customer service 101

Dealing with Difficult Customers

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Dealing with Difficult Customers

You may think of difficult customer contacts as those in which you have to deal with negative, angry, demanding, or aggressive people. These are just a few of the types of potentially difficult interactions that you may encounter as a customer service representative.

Dealing with Difficult Customers

From time to time, you will also be called upon to help customers who can be described in one or more of the following ways:

  • Are dissatisfied with your service or products.
  • Are indecisive or lack knowledge about your product, service, or policies.
  • Are you rude or inconsiderate of others?
  • Are talkative.
  • Are internal customers with special requests.
  • Speak a primary language other than yours.
  • Are you elderly and need extra assistance.
  • Are young and inexperienced who might need to be guided in making a good choice.
  • Have some type of disability.

Each of the above categories can be difficult to handle, depending on your knowledge, experience, abilities and organizational policies. A key to successfully serving all types of customers is to treat each person as an individual. If you stereotype people, you will likely damage the customer-provider relationship and might even generate complaints to your supervisor or legal action against you and your organization based on perceived discrimination. Avoid labeling people according to their behavior. Do not mentally categorize people (put them into groups) according to the way they speak, act, or look—and then treat everyone in a “group” the same way.

Ultimately, you will deliver successful service through your effective communication skills, positive attitude, patience, knowledge, service experience, and willingness to help the customer. Your ability to focus on the situation or problem and not on the person will be a very important factor in your success. Making the distinction between the person and the problem is especially important when you are faced with difficult situations in the service environment. Although you may not understand or approve of a person’s behavior, he or she is still your customer. Try to make the interaction a positive one, and if necessary ask for assistance from a co-worker or refer the problem to an appropriate level in your operational chain of command.

For ideas and strategies on how to deal with a variety of different customers and customer situations, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success, Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and How to Be a Great Call Center Representative.

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.

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.

Effective Customer Communication Quote – George Ross

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Effective Customer Communication Quote – George Ross

“To be successful, you have to be able to relate to people; they have to be satisfied with your personality to be able to do business with you and to build a relationship of mutual trust.” George Ross

Effective Customer Communication Quote - George RossThe ability to build and maintain solid relationships, and ultimately develop a level of trust, is a key skill that customer service representatives must master if they are going to be successful in the business world.

As a professional service provider, you must study human nature and become adept at the interpersonal skills of verbal and non-verbal communication, listening skills, and assessing behavioral styles and personality. You must also be able to understand and interact with people from diverse backgrounds.

For more ideas on how to better interact with and serve the needs of diverse customers, get copies of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and Customer Service Skills for Success.

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.

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 Tip – Use Behavioral Style Assessments Surveys to Better Understand Yourself and Your Customers

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Customer Service Tip – Use Behavioral Style Assessments Surveys

to Better Understand Yourself and Your Customers

By better understanding yourself and why you behave the way that you do when interacting with customers and other people, you can work toward building stronger relationships in the future. This is especially true when interacting with customers and potential customers. The point is that the more you know about people, the better prepared you are to deliver excellent service, meet customer wants, needs and expectations, provide satisfaction and aid customer and brand loyalty.

Customer Service Tip - Use Behavioral Style Assessments Surveys to Better Understand Yourself and Your CustomersOne way to achieve better self-awareness is to use commercially available self-assessment surveys (questionnaires) that are available online or through consultants who specialize in their use. By attending training sessions that use and help explain these instruments you can be a more rounded individual personally. You can also start to recognize the behavioral traits that you display in others. In doing so, you can start to tailor your actions and reactions to other people in different situations in order to help mold a more positive situational outcome. This is especially true when there is the emotion or negative energy involved displayed on either person’s part during a customer-provider interaction.

Two popular commercially available surveys or questionnaires include:

For more ideas on how to improve relationships with customers and how to apply knowledge of behavioral styles for building stronger customer-provided relationships, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success (Chapter 6).

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.

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.

Quality Customer Service Quote – Kevin Stirtz

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Quality Customer Service Quote – Kevin Stirtz

“Choose to deliver amazing service to your customers. You’ll stand out because they don’t get it anywhere else.” Kevin Stirtz

Quality Customer Service Quote - Kevin Stirtz

 

Here are a few more great quotes from Kevin Stritz…

  1. Providing great customer service is the most natural activity in the world. It’s fun to help others because it feels good.
  2. The secret to success in business, and in life, is to serve others. Put others first in all you do.
  3. Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meets.
  4. The easiest and most powerful way to increase customer loyalty is really very simple. Make your customers happy.
  5. The first step to success in any business is to ask your customers what they want.
  6. The best ideas in the world will accomplish nothing if you leave them on paper. Talk about them. Debate, discuss, argue. Put them into action. Then you can change the world.
  7. Focus your business on what you do best. Let everyone else worry about the rest.
  8. Always give your customers something.
  9. Choose to deliver amazing service to your customers. You’ll stand out because they don’t get it anywhere else.
  10. Every contact we have with a customer influences whether or not they’ll come back. We have to be great every time or we’ll lose them.
  11. Get your customers involved in your business. Make them your partners and they’ll never leave you.
  12. Make it easy for your customers to talk to you.
  13. Never leave your customers wondering.
  14. The best listener is the one who really cares about the other person.

