Three Negative Nonverbal Messages To Avoid When Serving Customers

Some customer service representatives develop unproductive nonverbal behaviors without even realizing it. These may be nervous habits or mannerisms carried to excess (scratching, pulling an ear, or playing with hair). In a customer service environment, you should try to minimize such actions because they might send a negative or annoying message to your customers. They can also lead to a perception of bad customer service.

An easy way to discover whether you have such behaviors is to ask people who know you well to observe you for a period of time and tell you about anything they observe that could be a problem. People develop unproductive nonverbal behaviors without even realizing it. These may be nervous habits or mannerisms carried to excess (scratching, pulling an ear, or playing with hair). In a customer service environment, you should try to minimize such actions because they might send a negative or annoying message to your customers. They can also lead to a perception of bad customer service.

The following are three common nonverbal communication behaviors that can annoy people and cause customer relationship breakdowns or comments about you and your organization when used with customers.

Pointing a finger or other object at someone

For many people pointing a finger at them is often viewed as a very accusatory mannerism and can lead to anger or violence on the part of your customer. If you must gesture toward a customer or toward an area or item, do so with an open flat hand (palm up) in a casual manner. The result is a less threatening gesture that almost invites comments or feedback because it looks as if you are offering the customer an opportunity to speak. Additionally, this is the appropriate means for pointing towards something in many cultures.

Raising an eyebrow

This mannerism is sometimes called the editorial eyebrow because some television broadcasters raise their eyebrow. With the editorial eyebrow, only one eyebrow arches, usually in response to something that the person has heard. This mannerism often signals skepticism or doubt about what you have heard. It can be viewed as questioning the customer’s honesty.

Peering over the top of eyeglasses

Many people who need glasses to read but not to see for distances may forget that they have on glasses when they are interrupted while reading or using them. As a result, they may speak to others while wearing their glasses sitting low on the end of their nose. This gesture might be associated with a professor, teacher, or someone who is in a position of authority looking down on a student or subordinate. For that reason, customers may not react positively if you peer over your glasses at them. Typical nonverbal messages that this cue might send are displeasure, condescension, scrutiny, or disbelief.

By improving your customer service skills, you enhance your opportunities to deliver excellent customer service. For additional useful customer service tips and information on how to create a customer-centric environment that can lead to enhanced customer relationships, customer satisfaction, and reduced customer attrition, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

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.

Encouraging Customer Loyalty Can Result in Increased Customer Retention

by Robert W. Lucas

Encouraging Customer Loyalty

Can Result in Increased Customer Retention

If you are a customer service representative, one of your key roles is to help create a customer-centric environment designed to identify and meet customer expectations. To accomplish this, you must ensure that you continue to enhance your knowledge of the organization’s products and services. You must also continually hone your customer service skills in order to communicate, negotiate, and serve customers while you deliver excellent customer service.

To get hundreds of ideas and strategies on how to create a positive customer service environment that can aid in achieving customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

Taking A Customer for Granted Can Lead To Customer Service Breakdowns

by Robert W. Lucas

Taking A Customer for Granted Can Lead To Customer Service Breakdowns

Taking a customer for granted is something that a customer service representative should never do. That is because customers are your reason for existing as an employee. They are also the key element in your organization’s success. For that reason, you must consciously go out of your way to identify and anticipate their needs, wants, and expectations, then address those in an expedient and professional manner. You can potentially accomplish this by showing customers what you and your company offer that other organizations do not. Also by demonstrating that you are working hard to gain and retain their trust and business.

Remember that just because someone is a customer today, does not mean that they will remain so in the future. Consumer opinions in many parts of the world have shifted related to customer loyalty. In the past, people often exhibited brand loyalty for cars, laundry detergent, restaurants, airlines, and many other items and services. With the advent of technology, global trade and easy access to alternative and comparable products and services, it is not unusual for someone to move to a new product, service or provider to meet their needs based strictly on factors like price, service or availability. The result of such shifts in consumer behavior is that many well-known major organizations and products have changed dramatically, evolved or completely disappeared in past decades. Examples are Montgomery Ward, Pontiac and Plymouth automobiles, Eastern Airlines, and Steak and Ale and Bennigan’s restaurants. In instances where manufacturers have recognized the need for product modifications to address customer needs, wants and expectations, they have modified or added additional varieties to their product lines (e.g. Coca Cola and Pepsi, Tide detergent, Cheerios cereal, and Crest toothpaste) in order to retain and satisfy customer needs and expectations.

