Customer Perceptions Have An Impact On Customer Relations

Most customer service representatives go to work with the determination to deliver excellent customer service and achieve customer satisfaction. They typically have the customer service skills and knowledge needed to address their customer’s needs, wants and expectations. Even so, some things occasionally go wrong during the customer service transaction.

What the customer service representative does from that moment on will often impact customer retention and what their customer tells others about their experience. This is why it is so crucial for anyone dealing with current or potential customers to learn and use strong service recovery strategies and use them immediately when things start to go wrong with a customer.

For ideas and strategies on building strong customer service relationships and successfully recover when service breaks down, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

6 Customer Service Representative Attributes That Lead to Better Customer Relations

by Robert W. Lucas

6 Customer Service Representative Attributes That Lead to Better Customer Relations

Customer relationships are formed through the use of sound customer service skills and a variety of service strategies that are used to welcome, serve and support each customer or client as an individual.

Customer service representatives should be hand-picked by management, provided with the best customer service training possible, given the proper tools and supported by supervisors and top management. Only then do they have a chance of being successful at their jobs and winning the hearts and minds of customers who contact the organization.

To help ensure that a customer service representative is able to exceed customer needs, wants and expectations, deliver excellent customer service and help encourage brand loyalty, they must possess the following minimal attributes:

Ability to Listen Well

One of the most important attributes that a great customer service representative needs is the ability to listen effectively. When interacting with a customer or potential customer it is crucial that an employee ask open ended questions to discover a customer’s needs and then shut up to allow the customer to communicate their issue, need, concern or complaint. Once these are adequately understood, the representative can then start to address what their customer said.

Attentiveness

It is not enough to just listen to a customer’s verbal messages. To be an effective service provider, they must also be able to “read” nonverbal cues and interpret them effectively.

Flexibility

It is sometimes hard to tell what a customer wants or needs. During a conversation, a good customer service representative will recognize when a customer shifts gears or changes the direction of a conversation. This may be through the words they use, questions they ask or nonverbal signals that come across during the conversation. When this happens, the employee should be ready to change their posture, tone, selection of words and do other things to address the new issue or situation.

Determination

Customers expect to be appreciated, listened to, and served to the highest possible level. That is why anyone working with customers must have a sound product and service knowledge, strong customer service skills, and the tenacity to do what it takes to try and meet their customer needs and expectations.

Empathy

When a problem arises, customers typically expect that customer service representatives will put forth the effort to try to understand their issue and will then go out of their way to help resolve it.

Positive Attitude

Ultimately, what comes through and is remembered in any customer-service provider encounter is how the customer believes they were treated. If they walk away feeling that they were recognized and served as an individual and not with a cookie cutter approach strategy, they are more likely to maintain customer loyalty. They are also more likely to tell others about their positive service experience.

To make that happen, service providers must be conscious of their verbal messages and nonverbal cues. A smile, upbeat voice tone, willingness to take extra time and effort serving the customer and other similar positive approaches to building a customer relationship can go a long way toward customer satisfaction.

If you are looking for specific ideas and strategies for building and maintaining sound customer relationships, get copies of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and Customer Service Skills for Success.

Customer Satisfaction Helps Build Brand and Customer Loyalty

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Satisfaction Helps Build Brand and Customer Loyalty

To be successful as a customer service representative, it is important that you recognize that consumer behavior has changed in the past decade or so, and that this impacts your customer’s needs, wants and expectations.

There are several important things you can do to provide customer satisfaction and help ensure brand and customer loyalty:

Work to maintain a positive customer service attitude.
Ensure that every action that you take is focused on providing excellent customer service.
Identify and focus on assisting all internal and external customers to the best of your ability.
Practice positive customer service skills with any encounter you have with a current or potential customer.
Strive to identify trends in customer service and regularly upgrade your customer service skills to address changing expectations and attitudes.

For additional thought and strategies for dealing with a changing customer service environment, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Brand and Customer Loyalty Is Earned Not Given Freely

by Robert W. Lucas

Brand and Customer Loyalty Is Earned Not Given Freely

Consumer behavior and spending habits, customer needs, wants and expectations and customer satisfaction levels change constantly. There can be wide differences in the way that customers perceive an item or event when seeking services and products depending on diversity factors, such as, age, gender, race, ethnic background, and other individual factors.

