and let's get started. 2. Identifying Your Customers: Welcome back. Today we will look at a logical question. Who are our customers? For many of us, customers are easy to identify. They buy something from us or we serve them in some way. But some people will say, I don't work directly with customers. Before you accept this idea, I suggest taking a closer look at who our customers are. In most organizations and agencies, customers take two forms internal and external, internal customers at those people, departments, or agencies served by what we do. The only person who might have no internal customers is the individual who works completely alone. For the rest of us, internal customers are a fact of life. A word processing clerk or copy center worker within an organization serves other workers' needs for documents. As individuals, we all have at least one internal customer, our boss. We may also have internal customers in the form of people we supervise. They rely on us to meet their needs. External customers are those people or departments or tenants who are the end users of our organization's products or services. This is, of course, the traditional use of term customer. Do people want? Well, at the simplest level, our customers have some basic needs. They want to be understood. They want to feel welcome. They want to feel important, and they want to feel comfortable. Great organizations don't treat employees and customers as though they were mini computers whose every action can be calculated in advance. They have turned from the hard view of human nature to the soft side, the part guided by emotions. Engaging both employees and customers is the approach that can stir organizations, including government departments, through their managers to great customer service. 3. Creating Excellence : Creating excellence. Achieving superior customer service means not just taking the appropriate steps to solve problems, but going the extra mile to see if such problems can be prevented in the future. Superior Customer Service is not an individual effort, but a team effort with everybody working toward the same goal. We have to know what excellence looks like for every job and every individual who falls under our direction. If we have this information, we can bring individuals into the team with the natural talent to succeed in the job. In the largest study ever conducted by the Gallop organization on the attitudes and behaviors of outstanding employees, they reached two central conclusions. The first is that 12 conditions must be met in order for employees to perform at a high level, and this performance can have a startingly large impact on every part of the organization. The second is that responsibility for meeting these conditions and creating that successful performance lies with each manager and with the employees within each manager's workgroup. In the book Follow This path, Kurt Kofman and Gabriel Gonzalez Malina have zeroed in on these 12 conditions by identifying the questions top performers ask, Here they are. Do I know what is expected of me? Do I have the right materials and equipment to do my job? Do I have the opportunity to do what I do best? Do I receive recognition and praise for good work? Does someone at work care about me? Does someone at work care about my development? Do my opinions count? Do I know the purpose of the department and is my job important? Are my co workers and I committed to quality? Do I have a best friend at work? Has someone talked to me about my progress along my career path? Do I have opportunities to learn and grow? Your role here is to make sure the answers to these questions are positive ones. So think about your answers and type them in our discussion board. 4. Suspending Frame of Reference: Suspending frame of reference. Now let's talk about skills that required for excellent customer service. We will start with the skill of temporarily suspending frame of reference. It is perhaps the most critical and important of all skills, as our credibility and effectiveness can rest solely on our performance of this skill. Your frame of reference is made up of your beliefs, assumptions, values, feelings, judgments, emotions, advice, moods, thoughts and stress levels at any given moment. Because of our frame of reference is so personal and so deeply embedded in us, it is very difficult to practice suspending it on a regular basis. We all seem to want to interpret reality from our own vantage point and reacting in self orienting manner. We can cope with this distortion, providing we are aware of it and can make corrections for it. We have to learn, however, to take into consideration others' points of view and feelings as well as our own. Self disclosure, appropriately sharing yourself with others. Self disclosure refers to the ability to appropriately reveal deeper and deeper levels of self to others. This skill is critical in the development of trust and in developing your self concept and your relationships with others. We earn trust as a trade off for depths of self disclosure. Being visible but not risking too much information too soon promotes this type of trust. Joe Loft and Harry Ingham developed the Joe Harry Windows concept. This concept is a way of looking at our self awareness and our ability to ask feedback of others. Please have a look at this slide, not known to oneself. This window illustrates the point that there are certain things you know about yourself and certain things that you don't know. Similarly, there are certain things other