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.

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

Florida Hospital Altamonte – A Positive Approach to Customer Service

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Florida Hospital Altamonte - A Positive Approach to Customer Service

Florida Hospital Altamonte – A Positive Approach to Customer Service

As I often do in my books, articles, and blog, I like to share positive customer service examples like the one I am currently experiencing this weekend as a patient at the Florida Hospital in Altamonte Springs, Florida. It is always nice to encounter a positive, customer-centric organization where people really seem to strive to deliver excellent customer service and go out of their way to show that they do care about what they are doing, especially in potentially life or death situations.

Customer service in the healthcare business

I am always inspired by positive examples of customer service wherever I travel locally and away from home. That is because, too often, my service experiences are negative and sometimes lead to emotional confrontations. As a service provider and customer service author, the frustrating part of such experiences for me is that it does not have to be that way. My philosophy is that if you are not happy and do not like your job…QUIT! Why make your life and that of those with whom you come into contact miserable.

Hospitals are places for healing, compassion and sometimes death. No one WANTS to go to a hospital as a patient nor, in many instances, as a visitor. The latter reminds people of their own frailty and the fact they too may someday be a patient. Unfortunately, because in times of pain and heightened emergencies people often fail to recognize or acknowledge the degree of dedication and concern offered by the people who make hospitals work. These servants of mercy and concern work tirelessly for as many as twelve hours or more a day in an attempt to help comfort and heal the sick and injured.

After witnessing what happens at Florida Hospital – Altamonte Springs, first-hand as a patient and second-hand with members of my family have been cared for here,  I am impressed by the level of attention and devotion the entire staff seems to provide. From the frontline staff, such as Brittany (receptionist/check-in), Geneve, Mercia, and Maritza (nurses), and Ritchie and Nikki (Techs) there is an obvious attempt to meet the needs of each patient. Then there are the wonderful folks who work behind the scenes, such as, Linda (leadership team) Allie (housekeeping), Drake (food services), and Jonathan (housekeeping Intern) who help create an atmosphere of service that permeates the organization and makes the patient (customer) experience one that meets their wants and expectations.

Going above and beyond expectations

As you can see by the departmental titles, the organization has borrowed those names and practices from the hospitality industry that help a more professional and customer-friendly place to visit. Florida Hospital even has a Concierge Services group that can assist with things like sending flowers, arranging for car detailing, organizing spa services, getting hotel discounts for family and friends of patients, and much more. Not what one would typically expect at a house of healing.

The basis for quality customer service

In my forty years of experience in various types of service organizations, I have come to realize that the manner in which employees approach customers is typically driven from the decision-makers at the top of the echelon, It then filters down through directives, policies, procedures and customer service skills training. This is obviously true for Florida Hospital Altamonte. In speaking to numerous employees, they are enthusiastic about what they do and the organization and supportive of the management directives.

Florida Hospital – Altamonte is a great example for other organizations (especially healthcare) to model after in order to deliver the best customer service possible.

For ideas and strategies on how you and your organization can acquire the skills similar to those exhibited by the Florida Hospital staff and help create a more customer-centric organization, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

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.

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.

The Impact of Consumer Behavioral Shifts on Customer Service

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The Impact of Consumer Behavioral Shifts on Customer Service

In the past, many consumers took a “money is no object” approach to shopping because, if they did not have cash readily available, they had several pieces of plastic in their wallet that allowed them to spend (often beyond their means). This was possible because financial institutions were doling out these instruments of commerce in a very haphazard manner to virtually all who looked like they could potentially repay what they spent. Unfortunately, that practice proved to be highly flawed. As a result, the financial institutions that let credit practices run rampant fell like proverbial dominos and took along the world’s economy with them. In the aftermath of this economic carnage, many consumers have had a reality check and have learned that prudence is an important element of commerce. Plainly speaking, consumer behavior has changed and many customers now realize that “if they do not have the money, they should not spend it!”

To counter the economic recession, consumers did a turn-around with many of them cutting out non-essentials. They also began to reassess the need for certain brand name products and services that were not essential to health and well-being. In addition, many people made a conscious decision to switch to more generic products that met their needs but had a much smaller retail price.

The impact of such shifts in behavior on service is that customer service representatives and their organizations have been inspired to step back and examine their approach to meeting customer needs, wants and expectations. They are also strengthening their service practices, employee knowledge, and skill levels and revamping their policies and procedures.

For ideas and strategies on how to identify and address consumer behavior, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures

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.

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.

