Service Untitled

Once again it’s Spring when our fancy changes to thoughts of love and the beautiful outdoors. We picture the lush green lawns, the colorful summer blooms, the pool, the grill, and the patio designed for that blissful oasis as casual parties for friends and family become welcome weekend events. And so the shopping begins. With the convenience of online browsing, the possibilities are endless, but how will our online retailers handle customer service?

Now all of those outdoor pillows, cushions, umbrellas, and rugs are looking a bit shabby from the hot Florida sunlight of the past years, and online shopping is just so convenient; it’s time to measure and order. And that’s how this story begins. The Home Decorators Collection catalog arrived, and I placed an order. The customer service representative was exceptional and spent the time trying to figure out what replacement cushions would have the best result. Unfortunately, after a consultation with our decorator, it was confirmed the cushions wouldn’t fit at all. The next morning the call to cancel the order didn’t turn out as it should have, and thus began a lesson in a customer service failure.

Perhaps every online store catalog or website we see promises to provide great customer service, but it can be a constant challenge to be reliable, consistent, helpful, and make a customer believe an organization lives and breathes customer service. Customer service has to become part of a company’s culture and with the ease and ability of finely tuned humans, these valuable employees must be able to make decisions on service at the very time it is needed. Let’s look into that a bit further through this experience.

As I call to cancel the order and ask to have a written confirmation on my credit card of the cancellation, I am told the company must first inform their vendor of my desire to cancel. It’s only been eight hours, and during that time the company was closed for the evening. When I express my dissatisfaction having to wait at least three business days to be informed my order has been cancelled and credited, I ask to speak with a supervisor who tells me she will immediately put the request through and that I will get email confirmation. And then the excuses began. Home Decorators, as I was told was sold to Home Depot, and according to the supervisor’s excuse, Home Depot’s return policy is antiquated.

I never heard another word from that supervisor, and by the next day, I went online to find more information about the customer service policies of Home Depot online. Their return policy provides for an immediate credit to the original form of payment. If an organization doesn’t have a clear vision of how to do business and how to do it better than their competitors, shoppers walk away. No where else can it be better determined how to treat a customer than to place oneself in that customer’s shoes and determine how you would want to be treated. Growing a successful business demands a strategic plan for spending the time and money to train customer service agents how to think “outside of the box.” Being a good listener and being able to convince a customer you have the empathy and compassion for their problem and you are willing to solve their problem within the realm of your responsibilities, builds consumer confidence and repeat customers. Companies just need to learn to do it better.

For this particular experience, I was able to find an online survey about my customer service experience with Home Decorators, and by the next day I was called and the problem was solved. As an apology I was sent a $50 gift certificate, but will it be enough of a compensation to motivate me to do business with Home Decorators again?

Customers should never be put on the defensive when presented with a negative customer service experience. It took three representatives to get a $600 credit. In the end I received a sincere apology of which I appreciated, but this is an excellent example to show that great customer service doesn’t just happen; it needs to be part of an organization’s ultimate vision and one that should be executed daily.

The Customer Service Survival Kit was written by Richard S. Gallagher, a practicing psychotherapist and the author of many customer service books who has trained over 20,000 people on how to handle the most daunting situations with customers while improving their confidence and an organization’s customer relations.

The Customer Service Survival Kit helps us to diffuse even the worst emotional and intentional customer complaints, and step by step helps the customer service representative diffuse the anger and angst of those stressful situations in a calm, reflective manner.  Whereas customer service is and has always been all about communication, Mr. Gallagher’s book provides us with a few of the skills used in hostage negotiations, crisis counseling, and police work in order to handle the worst situations calmly and professionally. These skills of “leaning into criticism” can affect the rest of our lives and the way we communicate with our business, our children, and even our life partners.

Chapter One begins with the “uh-oh” moment; one most of us in any service oriented business has encountered. It’s that extreme situation when one can almost see the smoke emanating out of the customer’s ears because they are so angry, and until we are taught how to handle those serious conflicts, most customer service representatives will operate out of the defensive mode which most likely irritates customers even more. Even though the representative may be smart, nice, and respectful, we are lost when faced with a most egregious situation, and the standard reaction is to act in self defense. So what are the ways to defuse angry customers? Be trained, be prepared, and know how to handle a crisis if and when it presents itself by:

• Asking open ended questions to assess a person’s needs
• Listening to the person and then paraphrasing what the customer told you
• Using appropriate questions to focus on the problem
• Never saying “no” and responding in what can be done terms
• Letting people know their feelings and the way they think counts

The books recreates some interesting examples of customer angst in different situations and then asks how any of us might handle the situation. Often we take the defensive position. Let’s try the “leaning into criticism” method by first listening to the customer’s complaint, paraphrasing in our own words his complaint, and instead of saying phrases like, “please calm down,”  or “it could have been worse,” which only tends to poke the bear more, why not use “WOW” language – that preemptive strike  and mirror the customer’s feelings as if how you would have felt if in the same situation? And then as the author points out, it is time to “steal a customer’s good lines.” At this point you have already agreed with them.  Taking a defensive position too soon is ineffective – remember angry customers don’t want to hear your side of the story; they want to be heard and they want you to listen. For instance, if their shipment is delayed and in turn their customers are complaining, what will be accomplished by a sales representative saying “it’s not my fault.” It would be better if that same representative began with, “that’s really terrible, I can see why you’re so angry.”