know about you that you may or may not know, and there are certain things they don't know. They make the assumption that it takes energy to hide information from yourself and others, and that the more information is known, the better and clearer communication will be. The open or public arena is the area where you are quite comfortable sharing information about yourself. One partially open window, sometimes called the facade or hidden arena, is that part of your life. You choose not to reveal to other people. This may be how much money you make, how you really feel about your boss, or how much you eat when nobody is looking. The other partially open window is often called the blind window. This window includes those things others think and feel about you, which they don't usually share with you. These things may be negative like the fact you have bad breath or dandruff, but there may be also positives, such as the pleasant sound of your voice or how good you are with people. Finally, you have an unknown or unconscious window. Here are things you don't know about yourself, nor do other people know them. They are deep in your subconscious mind. Building a relationship often involves working to expand your open free or known to self and others window, while decreasing your blind and hidden areas. As you become more self disclosing, you reduce your hidden area and give other people more information to react to. Thus, reducing your blind area. As you encourage others to be more self disclosing with you, your blind area is further reduced. As you reduce your blind area, you increase self awareness, and this helps you to be even more self disclosing with others. Self image, taking responsibility for how you see yourself and how others see you. This skill refers to your ability to be conscious of how you are seeing your own self and monitoring the development of any negative images which may undermine your effectiveness as a person or as a leader. This is a critical skill area neglected by many managers. How can you be a role model of others if you don't already have an exceptionally realistic self image? This is a skill that is activated by awareness and by carefully choosing and affirming a positive self image. It is important to live congruently with that image so that it can develop and be part of the fabric of your life. 5. Giving Undivided Attention to Others: Giving undivided attention to others. Welcome back. Now, first and foremost, let's look at attending. This skill involves not only appearing to be attentive to others, but of actually giving your undivided attention to others. Attending behaviors that give you the appearance of being interested in others include facing the other person, open and relaxed posture, squaring your shoulders, leaning into the relationship instead of leaning back, appropriate eye contact, appropriate distancing. Genuinely giving attention to others is something which others can sense as well as observe. Focused attention from the heart is what most people want. Attending forms the basis for observing another person accurately, and it is prerequisite for observing without distorting your perception. Observing, seeing another person without distorting. Observing skills involve your conscious receiving of information about another person from all visible sources, a person's physical tension and energy levels, facial expressions, skin flashes, body posture, manner of dress, expressive maneism, hand movements, gestures, and other body language. When you can simply see what another person is doing and keep those observations separate from any judgment you might be having, then you are being more objective in your understanding of others. Observing skills prevent the development of assumptions and alert us to judgmental tendencies we all seem to have at times. Observation is the prerequisite skill for effectively and temporarily suspending your own frame of reference, judgment, or value system. Here are eight suggestions to give customers your full attention. Determine the customer's emotional state. Whenever a customer calls, emails or visits a physical place of business, he or she is in a particular emotional state. The customers could be happy, frustrated, disappointed, concerned, or elated. It is critically important that associates not only listen to what the customer or potential customer is saying, but to the underlying emotion as well. Active listening. After an associate listens to a customer and can determine the underlying emotion, reiterating that emotion helps to build trust. When an associate says, I hear you are frustrated, but I can help you. The customer knows he or she is communicating with another person who is willing to help. That help can be an answer to a question, resolve a problem, get advice, et cetera. Active listening is the first step to create a human connection. Uncover the story. Every purchase has a story. No one walks into a mall, picks up a phone, or emails a customer service department in a vacuum. It's almost like a treasure hunt with a price at the end. Is the customer going on a trip, seeking that perfect Valentine's gift or a watch for their son who just graduated college with honors. Finding out why a person is purchasing an item shows the customer you care. Listen patiently. There are many famous quotes from equally famous people about listening. Many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request. Quote by Philip Stanhope. One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say. Quote