POSITIVE Global Customer Service Model

POSITIVE Global Customer Service Model – Serving Diverse Customers

The following acronym (POSITIVE) provides some strategies for creating or contributing to a positive global service environment and building strong relationships with your customers. It provides a model to move you from good customer service to the best customer service possible.

Put your best foot forward. Maintain a positive approach to situations involving customers, smile frequently, and have a “can-do” attitude. When dealing with customers and potential customers, never forget that they are your reason for employment.

Offer whatever level of assistance possible. In addressing customer needs and wants, go out of your way to uncover and resolve problems and to build a strong customer-provider relationship.

Stay abreast of current industry trends and strategies for delivering quality customer service. By upgrading your knowledge and skills regularly, you will be prepared to address any type of customer situation.

Identify true customer needs by listening to proactively. You have two ears and one mouth. Use them accordingly.

Take the time to get to know more about your customers. The more you know, the better you can provide quality service.

Invite your customers to open up and share information. Ask open-ended questions (e.g. Who, What, When, How, Why, and To What Extent) that typically lead to more detailed responses from others.

Verify understanding. When a customer provides information, ensure that you heard and understood it correctly before responding. Use closed-ended (typically start with an action verb) to gather this information.

Engage in relationship-building strategies immediately. Use strong interpersonal communication skills. Start with a smile (on your face and in your voice and words) and a professional greeting when meeting customers face-to-face, over the telephone or in an email. If something goes wrong, immediately start on a course of service recovery with a sincere apology and taking steps to “make the customer whole” again with any appropriate compensation.

Source: Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service across Cultures, Lucas. R.W., McGraw-Hill Professional, New York, NY (2011).
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Bob Lucas B.S., M.A., M.A, CPLP is principal in Robert W. Lucas Enterprises, Inc and an internationally-known author and learning and performance professional. He has written and contributed to thirty-one books and compilations. He regularly conducts creative training, train-the-trainer, customer service, interpersonal communication and management, and supervisory skills workshops. Learn more about Bob and his organization at www.robertwlucas.com and follow his blogs at www.robertwlucas.com/wordpress, www.customerserviceskillsbook.com, and www.thecreativetrainer.com. Like Bob at www.facebook.com/robertwlucasenterprises

Perceptions of Time Can Impact Customer Relationships

by Robert W. Lucas

Perceptions of Time Can Impact Customer Relationships

Perceptions of time can impact customer relationships. An understanding of the concept and value of time differences between individuals is crucial for any employee since they are likely to interact with people from other cultures periodically.

By recognizing that customers from diverse backgrounds may not view punctuality or tardiness from the same perspective as you, the potential for a more positive relationship between you and them is possible. For example, if you are looking forward to a vacation or other special event time may often seem to drag on. On the other hand, if you are in a hurry or are late for a customer meeting, time might seem to fly. These feelings may not be true for someone else. In the latter situation, you may feel greater pressure or feel stressed while someone from a culture where time is viewed as less important (e.g. Hispanic or Middle Eastern) may not have the same reaction.

Often the situation or the people involved in a given interpersonal scenario will dictate how someone perceives time. For example, many college students in the United States go by an unwritten standard that if their professor is late, they should wait a given period of time before leaving or assuming that a class is canceled. If the teacher has full professorial (tenured) status, they might wait fifteen minutes before leaving. If the instructor is an adjunct or associate professor (non-tenured), they might only wait ten minutes. In the workplace, you are wise to wait for at least fifteen to thirty minutes or so and then verify the cancellation of a meeting if you are scheduled to meet with a customer or a member of senior management.

The manner in which someone uses or addresses time often differs for various reasons. For example, some individuals grew up in a household or cultural environment where one or both of their parents or other caregivers had a lackadaisical attitude toward time and were often late. If this was the case in your home environment, the chances are that you may not be as punctual as someone who learned early on that being on time for meeting commitments was an important personal value. Depending on the situation and other people involved, this may or may not be an issue. In some cultures being late by as much as an hour is acceptable. The higher a person’s status, the longer you might have to wait for them. In the United States and other monochronic societies, five to ten minutes is an acceptable wait time if someone is late, unless they are high ranking in an organization, government or military. The logic in such cases is that because of the demands on their time and the level of decisions in which they are typically involved, senior-level people are more likely to be detained or called into unscheduled meetings or telephone calls which might cause tardiness.

