Best Customer Service Lessons - The Customer Experience

[Music] okay we're live this is gaining the undeniable advantage my name is Steve Shawnee and I am your host today we're talking about the customer experience how to WoW every single customer every single time now let me tell you what to expect today now this is a fact-based training this means everything I'm going to show you is based on verifiable facts or studies unless I tell you it's my opinion so if I say something works or I say something doesn't work it's because we've reviewed the tests and studies we've conducted some of our own or we've had clients show success with these and I'm giving you the results of that research but know the laws please know the laws I'm not an attorney nor do I know all the laws governing your business in your city or state your province or your country no the laws before implementing anything that I teach you today Steve starting said is not an offense in fact Steve stoning said is not an offense even in my own house so we're gonna break today's session up into four parts for the live version we're gonna talk about why good customer service even matters we'll talk about what good customer service actually means we'll talk about how to prevent customer service issues from ever happening in the first place and then if you fail and you have an issue we're gonna talk about how to respond to issues when you fail or when your customer is being unreasonable all right let's dive in with part one what is good what does good customer service why is it matter why does good customer service matter why should you care let's look at some quick stats you know what according to Bain & Company a customer is four times more likely to defect to a competitor if the problem is service related versus if the product the problem is price related or product related let me repeat that you are four times more likely to lose a customer over a service issue than a price issue or a product issue that's why customer service matters and according to the book leading on the edge of chaos just a two percent increase in customer attention has the same effect as reducing cost by 10 percent so think about that and your business or your industry sharks in a flat period maybe in 2017 2018 beyond whatever if you're hitting that flat period and you think you need to cut costs what if you could increase customer attention by just 2% it's the same as cutting cost by 10% all right how about some more staff you know what according to marketing matrix the probability of selling to an existing customers about 70% while the probability of selling to a new prospect is less than 20% and oh by the way for those of you in the car business this really fits with automotive retail did you know that the average party car dealer today still closes just about 20% of their traditional ups on the first visit these are people who they don't know who they don't have a relationship with who just show up on the lot they close about 20% that's a new prospect but when they call their database people who've done business with them before and they set an appointment that shows with that database and there an average dealer they're gonna close 67% again if they're just an average dealer so again the probability of selling to an existing customer is about 70% according to marketing matrix but the probability of selling to a new prospect is less than 20% now according to Bain & Company it costs 6 to 7 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one so again if we're watching our costs we need to work on our current customers we need to work on customers for life we'll talk about that later today but but Steve you know what when someone's unhappy well the customer just tell me they're unhappy no actually they won't according to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs this satisfied customer is going to tell 9 to 15 other people about their experience but only one out of 26 people who are unhappy will ever complain to you in fact another study showed almost the exact same data according to first financial training services 96 percent of unhappy customers don't complain at all 96 percent and oh by the way 91 percent of these 96 percent will simply leave and never come back when they have a customer service issue with you so since they won't tell us when they're mad we'll have to ensure that they're all happy right yes in fact according to telefax and data customers who rate us on a scale of 5 on a scale of 1 to 5 who give us a 5 are 6 strings more likely to buy from us again compared to those who only gave us a 4.8 that's a major difference with only 2 percent to 2 2 basis point movement and how they rated us people who rinse a 5 or 6 times when we're likely to buy from us again versus those who give 4.8 and oh by the way we know ratings matter right you've read the headlines dimensional research says that 90% of people say online reviews influence their buying decisions in fact right local tells us that 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations that's right 80% of people will trust what strangers have said about you on online reviews as much as they will trust their own friends about you so we need happy customers not only absolutely but there's a little bit more goldfish digital found that just one negative review could equal just one negative review could equal a loss of 22 percent of potential customers three negative reviews and it's a potential loss of fifty nine percent of potential customers and four negative reviews and it's a potential loss of 70 percent of potential customers so we've got to have an always on customer satisfaction bias about how we do our business all right let me give you a little more data according to salesforce.com 78% of consumers have ended a business relationship due to bad service but here's the kicker if you have if you give bad service but you resolve it 70% of those will continue to do business with you if you resolve that complaint but remember 96% of people who have bad service from you won't complain now 90% of consumers will pay you more to ensure a good customer experience but just how much more will they pay you well American Express tells us that 67% of consumers will pay 14 percent more for a great experience so let's do that math let's do some car dealer math here if we're selling an average car without say $30,000 but we're giving people a great experience we truly can expect to sell these cars for 14% more that's $4,200 more on a $30,000 car that means $4,200 more in gross in profit that we get to draw our commissions from that's why a great experience matters so more than anything else providing a great customer experience leads to client retention right increased revenue and increased profits so basically though good customer service think about it this way good customer service costs you less and Nets you more so let's figure out how to wow them okay you we heard that the customer is always right right well I like to follow this Twitter account it's kind of fun it's called a last blockbuster and they tweeted this recently they tweeted that it's statistically impossible for the customer to always be right then they're right of course blockbusters aren't doing so well we know that but the customer is not always right but they are always the customer they don't have to be right see they are your boss's boss they pay the bills now for some of you you know that I do a lot of work in the car business and in the car business a long time and I've been to dealerships probably more than 2,000 dealerships who have that have this posted in their dealership because it's a famous quote from a sales vice president sue Baker that he said in 1941 and this quote goes up on lots of dealerships boardrooms in their hallways and their employee lounges and it says this customer is the most important visitor on our premises he is not dependent on us we are dependent on him he is not an interruption in our work he is the purpose of it he is not an outsider in our business he is part of it we are not doing him a favor by serving him he is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so folks these are words to live by but they're just words we've got to put them into action all right let's jump into part two let's talk about what is good customer service what is good customer service well first let's talk about what it's not good customer service is not staffing a large customer service department or answering customer complaints quickly in fact good customer service is not even solving a customer's issue it really isn't see customer service departments and solving customer issues this implies a reactive approach to the customer experience see lifelong raving fans are created by proactively managing the customer experience meaning that they never have issues at all it's about touch points it's about managing these touch points from their perspective though and not yours it's also not about social media management the very thought that you can create raving fans for life by posting to Facebook that's ludicrous its naive touch point management is about honesty see kitten pictures and caption contests on your Facebook page this is not honesty there are no shortcuts to honesty it's a getting it right the first time see it's not about reactively solving issues though we will cover that in part 4 today it's about never having issues in the first place good customer service means never having to say you're sorry think about chick-fil-a or ritz-carlton or Disney these brands aren't known for solving customer issues right they're not they're known for creating great experiences in other words they're known for never having issues in the first place they're controlling the touchpoints but more importantly they're controlling