Changing Consumer Values Are Impacting Customer Service

Throughout the world, there has been a tremendous amount of dynamic change in recent decades due to economic instability, quickly expanding and enhanced technology, global mobility where people move quickly and frequently, and other factors outlined in this chapter. The result has been a gradual shift in what many consumers hold near and dear or their values.

Changing Consumer Values Are Impacting Customer Service

Because different societies view what is important from different perspectives, clashes can sometimes result when service providers encounter customers who have values that differ from their own. The important thing to remember in such situations is that neither the customer nor the provider has the “right” set of values, they are simply different and each respect and honor those of the other party.

As a result of societal values, companies often change their approach to doing business as a competitive strategy and to attract and hold customers. This often includes shifting the way they do business, the products that they deliver and their manner of customer service. For example, because many consumers are now more cost-conscious, ecologically aware, and value sustainability, many automobile manufacturers are developing vehicles that are more energy-efficient, use ecologically sensitive fuels and cost less. Examples of this trend are the Chevrolet Volt, Toyota Prius and Nissan Leaf.

Obviously, companies have lofty goals, such as, excellent customer service, generating more revenue, and improving quality of service, customer satisfaction, and customer retention levels.

For more thoughts and ideas on how to more effectively serve today’s diverse customer base, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Customer Relations Equal Sales, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Relations Equal Sales,

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention

If you are not striving to build the best customer relationships possible with those you encounter in your organization, then you are failing as a service professional.

Everyone from front-line customer service representatives to senior management has a responsibility to do what it takes to secure customer trust and continually focus their efforts (and those of the organization as a whole) on meeting customer needs, wants and expectations. Delivering excellent customer service should be not only a goal; it should be the goal every day that you go to work.

Customer Perceptions Have An Impact On Customer Relations

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Perceptions Have An Impact On Customer Relations

Most customer service representatives go to work with the determination to deliver excellent customer service and achieve customer satisfaction. They typically have the customer service skills and knowledge needed to address their customer’s needs, wants and expectations. Even so, some things occasionally go wrong during the customer service transaction.

What the customer service representative does from that moment on will often impact customer retention and what their customer tells others about their experience. This is why it is so crucial for anyone dealing with current or potential customers to learn and use strong service recovery strategies and use them immediately when things start to go wrong with a customer.

For ideas and strategies on building strong customer service relationships and successfully recover when service breaks down, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

6 Customer Service Representative Attributes That Lead to Better Customer Relations

by Robert W. Lucas

6 Customer Service Representative Attributes That Lead to Better Customer Relations

Customer relationships are formed through the use of sound customer service skills and a variety of service strategies that are used to welcome, serve and support each customer or client as an individual.

Customer service representatives should be hand-picked by management, provided with the best customer service training possible, given the proper tools and supported by supervisors and top management. Only then do they have a chance of being successful at their jobs and winning the hearts and minds of customers who contact the organization.

To help ensure that a customer service representative is able to exceed customer needs, wants and expectations, deliver excellent customer service and help encourage brand loyalty, they must possess the following minimal attributes:

Ability to Listen Well

One of the most important attributes that a great customer service representative needs is the ability to listen effectively. When interacting with a customer or potential customer it is crucial that an employee ask open ended questions to discover a customer’s needs and then shut up to allow the customer to communicate their issue, need, concern or complaint. Once these are adequately understood, the representative can then start to address what their customer said.

Attentiveness

It is not enough to just listen to a customer’s verbal messages. To be an effective service provider, they must also be able to “read” nonverbal cues and interpret them effectively.

Flexibility

It is sometimes hard to tell what a customer wants or needs. During a conversation, a good customer service representative will recognize when a customer shifts gears or changes the direction of a conversation. This may be through the words they use, questions they ask or nonverbal signals that come across during the conversation. When this happens, the employee should be ready to change their posture, tone, selection of words and do other things to address the new issue or situation.