A key to developing brand or customer loyalty is to hone and upgrade your customer service skills and product knowledge regularly as a customer service representative in order to increase satisfaction and customer retention. By providing excellent customer service, you help ensure continued business and positive word-of-mouth publicity.

One simple strategy to work on is to develop solid customer relations skills (e.g. verbal and non-verbal communication, dealing with diverse customers, and handling service breakdowns and conflict).

For hundreds of ideas on how to create and maintain a customer service environment that allows customers to feel comfortable and enjoy their customer-provider interactions, 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.

Trust is a Crucial Part of Customer Relations and Customer Retention

by Robert W. Lucas

Trust is a Crucial Part of Customer Relations and Customer Retention

An important point that many customer service representatives and other employees often forget is that customer satisfaction drives organizational success. If sound customer service skills are not taught to every employee at all levels and they fail to consistently provide excellent customer service, chances are that customer retention and trust are going to be negatively impacted.

When customer service breaks down, at issue in many provider-customer relationships is how well the organization meets customer needs, wants and expectations. When customer service representatives do not deliver products and services promised on time, in the manner promised and at the quality level expected, customer satisfaction and customer trust can be negatively impacted.

Unfortunately, once trust is gone it might never be regained, at least to prior levels. This is why employees must be vigilant in what they promise and in how they deliver products and services to customers.

If you want some specific ideas and strategies for building and maintaining trust with your customers get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success.

Partner With Customers When Building Positive Customer Service Cultures

by Robert W. Lucas

Partner With Customers When Building Positive Customer Service Cultures

Being a customer service representative can sometimes be a stressful and frustrating job if you work in an organization that does not effectively value and support customers. In such organizations, customer service training and supervisory coaching needed for you to develop the customer service skills to deliver excellent customer service are lacking. Even so, if you adopt a positive attitude of a professional customer service provider, you can effectively contribute to a customer-centric environment in which you and your customers work together for a win-win outcome.

Probably the most important strategy for employees in any organization to adopt in order to create a positive customer-centric service culture is to form a solid relationship with customers. Such partnerships can lead to a meeting or exceeding your customers’ needs, wants and expectations. After all, customers are the reason you have a job and the reason your organization continues to exist. With that in mind, you should do whatever you can to promote a positive, healthy customer-provider relationship. This can be done in a number of ways.

Here are a few simple customer relationship-building techniques:

Communicate openly and effectively.
Smile—project a positive image.
Listen intently, and then respond appropriately.
Facilitate situations in which customer needs are met and you succeed in win/win situations helping accomplish organizational goals.
Focus on developing an ongoing relationship with customers instead of taking a one-time service or sales opportunity approach.

If you are looking for additional ideas and strategies on how to create a more positive customer-centric environment that can lead to customer satisfaction and customer retention, get copies 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.

Building Customer Loyalty Through Sound Customer Relations Leads to Customer Satisfaction

by Robert W. Lucas

Building Customer Loyalty Through

Sound Customer Relations Leads to Customer Satisfaction

While it is the job of any customer service representative to provide a high level of customer satisfaction, each person in the organization has an equal responsibility for creating a customer-centric environment. This is crucial because delivering excellent customer service through the use of effective customer service skills is a key element of developing sound customer relations and building customer loyalty.

Unless customer service is driven from the top of the organization, those on the front line do not have the guidance or feeling of support needed to succeed. They will not be able to deliver the information, services, and products desired by current and potential customers to meet their individual needs, wants and expectations. When management provides the basic tools needed by employees (e.g. customer service skills training, product and service knowledge, interpersonal skills training, and an understanding of the organization’s mission and vision), they have an improved chance of success in their efforts to help customers.

IF you are looking for more ideas, strategies, and techniques for satisfying your customers, get copies of my books, 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, Award-Winning Author

Customer Relations Quote – John Russell

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Relations Quote – John Russell

Positive customer relations are priceless when it comes to creating customer satisfaction. Everyone in an organization should be focused on build sound customer relationships in order to create customer and brand loyalty, generate positive word-of-mouth publicity, meet customer needs, wants and expectations, and ultimately overcome competition in today’s global marketplace.