by Bryant H McGill. When you listen, it's amazing what you can learn. When you act on what you've learned, it's amazing what you can change. Audrey McLuglin Focus on the customer's needs. Every business syllabus in college or grad school contains a course on sales education, instructing students to find out the customer's needs first. Long lists of services and or products are not helpful. Every customer is a person with the personal and unique needs. Discovering and uncovering those needs is a critical step in the sales cycle. We have moved from the information age to the attention age. With the enormous value of information available to anyone at any time, companies that educate their associates about the values of paying attention to what customers are saying and understanding the underlying emotion will reap great benefits. The options of where when and how to shop are boundless. To keep your customers coming back, paying attention is the most valuable asset. Listen to customers and hear what they are saying and feeling. 6. Asking Questions: Asking questions. In order to communicate efficiently with your customers, you should develop active listening skills. Active listening is actually a three stage process, non verbal. These are the messages of our bodies sense to others that tell them we are listening, like leaning forward, making eye contact, nodding our head, attending to what they say, Cues. Those short phrases to keep us connected and tell the other person we're still listening examples are saying, Okay, go on. All right. Or perhaps you are kidding, using paraphrasing, clarifying, and summarizing questions. You ask questions to make sure you understand what is said. When it comes to asking questions, there are two kinds of questions open and closed. Closed questions are those that can be answered by either yes or no or with a specific bit of data such as your name, date of birth, occupation, et cetera. These questions restrict our responses and give us little opportunity to develop our thoughts. As a result, they require little effort and can even close down a conversation. Close question type tends to get overused, particularly because they require little effort on the questioner's part as well. They are easy to phrase, and we get quick answers. Unfortunately, such questions also can lead us to assume, and assumptions can be big barriers to good communication. Close questions begin the closing process. The unintentional use of a closed question can often be overcome by the simple expedient of following it with a simple, open question. For example, do you feel that was the right thing to do? Yes, I do. Can you help me understand why you feel that way? Open questions, on the other hand, encourage people to talk. These questions are phrased, so they cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. Open questions often begin with a variation of the five Ws. Wh Wh Wh Why? We or where, why? Or can ask how? Open questions are used to get information, focus conversations, solicit opinions, gain consensus. There are several different types of open ended questions. The most useful at probing questions, that search for more information and investigate in more detail. Your role in gathering information from others to draw out information from the individual, that is critical to your understanding. Most of us are better at presenting our own point of view than we are at drawing out information from others. A good name for the skill of gathering information from others is probing. When you probe, you get others involved and participating. Since probes are designed to produce a response, it's likely the other person will remain passive, get important information on the table. People may not volunteer information or the information they present may not be clear. Your probes help people open up and present or clarify the information. Force yourself to listen. Since probes are most effective in sequence, you have to listen to a person's response. Help improve communication on both sides of the table. There are five different ways to use probing. One of the most common ways of probing is to ask open questions such as, can you describe that more clearly? Would you give me a specific example of what you mean? What do you think we should do? The difficulty here is that if you ask too many of the, the other person begins to feel like they are under interrogation. So there is also a very effective way of probing is a pause. Stop talking. Let the other person speak, let them feel the silence. A third way to ask a reflective or mirroring question, for example, the person has just said, What I really want is more variety in my work, and you may respond by just reflecting back to them, variety. The reflective question usually provides you with an extended answer without you appearing to ask more questions. Of course, it's the best used in conjunction with a pause reflective questions or statements, focus on clarifying and summarizing without interrupting the flow of the conversation. They indicate your intent to understand the sender's thoughts and feelings. A fourth method that is particularly useful to make certain you are clear about what the individual has said is paraphrasing what just has been said. An example. So if I understand you clearly, you you can use the response to show that you want to increase the accuracy of your understanding of what just has been said. You may also want to use it to ensure the senders hears what he has just said. Finally, paraphrasing reassures