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

Making Customer Service a Strategic Organizational Initiative

by Robert W. Lucas

Making Customer Service a Strategic Organizational Initiative

In case you have not been paying attention in recent years, many time-honored national and international organizations have disappeared or are struggling to remain competitive. In most instances, this can be attributed to the fact that managers and executives have not effectively predicted societal changes. To compound the problem, they did not invest adequate resources into technology and hiring and training customer service representatives. Such neglect typically leads to employees ineffectively providing service levels expected by their customers. Often, the root cause is that decision-makers fail to make customer service a strategic organizational initiative.

In a global marketplace where the nearest competitor is likely to be only a mouse click away, inadequately planning or failing to restructure changing demands usually has dire consequences. The organizations that are prospering in the world are those that have focused on customer service as a strategic initiative.

What companies do you believe make customer service a strategic organizational initiative?

Many successful small businesses have realized that they cannot compete with larger national groups on technology, salaries, and other high-cost elements. What they can do is build a solid team of employees, treat them well, train them and make customer service a distinctive factor in doing business with customers. The result is typically increased customer satisfaction, enhanced customer loyalty, and reduced customer churn.

Some organizations that have paid the price for not adopting customer service as a strategic organizational initiative include:

Radio Shack
Borders Books
Blockbuster
Circuit City

Other well-known organizations are struggling to remain profitable:

Sears
K-Mart
JCPenney
Best Buy
U.S. Postal Service

Why do such failures occur? In many instances, because the management of the organizations fail to foresee coming customer service trends and do not effectively address changing customer needs, wants and expectations, such as:

Consumer buying pattern shifts (e.g. online and over the telephone rather than coming to a store).
Enhanced technology capabilities (e.g. Internet, mobile devices usage, and customer care centers) to provide state-of-the-art service 24/7/365.
Societal shifts that impact consumer spending (e.g. working from home).
Global competition. Many organizations now conduct B2B and business-to-consumer operations via technology where they can reach far beyond their normal geographic location. Customers now buy globally rather than just locally.
Geopolitical changes (e.g. free trade agreements). These open borders for trade and produce competitors from around the world.
Changing demographics and values. A more diverse customer base with varying needs shop today and people move from one location to another. These customers do not leave their cultural and personal preferences behind. All of this impacts product and service decision making and buying.

The reality is that customers have many choices for the same or similar products and services in today’s world. If an organization and its employees do not place customers at the top of their priority list when making decisions, it is quite likely that they may not get a second chance to work with a customer.

The effort to make customer service a strategic organizational initiative starts at the top and flows down to front line employees. For ideas on the knowledge and customer service skills that every employee needs to help make customer service a competitive distinction within his or her organization, check out Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Create a Positive Customer Service Culture by Making Customers Feel Valued

by Robert W. Lucas

Create a Positive Customer Service Culture

by Making Customers Feel Valued

Organizations are often chasing the illusive loyal customer. Various research studies have shown that it costs less to keep a good customer than it does to attract new ones through expensive marketing and incentive programs. Related to this, it seems logical to focus on converting new and occasional customers into loyal customers who return regularly and tout the organization’s benefits and customer-centric approach.

Alas, many managers, organizational leaders, and frontline customer service representatives simply do not get the whole concept of keeping loyal customers who use the organization’s products and services. These managers try to hold costs down by hiring inexperienced and low-cost employees, do not want to invest a lot of money in training staff (other than rudimentary product and service knowledge), and offer no real support for the customers they already have.

If you work for an organization and want to create an environment that is known for stellar customer service and customer-friendly people and policies, consider the following strategies to help make customers feel valued.

Hire personalities, not bodies. It takes a special person to be successful in a customer service environment. Strive to find people who are focused on interacting with others, seem to enjoy the service environment and life in general and sincerely want to help others. Product and policy knowledge can be taught to most new employees, as can the requisite skills necessary to successfully interact with new and current internal and external customers (e.g. interpersonal communication skills, knowledge about various demographic groups, team building, and other similar skills).

Prove that the organization and employees value customers. Create policies and procedures that are customer centric (e.g. return policies, hours of operation, and allow employee empowerment so that they can make decisions without a supervisor’s approval).

Train employees to recognize regular customers. People like to be seen as a person and as someone who is appreciated and valued by the organization. Customer service training sessions should stress this important fact and encourage employees to use a customer’s name when greeting and throughout a conversation. Memory improvement might be added to the training schedule to aid people in developing better memory and aid recall of customer names and faces.

Develop customer recognition and incentive programs. If customers are not rewarded for their continued business, they are likely to go elsewhere, especially if service breaks down or they encounter a problem. Reward good customers with discounts, personal communications (e.g. a greeting and coupon on their birthday, anniversary or other special occasions) and a warm welcome when they contact the organization. Instruct employees to focus on the human part of a transaction first (e.g. a warm greeting or comments about previous contacts, purchases or visits) before moving to the business of why they contacted the organization and what can be done to assist them.

