Keys to a Successful Day!
• Please turn all electronic devices to vibrate
• Go outside if you need to take an urgent call
• Share your knowledge
• Active listening without interruption
• Please limit sidebar conversations
• Challenge the view, not the person
• Training will start on time after breaks
• Have FUN!
2
Customer Service
Customer Service is:
• Assistance & advice provided by a company to
people who buy or use its products or services
• The art of ensuring the best service to customers
while they are engaged in services
• Act of taking care of customer needs by
providing and delivering professional, helpful,
high quality service and assistance before,
during, and after the customer's requirements
are met
Customer Service
Exceptional Customer Service:
• Act of going above and beyond what the customer
expects
• Taking that extra step to make them feel that you
understand what they are going through
• Displaying that you want this to be the best
experience they have ever had.
Poor Customer Service:
• Failure to respond to customer queries and complaints in
regards to services
• Anything below customer's expectation
Customer Service
• Knowledge of the Services
• Knowledge of Service Delivery System
• Know Policy and Procedures
• Know your Span of Control
• Support of Management
• Ability to address concerns
Knowledge and Support Needed to Provide Exceptional
Customer Service
Customer Service
Creating a Memorable experience
• Greeting customers
• Introducing yourself
• Shaking hands
• Calling customer by name
• Body language
• Eye contact
• Tone
• Setting expectations
Customer Service
Relationship Building & Maintenance:
• Building Rapport
Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication
How do you communicate that?
• You are invested in the customer’s satisfaction
• You care
• You are trustworthy
• You can offer a solution
• You can give the customer your full attention
• You mean business
Customer Service
Expectations: Customer vs. Counselor
• What are your expectations?
• What are customer expectations?
• How do you meet those expectations?
• Where do we go wrong?
• How do you offer a resolution?
Customer Service
Bias & Exceptional Customer Service
• Difference and Bias
• Detecting Bias
• Effects of Bias
• Dealing with the Bias
Customer Service
How is customer service different?
• In person vs. on the phone?
• Career Center error vs. General issue?
• Is the customer overwhelmed?
• How do you check customer’s understanding?
Customer Service
•Remain in control of yourself
•Listen and let the customer vent
•Show the customer you care
•Don't blame the customer or the company
•Try to solve the problem, or get someone who can
•Never make promises you can't keep
•Don't take it personally
Handling Difficult Situations
Customer Service
Tips for Difficult Customers & Situations
• Behavior Breeds Behavior
• You can Help or Hinder a situation
• The customer is always right…or are
they?
anything below customer's expectation means poor customer service to them. To gauge, we must know the customer’s expectation
Notice anything…it’s vague *(poor)
USE STORY OF GOING TO DMV
To provide superior customer service and customer satisfaction, we must first know:
What is our Product
Value of that product (Why do they need it?)
What is Unique about our services vs. alternative
Little bit about sales/selling
Challenges:
Intangible vs tangible
We don't have a product that your customer can see, touch or taste. Studies show that people ‘buy’/choose products and services based on emotion, not logic.
Customers make an emotional decision and create a logical argument to justify the buying decision. Now, accepting that principle how does a customer make a buying decision when selecting a service?
B) Service businesses have an additional burden and that is they not only have to somehow sell a service that the customer can't see, taste or feel.......But they must also convince the customer that they can perform the service to the customers satisfaction better than other similar services.
Why Customer’s Buy
Security - Monetary gain, freedom from financial worry.
Self-Preservation - Safety and health-for-self and family.
Convenience - Comfort, more desirable use of time.
Avoidance of Worry - Ease of mind, confidence.
Recognition From Others - Social status, respect-ability, the wish to be admired.
Self-Improvement - Spiritual development, hunger for knowledge, intellectual stimulation.
Ask participant’s why Customer’s come to their Career Center:
Convenience of location
Word of Mouth
‘bad’ experience at other center(s)
When you know what you’re selling, now move to the next step…focus on the value and benefit to the customer…THIS is where the importance in selling lies…and then your ability to provide superior customer service.
Ask participants Who are their internal and external customers
An external customer is someone who uses your services but are not part of your organization. For the career center, an external customer is an individual who enters the doors or accesses and receives services, including jobseekers and employers.
External customers are essential and provide the revenue stream that the CC needs to survive. Satisfied external customers often return for services, as well as refer people they know to your center. A customer who suffers through a negative experience at a CC, such as being treated rudely, etc., can effect other customers engaging in services (going to other CC not yours) Say something here about numbers being looked at, funding, etc.
An internal customer is any member of the career center who relies on assistance from one another to fulfill job duties, such as an employment counselor who needs BSR to connect with an employer. This could also be partner staff.
