Strengthening Communication with Customers – Tip#4

Be Personable

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

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

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

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

About Robert W. Lucas

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

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

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

In my book Customer Service Skills for Success, I define customer service as “the ability of knowledgeable, capable, and enthusiastic employees to deliver products and services to their internal and external customers in a manner that satisfies identified and unidentified needs and ultimately results in positive word-of-mouth publicity and return business.”

Improving Customer Service With Active Listening Skills

by Robert W. Lucas

Improving Customer Service With Active Listening Skills

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

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

Positive Impressions Builds Strong Customer Relationships

by Robert W. Lucas

Positive Impressions Builds Strong Customer Relationships

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

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

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

Strengthening Communication with Customers – Tip#2

by Robert W. Lucas

Strengthening Communication with Customers – Tip#2

Be Consistent

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

People tend to like what is familiar. If customers come to know that they can depend on you and your organization to regularly provide timely, factual information, they will likely be more loyal. Provide information and updates to customers on a regular basis, not just when it is convenient for you. This is especially true when you are working on a problem or service breakdown. Remember that they do not know what you know. For example, if you are gathering information or need more time than expected, come back to the customer with periodic updates to give him or her a status check. Do not wait until the time or date that you were expected to resolve the issue to contact the customer; Otherwise, they are likely to be very upset.

Strengthening Communication with Customers – Tip#1

by Robert W. Lucas

Strengthening Communication with Customers – Tip#1

Gather Information

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

Ask for customer input whenever possible. By knowing more about their needs, wants and expectations, you will be better able to provide services and products that satisfy them. Use communication strategies in publications, books and on the Internet to gather valuable information from people who you encounter on a daily basis.

About Robert W. Lucas

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

Improving Verbal Communication with Customers

by Robert W. Lucas

Improving Verbal Communication with Customers

Many customer service representatives give little thought to the way that they sound to their customers. Typically, they have not received customer service skills training that addresses effective verbal communication. Similarly, they likely have not taken college or professional courses on effective interpersonal communication. The result is that they do not know how to improve their verbal communication with customers.

The following are three areas related to verbal communication that can have an impact on your success when you interact with your customers.

Articulation (sometimes called enunciation or pronunciation) refers to the clarity of your word usage. For example, if you tend to slur words (Whadju say? or I hafta go whitja) or cut off endings (goin’, doin’, gettin’, bein’), you can distort the meaning or frustrate some customers. This is especially true when communicating with customers who do not speak English well and with customers who view speech ability as an indication of educational achievement or your ability to assist them effectively. If you have a problem articulating well, practice by gripping a pencil horizontally between your teeth, reading sentences aloud, and forcing yourself to enunciate each word clearly. Over time, you will find that you slow down and form words more precisely.

Pauses are another tool that you can use in verbal communication with customers. Pauses can have either a positive or negative impact depending on how you use them. From a positive standpoint, they can be used to allow a customer to reflect on what you just said, to indicate that you are waiting for a response, or to verbally punctuate a point you made or a sentence. The latter is done through intonation and inflection in the voice, or. On the negative side, you can irritate someone through the use of too many vocal pauses or interferences. The pauses might be audible sounds (“uh,” “er,” “um,” “uh-huh”) and are often used when you have doubts or are unsure of what you are saying, not being truthful, or nervous. They are sometimes called verbal fillers.

Silence is a form of implied communication that can be used in a number of ways, some more productive than others. Many customer service representatives have trouble dealing with silence in a conversation. This is unfortunate because silence is a good way to show respect or show that you are listening to the customer while he or she speaks. It is also a simple way to indicate that the other person should say something or contribute some information after you have asked a question.

The topic of interpersonal communication cannot be addressed adequately in a single post due to its complexity. There are many factors that impact it. For example, in addition to the way that you communicate, you have to consider factors related to your customers (e.g. example, age, gender, diversity factors, and education level).

To expand your knowledge of the topic of verbal communication with customers, I suggest that you view other posts in this blog, search the Internet, read books, and attend workshops on the subject.

4 Customer Service Skills That Can Help Enhance Customer Satisfaction

by Robert W. Lucas

4 Customer Service Skills That

Can Help Enhance Customer Satisfaction

Effective customer service skills that can help enhance customer satisfaction are important for every employee in an organization. However, they are crucial for front-line customer service representatives who are the first contact point for customers. Today’s customer contacts come from many sources:

Face-to-face.
Over the telephone.
Via electronic technology (e.g. chat, Facebook, Twitter or another online platform).

Customer service representatives must have the knowledge and skills required to respond appropriately in a timely manner. Anything less can negatively impact customer satisfaction and could lead to disgruntled customers, increased customer churn and negative word-of-mouth publicity. The latter can be deadly for an organization because in the past research found people with negative experiences often told nine to sixteen of their friends or acquaintances about their experience. With social media and mobile technology, that number jumps exponentially and can be worldwide in a matter of seconds via customer feedback sites like Yelp, Amazon, Facebook, and TripAdvisor. Such websites provide a forum for customers to exchange information and feedback or offer product and service reviews.