Determination

Customers expect to be appreciated, listened to, and served to the highest possible level. That is why anyone working with customers must have a sound product and service knowledge, strong customer service skills, and the tenacity to do what it takes to try and meet their customer needs and expectations.

Empathy

When a problem arises, customers typically expect that customer service representatives will put forth the effort to try to understand their issue and will then go out of their way to help resolve it.

Positive Attitude

Ultimately, what comes through and is remembered in any customer-service provider encounter is how the customer believes they were treated. If they walk away feeling that they were recognized and served as an individual and not with a cookie cutter approach strategy, they are more likely to maintain customer loyalty. They are also more likely to tell others about their positive service experience.

To make that happen, service providers must be conscious of their verbal messages and nonverbal cues. A smile, upbeat voice tone, willingness to take extra time and effort serving the customer and other similar positive approaches to building a customer relationship can go a long way toward customer satisfaction.

If you are looking for specific ideas and strategies for building and maintaining sound customer relationships, get copies of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and Customer Service Skills for Success.

Customer Satisfaction Helps Build Brand and Customer Loyalty

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Satisfaction Helps Build Brand and Customer Loyalty

To be successful as a customer service representative, it is important that you recognize that consumer behavior has changed in the past decade or so, and that this impacts your customer’s needs, wants and expectations.

There are several important things you can do to provide customer satisfaction and help ensure brand and customer loyalty:

Work to maintain a positive customer service attitude.
Ensure that every action that you take is focused on providing excellent customer service.
Identify and focus on assisting all internal and external customers to the best of your ability.
Practice positive customer service skills with any encounter you have with a current or potential customer.
Strive to identify trends in customer service and regularly upgrade your customer service skills to address changing expectations and attitudes.

For additional thought and strategies for dealing with a changing customer service environment, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Brand and Customer Loyalty Is Earned Not Given Freely

by Robert W. Lucas

Brand and Customer Loyalty Is Earned Not Given Freely

Consumer behavior and spending habits, customer needs, wants and expectations and customer satisfaction levels change constantly. There can be wide differences in the way that customers perceive an item or event when seeking services and products depending on diversity factors, such as, age, gender, race, ethnic background, and other individual factors.

A key to developing brand or customer loyalty is to hone and upgrade your customer service skills and product knowledge regularly as a customer service representative in order to increase satisfaction and customer retention. By providing excellent customer service, you help ensure continued business and positive word-of-mouth publicity.

One simple strategy to work on is to develop solid customer relations skills (e.g. verbal and non-verbal communication, dealing with diverse customers, and handling service breakdowns and conflict).

For hundreds of ideas on how to create and maintain a customer service environment that allows customers to feel comfortable and enjoy their customer-provider interactions, 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.

Trust is a Crucial Part of Customer Relations and Customer Retention

by Robert W. Lucas

Trust is a Crucial Part of Customer Relations and Customer Retention

An important point that many customer service representatives and other employees often forget is that customer satisfaction drives organizational success. If sound customer service skills are not taught to every employee at all levels and they fail to consistently provide excellent customer service, chances are that customer retention and trust are going to be negatively impacted.

When customer service breaks down, at issue in many provider-customer relationships is how well the organization meets customer needs, wants and expectations. When customer service representatives do not deliver products and services promised on time, in the manner promised and at the quality level expected, customer satisfaction and customer trust can be negatively impacted.

Unfortunately, once trust is gone it might never be regained, at least to prior levels. This is why employees must be vigilant in what they promise and in how they deliver products and services to customers.

If you want some specific ideas and strategies for building and maintaining trust with your customers get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success.

Partner With Customers When Building Positive Customer Service Cultures

by Robert W. Lucas

Partner With Customers When Building Positive Customer Service Cultures

Being a customer service representative can sometimes be a stressful and frustrating job if you work in an organization that does not effectively value and support customers. In such organizations, customer service training and supervisory coaching needed for you to develop the customer service skills to deliver excellent customer service are lacking. Even so, if you adopt a positive attitude of a professional customer service provider, you can effectively contribute to a customer-centric environment in which you and your customers work together for a win-win outcome.

