Category: Article

How you serve your customers before during and after a purchase or interaction is an incredibly important asset for you as an employee and the company you work for. Meeting the customer’s expectations is a result of providing the right service and delivering great customer service. Excellent customer service involves creating a positive bond with your customer that may lead to a long-term relationship, so every interaction must count.

This is the final article of a four-part series focusing on conflict resolution, technology, measurement, understanding consumers, having goals and reviewing regularly. If you missed the first three articles you can click on the following links. Part #1 Have You Ever Misread a Customers Emotional State, Part #2 Going the Extra Mile, and Part #3 Mastery of Persuasion.

19. Conflict resolution

Conflict is inevitable in business. If it is ignored or mismanaged, conflict can have a negative effect on your company or organization. When conflict is managed and resolved effectively it can positively impact customer loyalty, retention and brand awareness. Conflict can be resolved through allowing customers to talk; use empathy to show you understand their feelings or frustrations; convey empathy with a soft tone; work to solve their problems effectively; redirect rather than react to customers problems; own up to your own mistakes immediately; focus their attention on constructive solutions; carefully use verbal softeners such as possibly, likely, occasionally and perhaps rather than always or never; isolate confrontational conversations away from employees or other customers; find a point of agreeance with the customer; wait for silence and then summarize their point and work with them to find a solution; if the customer is not ready for a productive conversation then create some time for them to calm down; have an end point when customers refuse to act constructively; and thank your customer. Managing customers’ expectations, and avoiding arguments, disputes and other forms of conflict are important for building a healthy business.

“When I think about great service, it’s about how you take every interaction you have with the customer and use that as a way to improve their perception of your organization.”

JON HERSTEIN

20. Technology vs People

It has become commonplace for companies to invest in automated customer service technology, to meet an ever increasing workload and become more efficient. Technology might reduce customer service direct costs by replacing humans, but what is the indirect cost to the company when the technology isn’t able to quickly and easily resolve conflict and issues, and customers leave? The human element, if trained well, can reduce the time to resolution, provide a human touch, show empathy and add value to the consumer. It is important to determine whether human error is more harmful than technology that isn’t flexible or reliable. If technology is going to be implemented, then it needs to reduce the amount of interaction time with customers and provide a clear resolution.

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

21. Measuring

Remember the reason why you are reporting is not to generate reports and graphs, but to provide the best service to your customers. It’s not about the quantity of data, rather the quality of it. Realise that what gets measured gets managed, so ensure that you only select data that provides information that is relevant to improving your service to the customers. Your metrics should be meaningful and relate back to a company goal; moveable so your company can have impact; authentic so you can tell the true story; numbers need to be contextualized; and consistent so you can monitor and understand trends and insights. It is important to present useful reports that focus on long-term trends, keep it simple so it is easy to understand what needs to be improved, and look for correlations that tell a bigger story.

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you’ll do things differently.”

WARREN BUFFETT

22. Understanding Your Consumers

More than 95% of unhappy customers don’t complain, although more than 90% will leave and never return (1^st Finance Training Services). Greater than 95% of customers, will tell people about the bad experiences they had with your company (Zendesk). Upwards of 85% of people are influenced by online reviews of products and services, when making buying decisions (Zendesk). Over 70% of the time people blame a bad customer service experience on having to explain to multiple people (Zendesk). 86% of people will pay up to 25% more for a better customer service experience (RightNow). More than 70% of consumers will fall in love with a brand when they experience friendly customer service personnel (RightNow).

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

MAYA ANGELOU

23. What Are Your Goal’s

Being clear about your customer service goals allows you to regularly review and check whether you are on target to improve. First, you need to know what success will look like. Second, create specific and measurable customer services goals that are easily identifiable. Third, connect your customer service goals to the company goals. Fourth, create a plan taking into consideration that the difference between a tactic and a goal is action. Fifth, publicise and track your performance rather than placing them on the shelves to collect dust. Sixth, review often, by separating your goal timeframes into weekly, monthly and quarterly checkpoints. Finally, celebrate the milestones you achieve, on a regular basis with your team.

“Ask your customers to be a part of the solution, and don’t view them as part of the problem.” 

