Strengthening Communication with Customers – Tip#4

Be Personable

Customers who feel that they have an active role in and control of a service-provider interaction often feel more important and valued. Improved interpersonal communication can lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction and retention and reduced stress for you and your co-workers.

Take advantage of the following strategy to build stronger relationships with your internal and external customers by being personable.

Service providers who tend to be “all business” or robotic in their service delivery often fail to get high marks from customers. Even if you are knowledgeable, are efficient, and follow all the rules in delivering service, you could end up with a customer who is dissatisfied if you do not demonstrate some degree of humanness. This means connecting on a personal level and showing compassion and concern for your customers and their emotional needs. For example, if someone tells you during an interaction that he or she is celebrating a special event, take the time to ask, explore the topic briefly, or relate a personal example. If it is the customer’s child’s birthday, you might wish the child an enthusiastic “Happy Birthday” and ask the child how old he or she is or what the child hopes to get for his or her birthday. Depending on the type of business you are in, you might even offer a small present (e.g., a free dessert, a piece of candy, a toy, a coupon for a discount on his or her next visit, or whatever might be appropriate). At the least, upon concluding the transaction, with the child well or congratulate him or her one more time.

For specific strategies on more effective communication with your customers, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

About Robert W. 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.

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.”

Non-verbal Communication Quote – Robert W. Lucas

by Robert W. Lucas

Non-verbal Communication Quote – Robert W. Lucas

Customer service representatives are often the first people with whom a current or potential customer comes into contact when reaching out to an organization. Their role is to quickly and professionally use their customer service skills to assist in resolving issues or concerns or providing products and services that they are seeking. Communicating effectively with customers is the only means of gathering information from them that will allow a customer service representative to address and satisfy their needs, wants and expectations.

While verbal communication is a powerful tool for gaining customer input, their nonverbal messages often overshadow what they say and send their true emotional meaning of feelings in a give situation. If you learn to read these cues, you will often be able to more accurately deliver the best customer service possible.

Your non-verbal communication cues—the way you listen, look, move, and react—tell the person you’re communicating with whether or not you care, if you’re being truthful, and how well you’re listening. When your non-verbal signals match up with the words you’re saying, they increase trust, clarity, and rapport.

Here are some quick ways to improve your non-verbal communication asap:

Avoid slouching 24/7
Steer clear of nervous laughter when the message is serious
Display some animation with your hands and facial expressions to project a dynamic presence.
Eliminate fidgeting during a meeting
Establish frequent eye contact but never use a piercing stare
Focus on the conversation.
Introduce yourself with a smile
Offer a firm handshake
Listen carefully
Never interrupt the other speaker in a conversation

For more ideas and strategies on how to effectively read and sent non-verbal messages, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and Customer Service Skills for Success.

About Robert W. Lucas

Positive Impressions Help To Build Customer Relationships

by Robert W. Lucas

Positive Impressions Help To Build Customer Relationships

Customers often judge an organization and the people who work for it based on the first impressions made by front line employees with whom they come into contact face-to-face or via technology.

It is crucial that you and those who serve customers take time to prepare for customer encounters and to prepare yourself to send positive messages through your appearance, voice and nonverbal cues. This will help in building strong customer relationships that can lead to increased customer satisfaction and customer retention.

Here are 5 good positive body gestures:

Relax your shoulders to avoid looking tense
Be pleasant and friendly
Make good and strong eye contact when talking to people
Lean forward slightly to get engaged in a conversation
Share your body between both feet

To learn more about making positive impressions on current and potential customers, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

About Robert W. Lucas

The Role of Facial Expressions in Customer Service

by Robert W. Lucas

The Role of Facial Expressions in Customer Service

A major component of delivering stellar customer service to your customers is to continually hone your customer service skills in the area of communication so that you are able to deliver the best customer service possible. For example, there are so many different messages that can be sent to your customers through various nonverbal communication cues, that learning their meaning and significance can take years. This is especially true when you factor in the fact that different people and cultures assign varying meanings to what they see.

By moving the muscles in your face, you can convey feelings and messages to others that let them know whether you are experiencing happiness, sadness, frustration anger or many other moods. As with other nonverbal cues, the interpretation of facial expressions can vary between cultures and individuals. Since the time of Charles Darwin, researchers have studied facial expressions and have identified that most common facial expressions are interpreted in similar ways by cultures around the world. It is the beliefs of individual cultures related to the appropriateness of expressing emotions like surprise, happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust that change how people use and interpret such facial signals.

Because facial expressions are closely tied to human emotion, you should be careful about projecting subconscious biases that you might have toward any group because you might unintentionally send a negative message to a customer before you realize it. For example, if you disapprove of customers who have facial piercings and tattoos you might indicate your displeasure nonverbally when with a smirk or other facial gesture or you might unintentionally stare when a customer matching that description walks up to you.

To learn more customer service tips related to non-verbal communication and how to effectively use it as a tool for delivering excellent customer service and gaining better customer satisfaction, get copies of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and Customer Service Skills for Success.

About Robert W. Lucas

Strengthening Communication with Customers – Tip#3

by Robert W. Lucas

Strengthening Communication with Customers – Tip#3

Demonstrate Openness

Take advantage of the following strategy to build stronger relationships with your internal and external customers by demonstrating openness.

Customers often want to see that service providers understand them on a personal level. The worst thing you can do as a service provider is to hide behind a policy or deflect responsibility when dealing with a customer issue or question. Think of how you likely react when a service provider says something like, “I can’t do that because our policy says . . . .” You probably feel the hairs rise on the back of your neck and become agitated. Your customers are no different. When interacting with them, take the time to put yourself in their place before saying something or taking an action that might create an adversarial situation.