Probably the most important strategy for employees in any organization to adopt in order to create a positive customer-centric service culture is to form a solid relationship with customers. Such partnerships can lead to a meeting or exceeding your customers’ needs, wants and expectations. After all, customers are the reason you have a job and the reason your organization continues to exist. With that in mind, you should do whatever you can to promote a positive, healthy customer-provider relationship. This can be done in a number of ways.

Here are a few simple customer relationship-building techniques:

Communicate openly and effectively.
Smile—project a positive image.
Listen intently, and then respond appropriately.
Facilitate situations in which customer needs are met and you succeed in win/win situations helping accomplish organizational goals.
Focus on developing an ongoing relationship with customers instead of taking a one-time service or sales opportunity approach.

If you are looking for additional ideas and strategies on how to create a more positive customer-centric environment that can lead to customer satisfaction and customer retention, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success.

About Robert C. Lucas

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

Customer Service Quote – Marshall Field

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Quote – Marshall Field

Whether you like it or not, if you are in the customer service profession, you are in the people business. That requires continually looking for ways for building customer relationships and strategies for customer retention. To succeed, you must have a sound understanding of people from all walks of life and master the skills of verbal and non-verbal communication.

Who was Marshall Field?

Though most famous today for his retail business, during his lifetime his wholesale business made far more money. During the 1880s, Field’s wholesale business generated 5 times more revenue than retail annually. The wholesale business even had its own landmark building, the Marshall Field’s Wholesale Store, erected in 1887.

In 1905, Field’s fortune was valued at $125 million. The Field Museum of Natural History was named after him in 1894 after he gave it an endowment of one million dollars. Mr. Field was initially reluctant to do so, reportedly saying “I don’t know anything about a museum and I don’t care to know anything about a museum. I’m not going to give you a million dollars.” However, he later relented after railroad supplies magnate Edward E. Ayer, another early benefactor (and later first president) of the museum, convinced Field that his everlasting legacy would be achieved by financing the project. The year after his death the Field Museum received a further $8,000,000 in accordance with his will. The University of Chicago was founded by both Field and New York’s John D. Rockefeller, to rival nearby Evanston’s Northwestern University. A bust of Marshall Field stands aside from other early 20th century Chicago industry magnates on the north riverbank on the Chicago River facing the Merchandise Mart.

Famous Marshall Field Quotes

Goodwill is the only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy.
A man with a surplus can control circumstances, but a man without a surplus is controlled by them, and often has no opportunity to exercise judgment.
Right or wrong, the customer is always right.
Give the lady what she wants!

If you are looking for ways to enhance your interpersonal communication and customer service skills and to create an environment where customers enjoy their contacts with you and your organization, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

About Robert C. Lucas

Building Customer Loyalty Through Sound Customer Relations Leads to Customer Satisfaction

by Robert W. Lucas

Building Customer Loyalty Through

Sound Customer Relations Leads to Customer Satisfaction

While it is the job of any customer service representative to provide a high level of customer satisfaction, each person in the organization has an equal responsibility for creating a customer-centric environment. This is crucial because delivering excellent customer service through the use of effective customer service skills is a key element of developing sound customer relations and building customer loyalty.

Unless customer service is driven from the top of the organization, those on the front line do not have the guidance or feeling of support needed to succeed. They will not be able to deliver the information, services, and products desired by current and potential customers to meet their individual needs, wants and expectations. When management provides the basic tools needed by employees (e.g. customer service skills training, product and service knowledge, interpersonal skills training, and an understanding of the organization’s mission and vision), they have an improved chance of success in their efforts to help customers.

IF you are looking for more ideas, strategies, and techniques for satisfying your customers, get copies of my books, 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, Award-Winning Author