ALAN WEISS

24. Review

A regular review of your customer strategy and approach is important, especially when you have changing products, services and most importantly people. It needs to be a company wide review of customer service as everyone is a face for the company and will be involved with customers, clients and suppliers. Check that issues are being resolved, complaints being handled effectively, customer retention being monitored and staff are being effectively trained. Make sure that your goals are agile, changeable and adaptable so that you can choose a new path if they aren’t moving your customer service forward and in the right direction.

“Do what you do so well they will want to see it again, and bring their friends.”

WALT DISNEY

This was the fourth and final part of the 4-part series on customer service. If you missed the first three parts, then you can click on the following links: Part #1 Have You Ever Misread a Customers Emotional State, Part #2 Going the Extra Mile, and Part #3 Mastery of Persuasion.

Looking for More?

Keep up-to-date on the latest membership information, research and ideas by signing up the the NRGizer Newsletter. SIGN UP NOW

Are you looking for more insights and ideas? Then read the following inspiring and thought-provoking articles and podcasts:

• #8 Mike DeNoma Your Strengths Are What Energise You
• Mastery of Persuasion
• Going the Extra Mile
• Have You Ever Misread a Customers Emotional State?
• #7 Trina Gordon Recruiting the World’s Leaders (Podcast)
• Beyond the Comfort Zone

 

Going the extra mile is an important component of serving customers. Retention of customers is vital to the recruitment of new customers, as great customer service leads to positive word of mouth, which in turn leads to an increase customer base. How you behave, act, talk and work with customers has a major impact on the perceived level of customer service they receive.

This is the second article of a four-part series focusing on how the fundamentals of customer service are crucial to staff interaction, stakeholder management and the growth of every staff member, including yourself. The first article – Have You Ever Misread a Customers Emotional State? – discussed patience, calmness, positive language, reading customers, being attentive and showing empathy. This article covers clear communication, using your acting skills, knowing your products, managing time, being ready for surprises and the tenacity to go above and beyond for your customers.

7. Crystal Clear

Getting straight to the point is important when it comes to handling customer inquiries. Customers aren’t so interested in your life story or how your day has been. You can break the ice with them with a brief connection to their day, but avoid expanding on yours. Being able to communicate clearly is especially important when discussing what is and isn’t included in a product sale, service or membership inclusion. Miscommunication and misunderstandings can have a negative effective on customer loyalty and trust, even if you have the best apology.

8. Act Up

You are an entertainer, a positive beam of light and a comforter when it comes to customer service. You need to be able to draw on your acting skills when either you or your customer is tired, having a bad day or love to have a rant. You need to ensure the experience is positive, vibrant and warming to the customer. It may be a challenge to make them happy, but it is in your, and the companies, best interest to make the best out of a difficult situation. This is a real challenge when the customer seems to want nothing but pull you down, as they want to be in control and make you feel bad for the experience they have had.

9. Product Knowledge

There is nothing more frustrating for a customer that a forward-facing employee who has little or no knowledge of a product or service. Spending time knowing the product or service inside out is critical to helping customers who have a problem. Without knowledge it is very difficult to troubleshoot and solve problems. Having clear knowledge of the product or service also helps you to build an understanding about the customer experience, and therefore can become a strong advocate. Developing product knowledge should be something that is included in the first one to two weeks of an on-boarding process for new employees.

10. Managing Time

Taking the time to understand the customers concern and ensure they leave on a positive, it’s important for developing long-term trust and loyalty. However there is a limit on the time you should spend, as your goal should be to ensure that customers get what they want in an efficient manner. There is no point going above and beyond for a customer, when you will just end up wasting their time. If you aren’t making headway and you don’t know the solution to a problem, then it is in everyone’s interests to connect the customer with someone who does.

11. Surprise

How an employee reacts and deals with the unexpected is invaluable to the reputation of the company. There will be problems you encounter and customer reactions you weren’t expecting, which you need to be prepared for. Expecting the unexpected is an important skillset for dealing with customers, so you need a plan to cope with challenging situations. Knowing whom you should contact, what information you should provide them and how you will contact them, when you don’t know an answer or how to cope, is helpful.

12. Tenacity

You should never cheat your customers by providing service that is of a lazy kind. Putting in the extra effort and doing what needs to be done should be a driving motivation when working with customers. Customers will talk about service where you go above and beyond to make a difference in their life. The memorable customer service stories are developed when an employee goes beyond the status quo when dealing with them. This action can have a major impact on the business in the future.