Internal customers don’t necessarily purchase services, but your relationship with them also plays a key role in your CC success. For example, Employment Counselors who have good relationship with their BSRs, may be more likely to hear about positions, etc. (build/maintain relationship). If we think about partner staff-strained internal relationships can also adversely affect CC staff morale, impacting interactions with customers.
You can take steps to improve internal relations by training employees to think of co-workers in the same manner as external customers and provide the same high level of service
Why is it important to provide exceptional quality service to each? Ask participants what are your concerns about providing exceptional quality service to each customer
Ask participants to describe a time you received exceptional customer service:
What made it exceptional?
What made it memorable?
What did the person do to help?
Did they resolve your problem?
If not, why do you still consider it exceptional?
What knowledge and support is needed to provide exceptional customer service?
What do you think you will need knowledge of as you transition into your new position:
Career Center
Central Programs
Product
Customers and their needs (involves assessment, which we’ll discuss later today)
Empowerment to resolve issues
How does each of these help you to provide exceptional customer service?
Ask participants:
What skills are needed to provide exceptional customer service?
Ask participants if they know what this represents…
1) Then, describe Human Business model
2) basically says we should begin each interaction “on the human” with a sincere, personal greeting, etc.. Then, proceed to the business at hand. Finally, close on the human again with a personalized farewell.
3) Does it always stay boundaried like that…can we weave in and out of that model?
It is always about conducting business, it is also how we are focuses to provide services.
Ask participants where they think they fall in this chart and why?
Ask where would they like the person providing you with customer service to fall?
How else can you personalize and provide good customer service and still do business?
When entering information into MOSES or taking notes, explain that you will be typing or writing, but still listening.
To the customer it is always personal !
Ask customer to complete The memorable questions in there workbook
Lead a discussion on creating a memorable experience for customers.
Start of by asking what problem am I trying to help my customer solve.
Why do we often feel so often that we have to win
“I really told that customer off”
“I wasn’t going to let them talk to me like that.”
Shift in attitude,
From: I need to Win
To : How do I help my customer solve their problem
Believe you can make a diffference
Discuss Customer Relationships (building and maintaining) with customers:
How do you do that
What are we communicating to customers are we aware of messages we are sending.
Example: coworker - fourth interruption of the morning working on time sensitive project. How do we greet customer – respond
Smile – glad to help vs sigh, roll eyes, don’t make eye contact.
How did I make coworker feel…. What does that do to future relationship with that coworker?
Employers?
Verbal vs. body….
What is your body language saying?
Ask for examples of body language that send a message (positive & negative)
Ask participants and lead a discussion: Your ExpectationsWhat if you and your customers expectations are different?
Ask participants How do they know what customer’s expectations are?
Definition: "Customer expectation" refers to the total perceived benefits a customer expects from the CC and your services. If the actual experience customers have with the CC and you exceeds the expectation, they are typically satisfied. If the interaction falls below the expectation, they are typically disappointed.
JUMP BACK TO TALKING ABOUT CUSTOMER PERCEPTION OF SERVICE BASED ON EMOTION…’remember what you said/did, remember what you made them feel’
Do you find yourself making assumptions? How do you control the situation to make it a positive experience?
As a customer what are some of the things you do not want to hear:
Against the policy
There isn’t anything I can do
You should have known
Its on the receipt
Not my fault
How do you turn situation around, how to you offer solutions or resolve problem
What is Bias? How can bias impact your delivery of customer service. We see all kinds of customers - Customers of varying education levels, races, religions, political affiliations, gender expressions, sexuality, sizes, etc.
Difference and Bias: One of the main problems that people have to deal with at work is to differentiate between Difference and bias. While some customer service departments will want to treat everyone the same, some argue that this is not true as not one single person is similar to the other. Difference cannot be avoided but what matters is how the customer service employees are handling the customers and their colleagues. Acknowledging differences does not create bias. For instance it is normal to recognize that someone is African-American but it is bias to assume that because they are that way, they have certain characteristics and should not be allowed to do some things.
Detecting Bias: When dealing with potential bias at the CC, it is quite easy to notice when it is happening. In this world of social media where people update statuses and tweet every little thing that happens to them and a company or business cannot fail to notice when there is bias happening. It is important that company officials or those supervising the customer services be vigilant in reading responses and information posted online about them. Views and comments on social media business pages are a great way to detect any possibility of bias
Effects Of Bias
Bias has its own consequences and a few people complaining or the slightest form of bias sends a business to the negative side of multiple consumers. The case is worse especially because of the fact that it is happening in the customer services sector where the employees have to come into contact with many consumers everyday. The negativity could ruin the business’ reputation and this will lead to loss of customers and consequently reduce sales and income.