the real life touch points right they might have great online efforts in fact all three of them do good job online right but those are meaningless and those are secondary to how they manage the everyday customer interactions real life touch points that's reality see every real-life touch point matters and it's important to understand and all three of these companies understand that the customer or that the the person who works for them who's closest to the customer they control the real-life touch point they also understand that those closest to the customer reflect how they feel they are being treated meaning if I'm a frontline employee and I feel and I'm being treated right I'm gonna reflect that if I feel like I'm being treated poorly I'm going to reflect that as well and all three of these companies also understand that those that those people who are closest to our customers they have all the answers all three of these companies get that and they understand that and by the way good customer service is enough it really is good cuz good customer service is all we really need see we don't have to blow their minds with the light you just have to get things right the first time there's a really great Harvard Business Review study that showed only 23% of consumers said they had a relationship with a brand any brand only 23% of consumers feel this way about their brands of the 77% of consumers who say they don't have relationship with brands they say things like you know what it's just a tire it's just a car it's just a fast-food restaurant it's not a member of my family so most customers don't have these relationship with brands who you are is what to find your brand okay you can't artificially tell the customer what your brand is you need to live it see customer service is not about relationships with your brain customer service is about simplicity in fact when we think about chick-fil-a it's about good service and manners right if I'm a chick-fil-a they give free refills on top right soda Coke whatever your whatever part of the country you're from you call it something different they give free refills on top but they don't have a soda machine over to the side you can fill them up yourself you have to go to the counter so when I take my pop back to the counter to get a free refill and I hand until my top okay pop it is and they fill it for free and they bring it back to me and I say thank you what do they say they say my pleasure write it name good service and they have manners and they say my pleasure see people often think that chick-fil-a provides this mind-blowing ly great service they really don't they just eerily provide fast food with manners that's it it's about being eager by the way ask yourself are you eager am i eager right see in your kness more than any other trait determines whether or not your customer will feel like you care that's sticky sweetness that we sometimes hear from hotel clerks and waiters and waitresses that lacks that genuine eagerness that's easy to spot right it's almost like like nails on a chalkboard sometimes it would be better off if you are just your boring miserable honest self if you can't be eager but let's be eager and let's realize this that it's quality plus attitude that matters not speed see customers care more about service quality and attitude than about service speed in fact the top reasons that customers abandon a company are poor quality and rude customer service not slow service think about chick-fil-a for a minute they provide a good quality chicken sandwich some people think it's the best I think it's pretty good I think it's you know definitely top ten but they do it with good service see they're not rude it's good quality it's good service but they're definitely not fast you order and then you go stand off to the side till your orders ready it's not this instant thing so it's quality plus attitude is there anything else good customer service takes up yeah see good customer service is also about removing these things called hurdles and hassles these are little things to us but assume these lists of things add up to huge hassles for our customers think about chick-fil-a yeah what if chick-fil-a when I went to go refill my pop what if they required that I show my receipt to get a free pop refill fee that would create an artificial hurdle or hassle for me the customer now you might say well Steve come on and that way I can keep people from getting free refills with a pot they got yesterday are we really that cheap are we really that crazy we're gonna treat all of our customers poorly just to catch that one guy out of 500 who's gonna try to cheat us see even minor hurdles can frustrate a happy customer or enrage an already stressed out customer so we've got to work to remove these little tiny hurdles and hassles and these are tiny these are tiny dots right think about these tiny examples if you were on the server side of this your customers are standing at your grocery store and there are two lanes open that have their lights on and a relief cashier comes into a new lane she takes a couple people over there to help them she leads our light off now you your customers start to walk up to these three Lots these three lanes that are open but they only think to are open see it makes them mad that that other cashier doesn't have her light on because they're not sure if they should go over there or not they don't want to be rude and so it's a tiny little thing it's a if you were in the grocery store manager probably say it's teen it's nothing no but it is something it's something to them it's their perception that's a hassle it's their perception that's a hurdle it's their perception that you're not doing your job for example let's say that I get all the way through the cashier line I'm at the cashier they're ringing up my my purchases and I noticed something was too was price too high as they rang it through I showed them the ad I show the cashier their ad from their own store and she has to call the manager to get an override see that is a tiny example but we have just now artificially created a hassle artificially created a hurdle when we should simply give that cashier the rights to override prices on her own and if you can't trust her to to do overrides then how why are you trusting her to talk to your customers at all how about this this example we see this a lot right you go to a restaurant and they make you wait and you're waiting and you look and there's 25 tables in the restaurant and 10 of them are empty but they're filled with dirty dishes no-one's clean them up you've got dirty a 10 and play view while customers are waiting for a seat again tiny but see we're busy that's okay the customer doesn't care the customer sees that you're not doing your job it's a tiny thing to us on the service side it's a huge thing to the customer again the little things matter things like an empty water glass you know empty water glasses sitting at the table and it's there for the entire meal and no one came to fill it up these are tiny but one of these things add up how about not knowing where to go in a new place right so it's a first time to a new restaurant your first time to into a hotel whatever and it's not clear where the front desk is see to you and your team all of these examples might be laughable or easily explainable but to your customers there are artificial hurdles and hassles and they put customers in a different mood than you want them so control the touchpoints and by the way the customer experience is exactly what your customer says it is their perception is reality and their perception is all that matters and oh by the way the perceived experience is what matters remember what American Express taught us they say two-thirds of Americans will pay an average of 14 percent more for great for a great experience well think about Ritz Carlton versus Cinque Terre field in both have a comfortable bed I stated both right they've got you know that's about it right that's about the only thing that's common with both of them so why is a rich Carlton usually two to three times maybe even four times more than a Fairfield Inn well Steve it's luxurious so you get all these amenities no you don't fact you get fewer amenities if you stay at a Fairfield Inn you get free breakfast you free Wi-Fi I don't get that rich co-op then they make you pay extra for all that stuff it's because of a great experience it's not about the extras see if people pay 14% more with you think about it how much more would you take to your bottom line all right we talked about those closest to the customer realize this those of you who are closest to the customer frontline employees frontline managers you control the experience and I had three rules for you to create a great customer experience first rule is love your job absolutely love your job you have to love your job and by the way if you can't love your job you should try love is a verb is Stephen Covey taught us and so you should try to love your job second rule love your customers and third rule is if you can't comply with rules one and two then you need to get a new job you really do you should not be dealing on the front line you should not be dealing with customers if you can't one love your job and to love your customers now frontline employees I want you to be aware of your surroundings I want you to be aware of your customers at all time because believe it or not you can actually be too helpful think about it would you ever interrupt two customers who are having a private conversation with a question like are you finding everything okay let's say it's you you work at a department store and two people are standing by the shoes and they're talking to each other and there's a private conversation would you walk right up to them and