Part 3 looking at the importance of customer service, will be available in the next NRG2Perform article. It will include 6 more components of providing an exceptional customer service approach.

Looking for More?

Keep up-to-date on the latest membership information, research and ideas by signing up the the NRGizer Newsletter. SIGN UP NOW

Are you looking for more insights and ideas? Then read the following inspiring and thought-provoking articles and podcasts:

• Have You Ever Misread a Customers Emotional State?
• Beyond the Comfort Zone
• #6 Indiran Padayachee Winning Only Matters (Podcast)
• High Performers Cultivate More Powerful Traits
• #5 Suzie Hoitink Enemy of a Great Life is a Good One (Podcast)
• Undisputed Benefits of Taking a Smoko Break

A comfort zone is a wonderful place, but nothing ever grows there.

Successful people have the unique ability to perform under high levels of pressure. Pressure comes from internal and external expectations, and as the stakes rise, fear grows. Being able to deal with fear and the uncomfortable feelings that are associated, you have to be better prepared to control your state of mind.

Why do we feel uncomfortable? That uncomfortable feeling comes from going into a place where you have never been before. You are making a change and disrupting the way your mind and body are used to doing something. It might be doing something for the first time or doing something you haven’t done for a while. It could be doing something you are used to, but the conditions or parameters have changed.

When you first experience a struggle and you feel uncomfortable, you start to second-guess yourself. Remember nothing in life comes easy and the greatest satisfaction is the result of overcoming something that takes us out of our comfort zone and takes us to a whole new level. You need a mindset of being comfortable with the uncomfortable. This is the price of progression.

“If you want something in life that you have never had, you will have to do something that you have never done.”

Here are some ways to take you beyond the comfort zone:

Show Up

You will feel most uncomfortable when you take the first step and make a decision to start. That commitment to get off the start-line means the battle is half done. Most great ideas never get started, but once you have taken the first step, the real work begins. You made a choice, a commitment, and now you need to show up.

One Step in Front of the Other

Sometimes your actions don’t go to plan. You may not be seeing results, the progress is slow, and you are being told that it won’t work or self-doubt is kicking in. This is the point where everyone considers giving up and start asking themselves, “why am I doing this?”. At this point you have to be brave and be ready to answer honestly. Your purpose needs to be crystal clear, because this is when the true battle begins and it is the time to shine.

Fake it Till You Make It

Fear kills more dreams than failure, so you have to control the controllable’s and brainwash yourself with lots of positive affirmations and thoughts. Pretend to be confident and visualize how it will look. Preparation and belief are your best friends.

Embrace ‘The Suck’

If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Deal with the adversity, the challenge, the pain, or the uncomfortable feeling by welcoming it with open arms. Make it your friend, as ‘the suck’ is the reason that is going to make you better. You are building your mental and physical toughness, which leads to greater levels of resilience.

Surround Yourself

Create a team and environment that supports the challenge. An environment that is positive and provides you with the feedback required to deal with the positive and negative thoughts, and perceived obstacles to achieve your goal.

Pushing the Envelope

To continually extend the boundaries of what you thought was possible, you need to understand how you overcome uncomfortable experiences in the past. Use your understandings to build your confidence. Start to notice the patterns of your thoughts and record them. Record the characteristics of your fears, such as when does it appear, where does your mind wander, how do you cope with it and how you construct your intentions to deal with it. Create an internal culture of reveling in achievement and understanding how you deal with situations.

Repetition

Your mind and body are comfortable with familiarity. The more you perform in an uncomfortable state, the more confidence you will develop. It is a mindset you have to develop, so you can allow your thoughts and emotions to adapt and grow.

Take Action

What rituals and behaviors can you create, so that each day you feel more comfortable with the uncomfortable? Once you have developed these actions, you need to be patient and be prepared for the long-game, as it will take some to become an automatic part of your life. Over time you will feel more confident, empowered and prepared to face the uncomfortable more often. The result of this process is a life of growth, excitement and success

Looking for More?