Doing these simple things and others can make a world of difference to many customers and can often make the difference between a transient and a loyal customer. For additional customer service tips and strategies for creating a positive customer service environment where visitors demonstrate brand and customer loyalty as a result of receiving excellent customer service, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

Customer Service Skills for Success 6th by Robert W. Lucas Now Available

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Skills for Success 6th by Robert W. Lucas Now Available

The top-selling customer service textbook in the United States, Customer Service Skills for Success by Robert W. Lucas, is now in print from McGraw-Hill. This 6th edition includes a four-color layout with more images to enhance the content and a completely changed graphic appearance.

In the book, readers will find real-world customer service issues and provides a variety of updated resources, activities, and examples for customer service representatives at different levels in an organization. It also includes tips from the author and other active professionals in the industry designed to gain and hold readers’ interest while providing additional insights into the concepts and skills related to customer service that is found throughout the book.

The text begins with a macro view of what customer service involves today and provides projections for the future of the customer service profession, then focuses on specific customer service skills and related topics.

Here’s what readers will find inside the book:

Part One – The Profession

The Customer Service Profession
Contributing to the Service Culture

Part Two – Skills for Success

Verbal Communication Skills
Nonverbal Communication Skills
Listening Skills

Part Three – Building and Maintaining Relationships

Customer Service and Behavior
Service Breakdowns and Service Recovery
Customer Service in a Diverse World
Customer Service via Technology’
Encouraging Customer Loyalty

This book answers everything from “What is Customer Service?” to “How do I handle a variety of diverse customers in various customer service situations?”.

To gain thousands of ideas, strategies and customer service tips for interacting successfully with internal and external customers in any type of customer service environment and deliver excellent customer service, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success 6th edition.

Effective Verbal Communication Can Lead To Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention

by Robert W. Lucas

Effective Verbal Communication Can Lead To Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention

You may have heard that the expression is sometimes not what you, but how you say it that makes a difference. Nothing is truer when you are dealing with a multi-cultural, diverse customer base.

In many situations, when customer service breaks down it can often be attributed to what a customer service representative does or does not effectively say verbally or non verbally. In some cases, the lapse may be due to an unconscious message (e.g. non-verbal gesture, body movement, signal, or eye contact) that was interpreted differently than intended. In other instances, it might be an incorrect tone, word or inflection added to a message that was received incorrectly by the customer.

Whatever the reason(s) for such failures in communication, it is crucial that anyone dealing with internal and external customers is prepared for potential interactions that might go wrong. The easiest means of doing so is to enhance customer service and communication skills and to become educated related to approaches to verbal and communication practices in various cultures.

If this topic is of interest to you and you want to get ideas and strategies related to communicating effectively with diverse customers, get copies of my books 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.

Customer Service Inspirational Quote – Sam Walton

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Inspirational Quote – Sam Walton

“High Expectations are the key to everything.” – Sam Walton

A key to being a successful customer service representative is gaining the knowledge and skills necessary to deal with a changing global business environment. In today’s world, it is not enough for service providers to simply be knowledgeable about their organization’s products and services. They must also have effective interpersonal skills (e.g. verbal, nonverbal and listening), knowledge of the needs, wants and expectations of different demographic groups (e.g. gender, cultural, ethnic, age and abilities), and solid customer service skills. These crucial skills can provide the tools to effectively communicate and handle the types of interactions that can occur daily in any customer-provider interaction (e.g. negotiation, conflict resolution, sales, and service recovery).

For additional information and ideas on how to deliver effective customer service in a diverse world, get copies of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and Customer Service Skills for Success.

Learn All About Robert C. ‘Bob’ Lucas Now

Understand Why 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.

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.”

Quote on Change – Charles Darwin

by Robert W. Lucas

Quote on Change – Charles Darwin

Change is constant in the world. This is especially true in the customer service profession. Recent decades have seen the advent of computerized and technology-based service delivery, shifts in economies, an evolving diverse customer population and many other factors that have required service providers and organizations to adapt.

Some organizations and individuals have made the transition fairly well intact, while others have fallen by the wayside.

Charles Darwin summed the situation up when he said:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives,

nor the most intelligent,

but the one most responsive to change.”

Charles Darwin

Who was Charles Darwin?

Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809, in The Mount House, Shrewsbury, United Kingdom. He was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist. he received his formal education from Christ’s College in Cambridge. Charles Darwin was best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. During his lifetime he received many awards including Copley Medal, Royal Medal, and Wollaston Medal. His proposition that led to these awards was that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors and are now widely accepted and considered a foundational concept in science. He past away on April 19, 1882, at his home called the Down House in Downe, United Kingdom.