About Robert W. Lucas

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

Improving Customer Service With Active Listening Skills

by Robert W. Lucas

Improving Customer Service With Active Listening Skills

Delivering excellent customer service to your internal and external customers requires strong interpersonal communication skills, especially in the area of listening.

Listening effectively is the primary means that many customer service representatives use during communication to determine the needs of their customers. Many times, these needs are not communicated to you directly but through inferences, indirect comments, or nonverbal signals. A skilled listener will pick up on a customer’s words and these cues or nuances and, then conduct follow-up questioning or probe deeper to determine the real need.
Most employees take listening skills for granted in a customer service environment. They incorrectly assume that anyone can listen effectively. Unfortunately, this is untrue. This is why many employees who deal with customers are complacent about listening and only go through the motions of listening.
True listening is an active learned process, as opposed to hearing, which is the physical action of gathering sound waves through the ear canal. When you listen actively, you go through a process consisting of various phases …. hearing or receiving the message, attending, comprehending or assigning meaning, and responding.
For information and strategies for developing and using effective listening skills and what you can do to more effectively interact with your customers, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

Quote On Communicating Through Body Language – Harvey Wolter

by Robert W. Lucas

Quote On Communicating Through Body Language – Harvey Wolter

Learning to read body language (nonverbal communication) is a crucial customer service skill since the majority of the sender’s meaning in a conversation comes from the non-verbal cues that they send along with their verbal communication.

Famous Harvey Wolter Quotes

“You can tell a lot by someone’s body language.”
“It really gets your blood going in the morning.”
“I never take anything personally. If they don’t respond, I figure it’s because of what’s going on in their own life; they’re preoccupied. I just try to help them with what I can.”
“You get to know them, and all about their family, their aches and pains. Sometimes you laugh with them, sometimes you cry with them.”

For additional thought and strategies on using and reading nonverbal communication when dealing with customers, get copies of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and Customer Service Skills for Success.

About Robert W. Lucas

Non-Verbal Communication Tips

by Robert W. Lucas

Nonverbal Communication Tips –

The Importance of Gestures in Customer Communication

Never underestimate the power of nonverbal communication when interacting with your customers or others. The issue is so important that entire books have been written on the topic. This article provides some nonverbal communication tips related to gesturing that you may want to consider before meeting your next customer.

Many studies have been done on the different ways in which people communicate and send messages to others. One classic study by Dr. Albert Mehrabian emphasized that the emotions between two people can be amplified through the use of nonverbal gestures or cues. In some instances, silent messages can override spoken words. These unspoken signals should not be underestimated if you are working with customers. An example of how you might impact a customer-provider interaction involves gesturing. To send a positive message, use open, flowing gestures (gesturing with arms, palms open and turned upward, out and away from the body). This approach can encourage listening and help explain messages more effectively to customers. If you use closed, restrained movements (tightly crossed arms, clenched fists, hands in pockets, hands or fingers intertwined and held below waist level or behind the back) you can potentially send a message of coolness, insecurity, or disinterest. This could result in a nonproductive situation and lead to customer dissatisfaction.

What nonverbal communication tips can you offer to customer service professionals?

The key is to make gestures seem natural and to be conscious that some people might perceive your movements differently based on their background or culture. If you do not normally use gestures when communicating, you may want to practice in front of a mirror until you feel relaxed in using them. Make sure that your gestures complement your verbal messages without distracting.

Effective nonverbal communication can help build stronger customer relationships while helping increase customer satisfaction and retention. For more ideas and nonverbal communication tips related to positively communicating with your customers, search the topic on this blog. Also, check out more strategies in Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and Customer Service Skills for Success.

About Robert W. Lucas on Customer Communication

Positive Impressions Builds Strong Customer Relationships

by Robert W. Lucas

Positive Impressions Builds Strong Customer Relationships

Customers often judge an organization and the people who work for it based on the first impressions made by customer service representatives and others in the organization with whom they come into contact face-to-face or via technology. This is why it is crucial that you and others who serve customers take time to prepare for customer interactions by fine-tuning your interpersonal communication skills.

To ensure that you have the tools needed to deliver excellent customer service to current and potential customers, learn as much as you can about your organization, products, and services. Also, continually work to upgrade your knowledge of people from varies backgrounds and enhance your customer service skills. By taking these basic steps you will be better prepared to send positive messages through your appearance, voice and non-verbal cues and to provide quality customer service.

To learn more about ways to deliver the best customer service possible and make positive impressions on current and potential customers, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Strengthening Customer Relationships With Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication Skills

by Robert W. Lucas

Strengthening Customer Relationships

Strong Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication Skills Can Make the Difference!

We live in an era in which people from all over the world come together in various situations throughout any given day. They bring with them individual experiences, education levels, cultural and personal backgrounds, preferences, opinions, and perspectives. Any or all of these elements can impact the way they approach and receive others or the manner in which they communicate.

An old adage goes: It is not what you say, but how you say it that counts. Nothing can be truer than when you are dealing with customers from diverse backgrounds. For this reason, customer service representatives should always take their time to “read” their customers and think of their response (verbally and non verbally) before jumping into any situation where verbal and non-verbal messages communication might be misinterpreted.

Likely, the last thing that a customer service representative, or another employee from an organization, wants to do is falter in their efforts of building customer relationships.

To help reduce the potential of a customer-provider relationship breakdown; service providers should focus on building and practicing their positive communication skills (e.g. smiling, paying compliments, using open body movements and gestures and finding things to agree with when interacting with their customers).

For ideas on how to more effectively communicate verbally and non verbally in order to improve customer loyalty and enhance customer retention, get copies of my books: Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures, Customer Service Skills for Success, and How to Be a Great Call Center Representative.

About Robert W. Lucas

Robert ‘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.