The concept and value of time differ between individuals. By understanding that customers from diverse backgrounds may not view punctuality or tardiness from the same perspective as you, the potential for a more positive relationship between you and them exists. For example, if you are looking forward to a vacation or other special event time may often seem to drag on. On the other hand, if you are in a hurry or are late for a customer meeting, time might seem to fly. In the latter situation, you are likely to feel greater pressure or feel stressed. Even so, someone from a culture where time is viewed as less important (e.g. Hispanic or Middle Eastern) may not have the same reaction.

The bottom line in customer service is that you should always conduct yourself in a professional manner. This includes punctuality, following through on commitments and working to show your customers that you value and respect them. Effective time management should be part of your persona. Educate yourself on the traditions and values of customers from around the world and act accordingly when dealing with people from different cultures. This can lead to enhanced customer retention and satisfaction.

The information in this article is derived from Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures. For additional information on interacting with customers from various backgrounds and hundreds of ideas on ways to enhance your customer service relationships, get a copy of the book.

Nonverbal Communication for Customer Service Representatives

by Robert W. Lucas

Nonverbal Communication for Customer Service Representatives

One of the key skills that customer service representatives must master is the art of sending and receiving nonverbal messages effectively. The likelihood of building positive interpersonal relationships with customers increases significantly when you master the ability to accurately understand facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, and other bodily movements.

Who was Martha Graham?

Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Her style, the Graham technique, reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide.

Graham danced and taught for over seventy years. She was the first dancer to perform at the White House, travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, and receive the highest civilian award of the US: the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction. In her lifetime she received honors ranging from the Key to the City of Paris to Japan’s Imperial Order of the Precious Crown. She said, in the 1994 documentary The Dancer Revealed, “I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It’s permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless, it is inevitable.”

Famous Martha Graham Quotes:

Dance is the hidden language of the soul of the body.
Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.
The body says what words cannot.
No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the times.
Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain.
The body is a sacred garment.
The only sin is mediocrity.
’Age’ is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.
Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It’s a miracle, and the dance is a celebration of that miracle.
The body is shaped, disciplined, honored, and in time, trusted.

For more ideas on how nonverbal communication can increase your effectiveness in dealing with current and potential customers and how to build those skills explore these resources.

About Robert C. Lucas

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Customer Service Quality Quote – Robert W. Lucas

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Quality Quote – Robert W. Lucas

In a global, competitive customer environment of today, the organizations that survive and prosper will be those that do the unexpected by determining the true needs, wants and expectations of their customers and addressing them. These are the companies and institutions that go beyond the traditional paradigms of business and the way that they deliver products and services to customers.

While many things are evolving that impact you, your organization and customers, there are still things that can be controlled.

As an international author and customer service consultant, Robert W. Lucas has said:

“The one aspect of the customer service process over which you and your organization do have control — is the level and quality of service that is provided to your customers.” Customer Service Quality Quote by Robert W. Lucas

For information on proven customer service processes and skills that can help forge a solid service strategy and help gain and retain customers, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

About Robert C. Lucas

Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Bob Lucas B.S., M.A., M.A, CPLP is the principal in Robert W. Lucas Enterprises, Inc and an internationally-known author; learning and performance professionals. He has written and contributed to numerous books on the subject of customer service skill training.

He regularly conducts workshops on creative training, train-the-trainer, customer service, interpersonal communication, and management,
and supervisory skills.

Learn more about Bob and his organization at www.robertwlucas.com and follow his blogs at www.robertwlucas.com/wordpress,
www.customerserviceskillsbook.com, and www.thecreativetrainer.com. Like Bob at www.facebook.com/robertwlucasenterprises

Customer Service Quote – Maya Angelou

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Quote – Maya Angelou

One of the most important means for customer service representatives to create a customer-centric environment is to think of ways to build a sound relationship with everyone with whom they come into contact.

By going out of your way to identifying customer needs, wants and expectations and then take extra steps to satisfy them, you can help guarantee customer and brand loyalty.

For ideas and techniques that can be used to develop excellent customer service skills and deliver superior customer service, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Designing Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Here are a few more Maya Angelou Quotes to enjoy!

I do my best because I’m counting on you counting on me. Maya Angelou
If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.
Nothing will work unless you do.
Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.
Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.
Only equals can become friends. – Maya Angelou
If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded. Maya Angelou
You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been.
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
The children to whom we read simple stories may or may not show gratitude, but each boon we give strengthens the pillars of the world.
If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.
When you know you are of worth — not asking it but knowing it — you walk into a room with particular power.
When you know you are of worth, you don’t have to raise your voice, you don’t have to become rude, you don’t have to become vulgar; you just are. And you are like the sky is, as the air is, the same way water is wet. It doesn’t have to protest.
You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.
Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!
You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
I was told many years ago by my grandmother who raised me: If somebody puts you on a road and you don’t feel comfortable on it and you look ahead and you don’t like the destination and you look behind and you don’t want to return to that place, step off the road.
My work is, to be honest. My work is to try to think clearly, then have the courage to make sure that what I say is the truth.