ask them would you interrupt or are you finding everything okay no you wouldn't right but some of you do interrupt and and you're not even realizing it and it's not good for example the most personal form of communication for most people today is actually texting and so when someone's texting in your store they're in a private conversation just as if the other person they were they were texting is standing next to them they're talking to each other so don't interrupt be aware of the customer okay and realize this Nene customers will give signs right they'll use their eyes to look around this loss that they're looking for help you don't have to try to help everyone it's all about being genuine and it's about being authentic see awareness also means knowing how to say things and understanding that how you say things is often more important than what you say for example you've got an ad customer then a customer says I'm looking for blue widgets and you respond oh I'm sorry our blue widgets are only reserved for our VIP customers wow that's a big mistake you just told me what I can't have instead of telling the customer how you can't help them or why you can't help them let's tell the customer how we can help them so same situation customer needy customer says I'm looking for some blue widgets your response should be excellent all I need is a little bit of information from you and you'll become a VIP customer eligible to purchase blue widgets notice how I talked about how I can help versus how I can now customer service is a top-down proposition you may have heard the expression before Kraft rolls downhill it does it rolls downhill all the way to the customer so how you treat your frontline employees will dictate how they treat your cost they give you a real world example I work for a beer distribution company in Chicago years ago in the 90s and I was in the back room in in the receiving area watching with one of my drivers we were delivering beer there we were putting up displays and stuff and I was helping and I watched as a regional vice president for this grocery store chain who's in the back room just berating a store manager I mean it was abusive and it was brutal and he was just yelling at this guy and screaming at him for something I don't remember we was screaming about to be honest with you but listen to this then I watched as that store manager after this regional vp left I watched him beat up the liquor department manager and then when the store manager walked away I watched the liquor department manager beat up a first employee he saw which was actually this poor nice middle-aged woman who was stocking shelves in the liquor department and then I watched her as she went to the liquor department checkout stand to help a customer I watched her get short with that customers and by the way this all happened within 15 minutes imagine the long-term effects of this kind of abuse this was one example over 15 minutes Kraft rolls downhill you cannot treat people like crap and expect them to treat your customers well you know Carl Bruner once said they may forget what you said but they'll never forget how you made them feel see this is funny because I don't remember why that that regional vice president was beating up on that on that store that grocery store manager anyway but I remember the beating see this is especially true of employees they may they may forget what you said but they'll never forget how you made them feel so you can never expect your employees to care as much as you care ok and you can never expect them to care after a beating so think about this the next time you're beating up your entire sales team it's your Saturday morning meeting 15 minutes before you open the doors do you think it's gonna be a productive day you think they're gonna give everybody a great experience you think that everybody who comes into the to your dealership or your business that day is gonna rate you on a five out of scale of one to five they're not your employees are going to treat your customers the way they're treated how about just allowing your own personal life to make you short with your employees you can't do that see crap rolls downhill all the way down to the customer so let's recap what we've talked about so far what customer service is it's not about solving issues it's about not having issues in the first place and if I can do good customer service it leads to genuinely good reviews higher customer attention a willingness for people to spend more money with me and it doesn't have to be great remember it can just be good customer service doesn't have to be great but Steve my team is sharp and we're great man I'm the CEO everybody loves us it's great I ask them all the time oh yeah we blow people away we do a VIP experience fantastic we tell you something mr. CEO mr. owner leadership is often clueless no offense no offense but for most businesses that I work with that I consult with the leadership at the top is often clueless about the customer experience so if you're a CEO or senior leadership watching senior leader watching this you are likely oblivious to the real experiences your customers see everything you see is filtered everything you see is distorted like this view see everything presented to you is what we call it dog and pony show you don't know what a dog and pony show is I'll show you what a dog and pony show is I was in the Marine Corps back in the 80s 1983 I was on the island of Guam this is an actual picture of me I won't tell you which one of these guys I am taking it easy after we were out on the ocean that day in our little rafts and that building behind us that's not some blown out destroyed you know old building from World War two although it may be from World War two those are our barracks we love them but people to see this picture think that we lived in some kind of salaam we didn't those were the barracks but those are the what the barracks look like every day when we had a general coming to visit we put on a dog and pony show we scrub the the mold off the barracks that you see there we painted everything perfectly everything was in line everything worked everything was great it's a dog and pony show we stood in line we answered questions we were exposed to the general left I went back to do things the way we always did that's what's happening to you see examples are your dog and pony shows these you get a lot of filtered or falsified reporting I see it a lot I see it a lot with my dealer clients I see it a lot with my OEM clients you're getting a lot of false reports from the field from your own stores from your own managers in your store you're getting filtered customer messages too so the only customer messaging you see is the stuff that maybe the OEM pushes to you but if there are bad reviews online people are telling you something different about that right they're telling you what an unreasonable customer that person was and how we did everything we could for them okay they're filtering that customers messaging you're making pre-announce visits when I work for the Asbury Automotive Group the CEO would come to the stores the store would know two days in advance he was gonna be there you were able to put on a dog and pony show and everyone is always on their overall best behavior because they know you're coming in so how do you uncover these dog and pony shows what you may have seen the TV show Undercover Boss now this provides a pretty pretty entertaining blueprint for CEOs and other leaders but that's reality TV not reality but the premise of an undercover boss that's actually sound 1 so if you're the CEO CEO o president regional vice president whatever you should always go unannounced to the front lines and do so on a regular basis so they don't know when you're going to be there they've got to assume that you're going to be there any singled any day at any time and they have no idea when and when you're there try to take the view of a customer try to show up as a customer try to take the view as an employee and try to take the view as just an innocent bystander someone who has no skin in the game and see the customer experience from that viewpoint also go is yourself go yourself is the CEO but then learn how to get honest answers from people see you're getting filtered answers and how do you get honest answers from people in the field you learn two words you learn show me you become what we call a show me leader and this is a show me leader and we'll do it though at the base level first we'll talk about a sales manager say in the car business sales m'angil car business walked up to one of his salespeople and he says hey Bob do you have all your calls done today what is Bob's sake every time sure new boss the show-me leader says great show me right show me you got all your calls done let's open up the CRM let's see the calls let's see the call notes let's see what opportunities we created from those calls that's how you get you get to the honest answers and you get beyond the filtering so if you're a saying chief marketing officer or regional vice president why don't you walk into your stores and say hey how are we our customers today and they're gonna say oh boy we're doing this and this and oh man we have a VIP experience and when people come in we say great and oh man it sounds great I'd love to show that to other stores show me hey look at you kind of weird what do you mean I mean show me let's see it happen with a customer let's let's bring a sales person over here who's done it recently let's have him take me through it as well let's let's talk to a customer who's over there in our F&I office getting ready to buy a car I want to see this this is great show me it'll stop the filtered messaging that you're beginning ask your frontline managers hey how do we want a