Perceptions of Time Can Impact Customer Relationships

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two Strategies for Reducing Stress in a Customer Service Environment

by Robert W. Lucas

Two Strategies for Reducing Stress in a Customer Service Environment

In a struggling economy, customer service managers around the world realize the value of providing service on demand and maintaining customer-centric environments. With the competition for customers, many organizations are making ongoing advances in system efficiency to address customer needs.

Tasks that used to take hours, days, and even weeks are now done almost instantaneously or certainly in a greatly reduced time frame. Because of evolving technology, transportation, and systems, the speed at which customers expect product and service delivery will likely increase in the future. All this is creating a situation in which customers continue to demand more and faster customer service. The idea of getting it now has so permeated consumer mentality that your failure to provide the quickest, most efficient delivery of products and services is the kiss of death for you and your organization. As a result of this “get it now” mentality, each new generation of consumers has less memory of the long waiting times experienced by their forebears. People are accustomed to getting what they want, when and where they want it with little or no wait time.

Today, if customers cannot get what they want from you and your organization when they want it, they go elsewhere. In many cases, they can just log onto a computer and surf the Internet to get their needs, wants and expectations met – often faster and cheaper. These continuing changes and expectations increase pressure and stress for you and your coworkers.

The following are three simple strategies to help maintain your sanity and potentially reduce stress on any given day as a customer service representative.

Regain control. Sometimes, we just have to say “Enough!” and step back to analyze where we are with commitments and factors that are impacting our lives. If you regularly feel that you are “swimming upstream” and that all sorts of people or tasks are coming at you constantly, with little break, stop. Take a deep breath, look at what is causing this feeling and the actions occurring and develop a strategy for modifying or dealing with them. Don’t be embarrassed or afraid to ask for help. Many times, when people become overwhelmed and start to get depressed about it, they are ashamed that they feel they cannot handle things themselves and avoid seeking help. This only allows things to continue to build and overwhelm. If you get to such a point, it is crucial that you get help so that you can continue to perform professionally and help your customers.

Learn to say “no.” Take the approach that antidrug campaigns at schools have taught children for years in relation to drugs – “Just Say No” – when it comes to accepting more responsibility or assignments whenever possible and appropriate. Obviously, you are not likely to tell your boss or customers that you won’t do something or help them, but when possible and feasible, decline to assist others (e.g. family, friends, co-workers, or whomever).

If you are overcommitted, seek assistance from others in the workplace. Speak to your supervisor or team leader and let them know what you are working on and your time commitments. Often, they do not realize how much work they have given you if they routinely pass along assignments as tasks come up, especially in a high-pressure or chaotic work environment.

For additional information on customer service-related stress and strategies and techniques for reducing it, so that you can continue to provide excellent customer service, get a copy of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and Customer Service Skills for Success.

Dealing With Stress as a Customer Service Representative

by Robert W. Lucas

Dealing With Stress as a Customer Service Representative

Numerous workplace studies have categorized the job of customer service representatives as one of the top ten most stressful today. The potential result of such poor positioning is that bad health problems may materialize since the effects of stress include damage to the heart, high blood pressure and other serious medical conditions. All of these issues not only jeopardize an employee’s health and life but also significantly increase medical costs for organizations. Those higher costs drain budget money away from equipment, facility, training, employee raises and other workplace factors.

A myriad of factors contributes to stress in today’s customer service environment. These workplace stressors are anything that creates tension, anxiety or frustration for you during a given workday. They might be in the form of people, tasks, or elements of your job and environment.

The average customer service representative strives to come to work ready for his or her job activities and with a desire to deliver the best customer service possible. However, many arrive with anticipation of dread over what the day will bring and what types of customer interactions await them. Work is no longer fun for millions of employees around the world.