the sender that you are trying to understand what he or she is saying. The last method most often used in a conversation is the summary question. For example, you have tried ignoring the scent of your college's cologne. You have talked with him about how it affects your allergies, and you have tried shutting your door to keep the scent from your workspace. None of these attempts has worked. Now you are asking me to intervene. Have I got it right? Remember, non verbal messages are equally important when communicating. Our non verbal messages can include the way we stand, what we do with our hands, the sound of our voice, the way we walk, and the expressions on our face. Not that long ago, studies told us we only had 4 minutes to make a first impression. Today, research tells us we only have 90 seconds. In this fast paced society, we don't have time to get more than a quick snapshot of how a person looks before we make up our mind about him or her. They're making up their mind about us at the same time. Far more important than how much our suit cost and whether our shoes are polished is whether or not we look approachable. If we are to look approachable, we smile, make eye contact, shake hands with a good but not overpowering grip, and show interest in the other person. 7. Stereotypes: Stereotypes, a difficult aspect in the treatment of hardened categories is that categorizers are usually unaware that stereotypes are affecting their behavior. They ignore differences and overvalue similarities. Assuming the rigid defined world is just how things are. Of course, we all carry sets of categories around with us, but the mere occurrence of conventionalized images to you does not necessarily make you a chronic stereotyper. Joe may be quite aware that his generalized image is just that and often with little or no basis in fact. He says to himself, in effect, Sure you mentioned professor, and I think immediately of the pedantic, absent minded, fuddy daddy carrying a rolled up umbrella and wearing spots. But that's just the stereotype. Actually, very few of the professors I have known even approach this caricature. The problem of discrimination arises when a person is unaware of or unwilling to recognize stereotypes as such, when, in other words, the categories become hardened. Thus, an approach to dissolution of stereotypes to the softening of categories is to work toward the awareness of them. Stereotyping starts in our thoughts. When we see a customer, what we do, what do we think? Do we think a woman is poor, if she has messy hair? She could be a busy mum. Do we think a man is rich if we see him in a suit? It could have been donated to him. We all fall into it, but stereotypes don't help us, serve people best. So when we see a customer, what should we think? We should see them as a human like we are. We should think about the honor it is to serve another person. We should feel thankful to have the skills and ability to serve them. We should feel grateful we needed to serve them. And all that should lead us to listen to them, to make their needs the priority and to serve them the best we can. And let's not forget about the consequences when we continue to entertain stereotypes about customers. Negative word of mouth is a natural consequence of poor service due to our stereotypes. So remember, the best customer service starts out thoughts about our customers. Impression management involves an awareness of the impact you have on others and your ability to control your behavior in order to make this impact in a desired fashion. This skill includes learning to speak effectively and articulately, learning to dress appropriately for various social and business occasions, expressing strong, effective, pleasant non verbal messages to others, creating the impression you wish others to have of you, avoiding being pigeonholed by others' limited perceptions of you, often called stereotyping. 8. Seven Steps to Customer Problem Solving: Seven steps to customer problem solving. Today, let's look at the specific steps we would take to resolve a customer's problem when they occur. Here is the list. Express respect. Listen to understand, uncover the expectations. Repeat the specifics. Look for possible solutions. Take action and follow through. Double check for satisfaction. But what kind of customer problems we are talking about? Let's look at few situations, so it's clear situation one, happy burgers. Jane is working at a happy burger alone one night. A customer comes in and orders a super smiley meal. This customer then changes his mind and wants a beamer special, he then changes his mind again and on a smirky sundae, he becomes frustrated because Jane can't get his order right. Situation two, your cash bank. Sam walks into the bank one day to take money out of his account. The teller informs him that the account has been closed due to suspicion of criminal activity. Sam becomes very upset and demands to speak to the supervisor who is not in situation three. Acme Widgets Incorporated. On her way to work, Erin stops at ABC stationary to pick up her company's order. She is told that her order hasn't been received and will need to be placed again. This is the fourth time that this has happened this year, and Erin is not happy. Situation four. Fresh veggies. Tom is planning a big birthday dinner and goes to fresh veggies to get everything he needs. He's particularly excited about the fresh wonglebrries that the store's flyer promised. However, when he arrives at the store, there are none to be found. A