Keep up-to-date on the latest membership information, research and ideas by signing up the the NRGizer Newsletter. SIGN UP NOW

Are you looking for more insights and ideas? Then read the following inspiring and thought-provoking articles and podcasts:

• #6 Indiran Padayachee Winning Only Matters (Podcast)
• High Performers Cultivate More Powerful Traits
• #5 Suzie Hoitink Enemy of a Great Life is a Good One (Podcast)
• Undisputed Benefits of Taking a Smoko Break
• Are You Living?
• active CEO Episode 4 – Rene Zondag People Are Our Greatest Asset (Podcast)

It doesn’t matter what industry, the high performers are far more effective at cultivating more powerful traits. We touch on eight of those highly effective traits that unleash their potential and rise above the rest.

 More With Less

High performers look to consolidate and improve the efficiency by focusing on the increasing the ‘outputs that matter’. They reduce products, services and other outputs that don’t matter and focus on making the main thing, the main thing.

Being able to see four or five steps ahead, understanding what the needle-moving requirements are that will get them there, and determining what the distractions are that they need to avoid, allows a high performer to always be in control of their destiny. They are also effective at identifying the must-have skills needed to accomplish those steps, and then will work obsessively to develop them.

Proactive Listeners & Observers

To perform at your best you need to be a proactive listener and observer. If done effectively you can extract up to three to five times more information than the normal person.

Improving your listening and observation skills requires the discipline to reduce distractions and be proactive in focusing your attention. Most people aren’t aware or don’t understand how unobservant they are.

Keep phones and other attention seeking distractions out of meetings, conversations and other communication tasks. Take notes during conferences and meetings, and keep a journal to record your activities and reflections. Make eye contact during interactions with others and practice active listening skills.

Be Courageous

During times of hardship, taking a large risk, facing fear, dealing with the unknown or coping with judgment, high performers speak up for themselves. They share their truth and also speak up for others more often.

High performers honor the struggle, as they know that struggling is a natural part of the process when dealing with challenges. They can handle the struggle, because they expect it. They show up and appreciate the hard times and don’t complain during the process.

Rather than focusing on changing the world, decide on whom you’re doing it for and then work hard for them. Be prepared to serve for someone who needs help and then develop the kind of character that will help them deserve the outcome they desire. 

Fail Fast

High Performers view themselves as imperfect, and allow for mistakes and subsequent learning. They embrace failing, tend to fail fast, and use failure as a learning opportunity.

Under pressure they have the ability to assess their actions differently than the average person. They are able to let go quicker, whereas low-achievers tend to fall into a ‘broken record’ of embarrassment, guilt and shame.

Raise necessity

Do you know what your purpose or what your underlying reason why is? Determine ‘why’ it is important to succeed every single day. Be bold, put yourself out there, and place your identity on the line.

A deep sense of identity, with performing with excellence, is a necessity for high performers. They will bring their focus back through raising the necessity so they enter with a high level of intention, so they perform with excellence. They will ask themselves “who needs me to be on my A-Game right now?”, whether it is family, team, peers, customers or end users. How often do you prime your mental ability to perform an activity well?

Fully Commit & Seek Clarity

Most people avoid expressing all their thoughts and feelings when dealing with situations of high pressure. This can lead to unnecessary miscommunication and tension as the recipient feels they have heard all that was meant to be said, and responds accordingly.

A high performer seeks clarity more often as they want to understand why. The average person will jump to judgment based on only 5% of the available information, and therefore can easily mis-read the tone of an email or conversation. These judgments can truly harm us, especially in the digital age, where we can be quick to read and respond with emotion.

It is valuable to grasp what the intention is, what is important and what matters? By using self-reflection, evaluation, and making changes more often, you can sift out distractions and refocus on what is important.

Develop Influence

You learn more about yourself when you teach others. Through teaching people how to think and challenging them to grow, you change their lives. When you impact someone else’s thoughts, in a positive way, you have influence. Remember to tell them to be their best.

The more comfortable someone is around you, the more likely you are to be able to influence them. Be relaxed and create rapport with the person you are trying to influence, as you are more likely to persuade them if they like and trust you. Listen to the people you are trying to influence, ask the right questions, be aware of their body language and be patient.

Generate More Energy

If you want to perform at your best you need to develop the ability to switch off, recharge and maximize your ‘transitions’. Transitions are the times in your day when you switch from one task to another, such as the time in between meetings, driving to and from work, grabbing a coffee and eating lunch.