last customer you encountered right go to your service manager go to your service advisor hey huh how did we Wow last customer who is in here oh we done they're gonna tell you all sorts of stories just say show me great sounds great show me that's what it show me leader does alright let's jump into part three how to prevent customer service issues before they ever even happen have any customer issues before they ever even happen this is what great customer service is and we're going to teach it to you with five simple lessons we're gonna go through all five in a second but really it's gonna treat people like volunteers and orphans don't get to what that means we want to always expect our customers we want to focus on convenience making things convenient whenever they deal with us we want to manage your expectations and we want to have a goal of customers for life so when I talk about that people are volunteers and orphans I want you to treat everyone who works at your company like a volunteer every employee every manager because they are a volunteer see you can buy their backs but they volunteer their heart and they volunteer their minds and you have to understand that if you want the best work out of them if you want them to really execute all the time if you really want them to treat your customers well then you need to treat them like they're a volunteer and I want you to treat every customer as if they were in needy orphan because if you can do that you'll win every time and honey again let me make sure you understand exactly what this means this is your approach every day this is how I want you to approach every day not just around Christmas time every single day imagine that your only business that this is what your business is for your only business is handing out toys at Christmas to orphan children that's your only business your employees and managers are all volunteers and your customers are those little urchins and you are playing Santa how would you behave how would you behave if that was your only business what would you do is Santa see everything you did as Santa would be meant to please the orphans wouldn't it right would there be any reason to scold an orphan never would there be any reason to ever treat an orphan badly no would there be any reason to ever teach an orphan a lesson si think about that there's never reason to scold our customer there's never a reason to treat a customer badly and there's never a reason to treat the teacher a customer a lesson that's not our job so what about us what about scolding a volunteer you're Santa would there be any reason to scroll to volunteer actually there would right if they were somehow rude to an orphan that's it that would be about the only reason to ever scold them si so it's the same thing in your business everything you do should be weighed against pleasing the customers but pleasing all customers not throwing all your business trying to please one and everyone's job is to make them feel welcome because little things matter to orphans and little things matter to customers because of that you don't need to blow them away like chick-fil-a it's just simplicity its manners its smile and it's basic good service that's all you need to please your orphans that's all you need to please your customers think about the Apple Store think about Wharf ins at the Apple Store see when you walk in you're treated like an orphan aren't you when you're a buyer right someone asked you do you know where you're headed and if you know where you're headed you want to do what you want to do they'll leave you alone but if you need help you get a good experience because a knowledgeable product specialist speaks at your level see they're not talking up here they're all tech heads there you can come in not knowing anything about the iPhone and someone will talk to you on your level you can be an 80 year old grandmother and they will sell you the iPhone the iPhone you need but they'll speak to you at your level but I get it you're saying ask me that's the Apple Store you know what without cool fanboy products those stores would fail all right let's just talk about your business in you already have customers coming in don't you are they being greeted and treated like a value I mean like an orphan right are they given a chance for help and then left alone if they choose and are they working with the experts in your business who are talking to them on their level and by the way not everybody treats the customers at Apple at the Apple Store like orphans if you've ever needed help at the Genius Bar if you have something needs to repair unfortunately the front of store does a great job at treating you like an orphan when you get to the back of the store where the Genius Bar is it's like a service department at car dealership they've had some sort of customer service 101 training and they use a lot of over explanation and corporate speak it's just odd it really is like fingers on the chalkboard trying to deal with the people in the back of the store and you wouldn't talk to an orphan that way and so you shouldn't be talking to your customers that way so how do you ensure that your customers get treated like orphans all the time you treat your employees like volunteers you remember crap rolls downhill how you treat your team directly affects how they treat their team etc all the way down to the customer your volunteers you know we'll think about that you are volunteers for some of you you're just one or two steps from the customer and that's great for others you need to ensure that frontline managers because you're often a corporate office somewhere you need to ensure that those frontline managers are treating your frontline employees with respect and kindness just like volunteers all right number two on this list of easy simple things to do four to create a great customer experiences always expect them always expect customers see a customer visit is not an inconvenience and it should never be a surprise so notice them immediately and acknowledge them as soon as you notice them right so you work at a hotel you're a clerk you're on the phone a customer walks up to your desk guess they're about to check-in don't keep talking to the phone acknowledge a customer if you can't get off the phone at least let them know all right whatever you need to do you want to acknowledge the customer no I don't understand this look I get sometimes when I go into places that should be expecting customers why would you expect the customers see without customers we don't need you so expect them and assume that they are where they are supposed to be good example I gave blood last month not looking for accolades I gave blood last month and I made an appointment for then and I walked in about five minutes before my appointment and the clerk at the desk was not there but someone from the back ran out and she one of the technicians who takes blood and she asked me in an accusatory tone do you have an appointment as if there's these rogue people running around the blood donation blood banks and trying to give blood without an appointment like that would be terrible I'm truly a volunteer I am truly giving them something for free right and she treated me like like I was some sort of criminal trying to give them blood without an appointment you need to expect people and when possible greet them by name think about this I had an appointment right I was five minutes early for an appointment she could have looked at the appointment board and and acted as if she expected me and even said something like this hey are you mr. Sahni I say yeah she says all right we've been expecting you that would have that would have been different right that would have been a better experience see if you can greet people by name because people assume you are more competent if you know their name and certainly if someone has made an appointment you and they're showing up around the appointment time there's no harm in Fallon saying are you mister stalling are you Steve are you Bob whatever because what what if they're not okay I took a shot more often than not you're gonna be right and when you are right you're gonna make people feel good see that's how my dentist office works they don't do this but you know I only dentists picture I had from my very first visit we moved to a quarter Lane Idaho in 2010 I had my first visit to our dentist in Coeur d'Alene later that year and for my very first visit they greeted me my mate by name yes in the very first visit as soon as I walked through the door I walked through the door and about 15 20 feet away is the reception desk the receptionist looked up and she said you must be Steve Wow she then said she named my three sons and because they had already gone to the dentist and she said oh we just love Carson Conner and gunner Wow she couldn't pick us out in crowd of two you know I mean she wouldn't understand you wouldn't know us that she ran to go to the grocery store I get that but that didn't matter I assumed that they were more competent because she knew my name cuz she knew the name of my son but all of that was in front of her on her computer screen how did she know it was me that came in she didn't but I had a ten o'clock appointment it was about ten minutes to ten I walk in the door I'm not dressed as UPS driver I'm not carrying packages she put two and two together and said that must be C and she said you must be Steve right and she greeted me by moment by my name it makes you seem more competent when you can do that now my old doctor's office never did that we've actually switched doctors since we moved here because my old doctor's office when you went in and you walked up to the counter they truly treated you like you were some sort of criminal like what are you doing here why do you