Customer service is the support you offer to your customers, both existing and prospective customers.
Customer Service Foundations course is divided in to four
parts-
- 1 Outstanding
Customer Service
- 2. Build
Rapport
- 3. Exceed
Expectations
- 4. Solve
Problems
There are three types of customer services-
·
Good
Customer Service
·
Outstanding
Customer Service
·
Poor
Customer Service
Good Service occurs when customers’ expectations are met. Outstanding
customer services service that exceeds your customers' expectation. The challenge
with good service is that it is not very memorable. Poor Customer Service
occurs when the experience is worse than the customer expected.
One of the unique challenges of the customer services that your
customer decide how they feel, some said they feel great even though you
haven't done anything special. On the contrary, they feel anger even after you
try your hardest pushed off, so the best thing is to treat each customer as an
individual and try to understand their unique needs. Customers often look at
the people who serve them as a representative of the entire organization.
|
Customer Expectations |
Memorable to Customer |
|
|
Good
Customer Service |
Meet |
Not
Memorable |
|
Outstanding
Customer Service |
Exceed |
Highly
Memorable |
|
Poor
Customer Service |
Not Meet (Worst) |
Highly
Memorable |
Customer service is not easy, but one can choose extra effort
to be outstanding. People go above and beyond because they get something out
of it. Happy customers are easier to serve. There is a positive impact on
co-workers, increased profits, retained customers, and positive word of mouth
from customers who refers others to your organizations.
Identify your customers
We are dealing with different types of customers. It is helpful
to identify their basic need. A customer is anyone you serve- clients,
contractors, co-workers and even vendors (Internal and external customers)
Create customer service vision
Create your personal vision statement. Customer service vision
refers to the way you want your customer to feel when you serve them. We can’t
make every customer happy, but a personal service vision can inspire us to try.
The visualization on positive feedback can helps you stay focused on providing
outstanding service throughout each and every day.
2. Build Rapport
Building rapport with people you serve is one of the most
essential skills in customer service. This creates a personal connection and hopefully
getting them to know and like you. Rapport helps in breakdown barriers and
makes everyone feels more comfortable. The customer tends to be more loyal when you
established rapport and likely
to forgive your mistakes.
A good greeting can immediately put a customer an ease and help
you quickly developed a rapport. One of the most effective techniques is communicating
a positive message with your tone of voice and your body language.
3. Exceed Expectations
It is critical to learn each customer’s need, so you know how
they want to be served. By doing this, you can avoid falling short of
expectations and give yourself the opportunity to exceed them.
Take ownership of problems
Taking ownership is one of the most important problem-solving
skills in customer service. It involves taking extra efforts and accepting responsibility
for finding a resolution. Problems often fall through cracks because nobody steps
up to take responsibility. Many problems can be quickly fixed if just one person
accepts ownership for finding a solution.
Act on customer feedback
Any feedback comes from a customer is valuable. This feedback
can be used to prevent problems from happening. One of the best ways to use customer
feedback to improve service is to look for pain points.
Empathize with customer
Empathy is one of the most important customer service skills.
It allows you to understand how a customer is feeling and use them to find ways
to make them feel better or happy. Empathy is not always easy, but it is one of
the those skills which creates a difference between good customer service and outstanding
customer service.
Expand your influence
The problems we face are sometimes out of our control, but we
can still provide outstanding customer service if we can find a way to leave each
customer better off at end of our interactions.
Prevent negative emotions
Working with negative or upset customer is always a challenging
task in customer service. Here, preemptive acknowledgement technique is useful.
This technique is used to prevent customer anger by spotting situations where a
customer is likely to become angry and then addressing their negative emotions
before they boil over.
Diffuse angry customers
Negative emotions can have a heavy influence on customers’ perceptions.
Problems can even feel worse when a customer is upset or angry. According to
Daniel Goleman, negative emotions hijack the rational part of the brain and people
suddenly loose their ability to be reasonable until these strong emotions can be
soothed. Start with a genuine desire to make angry customers feel better.
Anchor your own attitude
Friendly attitude is essential for outstanding customer
service. There are times when we find ourselves in a bad mood. You can use a
technique called the attitude anchor to help yourself start feeling positive once
again. An attitude anchor is something that helps you anchor your attitude in a
positive place. There are two types of anchors- Maintenance Anchors and Repair
Anchors.
·
Maintenance
Anchors – Things that help maintain a positive, upbeat, and customer-friendly
attitude. Make a list of things you can do on regular basis to ensure you are
in good mood. This list is personal, so it is different from person to person.
For examples, Exercise, getting plenty of sleep, spending time with family or
friends, etc.
· Repair
Anchors- Something that helps you get back into a positive mood when you start
feeling a little grumpy. For example, take a walk, have some chocolate or cup
of tea/coffee, spend a moment to talk with a co-worker, listen to music, etc.
Tips for better customer services-
- 10 and 5 Rule- Giving non-verbal acknowledgements at 10 feet and verbal acknowledgement at 5 feet
- Attitude Anchor- Something that helps you anchor your attitude in a positive place
- Active Listening – Giving a full attention to the customer and purposefully trying to understand them
- Empathy- Understand how a customer is feeling and use that insight to find ways to make them feel better
- Need (Emotional Need and Rational Need) – The specific assistance a customer request and how a customer wants to feel about their experience
- Non-Verbal Communication – Communication with people without using words- body language, eye contact, facial expressions, etc.
- Five Question Technique- a technique that helps start a conversation by using five questions that will break the ice, make a customer feel more comfortable or uncover an additional opportunity to serve
- Preemptive acknowledgement- a technique used to prevent customer anger by spotting situations where a customer is likely to become angry and addressing the negative emotions before they pea