“I never cease to be amazed at the power of the coaching process to draw out the skills or talent that was previously hidden within an individual, and which invariably finds a way to solve a problem previously thought unsolvable.”
-John Russell

“The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.” – John Russell, President at Harley Davidson

For ideas, strategies and techniques for building stronger customer relationships with your customers, get a copy of my books Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Customer Service Quote – Edward De Bono

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Quote – Edward De Bono

In the age of global customer service and Internet access and big box stores, many companies and organizations offer the same products as their competitors. The key to who wins in the race to gain new customers and customer retention is which business provides consistently excellent customer service and delivers customer satisfaction by meeting their customers’ needs, wants and expectations.

“A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos.” ― Edward De Bono, How To Have A Beautiful Mind

“If you never change your mind, why have one?”― Edward de Bono

“Everyone has the right to doubt everything as often as he pleases and the duty to do it at least once. No way of looking at things is too sacred to be reconsidered. No way of doing things is beyond improvement.”― Edward De Bono, The Use of Lateral Thinking

“It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong than to be always right by having no ideas at all.”― Edward De Bono

“The image that concerns most people is the reflection they see in other people’s minds.”― Edward De Bono

“A good listener is very nearly as attractive as a good talker. You cannot have a beautiful mind if you do not know how to listen.”― Edward De Bono, How To Have A Beautiful Mind

“The system will always be defended by those countless people who have enough intellect to defend but not quite enough to innovate.”― Edward De Bono, I Am Right You Are Wrong

“A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.”― Edward De Bono

“We may have a perfectly adequate way of doing something, but that does not mean there cannot be a better way. So we set out to find an alternative way. This is the basis of any improvement that is not fault correction or problem-solving.”― Edward De Bono, Six Thinking Hats

“Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.”― Edward De Bono

If you are looking for strategies and techniques that can help set your company apart from your completion, 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.

Appropriate Service Recovery Strategies Can Lead To Customer Satisfaction and Retention

by Robert W. Lucas

Appropriate Service Recovery Strategies

Can Lead To Customer Satisfaction and Retention

Delivering excellent customer service should be the goal of every customer service representative and organization. Unfortunately, when things do not go as planned and customer service breakdowns occur, customer needs wants and expectations are often not met. Obviously, this is when customer satisfaction and customer retention become an issue to be addressed immediately and in a positive manner.

The following is a personal experience that my wife and I encountered yesterday when we went to a movie theatre that we visit frequently.

We went to see a movie yesterday and within 30 minutes of the start of the film it was dragging – the sound and picture were not synced. On the positive side, an employee (not the manager) came in three times to update the packed theatre. On the downside though, he explained that they had been having trouble like this all day with this movie. To that comment, someone yelled, “Then why do you keep selling tickets to other groups?” A valid question to which the employee responded that “We thought it would stop.”

They finally canceled the show and gave rainchecks. The employee even went on to tell us the next showing was at 7:15…as if we would stick around to try again.

Of course, as a customer service author, trainer, and consultant, all of this did not sit with me since my wife and I had already consumed $14.00 in snacks and drove 20 minutes to get there. So, I went to see the manager. Unfortunately, he was busy in the projection booth trying to fix the computer, so I gave his supervisor my card and told who I was and what I do. I then explained that this incident and the way it had been handled was contrary to service recovery strategies offered by excellent organizations. I further pointed out that by giving us a rain check, they only gave us an opportunity to return and spend even more time and money for snacks (an obvious win for them). I suggested that true service recovery is designed to “make the customer whole” and compensate them for their inconvenience.

Since the supervisor had just arrived at work and was not sure what exactly happened, I explained the situation. He then asked for our original ticket stubs and in exchange gave us our money back. He also and let us keep the rainchecks. Finally, service recovery had occurred. Too bad it took me asking for it to get satisfaction. That was good for us, but all the other people in a packed theatre did not get this and some probably left dissatisfied.

I suggested that he give the manager my business card and tell him what I’d shared about service recovery. Hopefully, I will not have to test their system again and the staff will receive training on effective service recovery should they ever need it in the future.

If you are looking for ideas on effective service and how to provide service recovery when things go wrong with your customers, get a copy of my book, Customer Service Skills for Success.

About Robert C. Lucas