need to see the doctor they treated you they treated you like you're a hypochondriac my God hypochondriacs are the best patients right the doctors make more money you should be expecting your customers you should greet them by name when you can and in a service environment right customers will trust you more if you already know them and their issues they shouldn't have to repeat this okay so is this how your team works do you expect them think about a service drive at a car dealership when you can do greet them by name let me give you my last dealership visit let me tell you exactly what it was like as a customer getting my vehicle serviced I have a Ford f-150 and needed service so I made an appointment and I made the appointment online I filled out all the information in their online form told them everything that I needed done I actually selected the service because it was a transmission service that on this epic 50 couldn't be done by my normal mechanic and so I had to go to Ford dealer and I showed up on time and the service advisor never greeted me I had to walk up the scene but he also looked at me like I had three heads and he kept accusing me of not making your appointment because he couldn't find it in his system I got a confirmation email on the appointment I knew that I had made the appointment I knew what I had told them because my confirmation you know had all of my explanations but instead of blaming on an assistant he blamed it on me Wow sometimes people don't hit the submit button sometimes I bother they don't get that he blamed it on me and then he made me once he realized once he found my appointment he still made me repeat everything as if it wasn't written right in front of it he said can you tell me what the issue is today instead of saying something like oh it looks like you're here for transmission service is there anything else any other issues you've been having with your vehicle I lost all confidence in them and so do you think when he came back after my transmission service and tried to upsell me on other services that I bought anything heck no I got out of there as quickly as I could because these people seem incompetent was he didn't know my name and he didn't have my appointment this is an issue you've got to expect them especially if you know their name in advance you've got you've got to use it alright simple lesson number three focus on convenience convenience is actually good customer service you know how I know that is because inconvenience equals bad customer service if you're not sure what this means think about this think about Amazon or Zappos and their return policy they make it super easy to return anything any time no questions asked you can return it and you're done right they're not accusing you of things they're not making it inconvenient they'll make you jump through a lot of Hoops to return it and because of these easy returns even places like Walmart now make returns easy they don't ask you a lot of questions right they don't treat you like a criminal they make it convenient and convenience means simplicity ask yourself as you look at your business can anyone easily do business with us is your website let's start there is that convenient is it intuitive but it's intuitive for new visitors to your to your website every day you're at your website multiple times throughout the day you know where things are but if I came to your website as a brand new customer could I figure things out so I find the things that were important to me and the things that are important to you what about the aunt what about the in-store experience right convenience by the way does not mean speed think about brand-new customers right think about new customer onboarding we call it is it crystal clear when I walk into your business how I can do business with you or is it like this is it a bit murky if this was my first time can I quickly navigate to where I need to go to spend my money with you that's what's important right whether it's your service driving a car dealership whether it's a restaurant a coffee shop whether it's a hotel can I find the area I need to go to spend my money if I can't we've got to make it convenient we've got to put up sign you got to show them right front desk is this way in words that they understand see if it's not convenient and I become frustrated I will almost certainly never return see those little hurdles and hassles for first-time customers can be gigantic they may never give you another chance and you know how to navigate what we call we're onboarding you know when a new customer comes into your business you know how to navigate that but does a brand new customer know how that how to do that think about 7-eleven stores right if you've never been to a 7-eleven store and you walked in for the very first time could you figure things out yeah you really could I mean a five-year-old kid could figure it out in 7-eleven right the shelves are pretty low so I can see all the way around I can see that's where the sodas are beer there's the coffee over there and oh look right in the middle there's a cash register I think I got this figured out I wouldn't be confused about where to go so how about a car dealer at the Auto Service Drive can I do I know where to go as soon as I get there you do people come out and greet me right away or do I have to go figure out where to find some money and also other service providers like doctors dentists hair salons especially you need to figure this out people when they're coming to you for the first time they're not sure about what they're supposed to do and they're on edge because you're going to be doing some service to them right whether it's medical dental or just your hair and nails for example let me give an example we visit a new doctor's office this this can often be an excruciating experience because the little things like having to answer the same question over and over again on different forms on the same visit how about not knowing where to sit in the exam room right if they have areas that are cordoned off for other things I'm not really sure where to sit how about not knowing where to go after the exam this is this happened to me at our newest doctor's office because I got done with my exam and I they opened the door to the exam room they said we'll see you later well it was a maze getting back there they know how to get back there I didn't know how to get back to where I needed to go so I was walking around kind of a mostly I started looking in other rooms it's probably not good for those other patients it certainly wasn't good for me so a map out in your business how any new customer might might first encounter you online or offline and then how they can do business with you and enter your business is a brand new customer from every possible angle and ask yourself we can I figure out where people need to spend their money how they can spend their money with us when we talk about convenience by the way think about these hurdles and hassles think about self service fee up to half of today's consumers prefer self-service options at the retail level they really do and although it's not about speed almost 75% of today's consumers think the number one thing companies must do is value my time now some of you are too young to remember a time and we didn't have a TMS automated teller machines and you know what we used to stand in line at the bank when we needed cash we'd stand in line we thought it with drawl slip we'd stand it it was it was a terrible experience because we didn't feel even no matter how nice they were at the bank we didn't feel that they valued our time considered we were standing in line you put in the ATM tada now they value my time now everything is convenient so when you think about convenience definitely think about automation and I know there's this whole thing we gotta be more personal with people no they don't want you to your personal they want you to be better then one should be good they want you to be convenient so I want you to automate more not automate less think about like the cable company when they have an internet outage okay all the answers should be online any and any question I might have about a current outage on my cable company's internet should be online but it should be in a mobile-friendly site because we all have smartphones and that's where I'm going to go to try to find answers and information is power to your customers if I can find the information on my cable company outage and all the information right there on my little screen and it says it's going to be out for 45 minutes or Testim ated or it's this or it's that information is power and if I feel like I'm in the dark then my name's if my anxiety will grow but if you can solve my issue on the load the mill the small screen for me then I don't have an issue my issue goes away now if you're going to automate and you're going to put things online and answers it should make sense and it should be intuitive it should be easy and it doesn't it's not a customer service issue if I can easily solve it myself but when you make me call the cable company to find out about the outage is it really out how long is it going to be out and I speak to somebody in another country no offense if they're in another country but they don't have any answers they don't know what the heck they're talking about and all they have are these these these you know these lines they're supposed to yes missus funding we understand is that that I thought I thought that I know it's frustrating Baba no they don't understand they're regurgitating something that some idiot wrote out for them some person who thinks that our customer service expert you're not solving my issue they're not getting the answers quickly automate show me the answers quickly online