About Robert C. Lucas

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

In my book Customer Service Skills for Success, I define customer service as “the ability of knowledgeable, capable, and enthusiastic employees to deliver products and services to their internal and external customers in a manner that satisfies identified and unidentified needs and ultimately results in positive word-of-mouth publicity and return business.”

The Importance of Customer Service Representatives in Organizational Success

by Robert W. Lucas

The Importance of Customer Service Representatives

in Organizational Success

The business of customer service is all about people. Whether you are the CEO discussing strategic relationships with potential business partners, a salesperson sharing product or service information with a potential customer, a call center representative gathering information from a caller on the phone, or a receptionist greeting a visitor to the organization, they all have one thing in common . . . effective communication is crucial in aiding the exchange of information. Customer satisfaction and successful product and service fulfillment hinge on the abilities of customer service representatives and others in your organization, to transmit and receive messages freely and effectively with current and potential customers. The ultimate goal is to deliver the best customer service possible.

All customer experiences are a combination of people coming together for a common purpose; interacting face to face, via technology, or in writing; and merging individual beliefs, values, and expectations. Depending on the skill and ﬁnesse of the service provider, this can mean either a positive or negative outcome.

One variable over which you have little control as a service provider is the emotional state of your customers. When you ﬁrst encounter someone, you have no idea if he or she is happy, sad, optimistic, angry, vindictive, or in some other frame of mind. That is why you must have an arsenal of interpersonal skills in your service toolbox upon which you can draw. A key element in this equation is the ability to effectively express yourself verbally and to ask appropriate questions, listen, and analyze customer needs, wants, and expectations. You must then take correct and decisive action in order to satisfy the customer.

As a customer service professional, you have the power to make or break the organization. You are the front line in delivering quality service to your customers. Your appearance, actions or inactions, and ability to communicate say volumes about the organization and its focus on customer satisfaction. Additionally, in order to be successful, you need knowledge and skill in communicating verbally, nonverbally, across genders and cultures, and with a variety of personality types. For all these reasons, you should continually work to enhance your knowledge and skills, strive to project a professional image, and go out of your way to make a customer’s visit or conversation with you a pleasant and successful one.

To learn more about the role that customer service representatives play in organizational success and how to create a customer-centric environment that results in brand and customer loyalty, get a copy of the book Customer Service Skills for Success.

About Robert C. Lucas, the expert who is explaining the Importance of Customer Service

Representatives in Organizational Success

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

Customer Satisfaction Quote – Peter F. Drucker

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Satisfaction Quote – Peter F. Drucker

Building good relationships in order to increase customer satisfaction is valuable – because it can lead to repeat business – the key to keeping a business productive and profitable.

Satisfaction is a big factor for many customers in remaining loyal. In your own organization, your efforts could be the deciding factor in customer ratings for the quality of service rendered.

Management guru, Peter F. Drucker, summed this premise up in the following quote:

“Quality in a product or service is not what you put into it.

It is what the client or customer get out of it.” Peter F. Drucker

For ideas and strategies on building and improving customer satisfaction, get a copy of the book Customer Service Skills for Success.

Learn All About Robert C. ‘Bob’ Lucas

He is an Authority in the Customer Service Skills Industry

Robert C. ‘Bob’ Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

Customer Service Quote – The Value of Dissatisfied Customers

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Quote – The Value of Dissatisfied Customers

Customers who are unhappy or dissatisfied can be a real challenge for many customer service representatives. They require additional time and effort to appease, they can create a public display, and they can also affect organizational and service provider satisfaction ratings by sharing their story with others.

On the other hand, you might want to view your dissatisfied customers as an opportunity to learn what is not working in the organization or with your approach to customer service. Often, we get so tied up in the day-to-day process and procedural “stuff” which we have to do, that we forget that our primary purpose for being there in the first place is to provide the best possible customer service to those with whom we come into contact.

By stepping back to examine why our customer was dissatisfied in the first place, we can potentially identify policies, product defects, service breakdowns and other potential problem areas that could cause more problems in the future. We can then brainstorm with our supervisor and peers to find potential solutions to these issues. This provides the opportunity to go from poor customer service to excellent customer service.

Bill Gates of Microsoft summed up this concept:

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”

For strategies and techniques on how to deliver positive, effective service to your customers, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

Delivering Customer Service to a Diverse Customer Base

by Robert W. Lucas

Delivering Customer Service to a Diverse Customer Base

Personal awareness on the part of customer service representatives is the first step in delivering customer service to a diverse customer base.