Motivational Customer Service Quote – Zig Zigler

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Motivational Customer Service Quote – Zig Zigler

Successful customer service in today’s globally-connected, technology-driven world is about customer service representatives and other employees in the organization having a positive customer-centric attitude. It is also about effectively identifying and satisfying the needs, wants and expectations that each customer brings to a service encounter.

Motivational Customer Service Quote - Zig Zigler

For strategies on how to identify needs, wants and expectations in various customer environments and situations, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success and How to Be A Great Call Center Representative.

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.

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

Three Tips to Enhance Customer Service

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Three Tips to Enhance Customer Service

Many things interfere with a customer service representative’s ability to effectively deliver customer service and help build customer and brand loyalty by increasing their satisfaction levels.Three Tips to Enhance Customer Service

Here are three tips for effectively dealing with potential problem areas that can interfere with your ability to provide the best customer service. These techniques can also assist in creating a more customer-centric environment that helps address your customers’ needs, wants and expectations.

Keep personal emotions under control. When your emotional state rises because of personal issues or an angry reaction to a person or situation at work, take a few minutes to get away, if possible. Ask a co-worker or your supervisor to cover for you while you go for a short break to clear your head. While away, do not dwell on the issues causing the reaction. Instead, read a book, take a walk and think of positive things, focus on other issues so that when you return, you will be ready to listen to your customers effectively and deliver quality service.

Address personal issues before coming into contact with customers. If you have personal issues that are distracting from your work performance and preventing you from effectively assisting your customers, seek help through your Human Resources department. Many organizations offer an Employee Assistance Plan (EAP) that provides support for financial, legal, health and many other personal issues. In most cases, services are outsourced to a third-party vendor and are not provided by your organization’s employees. The services are anonymous and no reports listing your name are available to your supervisors or other employees in the organization.

Work to improve your listening skills. To verify the accuracy of your perception about your own listening effectiveness, ask several people in your workplace who know you’re listening abilities well to rate you. Have them use the scale of Outstanding, Above Average, Average, Poor, and Ineffective. Once they rate you, have them provide hints on how to improve your effectiveness. These submissions or ratings could be done anonymously on a piece of paper in order to get more candid feedback. Once you get the information, objectively analyze it and then incorporate it into your listening improvement action plan, as necessary. You might checkbooks, articles, Internet sites dealing with the topic of listening and interpersonal communication, or enroll in seminars or college classes that cover effective listening.

For additional ideas and strategies for enhancing your customer service skills, increasing customer satisfaction, promoting customer retention and building brand and customer loyalty, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success, How to Be a Great Call Center Representative and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

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.

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.

Customer Service Excellence Quote – Macy’s Department Store Motto

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Customer Service Excellence Quote – Macy’s Department Store Motto

Customer service excellence should be a primary goal for any organization. Attainment of this crucial element by any organization is key to success Without it, and satisfied customers who keep coming back and sharing their positive experiences with others, there is no reason to exist.

By going above standards of quality products and services, any organization can become a leader in its industry. It can also quickly develop and maintain customer and brand loyalty through the achievement of customer satisfaction.

The Macy’s Department Store motto succinctly sums up this premise:

Customer Service Excellence Quote - Macy's Department Store Motto

 

“Be everywhere, do everything, and never fail to astonish the customer.” Macy’s Department Store Motto

About Robert C. Lucas, Award-Winning Author just explained

why Macy’s lasted for more than 100 years as an industry leader.

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.

CorvisaCloud Survey Finds That Most Customers Dread Having to Contact Customer Service

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CorvisaCloud Survey Finds That Most Customers Dread Having to Contact Customer Service

How bad is customer service these days? According to a study by CorvisaCloud, 15% of customers dread waiting on hold to talk to a customer service agent more than sitting in a dentist’s chair. As this study indicates, there is limited satisfaction for a lot of customers.

CorvisaCloud Survey Finds That Most Customers Dread Having to Contact Customer Service

Many things contribute to the perception that organizations are not doing enough to engage customers in a variety of ways or to identify and satisfy their needs, wants and expectations. These potential challenges to positive service might range from the service environment or practices to the organization’s deliverables.

A deliverable may be a tangible item manufactured or distributed by the company, such as a piece of furniture or service available to the customer, such as pest extermination. In either case, there are two potential areas of customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction – quality and quantity. If your customers receive what they perceive as a quality product or service to the level that they expected, and in the time frame promised or viewed as acceptable, they will likely be happy. On the other hand, if customers believe that they were sold an inferior product or given an inferior service or one that does not match their expectations, they will likely be dissatisfied and could take their business elsewhere. They may also provide negative word-of-mouth advertising for the organization.

The way to help ensure that you are not taking actions or failing to act in a manner that might potentially create dissatisfaction, spend some time examining your own service practices. Also, evaluate the policies and procedures used by others in the organization. If you find potential problem areas, make recommended changes to your supervisor so that in the future all employees can offer the best customer service possible.

For ideas and strategies on effectively providing service to your customers, get a copy of How to Be a Great Call Center Representative, Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures, and Customer Service Skills for Success.

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.

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.

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