Dealing With The bias
It is crucial that all businesses ensure that they train their employees on good work ethics so as to avoid prevent bias towards customers and their colleagues. This can be done through seminars and through constant reminds that though we have differences; human beings are all important and have equal rights. Any cases of bias should be handled by the company immediately to avoid the damage of the company’s reputation and also to assure the client or the employee that the company is against such conducts. Potential bias can lead to the failure of a business if not dealt with the seriousness it deserves.
Ask Participants and lead discussion:
What are some of your concerns on customer Service in the CC
How do you see that as different than providing exceptional Customer Service in the Call Center.
Ask participants to describe a time you received ‘poor’ customer service:
What made it bad? What made it memorable?
What did the person do to make it bad?
Did they resolve your problem?
If yes, why do you still consider it bad?
How did it make you feel?
What could have been done differently?
Communication tends to MIRROR each other. -
Lower your voice
Calm your voice
Use open gestures
Demonstrate body language or ask participates to demonstrate body language.
You are giving off signals your expression, tone, body language need to reflect your concern and willingness to listen to and assist the customer
Acknowledge if an error has been made but avoid the blame game or meaningless excuses
Avoid using the following language:
Why did you
You should or you should have
Calm down
Not my fault
Move to Business – What action steps can you take to address customer’s needs or concerns.
Get Control of Yourself: Never argue with customers when they are angry, displeased or complaining. If you allow a customer to push your buttons and lose control of yourself, you've lost control of the situation. Remember, you can lose a good customer if you show boredom, irritation, disdain or displeasure.
Listen and Let the Customer Vent: Tune in to the customer; don't look for the nearest exit. The customer wants to be listened to, acknowledged and understood. Maintain eye contact. Show your attentiveness by standing or sitting up straight; lolling or slouching makes you seem inattentive and disinterested. Uncross your arms -- this indicates you are listening with an open mind. Let the person talk, and pay close attention. Repeat or paraphrase some of what you hear.
Show the Customer You Care: Show concern for the customer's feelings. Maintain a concerned, sincere and interested facial expression. Your voice, as well as your body language and expression, communicates your attitude. People respond more to how you say something than what you say.
Don't Blame the Customer or the Company: When explaining your store's policy or trying to clarify what went wrong, use either the indirect approach ("There are a few questions before I can give you a refund.") or "I" statements ("I need additional information.") as much as possible. Don't acknowledge that you or your company is to blame. That could lead to lawsuits.
Try to Solve the Problem, or Get Someone Who Can: Even if solving the customer's problem isn't among your job duties, never say this to the customer. Get all the facts you can, and then tell the customer how you can help.
Finally, don't make promises you can't keep. Get help from someone who knows more, is calmer, or has more power and authority
Communication tends to MIRROR each other. -
Lower your voice
Calm your voice
Use open gestures
Demonstrate body language or ask participates to demonstrate body language.
You are giving off signals your expression, tone, body language need to reflect your concern and willingness to listen to and assist the customer
Acknowledge if an error has been made but avoid the blame game or meaningless excuses
Avoid using the following language:
Why did you
You should or you should have
Calm down
Not my fault
Move to Business – What action steps can you take to address customer’s needs or concerns.
You come to the encounter, be aware of your own feelings, your own body language, and sensations.
When customer is upset they are acting on a feeling level and do not often hear all of what you are saying.
Respond to human/feeling/emotional need first need to feel heard and concerned about, they can not been reasonable or move on to next steps until then.
It seems this has been frustrating,
It sounds like you are angry about this.
I understand your frustration
Be aware of your own verbal and non-verbal cues
What do you need to do to stay calm.
You need to deal with the feeling level first before you can move on to the business level and for them to hear what you are offering and respond reasonably
Know when it is time to ask for help
Customer Reviews: Customer Feedback
Looking at online reviews…word of mouth, etc.
How does this influence future/current customers
What do you have setup at your center to take customer feedback?
Customer support AND FEEDBACK can make or break your reputation.
It’s no surprise that as today’s social, mobile consumers have grown accustomed to getting what they want, when they want it, their expectations have risen accordingly. In fact, in a recent poll, 82% of CEOs reported that customer expectations of their companies were “somewhat” or “much” higher than they were three years ago.
And customers are quick to share negative experiences online. Now the products and services you offer are only as good as the service you back them with — so it’s important to support customers on every channelfrom day one.
Ask participants:
What simple things could you and your team do today to start positively affecting the customer experience?
And how can you make sure the entire team (state and partner staff) on board?
What are one or two things you’ve learned today that you will start using immediately to better assist customers when you return to your office?
All…
Customer Reviews: Customer Feedback
Looking at online reviews…word of mouth, etc.
How does this influence future/current customers