Chapters 3 through 6 give us practical ideas and examples to ponder and some of those trigger phrases which the author states gives a customer a “distorted sense of who is serving whom.”  Try to avoid the negative; rather turn your choice of phrases to the positive which encourages customers to nod their heads instead of the vigorous “no” shake. Strive for the phrase, “here is what we can do.”

Chapters 7 through 10 teach us how to understand the angry customer and how we can diffuse that person in the “red zone.” We get to put our learning into practice and the importance of good closings. As Mr. Gallagher states, in the perfect world we would all get handshakes and hugs from our now happy customers, but that always doesn’t happen, however future business is often predicated on the way the transaction ended. When we are able to normalize a situation, do a recap of what has happened, and express sincere thank yous, apologies, and solutions, it means everyone walks away from a bad situation calmly, and hopefully it has brought an amenable solution to the problem.

Part III of the book helps us to understand more about calmly handling extreme reactions using the new vocabulary and the new perspectives of the previous chapters about “leaning into criticism.” And in the world of social media which includes Facebook, Twitter, and blogs devoted to our organization, here is what we can do when a negative comment shows up on Facebook complaining about a product or delivery delay. A firestorm of negative comments can take a life of their own on social media, and phrases such as “we are investigating your complaint,” only make people shake their head while a comment such as ” that sounds really frustrating, and we want to make this right for you,” posted immediately already connects you personally – thus giving an organization that personal touch all of us want when spending our hard earned money. Of course, then it is necessary to reach out to that person. An organization that has continually demonstrated excellent customer service will often find past customers defending them. No organization will ever be exempt from all negative comments, but there is no need to take offense at everything. Companies that are proactive and show concern for their customers continue to be successful.

The book uses practical scenarios and dialogue throughout to help customer service representatives learn specific problem solving techniques during critical times. Mr. Gallagher continues to reinforce that sometimes irresistible urge not to defend ourselves initially when a severe situation presents itself. The phrase all of us practiced from the time we learned to speak, “it’s not my fault” doesn’t do much to solve customer conflicts.

Bottomline: The book is an excellent resource for diffusing the worst case customer service problems, and once we learn the art of peaceful and practical negotiation, all of our personal and professional dealings can benefit. I found Chapter 17 on Anger Management’s techniques of validation and identification as discussed in Chapter 3 and methods to respond to angry outbursts extremely helpful.

Pros: This is a well-written and logically planned book. It is quite different from other customer service books because it deals with some extreme cases. While it is true that most customer service complaints are practical and relatively easy to handle because of guarantees, company policies, and a knowledgeable staff, having the insight into the psychology of hostage negotiation and crisis counseling equips all of us with that extra knowledge to please our customers even more and in the most dire situations.

Buy: The Customer Service Survival Kit is available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle editions.

Call centers can range from one or two people in a small office to thousands of customer service representatives in huge office complexes, but a customer’s view is set by their first impression or that first phone call needed for help. Whereas customers don’t ever want to feel that once their purchase was made, the organization no longer cares about them and is just out there fishing for new clients, one of the prime frustrations often deals with call centers and their notorious poor service ranging from finding the right representative, hanging on hold for an extended amount of time, repeating the problem to representative after representative, or to never being able to reach an authorized person capable of making a decision to rectify a problem.

The most lucrative businesses cultivate a base of loyal customers who typically campaign on an organization’s behalf as to the reliability and excellence of the brand. With people spending an average of five hours a week on social media with the average of 150 friends on Facebook and 300 Twitter followers, negative feedback on a business can affect an average sized company’s profit margin. With consumers very willing to switch brands nowadays for better service, and even if it means spending more money, statistics show that 73 percent of consumers will eagerly make the change.

So what can a company do to improve the quality of their call centers? Here are some suggestions:

• Don’t outsource your company service outside of the United States. One major turnoff and a significant reason why customers will not recommend an organization to their friends, relatives, or co-workers is the inability with poor language communication skills.
• Customers want their problems solved in a single call if possible by one customer service representative who speaks clearly, is knowledgeable, polite, and helpful.
• It is important to have the technology to access a customer’s records quickly and not have a customer “on hold” for more than a few minutes.
• When a customer calls in for help to a call center, navigating the menu and a path to a human representative should be simple.
• Customer service training should provide representatives with the knowledge to solve most problems.  And just as important, a customer should also be offered an alternative to be given a credit if they are not happy with the outcome.
• A supervisor should always be available at a call center if a problem has not been resolved.

An antiquated way of thinking once perceived service and call centers as costs, but the loss of a customer is much more expensive. With repeat customers come recommendations and more customers. It’s not much different than cultivating a garden. As the plants grow and spread, the garden gets bigger and bigger yielding more vegetables. Never cut back on training, and continue to be an inspiration for those employees who make a difference in an organization’s campaign on behalf of their brand. Why not call in one day and pretend to be a customer? In fact, call in with a problem that is not in the usual text training manual and see how the unusual issue is handled; it promises to provide an excellent insight into your customer’s world.