In order to help ensure retain customers and build customer loyalty from your clients and potential customers, you must place their needs first. One way to do this is to build a sound knowledge of your organization’s products, services, policies, and procedures. You must also identify your competition and know their product and service lines, how those differ from yours and what they offer that you do not. In this latter instance, you must understand how to present your organization’s offerings in a manner that overshadows the competition. For example, ensure that you know what benefits and advantages your customers might receive from doing business with your organization and then present these to your customers in a positive manner.

Additionally, you must also continually seek to enhance your knowledge and skills while staying attuned to current consumer behavior and trends. Ultimately, your goal is to be the “go-to” person and organization for whatever products or services that your customers might need.

For hundreds of customer service tips and additional ideas and strategies for maintaining positive customer relationships, building customer retention and loyalty, and delivering excellent customer service, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

What Is Organizational Service Culture?

by Robert W. Lucas

What Is Organizational Service Culture?

Promoting a positive service culture is one way to help ensure organizational success. Without the mechanisms and atmosphere to support frontline service, the other components of the business environment cannot succeed. Put simply, organizational culture is what the customer experiences.

A positive organizational service culture is made up of a collection of subcomponents, each of which contributes to the overall service environment. Typically, culture includes the dynamic nature of the organization and encompasses the values and beliefs that are important to the organization and its employees and managers. The experiences, attitudes, and norms cherished and upheld by employees and teams within the organization set the tone for the manner in which service is delivered and how service providers interact with both internal and external customers.

For additional information on the various elements of an organization and how they impact the culture, developing good customer service skills that lead to customer service excellence, and hundreds of useful customer service tips, get a copy of 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.

Build Customer Relations – PLAN for Positive Customer Interactions

by Robert W. Lucas

Build Customer Relations – PLAN for Positive Customer Interactions

Customer service representatives are on the front line when it comes to making a positive first impression on the potential and current customers. What you do (or do not do), say, and how you act with customers can either help build customer satisfaction and loyalty or can drive customers away.

An important strategy for delivering excellent customer service is to plan everything from your greeting to your closing statements before you come into contact with a customer. Know what you want and need to say, avoid unnecessary details or discussion, and be prepared to answer questions about the organization, its products and services, and the customer’s order.

To maximize your potential and create positive outcomes with customers, use the PLAN acronym as a guide to effective communication with those whom you come into contact with. The model stands for:

Prepare for Positive Customer Interactions
Let Your Customers Know They Are Important
Address Your Customer’s Expectations Positively
Nurture a Continuing Relationship

For additional customer service tips, ideas and strategies on how to more effectively communicate with customers, build stronger customer relations and help create a positive customer-centric environment, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Use Positive Verbal Communication to Avoid Customer Relationship Breakdowns

by Robert W. Lucas

Use Positive Verbal Communication to

Avoid Customer Relationship Breakdowns

Customer service representatives and their organizations spend a lot of time, effort and money creative a positive service culture designed to attract, nurture and retain customers. Because of this, it only makes sense that when you are interacting with your internal and external customers that you take the time to think before you speak in order to avoid saying something or asking a question that might be misunderstood or cause offense.

Sometimes the simplest things can cause problems, especially if someone is already irritated. To avoid creating a negative situation or escalating customer emotions when things are already amiss, choose your wording and the questions you ask carefully.

For example, consider the following technique for positively phrasing questions. Find a way to rephrase any question that you would normally start with “Why?” The reason is that this word cannot be inflected in a way that doesn’t come across as potentially abrasive, intrusive, or meddlesome. Don’t believe it? Get a recorder and attempt to ask the question “WHY?” in a variety of ways with different voice inflection without sounding harsh, challenging or skeptical.

As with many experiences you have stored in your brain, the origin of negative feelings toward the word why likely stem from childhood. Do you remember when you wanted to do something as a child and were told no? The next word that probably came out of your mouth (in a whiney voice) was “Why?” This was a verbal challenge to the person who was telling you that you couldn’t do anything. And the response you probably heard was “Because I said so” or “Because I’m the mommy (or daddy), that’s why.” Most likely, you didn’t like that type of response then, and neither did your customers when they were children. The result of this early experience is that when we hear the word why as a question, it can sound like a challenge and can prompt a negative emotional reaction (blame a flashback to memories for this). To prevent this from occurring, reword your “Why” questions or others that might be perceived as arrogant, rude or challenging.

Instead of Try

Why do you feel that way? What makes you feel that way?

Why don’t you like . . . ? What is it that you don’t like about . . . ?