let me find them for myself think about this when we talk about convenience and automation I don't know if you had a flight delay because of weather but if you're a member of the of the rewards program for your airline oftentimes you can rebook that flight immediately on your cell phone so if I have to rebook a flight canceled due to weather and I can do it intuitively and easily I'm fine right if I can do it right on my cell phone and be done I'm fine but maybe you call some number and sit on hold for just 10 minutes and my skin is crawling right this is called getting out of your customers way and we need to start doing that if we want to be provide good customer service that people love it's about convenience all right number four we're going to manage expectations did you know that misaligned expectations are the number one cause of customer service issues they really are and misaligned expectations are where the customer expected this and you delivered this you failed okay what if the customer expected this and you delivered this aha you win when you can align expectations early that's the easiest way to avoid customer service issues now I love this sign and I've seen it in dozens of places I've seen it in a computer repair shop I've seen it in a restaurant I've seen it in lots of places if you don't have this sign but you're in a service business download this sign make copies of it put it in frames and put it all over your business but this sets the expectations right we offer three kinds of service good cheap fast that you can only pick to write good and cheap won't be fast fast and good will be cheap cheap and fast won't be good this sets expectations it also puts people in a good mood it allows you to take your time if you're going to provide good service all right we talked about expectations and we talk about those remember those tiny hurdles and hassles those a lot of those are expectation things see if we can inform the customer in advance of these little hurdles and hassles we can make their visit less contentious so I've just put away my credit card and the cashier asked can I see your card okay it's minor thing but it's an artificial hurdle that they created by not telling you in advance right I put my card in the chip reader and the cards in there and nothing's happening and then they go oh we're not using chip yet put a little sign on there put put tape over where I can't use the chip reader how about this one you're at the gas station and you keep trying the pump and you go inside say something wrong pump three and they say oh yeah that pumps not working oh okay put a bag over you know you've seen it they put them yellow bag over it you can't even you don't even pull up they do that because people are getting mad that they didn't know that the pump was broken until they got out of their car found out how about this your your Mexican food restaurant and you say oh yes and I'd like a side of guacamole and they say oh sorry we're out of water well wait a minute why don't you tell me that when you first sit me down right tell me the couple of things that you're out of so that you set my expectations and then at the end of dinner I put that American Express card on the tray and then the waitress comes back and says oh I'm sorry we don't take American Express let me know in advance right it's easy to show me the ones that you take it's easy to show that you don't take American Express tell me in advance again these are tiny things and you and your team were probably thinking fast eight or crazy those things don't bother but you get they do they bother people those tiny little hurdles and hassles make the expectations misaligned another expectation that we need to manage is your customers clock see your clock is different than the customers clock only the customers clock though is important your your clock is not important see their clock is not reality either their clock is in their head and it only has two settings right freaking now and this is taken forever now earlier I said it's not about speed it's not it's about managing their expectations on speed that's all it is we talked about the customer clock well let me give you a couple real-world examples let me give you the first one here ups store that's near my house I had to drop off a package it was already it already had the label on it they just needed to scan it so and weigh it so that they could give me a receipt now they were busy but as soon as I walked in they greeted me immediately someone looked up and said good morning we'll be right with you they looked me right in the eye and so I knew they were talking to me this reset my clock now he took seven minutes from that time until I got helped Steve seven minutes that's not bad no it actually wasn't bad because my clock was reset I knew that they knew that I was there but imagine the opposite imagine that I didn't come in and oh by the way UPS stores they don't have good lines you know I came in there were three people off to the side I remember who they were but I wasn't sure that the people behind the counter would know that I was behind them and what if somebody came in behind me would they'd serve before me right this is a big deal to a customer so let's imagine the opposite I walk in and no one ever says a word to me and it takes seven s before I get help I'm a little bit anxious right it's not as good of an experience they reset my clock customers clock is all that matters not your clock but it's not about speed of service right it is truly about resetting my expectations the Gallup Organization found that speed was not the largest driver for customer loyalty in fact customers were nine times more likely to be engaged with a brand when they evaluated the service as courteous willing and helpful just like my UPS store they were courteous they were willing they were helpful they weren't fast and it didn't matter let me give you the second example on the customer clock another real-world example my wife and I were driving down to Boise Idaho we live in North Idaho driving down to Boise we stopped in a small town cafe for a bite to eat it's about 2:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday about 30 minutes to kill because we already had plans to meet someone down there at certain time now the place was fairly busy when walked in we found out pretty quickly they were understaffed the managers the one who seated us and she told us about the packed house told us that the service would be incredibly slow that the kitchen would be slow but she kept us informed throughout ok I told you we only had about 30 minutes to kill we left that restaurant two hours later we were satisfied we were full and I gave them a five-star review online why because she managed my expectations that's why had they not said anything or had they tried to sugarcoat it all we're gonna be right with you oh we're a little backed up right no she gave us the down-and-dirty so we were able to call ahead and tell people were gonna be a little bit late and it was no big deal then again she managed the customer clock that's the expectations that's managing expectations all right goal number number five on these simple five simple lessons our goal should be customers for life you remember the slide from earlier right according to Bain & Company it cost six to seven times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one in other words the experience doesn't end once they paid you because it costs me more to get new customers so you need to have a goal of customers for life and how you do that did you focus on service before during and after the sale let me give you before the sale example paya rama is a tire store up here in the Pacific Northwest I first encountered them about 21 months ago I'd never been there before but they happen to be the closest tire store to my house and I had a slow leak in one of my tires and I'd never done business with him before but this slowly got to be a hassle so I just went there to get a plug and I took the the vehicle there I'd sat and waited for it was no big deal to wait and when they came to me they said this is showing you cars ready I got up I got my credit card out and they went through what happened I thought you know they were gonna tell me to put a plug ins they said actually there was a problem with the rim a bead wasn't right so we had to reset that I don't know entire guy they did they did what they needed to do is holding here perfectly now has been for 21 months but here's what happened I had my credit card out and they asked me to sign here and then he said no charge and I said but I didn't buy the tires here and they said that's okay it's no charge we fix it away I said what if you had to put a plug in it I said wait a min no charge I was fully expecting to pay $35 for the visit right and had they said 50 or 60 I would've been okay because it was convenient I got it done but they said no charge they didn't know if I'd ever be back there again but they didn't bother them okay they just said no charge and that was service before the sale since then in the last 21 months I've spent over $4,000 with tire ama on my family's five vehicles I have three sons who drive plus my wife myself five vehicles we've spent over four thousand dollars on tires on service on oil changes we get all of our oil changes they're everything we do in our vehicle we go there first in fact when I went to that Ford store with my f-150 the only reason I did is because they click the service the transmission on that year f-150 didn't have the right equipment and they were honest about that that's service before during it to the sale so let's talk now about service during the sale because that's everything we've talked about so far it really is it's remember number one treating your