Customer Service Excellence Quote – Tony Alessandra

“Good customer service is hard to find today.” How many times have you heard that statement? As a service provider (and we all are in any organization of more than one person since we all have internal customers), your goal should be to prepare to deliver excellent customer service to everyone with whom you have contact throughout the day. Anything less is inviting a breakdown in the customer-service provider relationship and is going to ultimately cost you and your organization. By gaining the knowledge and skills needed to interact with a diverse global customer base, you can potentially set up a win-win situation for yourself and your customers.

As an author and motivational speaker, Tony Alessandra puts it:

“Being on par in terms of price and quality

only gets you into the game.

Service wins the game.”

Tony Alessandra

For ideas and strategies on how to create a customer-centric organization and deliver excellent customer service, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

Learn All About Robert W. ‘Bob’ Lucas Now and Understand Why He is an Authority in the Customer Service Skills Industry

Robert W. ‘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.”

Building Customer Relationships by Understanding Them First

by Robert W. Lucas

Building Customer Relationships by Understanding Them First

Customers come in all sizes, shapes, and descriptions. They all have specific wants and needs and all require a different degree of effort to address customer expectations and achieve customer satisfaction. Before a service representative can attempt to satisfy a customer, they must first determine what the customer expects of them related to products and services being offered.

To develop good customer relations be successful in the customer service profession, you must learn to ask open-ended questions, listen carefully to responses and carefully analyze what your customer tells you before attempting to provide a resolution.

The following are some of the more common customer expectations that you will likely discover in dealing with customers in virtually any type of situation. Keep in mind that since each person is different and unique, you will not be able to apply a cookie-cutter or one-size-fits-all approach to providing service.

Building Good Customer Relations by Identifying Customer Expectations

Expectations Related to People

Friendly, knowledgeable service providers.
Respect (they want to be treated as if they are intelligent).
Empathy (they want their feelings and emotions to be recognized).
Courtesy (they want to be recognized as “the customer” and as someone who is important to you and your organization).
Equitable treatment (they do not want to feel that one individual or group gets preferential benefits or treatment over another).

Expectations Related to Products and Services

Easily accessible and available products and services (no lengthy delays).
Reasonable and competitive pricing.
Products and services that adequately address needs.
Quality (appropriate value for money and time invested).
Ease of use.
Safe (warranty available and product free of defects that might cause physical injury).
State-of-the-art products and service delivery.
Easy-to-understand instructions (and follow-up assistance availability).
Ease of return or exchange (flexible policies that provide alternatives depending on the situation).
Appropriate and expedient problem resolution.

Source: Customer Service Skills for Success by Robert W. Lucas

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.

Making Customer Service a Strategic Organizational Initiative

by Robert W. Lucas

Making Customer Service a Strategic Organizational Initiative

In case you have not been paying attention in recent years, many time-honored national and international organizations have disappeared or are struggling to remain competitive. In most instances, this can be attributed to the fact that managers and executives have not effectively predicted societal changes. To compound the problem, they did not invest adequate resources into technology and hiring and training customer service representatives. Such neglect typically leads to employees ineffectively providing service levels expected by their customers. Often, the root cause is that decision-makers fail to make customer service a strategic organizational initiative.

In a global marketplace where the nearest competitor is likely to be only a mouse click away, inadequately planning or failing to restructure changing demands usually has dire consequences. The organizations that are prospering in the world are those that have focused on customer service as a strategic initiative.

What companies do you believe make customer service a strategic organizational initiative?

Many successful small businesses have realized that they cannot compete with larger national groups on technology, salaries, and other high-cost elements. What they can do is build a solid team of employees, treat them well, train them and make customer service a distinctive factor in doing business with customers. The result is typically increased customer satisfaction, enhanced customer loyalty, and reduced customer churn.

Some organizations that have paid the price for not adopting customer service as a strategic organizational initiative include:

Radio Shack
Borders Books
Blockbuster
Circuit City

Other well-known organizations are struggling to remain profitable:

Sears
K-Mart
JCPenney
Best Buy
U.S. Postal Service

Why do such failures occur? In many instances, because the management of the organizations fail to foresee coming customer service trends and do not effectively address changing customer needs, wants and expectations, such as:

Consumer buying pattern shifts (e.g. online and over the telephone rather than coming to a store).
Enhanced technology capabilities (e.g. Internet, mobile devices usage, and customer care centers) to provide state-of-the-art service 24/7/365.
Societal shifts that impact consumer spending (e.g. working from home).
Global competition. Many organizations now conduct B2B and business-to-consumer operations via technology where they can reach far beyond their normal geographic location. Customers now buy globally rather than just locally.
Geopolitical changes (e.g. free trade agreements). These open borders for trade and produce competitors from around the world.
Changing demographics and values. A more diverse customer base with varying needs shop today and people move from one location to another. These customers do not leave their cultural and personal preferences behind. All of this impacts product and service decision making and buying.

The reality is that customers have many choices for the same or similar products and services in today’s world. If an organization and its employees do not place customers at the top of their priority list when making decisions, it is quite likely that they may not get a second chance to work with a customer.

The effort to make customer service a strategic organizational initiative starts at the top and flows down to front line employees. For ideas on the knowledge and customer service skills that every employee needs to help make customer service a competitive distinction within his or her organization, check out Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

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.