Why do you need that feature? How is that feature going to be beneficial to you?

Why do you want that color? What other colors have you considered?

For additional customer service tips, ideas and strategies on how to more effectively communicate with external customers or co-workers (internal customers) and how to create and maintain a positive service culture, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

Causes of Customer Service Breakdowns – Being Preoccupied

by Robert W. Lucas

Causes of Customer Service Breakdowns – Being Preoccupied

There are numerous reasons why customer service breakdowns occur. These run the spectrum from lack of sound customer service skills to bad customer service representative attitude.

In today’s hectic workplace where customer service representatives are constantly multitasking, it is sometimes easy to forget that your customers are a priority. Being preoccupied and not giving full attention to a customer is one quick way to cause a service breakdown. This is often due to trying to juggle multiple tasks or simply failing to care about the quality of customer service that you deliver.

If you have ever called or visited an organization only to have them put you on extended hold while they performed some task? Have you ever visited an organization where a customer service representative failed to acknowledge your presence and serve you right away? If you answered yes to either of these questions, you know how your customers might feel under similar circumstances. If you must put someone on hold while on the phone, do so only if you are currently serving another customer or you have no other option, but make sure that you explain why they are being asked to wait and how long it will take to get to them.

To prevent possible negative situations with customers from developing, if a customer arrives and you are performing an administrative function, such as filing, calculating, writing, or stocking, quickly get to a point where you can pause and serve the customer. In the meantime, take a moment to make eye contact, smile and either tell them or non-verbally (by holding up a single index finger) that you will be with the customer as soon as possible. This is an especially important action when dealing with someone from a culture in which relationships are an important aspect of business (e.g. the Middle East, Hispanic cultures, and Asia). Such efforts may not satisfy everyone, but they work with most customers, who understand that many service providers are doing more with fewer human assets these days.

To learn more customer service tips, ideas and strategies that might help prevent customer service breakdowns and how to better deliver excellent customer service to your internal and external customers, check out Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and Customer Service Skills for Success.

Customer Service Training Activity – Subconscious Gender Stereotypes

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Training Activity – Subconscious Gender Stereotypes

Since ongoing gender communication and interactions between employees and customers is a daily event in most workplaces; organizations must help employees at all levels identify and correct negative stereotypes that might exist between male and female employees.

The following activity is a simple means for getting adult learners active in identifying potentially damaging perceptions they might have about genders and to engage in a productive dialog to help overcome stereotypes that they might unconsciously harbor.

Trainers, supervisors or team leaders can use this activity during a formal customer service or communication training session or at a department staff meeting. Once all trainees have completed the self-assessment, either form small groups of lead a discussion to share individual results and discuss how to improve any issues that surface related to stereotypes.

Instructions to Learners:

Many people have been conditioned since they were young children about acceptable gender roles for males and females in their culture as either masculine or feminine. Often these beliefs create challenges when you are serving customers.

To identify potential predispositions that you may have related to gender roles that are assigned to men and women in your society, give your first impressions for each adjective below. Do not think about the word, just react by placing an “F” by words that you feel best to describe females, an “M” by those that describe males and a “B” by those that could describe both females and males. Don’t go back to change an answer later.

Self Assessment:

Truck driver ___ Soccer/Football player___ Sky diver____

Airline pilot___ Pastry baker____ Chef___

Baseball fan___ Dog groomer____ Bus driver___

Entrepreneur___ Service professional____ Nurse___

Romantic___ Courageous____ Emotional____

Spontaneous____ Impatient____ Goal-oriented___

Sensitive____ Funny___ Powerful___

Strong___ Competitive____ Loving___

Outspoken____ Assertive___ Talkative___

Nurturing___ Intelligent____ Driven___

Intuitive____ Sexy___ Critical___

Once you have finished, go back and look to see how many of each letter you recorded. Most people typically have a mix of all three. If you look closely and think of all the people you have known, heard or read about in your lifetime, you probably know some who fall into both categories. Therefore, if there is even one incident where an adjective could describe the opposite gender from the one that you’ve indicated, you may have some hidden stereotypes related to men or women and the gender roles they can/should fill. This does not mean that you are a prejudiced or a “bad” person. It simply means that you may want to work on expanding your knowledge about others and trying to develop a more open-minded perspective of them so that you do not inadvertently do or say anything that might endanger the customer-provider relationship.

Customer service training activities, customer service tips, customer service training ideas, and other useful information, related to interacting with diverse internal and external customers and that can lead to the delivery of excellent customer service, can be found in Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.