cashier tells him they are out of stock. Situation five leaky pipes. Jacob calls in a plumber to fix his leaky bath tub. He goes downstairs to let the plumber do his work. He returns to the bathroom to find his plumber asleep in the bathtub on the work uncompleted. Situation six, we fix it. Joanne calls technician Support one evening to fix a recurring problem with her computer. She's told that the computer is supposed to do this, and there's nothing they can do. Naturally, she's not very happy about this. Once a customer problem is identified, the service recovery process should begin. Not all of the six steps described in this lesson are needed for all customers. Use what you know about your products and services and what you can discover about the customer's problems to customize your actions to the specific situation. Remember, one size doesn't fit all you should always take immediate steps to solve problems. The sense of urgency you bring to the problem solving tells your customers that recovery is important to you and to your organization. Apologize. It doesn't matter who is at fault. Customers want someone to acknowledge that a problem occurred and show concern. Listen and emphasize. Treat your customers in a way that shows you care about them as well as about their problem. People have feelings and emotions. They want the personal side of the transaction acknowledged. Fix the problem quickly and fairly. A fair fix is one that's delivered with a sense of professional concern. At the bottom line, customers want what they expected to receive in the first place. The sooner, the better. Offer atonement. It's not uncommon for dissatisfied customers to feel injured or put out by a service breakdown. Often they will look to you to provide some value at a gesture that says in a manner appropriate to the problem, I want to make it up to you. Keep your promises. Service recovery is needed because a customer believes a service promise has been broken. During the recovery process, you will often make new promises. When you do, be realistic about what you can and can't deliver. Follow up. You can add a pleasant extra to the recovery sequence by following up a few hours, days or weeks later to make sure things really were resolved to your customer's satisfaction. Don't assume you fix the person or the problem, check to be sure. 9. Eliminating Customer Service Problems: Eliminating customer service problems tools to use. Wouldn't it be great if all our customers were happy and we didn't have to deal with the issues? Well, there always be areas of improvement. There are some tools we can use to address and eliminate customer service issues. Here they are, let's start with critical evolution. You need to learn evaluate situations critically, big pictures, and then break into smaller components. Question each using how, what, where, when, why, and who in the present tense. Also ask what could be done differently to develop options. Then question the options for advantages and disadvantages using the same five Ws and H format. Formal surveys. Ask your customers what they want, ask them how you are doing. This can be scored in a report card fashion to compare periods of time. Focus groups. Create focus groups. This usually have five, eight participants, prescreened for subject matter experience with structured specific questions to ensure maximum flexibility. During it, a moderator discusses specific issues with participants. It is a very moderated and structured session. After group discussion, the moderator produces the results in the reported format. Don't try this if you haven't participated in one or do sufficient research into focus group structure, questioning and analysis. NGT, nominal group technique. This is similar to focus groups, but larger questions are structured and everyone must respond before the facilitator moves to the next participant. Once the questions has been depleted, the facilitator and the group then prioritize the responses. The top three to five are usually set as immediate with the rest used after that. Fish bone cause an effect or root cause. Each major bone of the fish has a heading, equipment, system, processes, people, and environmental, with the heads being the symptom. This method allows participants to discuss the symptom and categorize possible reasons under the headings. Each heading is then examined to determine if it is causing the symptom until the root cause is determined. Brainstorming Remember, any idea is considered in brainstorming and there is no poor or stupid ideas, no critical comments. Object is that although an individual idea may not be feasible, someone else will use this to build on, and the result will be a fantastic idea. Benchmarking. See how others do what you do or use if applicable. You can ask, and they will usually let you see how they do things. They often think you are usually not as advanced as they are if you are asking to view the systems, processes, or methods. 