The word diversity encompasses a broad range of differences. Many people only associate the term diversity with cultural diversity, which has to do with the differences between groups of people, depending on their country of origin, backgrounds, and beliefs. They fail to recognize that diversity is not just cultural. Certainly, diversity occurs within each cultural group; however, many other characteristics are involved. For example, within a group of Japanese people are subgroups such as different generations, males, females, children, athletes, thin people, gay or lesbian people, Buddhists, Christians, grandparents, married and single people, to mention just a few of the possible diverse characteristics, beliefs, and values.

Diversity is not a simple matter, yet it is not difficult to deal with. Start your journey to a better understanding of diversity by being fair to all people and keeping an open mind when interacting with them. In fact, when you look more closely at and think about, diversity it provides wonderful opportunities because people from varying groups and geographic locations bring with them special knowledge, experience, and value. This is because even though people may have differences or potentially look different, they also have many traits in common. Their similarities form a solid basis for successful interpersonal relationships if you are knowledgeable and think of people as individuals; you can then capitalize on their uniqueness. If you cannot think of the person instead of the group, you may stereotype people—lump them together and treat them all the same. This is a recipe for interpersonal disaster, service breakdown and organizational failure.

Some diversity factors that make people different are innate and they are born with them, such as height, weight, hair color, gender, skin color, physical and mental condition, and sibling birth order. All these factors contribute to our uniqueness and help or inhibit us throughout our lives, depending on the perceptions we and others have. Other factors that make us unique are learned or gained through our environment and our life experiences. Examples of these factors include religion, values, beliefs, economic level, lifestyle choices, profession, marital status, education, and political affiliation. These factors are often used to assign people to categories. Caution must be used when considering any of these characteristics since grouping people can lead to stereotyping and possible discrimination.

The bottom line is that all of these factors affect each customer encounter. Your awareness of differences and of your own preferences is crucial in determining the success you will have in each instance.

To learn more about providing quality service to all your customers, explore Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and other current books on the topic of the Delivering Customer Service to a Diverse Customer Base.

About Robert W. Lucas

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

Successfully Addressing Diversity as a Service Provider

by Robert W. Lucas

Successfully Addressing Diversity as a Service Provider

As the world grows smaller economically and otherwise through world trade, international travel, outsourcing and off shoring of jobs, worldwide Internet access, international partnerships between organizations and technologically transmitted information exchange, the likelihood that you will have contact as a customer service provider with people from other cultures, or who are different from you in other ways, increases significantly. This likelihood also carries over into your personal life.

Diversity is encountered everywhere over the telephone and Internet, in supermarkets, religious organizations, and on public transportation and virtually anywhere that you come into contact with others. It is an important aspect of everyone’s life. Although it presents challenges in making us think of differences and similarities, it also enriches our lives. Each encounter we have with another person gives us an opportunity to expand our knowledge of others and build customer relationships while growing personally.

One significant impact that diversity has on customer service is that people from varied backgrounds and cultures bring with them expectations based on personal preferences and the “norm” of their country or group. Whether this diversity pertains to cultural or ethnic differences, beliefs, values, religion, age, gender, ability levels or other factors a potential breakdown in customer satisfaction can occur if people get other than what they want or expect.

In order to provide excellent customer service rather than good customer service, you will need to raise your personal awareness about others and focus on addressing the needs of a diverse customer base.

Part of creating a positive diverse customer-centric business environment is to train each service provider on the nuances of dealing with people who have backgrounds that are different from their own. Additionally, this effort involves each employee taking ownership for enhancing his or her knowledge and skills related to working with a diverse customer base.

To better prepare for the inevitable opportunities, you will have in serving others who are different from you, ask yourself the following questions. After thinking about them, set out to do some research in areas where you feel deficient.

How do you define diversity?
What do you already know about diverse cultures around the world?
In what ways do your cultural beliefs and values differ from those of cultures with which you have contact as a service provider?
In what ways are your cultural beliefs and values similar to those of cultures with which you have contact as a service provider?
How do the beliefs and expectations of people from a gender other than your own impact your ability to serve them effectively?
How do the values of other generations differ from your own?
What accommodations might be necessary for customers who have special needs?
What is your personal interest in learning about other cultures or diverse groups?
What training or research have you done on diversity and how has that impacted your views or perspectives towards others who may be different from you?

For ideas and strategies on providing quality customer service to a diverse population, check out, Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

About Robert W. Lucas

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.