High performers will generate energy during the day, rather than losing it. Try giving your mind and body a break every 45-60 minutes. Where possible, plan and schedule chunks of time to recharge. Take a quick break, close your eyes, or meditate as the short psychological break can release tension and focus, so you are primed for the next activity.

Looking for More?

Keep up-to-date on the latest membership information, research and ideas by signing up the the NRGizer Newsletter. SIGN UP NOW

Are you looking for more insights and ideas? Then read the following inspiring and thought-provoking articles and podcasts:

• #5 Suzie Hoitink Enemy of a Great Life is a Good One
• Undisputed Benefits of Taking a Smoko Break
• Are You Living?
• active CEO Episode 4 – Rene Zondag People Are Our Greatest Asset
• The Power of Listening to Podcasts
• People Are Our Greatest Assets

The type of life you lead is absolutely, one hundred percent, a direct result of the choices you make. There is nothing more annoying than someone continuously telling me they are ‘so busy’, ‘life is so crazy’, I can’t believe people keep ‘asking for more’, my staff are ‘on edge’ right now, it’s not if ‘they will break’ but when.

So why do leaders, the captain of the team, continue to make choices that overload the system in the belief that the more we do, the more productive we will be and that the business will be better for it? It is all fine if you want to just be mediocre, develop a tired culture and see talented people flow through a revolving door.

Have you ever noticed that highly successful people, in general – as there are some crazy outliers, seem to have it all together? They remain calm under pressure, are great at juggling a hundred balls at once, manage a cohesive team, time is effortless and success seems to follow them like a magnet.

You might think highly successful people have no life outside of work, they sleep less than five hours a day and must have a real disconnect with their family. It is generally quite the opposite and they live their lives like a high performance athlete.

In general, highly successful people are rock stars at delivering efficiency. They are extremely effective at cutting out worthless and non-practical aspects of life such as watching reality TV shows, attending every meeting at work, accepting all invitations that come across their desk, and indulging in activities that don’t support the end game.

Time is used wisely and effectively. They set small goals each day that have a definitive time period, which creates urgency and a drive for completion. You will find that they keep team goals and projects less than three months to ensure that their staff are highly motivated and are less affected by other distractions.

Successful people are in control of their schedule and methodical about balancing their calendar. Scheduled meetings are limited to less than twenty percent of their week. They are very particular in setting aside blocks of time with no distractions so they can absorb information, allow their creativity to flow and focus their attention on the most important projects.

They are accountable to themselves and take control of situations rather than laying blame on someone else or something external. The leader occupies the driver’s seat, and they ensure that the right people are on the bus and most importantly sitting in the right seats.

The strengths of their team are established, gaps are identified, and everyone in the team knows their role. Team members are empowered to use their strengths for the good of the team and ensure everyone is paddling in the same direction.

So what’s next for you? First you need to identify what are the non-negotiable’s in your life and at work that if you took them away would reduce performance and affect the desired life.

Then take a hard look at yourself and identify the things in your life and work that if you took them away would not have a negative effect on the way you want to live your life and the goals you have set? Once you have identified those, set out a plan to slowly eradicate those aspects one at a time.

Next work with your colleagues to establish what could be taken out of daily work activities to free up more time for growth and innovation, or to enable your mind and body the adequate recovery time so that everyone can turn up every day and deliver high performance. As per the first step, you need to work out a gradual plan, with an end date, to remove the activities.

To ensure that you become a ‘Rockstar of Efficiency’, you then need to form consistent habits over a period of 6-12 weeks, so they become ingrained in your every day life.

Life is short, maximize your time on this earth and make a small difference every day. Remember everything you do and every decision you make comes down to a choice. A choice that you have total control over!

Looking for More?

Keep up-to-date on the latest membership information, research and ideas by signing up the the NRGizer Newsletter. SIGN UP NOW

Are you looking for more insights and ideas? Then read the following inspiring and thought-provoking articles and podcasts:

• Undisputed Benefits of Taking a Smoko Break
• Are You Living?
• active CEO Episode 4 – Rene Zondag People Are Our Greatest Asset
• The Power of Listening to Podcasts
• People Are Our Greatest Assets
• active CEO Episode 3 – Anne Gripper 6 C’s of Leadership