your your customers like orphans treating your team like volunteers right volunteers and orphans how about number two always expecting them number three we're going to make it convenient number four we're gonna manage expectations that's service during the sale is four things we talked about when we talk about service after the sale there's some industries like autos RVs furniture appliances that you've got either some sort of delivery or some sort of after the sale function built in so in cars it's F&I and their service right and furniture there's delivery appliance has delivery there might be warranty service with those so how you treat me after I paid you is more telling than how you treated me before let's look at somebody who's not a customer for life okay this is an actual review and I took out all the names of the salesperson and the F&I manager and the dealership cuz I won't embarrass anybody but something as simple as we're trying a phone call can keep a customer for life and this dealer is just shooting themselves in the foot after the sale so they said would the name of their said they gave a one-star review on Yelp they said are you know the name of the salesman say bob was great but our finance contact they gave his name was terrible he's unresponsive they said his name and won't return calls here was the deal they had to change the deal from one credit union to another now the client was expecting this credit union they got changed of this credit union had they told the customer in advance and they managed expectations and then after the sale had they just returned phone calls this could have all been resolved remember it cost six to seven times more to get a new customer than to keep an existing one if this is your guy you should fire him he's not doing you any good he's costing you too much money because I don't care how much what he's making for me an F and I those people are never coming back and they're gonna tell 9 to 15 people and they went online and told everybody right number 4 negative reviews online can equal a 70% reduction in new business so let's not invent issues for our customer okay that dealers finance guy he invented an issue also for say there are some idiotic retailers massage Indy comes to mind that allow third parties and explain us in a minute to send their customers free collection letters when their credit card on file has expired someone that in the automotive industry discovered this when he got one of these letters and he posted it on LinkedIn and I'd seen this before but I hadn't realized that other this happened other people so Massage Envy when and maybe that's not true today but it was true it's true as of this recording when when you put your credit card on file and you're a member of their service I I assume they provide massages when you're a member of their service and your credit card is about to expire your credit card on file and they can no longer charge it instead of calling you or sending you an email right and and telling you your credit card is about to expire or the next time you visit hey your credit card on file is about to expire can you give us your new one they let a third party company send pre-collection letters that look like you've been turned over to a collection agency this is this is insane what the heck are they thinking you've got to provide service before during and after the sale they are inventing an issue to make their customers unhappy one other thing about after the sale issues is your loyalty programs see bad loyalty programs invent more issues if you're better off not having a loyalty program if it's not going to be a good one now the good news on loyalty programs sixty nine percent of Millennials belong to a loyalty program and seventy percent of those are happy with the programs they belong to but there's three things that they're looking for they're looking for it to be simple right they want the loyalty program to be transparent it means they understand what's going on and number three it's got to be worthwhile so does your loyalty program help you create customers for life after the sale ask your frontline employees to explain the company benefits of the plan go right to your front line people who the people who stamped the card or whatever asking hey tell tell me how the company benefits from his loyalty program this card or whatever then ask them to explain how the customer benefits from the plan and then ask them how easy the rewards are to redeem and finally ask them how valuable these rewards are to the customers if your loyalty program is not working if you're if you find your rewards programs a lot of smoke and mirrors it's losing you customers or if it requires a lot of Hoops to jump through with lots of fine print then you're losing customers consider abandoning completely abandoning your loyalty program or drastically revamping it see the goal again is customers for life now we talked about convenience in number three right the focus on convenes we talked about returns but it's also fit here as well do you want customers for life then ask yourself how easy is it for people to return something to me okay you have this sign up and you're in your business no returns or refunds all sales final boy that is that don't do business here again sign if I ever saw one see because of online retailers like Amazon and Zappos and now Walmart if all these hassle-free returns it's important for all businesses to act this way if your policies are intended to save you money and not to wow the customers you'll always be fighting an uphill battle you'll always be spending money to get new customers and finally after the sale let's file this one under either let them know you're in for them or little things that matter but the Journal of applied social psychology they published a great study you've probably seen if I go through it again researchers tested the effects that after-dinner mints had in order to measure their effectiveness the mints effectiveness of increasing tips and so they study for groups of diners over a period of time now the first group of diners they got no mints the first groups that they were studying got no mints with the check the second group had the waiters quietly including mints with the check and this grew tips by three percent over the no mints group so just including mints with the check grew tips by three percent the third group had waiters bring out two mints per person by hand separate from the check and then mention what anybody like some mints before they leave this crew tips by fourteen percent and the final group the the last group had waiters bring out the check along with a few initial myths a short time later the waiter would come back with more mints letting the customers know they had brought out some more some more minutes just in case they wanted extras for this group waiter saw an increase of 23% in tips over the new immunes group so think about this this contrived follow-up after the sale giving extra mints and saying hey look now look what I just did that appeared is genuine to the custom to the customer this Act created a connection with customers as the waiters appear to be going above and beyond so ask yourself in our business where can we replicate something like this where can we replicate something as simple as mince that would make people want to give a tip that's 23% higher than they normally would all right part four how to respond to issues when you fail or when your customer is unreasonable see it's important understand that an issue if you have an issue it means you fail okay customer service issues happen only for two reasons one your customers being totally unreasonable or - and this is most often you fail now you must solve it you must solve their issue because according to understanding customers look by Ruby Newell ignorant it takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience with a customer so you've got to resolve it or you're gonna have to even if the customer stays with you it's gonna take 12 great experiences for them to get over it okay Steve what if it's too late and we fail customers will complain and we know that right now a whole bunch won't complain but sometimes their issues are legitimate and sometimes their issues are not see legitimacy doesn't matter to them they are not always right but they are always the customer so what do we do now we failed what are we supposed to do just solve it okay let's be clear solve their issue but solve it efficiently right efficiency matters the lighting is not necessary here so you just have to solve the issue you don't go blow away according the Harvard Business Review the lighting customers doesn't build loyalty reducing their effort the work that they have to do to get their problem solved that does build loyalty see you don't have to blow them away you would think customers would be more loyal to brands right go above and beyond no Harvard Business Review research shows that exceeding expectations during service interactions right we've screwed up makes customers only marginally more loyal and simply meeting their needs that's not work to go overboard let's just solve their issues in fact when it comes to service companies create oil customers primarily by helping them solve their problems quickly and easily not by blowing them away so what exactly does make it easy mean simply put it means remove the ox but the obstacles remember focus on convenience right number three focus on convenience let's remove the obstacles and let them solve some of these issues on their own see customers resent having to contact a company repeatedly to get an issue resolved they don't like being transferred they don't want to repeat information and they want to stick to the first channel that they use right they want to stick