Some potential factors that may create pressure in your own work environment might include:

The requirement to do more with fewer resources.
Inadequate supervisory guidance or poor management.
Job design where you have a heavy workload, get infrequent breaks, often do not have time for lunch, and have to deal with mundane tasks and rude people.
A feeling that you have little input or control over your daily activities.
The pressure to perform at higher levels without being adequately compensated or rewarded.
Regular friction or conflict with co-workers and customers.
Workplace turmoil or constant change that leads to high degrees of uncertainty related to expectations of you and your co-workers.
Unsafe or dangerous work conditions or job assignments.
Reduced levels of training to prepare you for job responsibilities.
Fewer opportunities for career advancement.
The constant barrage of negative news reports related to job security and cuts being made throughout many industries.

The good news is that you can do some things to reduce some of your own anxiety and maintain a professional attitude while providing excellent customer service. Do some Internet research to find suggested ways to reduce workplace stress. Some common ways are watching your diet, avoiding tobacco, excessive alcohol, getting eight hours of sleep per night, avoid overeating before bead and watching your diet.

For additional stress reduction strategies and ideas and information about stress and how to avoid it, get a copy of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and search the Internet for related topics.

The Impact of Stress on Customer Service

by Robert W. Lucas

The Impact of Stress on Customer Service

The world moves at a much faster pace than it did decades ago because of advancing technology. Changing customer values, beliefs, needs, wants and expectations have caused much of this acceleration. Added pressure to succeed and remain competitive while trying to maintain some sibilance of normalcy related to work-family life has come along with these changes. All of this potentially creates stress for customer service representatives.

Stress is a major contributor to loss of workplace efficiency. Each year, millions of dollars and countless worker-hours of productivity are lost because of stress-related illnesses. In all stress-related studies, customer service is often rated among the top most stressful occupations. In fact, many studies have consistently listed customer service in the top ten most stressful occupations in the United States. This is because the variety of people and situations service professionals face on any given day requires them to call on a multitude of skills and to think quickly. The results of pressures that people are facing in the workplace have been staggering, financially and from a health standpoint.

Some of the results of stress in a service environment include:

Poor quality of service.
Lost revenue.
Loss of brand and customer loyalty.
Poor worker productivity.
Negative interpersonal exchanges with customers.
Worker tardiness or absenteeism.
High employee turnover.
Higher health costs.
Increased training costs.

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.

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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.

Stress Reduction for Service Providers

by Robert W. Lucas

Stress Reduction for Service Providers

Stress is a common complaint for many call center representatives and face-to-face customer service providers. It is created by many things in a person’s personal and professional life. Often it is caused by the one element of the service environment that no service provider can avoid — people.

If something or someone is causing you stress or bothering you; speak up in a non-emotional, professional manner. Provide feedback by sharing with them your feelings, the behavior that you believe is causing the stress, explain the result of their action(s) and ask their assistance in fixing the problem or eliminating the stress-inducing behavior. You should think of one or more possible realistic solutions to offer prior to having this conversation.

The following is an example of how you might handle a stressful situation in the workplace:

Assume that you are a customer service representative in a clothing store and your supervisor tends to ask you to perform back-to-back tasks before you have time to complete previously assigned ones. You might say something like, “Sharon, I often feel stressed when you ask me and other sales representatives to straighten inventory on shelves or change pricing when there are a number of potential customers on the sales floor. We have been told that customers are our priority, but then we are held accountable for getting the other tasks done as well. This typically ends with my leaving work with a headache and feeling that I have not done a good job. Can we discuss ways to get all the work accomplished in a manner that will make the job less stressful for employees?”

Do not assume that they know how you feel or what is going on in your head. In many instances people do not recognize the impact of their behavior on others. In examples such as the one above, your supervisor may be under pressure that you are not aware of from her boss.

Allowing something to fester will not only cause you suffering but can also negatively impact relationships long-term. When you are not upset over something, share your thoughts or concerns with the other person in a non-emotional and non-confrontational manner. This strategy can potentially help you deliver the best customer service possible and applies to your personal life as well.