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.

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.

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

by Robert W. Lucas

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.

One 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

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

Quality Customer Service Quote – Kevin Stirtz

by Robert W. Lucas

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

Here are a few more great quotes from Kevin Stritz…

Providing great customer service is the most natural activity in the world. It’s fun to help others because it feels good.
The secret to success in business, and in life, is to serve others. Put others first in all you do.
Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meets.
The easiest and most powerful way to increase customer loyalty is really very simple. Make your customers happy.
The first step to success in any business is to ask your customers what they want.
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.
Focus your business on what you do best. Let everyone else worry about the rest.
Always give your customers something.
Choose to deliver amazing service to your customers. You’ll stand out because they don’t get it anywhere else.
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.
Get your customers involved in your business. Make them your partners and they’ll never leave you.
Make it easy for your customers to talk to you.
Never leave your customers wondering.
The best listener is the one who really cares about the other person.

About Robert C. Lucas

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

by Robert W. Lucas

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

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

Three Tips to Enhance Customer Service

by Robert W. Lucas

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.

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

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

Customer Service Excellence Quote – Macy’s Department Store Motto

by Robert W. Lucas

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:

“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.

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

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

by Robert W. Lucas

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.

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

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

The Importance of Customer Service Representatives in Organizational Success

by Robert W. Lucas

The Importance of Customer Service Representatives

in Organizational Success

The business of customer service is all about people. Whether you are the CEO discussing strategic relationships with potential business partners, a salesperson sharing product or service information with a potential customer, a call center representative gathering information from a caller on the phone, or a receptionist greeting a visitor to the organization, they all have one thing in common . . . effective communication is crucial in aiding the exchange of information. Customer satisfaction and successful product and service fulfillment hinge on the abilities of customer service representatives and others in your organization, to transmit and receive messages freely and effectively with current and potential customers. The ultimate goal is to deliver the best customer service possible.

All customer experiences are a combination of people coming together for a common purpose; interacting face to face, via technology, or in writing; and merging individual beliefs, values, and expectations. Depending on the skill and ﬁnesse of the service provider, this can mean either a positive or negative outcome.

One variable over which you have little control as a service provider is the emotional state of your customers. When you ﬁrst encounter someone, you have no idea if he or she is happy, sad, optimistic, angry, vindictive, or in some other frame of mind. That is why you must have an arsenal of interpersonal skills in your service toolbox upon which you can draw. A key element in this equation is the ability to effectively express yourself verbally and to ask appropriate questions, listen, and analyze customer needs, wants, and expectations. You must then take correct and decisive action in order to satisfy the customer.

As a customer service professional, you have the power to make or break the organization. You are the front line in delivering quality service to your customers. Your appearance, actions or inactions, and ability to communicate say volumes about the organization and its focus on customer satisfaction. Additionally, in order to be successful, you need knowledge and skill in communicating verbally, nonverbally, across genders and cultures, and with a variety of personality types. For all these reasons, you should continually work to enhance your knowledge and skills, strive to project a professional image, and go out of your way to make a customer’s visit or conversation with you a pleasant and successful one.

To learn more about the role that customer service representatives play in organizational success and how to create a customer-centric environment that results in brand and customer loyalty, get a copy of the book Customer Service Skills for Success.

About Robert C. Lucas, the expert who is explaining the Importance of Customer Service

Representatives in Organizational Success

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

Positive Customer Service Experience at the Casselberry, Florida T-Mobile

by Robert W. Lucas

Positive Customer Service Experience

at the Casselberry, Florida T-Mobile

When I ask learners or audience members in my training or presentation groups to relate a story of a recent customer service experience they had, I typically hear of a negative encounter that they remember. Unfortunately, that is the norm that many people who deal with service providers experience, especially when the event is related to technology. This is often the result of poor customer service skills, lack of adequate or effective customer service training, and overall ineffective customer relations management from the company or customer service representatives involved.

On my visit to the Casselberry, Florida T-Mobile store yesterday, I had a refreshingly positive experience. I had trouble with my Samsung phone that had been going on all day while I attended a local Florida Writers Association conference. The trouble turned out to be “operator error.” Since I was at T-Mobile, I figured I might as well get answers to numerous questions that I’d be wanting to ask related to the phone functions and my service agreement. I’d put off dealing with these for some time.

Upon my arrival at the store, Retail Associate Luis Baca quickly greeted me in a friendly manner. I immediately recognized through his nonverbal communication and demeanor and for his overall interpersonal communication style that I had the “right guy.” My intuition proved to be correct in the next thirty minutes as he patiently addressed each issue that I had. During the process, I found out that previous information received at a different store about a corporate discount for military retirees was incorrect. Ultimately, Luis educated me on phone functioning, got me the military discount to which I was entitled, helped me switch to a different phone plan that I asked about and saved me over $60.00 a month on my mobile phone bill. As someone who has been providing customer service training for over two decades, and a customer service author and consultant, I give Luis an A+ for his knowledge, customer service skills, and the service that he provided.

Service like I received yesterday and my overall satisfaction with the company are the main reasons that I have stayed loyal to T-Mobile for almost six years and moved my wife over from AT&T last year. By continually addressing my needs, wants and expectations, the company saves me time and money, reduces my stress levels related to mobile service and continues to reinforce my satisfaction with them.

About Robert C. Lucas – Your Customer Service Expert.

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

Customer Service Communication Quote – Henry Ford

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Communication Quote – Henry Ford

“If there is any one secret of success it lies in the ability

to get the other person’s point of view

and see things from that person’s angle

as well as from your own.” – Henry Ford

Here are a few more amazing quotes by Henry Ford…

There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.
You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.
I cannot discover anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.
An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.
Whatever you have, you must either use or lose. – Henry Ford
If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.
There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.
As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.
You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year. – Henry Ford
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.
Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs.
I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night. – Henry Ford
Quality means doing it right when no one is looking. – Henry Ford Quote
Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services.
A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one.
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.
There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little ones. – Henry Ford
Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.
Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves are far better than mere giving.
Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.
Don’t find fault, find a remedy. – Henry Ford
Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
Failure is simply the opportunity you see to begin again, this time more intelligently.

Learn All About Robert C. ‘Bob’ Lucas Now a

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.

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.”