Providing Effective Customer Service in a Diverse World

by Robert W. Lucas

Providing Effective Customer Service in a Diverse World

As the world grows smaller economically and otherwise (e.g. world trade, international travel, outsourcing and offshoring of jobs, worldwide Internet access, international partnerships between organizations and technologically transmitted information exchange), the likelihood that you will have contact on the job with people from other cultures, or who are different from you in other ways, increases significantly.

Providing effective customer service in a diverse world is something that virtually anyone in an organization must master in today’s business world. As the world grows smaller economically and otherwise (e.g. world trade, international travel, outsourcing and offshoring of jobs, worldwide Internet access, international partnerships between organizations and technologically transmitted information exchange), the likelihood that you will have contact on the job with people from other cultures, or who are different from you in other ways, increases significantly. This possibility also carries over into your personal life, since diversity is encountered everywhere (e.g. over the telephone and Internet and in supermarkets, religious organizations, on public transportation), and is an important aspect of everyone’s life. Although diversity presents challenges in making us think of differences and similarities, it also enriches our lives; each encounter we have with another person gives us an opportunity to expand our knowledge of others and build relationships while growing personally.

One significant impact that diversity has on customer service is that people from varied backgrounds and cultures bring with them expectations based on the “norm” of their country or group. Whether this diversity pertains to cultural or ethnic differences, beliefs, values, religion, age, gender, ability levels or other factors, a potential breakdown in customer satisfaction can occur if people get other than what they want or expect.

Part of creating a positive diverse business environment is to train each service provider on the nuances of dealing with people who have backgrounds that are different from their own. Additionally, this effort involves each employee taking ownership for enhancing his or her knowledge and skills related to working with a diverse customer base.

To learn more about dealing with diversity in a customer service environment, along with hundreds of ideas on effective customer service skills and tips for dealing with a variety of common customer service challenges and delivering excellent customer service, get copies of the books Customer Service Skills for Success, Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and How to Be a Great Call Center Representative.

Three Negative Nonverbal Messages To Avoid When Serving Customers

by Robert W. Lucas

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.

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.

Customer Satisfaction Quote – Horst Schultz

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Satisfaction Quote – Horst Schultz

Meeting your customer’s needs wants and expectations are the keys to creating brand and customer loyalty.

As Horst Schultz is quoted as saying:

“Unless you have 100% customer satisfaction, you must improve.” – Horst Schulze, President of The Ritz Carlton Hotels

Customer Service Inspirational Quote – Karl Albrecht & Ron Zemke

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Inspirational Quote – Karl Albrecht & Ron Zemke

Successful customer service representatives, and others in their organization who want to ensure high levels of customer and brand satisfaction, realize that only their dedication and positive attitudes can lead to success.

A simple concept summarized in the following statement, by noted customer service consultants and authors Karl Albrecht and Ron Zemke, provides a solid insight in how to shine in the service profession.

Other Amazing Quotes by Karl Albrecht…

There are only two ways to establish a competitive advantage: do things better than others or do them differently.
You seldom improve quality by cutting costs, but you can often cut costs by improving quality.
Start out with an ideal and end up with a deal.
Albrecht’s Law – Intelligent people, when assembled into an organization, will tend toward collective stupidity.
In an organization of any significant size, the executives cannot create the future single-handedly. They must develop the enterprise in a constellation of teams within the overall team if they hope to bring the special talents and resources to bear on the challenge of creating superior customer value and sustaining a competitive advantage in the eyes of its customers.
The Zen philosophy posits that ‘human beings suffer’ and ‘the cause of suffering is desire.’ The way to put an end to suffering is to stop wanting everything, all the time.
Customer needs have an unsettling way of not staying satisfied for very long.

Another Amazing Quote by Ron Zemke…

Customers don’t distinguish between you and the company you work for. To the customer’s way of thinking, you are the company.

For specific ideas and strategies on how to effectively provide stellar service to customers, 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

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

The Impact of Customer Expectations on Customer Service

by Robert W. Lucas

The Impact of Customer Expectations

on Customer Service

Customers come to you and your organization expecting that certain things will occur in regard to the products and services they desire. If you and other customer service representatives or employees fail to deliver them, your customers can easily desert to a brick and mortar or online competitor.

If you pay attention to your customers and strive for excellent customer service, you increase the chance that customer and brand loyalty will more likely result.

Typical customer expectations include one or more of the following things when they patronize an organization:

Expectations Related to People

Friendly, knowledgeable service providers.
Respect (to be treated like they are intelligent).
Empathy (to have feelings and emotions be recognized).
Courtesy (to be recognized as “the customer” and as someone who is important to you and your organization).
Equity (not to feel that one individual or group gets preferential benefits or treatment over another).

Expectations Related to Products and Services

Ease of accessibility.
Availability of products and services (no lengthy delays).
Reasonable and competitive pricing.
Products and services that adequately address needs.
Quality (appropriate value for money and time invested).
Ease of use.
Safety (warranty available and product free of defects that might cause physical injury)
State-of-the-art products and service delivery.
Easy-to-understand instructions (and follow-up assistance availability).
Ease of return or exchange (flexible policies that provide alternatives depending on the situation).
Appropriate and expedient problem resolution.
Restitution for the inconvenience, damage or loss.

For proven strategies for meeting customer needs, wants and expectations and for creating a customer-centric organization, 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

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.

He regularly conducts workshops on creative training, train-the-trainer, customer service, interpersonal communication, and management,
and supervisory skills.