Here are a few more quotes from Charles Darwin…

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” – Charles Darwin
“Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal.”
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” – Charles Darwin
“Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his means of subsistence.” – Charles Darwin
“The very essence of instinct is that it’s followed independently of reason.”
“A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.” – Charles Darwin
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races throughout the world.”
“I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.”
“My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts.”
“To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.” – Charles Darwin
“A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives – of approving of some and disapproving of others.”
“It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed in any subject as I am in mine.” – Charles Darwin
“On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation.”
“How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children.” – Charles Darwin
“I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them.”
“The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.” – Charles Darwin
“We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities… still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”
“I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions.”
“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” – Charles Darwin

Learn about Robert C. Lucas, a customer service guru, and award-winning author…

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

Preparing to Serve a Diverse Customer Base

by Robert W. Lucas

Preparing to Serve a Diverse Customer Base

Many organizations and employees have realized the importance of creating a fair and equal environment in which everyone feels respected and valued. This is especially important in a service environment where employees encounter customers who have different characteristics.

Providing good customer service can be challenging on any given day. That is why updating customer service skills is a crucial part of professional development for any customer service representative. And, when you factor in elements of diversity, providing great customer service can become difficult for many service providers who lack sufficient knowledge and experience in dealing with diverse individuals.

To ensure that you are ready for potential situations in which you will be serving people of different age, gender, ability, cultural and religious background, and numerous other diversity factors, consider participating in the following initiatives:

Honestly evaluate your own biases towards people from a given group and develop some strategies for overcoming them.
Visit a restaurant that serves ethnic foods other than that of your native culture.
Share your own story with someone from a different group (e.g. age, gender, ethnic background, or religion) and see how their life experiences compare or differ from yours.
Identify at least one resource for diversity information and visit it each month.
Take a language course to learn a new language.
Visit a religious institution, museum or historical monument of a culture different from your own.
Volunteer to work with people whose race, age, gender, or cultural backgrounds are different from your own.

For more ideas and strategies on dealing with customers who have diverse backgrounds that may be different from yours, read Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Impact of Values and Beliefs on Customer Service

by Robert W. Lucas

Impact of Values and Beliefs on Customer Service

Values are based on the deeply held beliefs of a culture or subculture. These beliefs might be founded in religion, politics, or group mores. They drive thinking and actions and are so powerful that they have served as the basis for arguments, conflicts, and wars for hundreds of years.

To be effective in dealing with others, service providers should not ignore the power of values and beliefs, nor should they think that their value system is better than that of someone else’s. The key to service success is to be open-minded and accept that someone else has a different belief system that determines his or her needs. With this in mind you, as a service provider, should strive to use all the positive communication and needs identification you have read about thus far in order to satisfy the customer.

Cultural values can be openly expressed or subtly demonstrated through behavior. They can affect your interactions with your customers in a variety of ways. As you encounter people from cultures other than yours, consider the connection of values with behavior. Also, think of ways that you might adjust your approach to customer service in order to ensure a satisfactory experience for diverse customers. Keep in mind that the degree to which customers have been acculturated to prominent cultural standards will determine how they act.

Your goal is to provide excellent service to the customer. In order to achieve success in accomplishing this goal, you must be sensitive to, tolerant of, and empathetic toward customers. You do not need to adopt the beliefs of others, but you should adapt to them to the extent that you provide the best service possible to all of your customers.

For useful ideas and strategies on better understanding and interacting with people from diverse backgrounds, get a copy of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Impact of the Eyes in Customer Service

by Robert W. Lucas

Impact of the Eyes in Customer Service

It has been said that the eyes are “the windows to the soul.” That is why some people and Westernized cultures place so much interest in making eye contact with others. This gives people a chance to potentially gauge meaning nonverbally from another person.

Consider the following related to eye contact with your customers and communicating nonverbally across cultures:

In most Western cultures, the typical period of time that is comfortable for holding eye contact is 5 to 10 seconds for many people; then an occasional glance away is normal and expected.

Looking away in some cultures can often send a message of disinterest, or dishonesty, or lack of confidence (e.g. the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

If either the length or the frequency of eye contact differs from the “norm,” many people might think that you are being rude or offensive. They might also interpret your behavior as an attempt to exert power or as flirting.

Looking down before answering questions, glancing away continually as your customer talks, blinking excessively and other furtive eye movements can potentially create a negative impression. In any case, your customer might become uncomfortable and may react in an undesirable manner. For example, they might become upset or end the conversation if you use eye contact in what they perceive as an inappropriate manner.

As with all other aspects of workplace interaction in a multicultural environment, do not forget that cultural values and practices often influence the way in which people communicate and interpret message signals.

For more information about how to effectively interact with and deliver service across cultures, and to people who are not like you, get a copy of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.