What Customer Service Skills that can help enhance customer satisfaction are crucial for organizational success?

The following are four customer service skills that can help enhance customer satisfaction and increase customer loyalty.

Solid product and service knowledge. Few things are more frustrating for a customer than a customer service representative who lacks the knowledge or available information to answer a question or help resolve an issue with products or services that the customer either has or wants. Successful organizations invest time and money in customer service training for all new employees on all aspects of the organization and what it provides to internal and external customers. If training is not provided, employees should take the initiative to ask questions of peers and supervisors and read available information and manuals. This demonstrates initiative potentially prevents an embarrassing situation in which the customer service representative cannot answer a customer’s questions.
Active Listening Skills. Listening is the most used sense that most people have to gather information in order to formulate a response or make a decision. It is also a skill that is typically not taught in school or on the job, practiced effectively in life, or thought about as being important enough to strive for improvement by most people. Many people assume that they know how to listen simply because they have a normal range of hearing. This is a huge mistake. Hearing is an inactive physiological process of gathering sounds. Active listening involves actively focusing on what is heard and processing that information before formulating an appropriate verbal or non-verbal response. In a customer environment, active listening is a crucial skill and service representatives should continually work to hone and update this talent.
Effective Communication Skills. All customer service representatives must possess effective communication skills and be able to effectively communicate verbally, non-verbally and in writing in order to interact appropriately with customers. These skills take training and practice. In addition to learning how to communicate in different forms, employees should seek feedback on how well they are doing in communicating with others. A simple means for them to find out how others perceive their skills is to ask people who know them and have seen them in action working with customers. By soliciting feedback on their communication skills, they can quickly identify strong and weak areas. In addition to formal communication training in the classroom or via technology, peer and supervisory coaching are two good ways that many organizations provide feedback to employees.
Patience. Some people say that patience is a virtue. That may seem true when dealing with a frustrated, irritated or angry customer. A customer service representative who lacks patience in dealing with customers is likely to encounter more than one situation in which customer-service provider emotions escalate. The result of such encounters can be yelling (verbally or in writing through the use of all capital letters), threats, escalation to a supervisor, negative comments about the organization and employee(s) to others, and potentially, even violence. To ensure that this skill is exercised, many companies train employees to address frustrated or angry customers through roleplay scenarios and offer stress management training. They also empower employees to make decisions so that they do not always have to summon a supervisor in situations when customer issues arise. This can go a long way in helping keep emotional levels low.

There are many things that affect the outcomes of any customer situation. If a customer service representative possesses and uses these four customer service skills that can help enhance customer satisfaction, he or she is likely to be more effective in working with customers.

For more information on effective strategies customer service skills that can help enhance customer satisfaction and help build customer loyalty, research the topic on this blog. Also, check out Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service across Cultures, Customer Service Skills for Success and American Management Association’s self-study course, How to Be a Great Call Center Representative.

More Typical Customer Contact Center Representative Competencies

by Robert W. Lucas

More Typical Customer Contact Center Representative Competencies

In a previous blog article, I discussed crucial competencies call center and customer care center applicants and employees must possess to be successful when interacting with customers. In this article, I share more typical customer contact center representative competencies. I do this because I believe that it is essential that call center/customer care center personnel have strong interpersonal communication skills, be organized, able to problem solve, and have a strong sense of the importance of their function as the “face” of the organization.

It is essential that call center/customer care center personnel have strong interpersonal communication skills, be organized, able to problem solve, and have a strong sense of the importance of their function as the “face” of the organization. The following are additional common competencies that employers look for in applicants desiring to work in a call center/customer care center. These are listed in alphabetical order and vary in importance depending on the organizational mission.

The following are additional common competencies that employers look for in applicants desiring to work in a call center/customer care center. These are listed in alphabetical order and vary in importance depending on the organizational mission.

Multitasking/Managing multiple priorities or assignments simultaneously. Ability to receive customer information via the telephone while inputting data on the computer.

Negotiating effectively. Ability to identify customer needs, wants and expectations and then meet them through the negotiation of appropriate alternatives, when necessary.

Organizational skills. Ability to assemble and maintain information and data using a logical system using software or hard files where it can be readily accessed by the employee and others.

Peer coaching. Ability to offer support and guidance to employees and others, when required or appropriate.

Problem-solving. Ability to identify a root cause for a problem or issue through effective questioning and application of appropriate interventions to address them.

Teaming. Ability to work with diverse employees and contribute to team tack accomplishment.

Technical literacy. Knowledge and ability to learn and use a common call center or customer contact center, and basic office software and equipment, to accomplish routine job tasks.

Time management. Ability to use time and resources to address assigned tasks and customer issues.

