Chapter Two

What customers need and want 

Obviously, our external customers want the material things we offer. For example they might want:

• To travel to Hong Kong and back
• A hotel room for three days
• A hire car waiting for them at the airport.

And of course they want good value for money. Our internal customers also want the material things we do for them. For example:

• Documents completed for them to process or pass to a client
• Activity reports each week for our manager.

But all types of customers also need and want something else. They need and want us to be easy, efficient, and pleasant to deal with. So in addition to what we do for them, we should also deliver excellence in how we do it.

Customers want us to be:

Accurate  – Work accurately without mistakes
Timely  – Be on time (or even faster!) with what we do.
Courteous – Be friendly, polite, courteous and helpful at all times
Clear – Communicate clearly
Informative – Keep them informed when something’s a bit complicated, or when it takes time to complete
Proactive – Take the initiative in helping them, rather than waiting for them to ask  us             Interested – Show a genuine interest in them and their needs
Willing  – Go the extra mile, or do something special.

Customers don’t want us to:

Moan  – Tell them our problems!
Be negative – Focus exclusively on why a thing can’t be done!

Yet we do come across people who do this, don’t we?!

We probably don’t do the ‘bad’ things all the time. But do we do them sometimes? Even sometimes is too often! And do we always do the good stuff?

And what happens if external customers do feel bad? They’ll do one or more of the following things:

• Complain to you, or someone else at your company
• Go somewhere else next time
• Moan to other people about you, your company, and what you did to make them feel bad.
• Make a formal industry complaint or take legal action.

Is this serious stuff, or is it just ‘life’s like that’, and a bit frustrating?

 Studies a few years ago showed that:

• 70% of customers who are dissatisfied, for whatever reason, go somewhere else next time!

BUT …… only

• 4% bother to complain!

So, in most cases we don’t know why customers have chosen to use someone else next time, and we don’t have a chance to improve things for them! When people do complain, it’s valuable information, even if we can’t fix what went wrong and keep them as a customer! We’ll talk about this a lot more in Chapter 8 on Complaints. So 70% will go elsewhere! That means our company has to be constantly finding new customers to replace the ones who leave us. That in turn means extra costs – like advertising, sales people calling on them, etc. But even the 30% of dissatisfied customers who do come back will be affected. For example, if you went back to someone you had bad service from, maybe because you had no choice (they could be the only company available for you to use), wouldn’t you be a bit cagey, a bit awkward perhaps, a bit more demanding, to try and ensure that you got better service this time? Even the dissatisfied customers you keep will be harder to deal with in future. Why don’t more dissatisfied customers complain? Well it’s because they may only be a little bit dissatisfied, and it’s not worth complaining. But it’ll still be enough to make them use a competitor next time! Or maybe they don’t believe that complaining will achieve anything! But it gets worse. People who are dissatisfied tend to tell other people. The same studies showed that about 10 other people get told by each dissatisfied customer. As a result we‘re probably losing customers that we never even had in the first place! However, now that we have social networking and review sites like Trip Advisor, even more people will get to know if one of our customers is dissatisfied with our service! 50% of customers planning a holiday for example will check on Trip Advisor before finalising and booking their destination and accommodation! And most of the entries there will be criticisms! It seems to be human nature that far more people post reviews about a bad experience than about a good experience!

So it is serious. In terms of service quality, the studies mentioned above found that of those dissatisfied customers who did go elsewhere, 70% went because of how they were treated, rather than what they got materially, or the price! I bet this ties in with what you found out in Trip Advisor!

Dissatisfied internal customers? What happens to them? They may complain; and they may moan to other people, but they probably don’t have the option of going elsewhere next time. They probably have to keep dealing with us when we’re employed by the same company. So what are the consequences of this internal dissatisfaction? The answer is internal mistrust, poor teamwork, and a bad working atmosphere, and nobody likes that. Plus, this in turn is bound to affect the service our company gives to external customers, so once again, this is serious stuff!

Chapter 8

Handling Complaints 

Even if we and our colleagues do everything right, our customers can still complain! Maybe because their expectations are unreasonably high! So we still have to be able to handle complaints in an effective and professional manner.

However we’re almost certainly not perfect! obviously if our company is at fault, it’s crucial that we handle the complaint well. Research has shown that if a customer does complain (unlike the 96% of dissatisfied customers who don’t!), it’s a great opportunity!

“What? An opportunity?”

Yes, complaints are an opportunity because:

• They tell us about things that our customers are unhappy with. We may not always be aware of these. Plus, the number of people who complain about a thing tells us how important it is to fix it.
• If a complaint is handled well, we may also be able to keep that customer for the future. In fact some Air New Zealand research a few years back showed that a customer can become even more loyal, provided their complaint was well handled. When dealing with complaints, just like anything else, we need to exceed the customer’s expectations!

Feelings

How do you feel when you’re about to make a complaint about something?

I bet your list included some of these:

•  Angry
• Confused
• I’m in the right
• Frustrated
• Annoyed
• Wastes my time
• Won’t achieve anything
• Apprehensive
• Nervous .. etc!