10. Doing Your Part : Doing your part, although customer service is a team effort, you must recognize that you are part of that team and that you have as much of a role in that team as everyone else. Today, let's look at developing and maintaining relationships. Relationships are the key to a functional and positive team. There are several parts of the developing and maintaining relationships with your team members. Here they are clear expectations. Every partner in a relationship has certain expectations of other partners. Most expectations remain unspoken until they have been violated. One way to develop and maintain effective relationships is to make your expectations of one another clear. Next is recognizing the reciprocal quality of relationships. We can use the reciprocal nature of our relationship with others to establish interpersonal cooperation and trust. Remember, two cliches, it's a two way straight, and you only get back what you give. Then understanding different communication styles. We can communicate more successfully with others and establish more meaningful relationships if we not only understand others style but can attune our styles to theirs. Now, let's look at phrases for the world of work. Here are ten most helpful phrases. I care. I'd like to understand. Help me to understand how are things with you. Let's define the problem. This is what I heard you say. Let me put this another way. How can I help you? Can I do anything to help? What would you do? Thank you. Silence with concern. And these are ten least helpful phrases. You shouldn't feel that way. Why did you do? Say that. It's not important. I know exactly how you feel. I know what you're going to say. How can you are not as good as? Do you want to know what I think? Here's what you should do. I told you so. Any phrases that contains the words, always, never, all the time, everyone or permanently. Silence without concern, indifference. Mamba, you should recognize the power of your behavior. The secret to success is not very hard to figure out. The better you are at connecting with other people, the better quality of your life. Is there any natural talent for getting along with people, or is it something we can learn? Connecting with other people brings infinite rewards. Connecting is what our ancestors were doing thousands of years ago when they gathered around the fire to eat bully mama steaks. Keep in mind, ability works. Likeable people give loud and clear signals of their willingness to be social. What are they? No matter what you do or where you live, the quality of your attitude determines the quality of your relationships. Not to mention just about everything else in your life. The good news is that attitudes are yours to select. And if you are free to choose anyone you please, why not choose a really useful attitude? In face to face situations, your attitude precedes you. Is the central force in your life. It controls the quality and appearance of everything you do. But how to feel powerful in your position. What comes out of our mouth can strengthen our relationships with our customers or weaken our place in their heart. Along with our knowledge, skills, and abilities, and the willingness to provide excellent customer service, the words we use with our customers are so powerful that they can build or destroy relationships. Here are power talk examples. That may be so, but can be changed too. That may be so and instead of I disagree, how about to say, I understand. Let's consider another viewpoint. Change. I think I got that, too. Let's verify that. Change. I'm so sorry. I'm afraid I've forgotten your name, too. Hello, I am. Whether at work or in your personal life, people who make things happen learn how to phrase the words, so they are encouraging and decisive. We can project positive expectations both in ourselves and in others by remembering some basics of good communication. 11. Making That Great First Impression : Making that great first impression, as we've mentioned before, years ago, we used to hear that we only have about 5 minutes to make a great impression. Well, in today's world, we seem to have shortened that to about 90 seconds. So if you plan to make a good impression within those 90 seconds, let's consider these points to make a positive impression, first and foremost, confident posture. Then eye contact, and minimal body movement. Obviously, clothes are clean, unrmpled and stain free. Shoes are clean and polished, fingernails are clean. And finally, pleasant expression. You can also control that critical first impression by observing the following guidelines based on the rule of 12, which suggests that we first notice and remember three things about people we meet. The first 12 " from your shoulders up, the first 12 steps a person takes, the first 12 words a person speak. First rule of 12 tells you that people notice everything about the shoulders of your jacket, your tie, tie knot, how well pressed or criss your color is, the length and neatness of your hair, your complexion, your eyes, and your smile. Remember to smile as this is a key factor in creating that critical first impression. Second rule of 12 tells you to enter a room with a confidence and to look as if you both have a reason to be there and are happy to be there. Smile and extend your hand. Keep your shoulders back and stand up straight. If you carry a briefcase or purse, keep it in your left hand so that the right hand is ready to shake hands. The third rule concerns your first 12 words, which should always include a thank you of some kind. For instance, you could thank the manager or client for taking the time to see you, indicate that you are glad you could finally get together, or mention that you've been looking forward to meeting the person for a long time. Your words should invite the other person to respond in kind. For instance, by saying you are welcome. This approach puts everyone at ease and opens negotiations on a friendly footing. Remember, first impressions are lasting, so give those first 12 ", 12 steps, and 12 words everything you've got.