For additional call center/customer care center competencies, ideas, techniques and strategies for enhancing customer relationships, and information on ways to build solid interpersonal communication skills, check out How to Be a Great Call Center Representative. In this self-study course book, you will find hundreds of powerful ideas for improving knowledge and skills that can aid in meeting customer needs, wants and expectations and lead to greater customer satisfaction and retention. You also receive a certificate from the renowned American Management Association.

Effective Listening and Interpersonal Communication Skills for Customer Service Representatives

by Robert W. Lucas

Effective Listening and Interpersonal Communication Skills

for Customer Service Representatives

Effective listening and interpersonal communication skills for customer service representatives are crucial in ensuring that customers are satisfied and less likely to desert an organization. Many customer service representatives assume that they know how to effectively listen to their customers. After all, don’t they do it every day? The response to that question for many of them is a resounding NO!

What a lot of people who deal with customers think of as listening is actually the physiological process of hearing. In that process, sounds are gathered through the ear and transmitted to the brain. Unless the person then takes time to focus on the context of the message, analyze it and respond appropriately, listening has not occurred.

The following tips can increase customer service effectiveness, help build customer loyalty and satisfaction and aid customer retention.

Learn how to effectively listen to your customers. You can do this by taking the time to read articles and books and attend listening training sessions on the topic.

Identify your own listening abilities and limitations. An easy way to accomplish this is to record yourself interacting with people who you know (e.g. family and friends) in order to hear what they hear during a conversation. If you are not listening and responding appropriately in such instances, you won’t do so with your customers either. Also, ask people you know well to rate you on various aspects of listening (e.g. attending to their messages and responding appropriately to what they said).

Recognize the verbal and nonverbal cues sent by customers. The majority of meaning in a message between two people is derived from the subtle unspoken cues that they send. If you are not familiar with such messages, study the topics to increase your awareness. Then make it a habit to focus on the “whole” message a person is sending to you when interacting face-to-face with them. On the telephone, learn to identify unspoken messages based on rate, pitch, volume, and inflection of their voice or their word choice and emotion.

Use paraphrasing throughout the conversation. By repeating back or summarizing in different ways, what your customer has said periodically, you can ensure that you understood their need or concern correctly before you offer a response or try to assist them. For example, if a customer calls about a defective product that they received, you might paraphrase with something like, “If I understood you correctly, you ordered _____ and when it was delivered, there was a missing part. Is that correct?

Get feedback from the customer. Do not assume that you responded correctly or that the customer is satisfied with your level of service. You want to be known as a person or organization that delivers excellent customer service. To make that happens, pause and ask for validation and approval throughout your interaction with your customer. Use closed-end questions that start with an action verb to get agreement or verification. Examples are:

Did I summarize your concern correctly?
Does what I said help you with this issue?
Is there anything else that I can help you with?

Realize that each culture communicates differently. There are entire books, training programs, higher education courses and conferences designed around the topic of intercultural communication. Take advantage of these resources if you plan to be successful in working in a diverse workplace or communicating effectively with others in your daily life.

Effective listening is about focusing on your customers and using effective interpersonal communication skills that will make them feel welcomed, cared for and served well. For you to perform your duties effectively as a customer service representative, you have to continually strive to learn and hone your listening skills and other people skills, especially when it comes to dealing with a diverse customer base.

For additional listening and interpersonal communication tips and hundreds of other customer service strategies that can aid in developing the best customer service culture possible, 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.

A 100 Percent ATTITUDE Is Crucial for Customer Service Representatives

by Robert W. Lucas

A 100 Percent ATTITUDE Is Crucial for Customer Service Representatives

Organizations are constantly looking for better ways to increase customer satisfaction, generate additional revenue and spark customer retention. While some customer service professionals say that brand loyalty and keeping customers for life is an unachievable goal, there are some strategies that can strengthen the customer-provider relationship. A few of these efforts include:

Hiring people who have “personality” and who really enjoy interacting with internal and external customers.

Delivering quality customer service face-to-face and via technology by training every employee to be adept at using the technology provided for serving their customers effectively.

Educating all employees on the policies, procedures, products, and services that customers should be able to expect them to know. Organizations are constantly looking for better ways to increase customer satisfaction, generate additional revenue and spark customer retention. While some customer service professionals say that brand loyalty and keeping customers for life is an unachievable goal, there are some strategies that can strengthen the customer-service provider relationship.

Building a customer-centric environment that lets customers know that they truly are valued. This includes using positive interpersonal communication skills (e.g. active listening, verbal and nonverbal skills, and asking the right questions).

Ultimately, the secret tool for making sure that customers want to do business with an organization is that all employees must continually develop and display a positive attitude when dealing with current and potential customers. To demonstrate the power of this trait, think about the following formula.

If the letters…

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Equals numerical values of…

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 18 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Then…

A+T+T+I+T+U+D+E

1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 =100%

To learn more about the power of positive customer service using sound and proven customer service knowledge, techniques and strategies, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.