to one channel for instance they were then having a call after trying to solve a problem through your website so either make your websites better at solving problems or just put your phone number on your website and say when you got an issue call us all right when we're serving the customer this is called reactive customer service we have a customer service issue when we are forced to provide customer service after the fact that's reactive customer service it's not customer service it's reactive customer service and we need to remember a few things number one we need to remember our goal we need to know what our goal is whatever that might be okay so our goal is to solve the issue that's our goal and that's what we're gonna do number two we need to understand this is not a problem it's an opportunity and number three we need to understand that it's nothing personal even if it gets personal even if the mad customer on the other end the line starts screaming at us and calling us names it's not personal they're mad about issues and they're the ones with the issues plus we need to assume a few things when dealing with an issue this will make you one of the best customer service agents ever if you will just do remember these three things when dealing with an issue one imagine that there are multiple TV cameras focused on you right now okay and your words and actions are gonna be talked about on CNN tonight and forever and the person with an issue and the other line even though they're being unreasonable they're an orphan see if you can assume those things if you can treat things that way then you're gonna be able to solve more issues so can i defuse the issue if you can solve the issue do so but don't preach or teach the customer any met any any lessons here especially if they're wrong so you want to kill them with kindness now we know a lot you say we'll see I don't understand I hear people say come on times what's it mean it means that the angrier they get the nicer you get the louder they get the quieter you get okay the more words they use the fewer words you use kill them with kindness see only you can make yourself feel small they don't have that control over you so don't give them that control and only escalate the real issues we want to solve what we can solve but we want to escalate only the real issues enough by the way let's stop with the escalations in our business your manager should be watching this owner should be watching the CEOs see good leaders allow their subordinates to escalate issues but great leaders don't see many escalated issues because they empower their frontline folks to solve issues so ok great see if I'm in so how do i empower my frontline folks let me teach you something that I've done in the past and I taught this to a service manager in the auto industry recently and six months later I called him I said how's it going he says I haven't had an issue in six months he had all of his servants advisers constantly transferring people with issues up to him and why were they doing that because he solved all the issues right he would handle the customer he'd go back and forth he do all this stuff but it was a problem because it was keeping him from doing his job and here's the one simple step that he used that I taught him and then I've used in the past and I want you to use to eliminate all these things issues empower your team to actually solve problems it really is simple and it's just this it's announced this to your to your team if your customers minor issue makes it all the way up to me I'm going to give them everything they're asking for I'm gonna pay for it using our bonus pool so everybody gonna make less money every time I have to solve an issue I'm gonna solve it right away I'm not gonna ask questions I'm not gonna try to find sides he said she said if your customers minor issue gets all the way up to me I'm just solving it because I don't have the time to solve your issues like I said the service manager he said six months after he put this in place he hadn't had an issue come to him in six months he has plenty of free time that's how you empower Steve I'm doing it I seem I'm doing on empowering the frontline ok great but if you're like a lot of the call centers that I work with you're rewarding wrong metrics so you need to remove incentives that value speed over quality it's just insane see most customer service call centers still emphasize metrics such as average call time if it's a customer service center average call time is meaningless it really is I don't care if it all takes five hours to solve I care about resolution I care about happy customers I care about customers for life see you're better off measuring with all versus escalated issues and bonusing people incentivizing people on resolve versus escalated issues versus trying to keep their calls down to under two minutes so why empower the frontline well we talked about people don't want to be transfer it's the escalating or deflecting to another department that compounds the issue according to Zendesk when asked what made a customer service interaction bad 72% of consumers blamed having to explain a problem to multiple people that's an issue okay see we solved the issue am I done nope don't just solve the current issue with the customer let's head off the next one first you need to ask this customer are there any other issues lingering okay mr. Sahni is there anything else I can help you with today there any other issues I can solve for you today and then second we've got to learn from this one and prevent it from happening again that means we need some sort of feedback loop that gets back to the front line who first dealt with this customer gets back to the people who make the rules that this customer was unhappy with now by the way I've got a customer service department Steve I got a I gotta fill it with people who should fill these roles let me give you seven great traits of a good customer service rep right number one they're patient they're patient with customers they know how to treat people like orphans you how patient would you be with an orphan right you wouldn't make them speed up tell me what you want I've got 21 right we sitting on Santa's lap know you'd be patient with them good customer service reps are patient also attentive meaning they listen meaning they pay attention to the customer okay they genuinely care remember just like they would about an orphan they're also very clear communicators now I'm not talking I don't care if they're from another country I don't care whatever but their accent does not get in the way of making the connection and they also don't use you know a lot of a lot of Millennials speak or things like that they confuse our customers they speak clearly the enunciate properly and they make sense when they talk right they also possess product knowledge see if you're going to expect people to solve issues they kind of have product knowledge they've got to be able to be experts but they value close to that they have to be have the ability to read others just like a salesperson they need to read other people understand what they can say you can't say to a customer and they need to stay goal focused as goal focus closers because you want them to get off the phone when it's resolved but you want them to say something like okay mr. stalling it sounds like if we do abc123 that's going to resolve the issue is that correct that's what a closure would say and the customer says yeah that's right well great mister starting that's what we're gonna do we're gonna do abc123 and I'm going to put it in motion right now is there anything else I can help you with today nope that's it thank you solvation done all right now let's teach them also that words matter okay so we need to eliminate negative phrase it's like you can't you don't or a dozen things like that so for example customer service agent on call center here's a negative phrase they might use well we can't switch your plan until the next billing cycle how about this one I can say that same thing but do it positively I'll be we gladly switch your plan at the start of the next billing cycle okay done versus we can't switch your plan till the next billing cycle I want to say it positively I will gladly switch your plan at the start of the next billing cycle so you need to find the can not the can't in this and finally Steve great we're doing a great job we're solving customer issues is there anything I can do to generate some good reviews while I fix what's wrong yes there is I'm glad you asked it okay there's five-star reputation management training videos at two sites 100% free Steve Staunton calm and undeniable advantage calm just look for five-star reputation management just doing the search boxes you'll find all the videos that are there that can help your team with that all right so let's wrap this up today I want to thank you for for joining me today for this live video training undeniable advantage and I just want to give you our Twitter handle so that you can connect with me on Twitter you can follow me at Steve Sonique also follow us at you the advantage if you've got any questions that come from this training please contact me through Steve's taunting comm just go to Steve standing calm look under Steve stalling find the context you fill out that information I'll be happy to answer your questions make sure that you stay in tune with all of our undeniable advantage live video webcasts and we look forward to seeing you in our next webcast thank you for joining me [Music] you [Music] you

Channel: Steve Stauning

Views: 21,914

Rating: 4.7866669 out of 5

Keywords: #customerexperience, #customerservice, #howtowowthecustomer

Id: 97zAbcGf1Zo

Length: 71min 38sec (4298 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 23 2016