At the very least, customers are going to have to spend time pursuing their complaint – time they could be spending on something else.

So complaining customers can have a range of feelings, and if we’re dealing with them we need to watch out for these early on. It’s also quite common for people to work themselves up before complaining – perhaps because they expect it to be a challenging and unpleasant experience. The result of this is that they may seem much more emotional than the situation would appear to warrant!

Our Attitude

Then there’s our own feelings and attitudes.

Do you enjoy handling complaints? If you don’t, might that show? If they’re angry towards you, might you feel angry back? Might you feel resentful that you’re having to deal with the problem, when perhaps it wasn’t you that caused it in the first place?

How then might the complaining customer react to our feelings? If we have any kind of negative feelings about the complaint, or the complainer, they’ll show, and almost certainly make the situation worse!

As we saw in chapter 6 however, we can manage and modify our attitudes as long as we’re aware of them. Never is this more important than when we’re handling a complaint. We must find a way of adopting a positive attitude.

Options for this could include:

• It’s an opportunity – to find out what went wrong and put it right for the future
• It’s an opportunity – to satisfy an unhappy customer and keep them dealing with us
• It’s a professional challenge – an opportunity to test my customer service skills and get a good result
• It’s a professional challenge – to solve a problem with a good solution.

And if the customer is aggressive or angry towards you, the key is to be assertive. Stay calm and in control, and don’t them get to you!

Complaints Process

When dealing with a complaint face-to-face or on the phone, there are some basic steps to go through.

1.     Listen: Encourage the customer to explain their problem and concerns. Listen actively and give feedback to show that you understand. If they’re     ‘worked up’, let them go on until they calm down.

2.     Empathise: Accept and acknowledge their feelings. Show you’re genuinely concerned and want to resolve their problem. Some people worry that this might seem like agreeing too early that we’re at fault (before we’ve established what happened). Empathising is not the same as admitting blame.

3.    Clarify: Ask questions to get more information about the problem and the customers concerns. Make sure you have a full picture of what happened and why it’s an issue for the customer.

4.   Negotiate: Offer a solution; ask what they would like. Discuss options, be flexible and aim for a win:win. Stay assertive, respecting their requests, but not giving in if they’re unrealistic. Confirm agreements by summarising, and maybe in writing also.

5.   Action: The worst result would be to agree a solution and then not implement it! You’d definitely lose the customer then. So take action. If others in your company need to be involved, make sure the solution is OK with them!

6.   Follow up: If you handled the complaint right through, you should take responsibility for any promises made. You have to chase up colleagues if they needed to do something for you or the customer.

You should also get back to the customer afterwards to check that the solution worked for them. This confirms completion; confirms your continued interest in the customer; and confirms the customer’s satisfaction.

Referring Complaints to Others

Sometimes once we start handling a complaint we realise that we’re not the best person to deal with it. Perhaps we don’t have the expertise (a technical issue with another department for instance), or we don’t have the authority to agree to what the customer is asking for. In such cases it’s OK to pass the complaint on.

However, it’s not OK to pass it on just to give yourself an easier life! (People do!)

If we do pass it on though it’s important to do so in the right way:

• Identify the right person to pass it on to. You do not want the customer to be passed on again!
• Get all the information about it – taking the above process to Step 3 perhaps.
• Keep the customer informed. Tell them what you’re doing and why it’ll be best for them. Don’t leave them on hold indefinitely!
• Brief the person you’re passing the complaint to. Tell them the facts so far, plus any offers or promises you made or tried to get accepted. The idea is to avoid the new person going over all the same stuff again with the customer!
• Follow up afterwards with your colleague and agree what your future role will be in relation to this complaint and this customer.

Complaints are Good!

Finally, complaints are good. That’s the attitude we need to be able to handle successfully. And they really are good. They:

• Tell us where we could be doing better
• Help reduce future complaints
• Identify new opportunities
• Help to lose fewer customers
• Help measure the effectiveness or our organisation.

In line with the theme of these lessons, the way we treat our customers when they complain, whether internal or external, can make all the difference. Customers will often stay with us, even when something can’t be fixed for them, just because they feel we’ve gone the extra mile in trying to sort it for them.

Congratulations, this concludes your Online Course – Winning with Customers!

Would you like to stand out in your industry? We recommend the following courses in addition to the one you have just completed:

• Tour Guiding Online – fine tune your Tour Guiding
• Selling Skills Online – to perfect your sales ability
• Cruise Training Online – if you want to specialize in your guiding for cruise passengers
• Cabin Crew Online – specific to people who want to become a Flight Attendant
• Ground Crew Online – for those who want to work at the airport or for an airline
• Careers in Tourism and Travel – to broaden your knowledge of the travel and tourism industries

Chapter 7

Giving Customers Enough Time 

Our external and internal customers will only consider us ‘excellent’ if we give them enough time. That means that we have to manage our workload so that we can fit in all the things that each of our customers, in their different ways, really value. We still need to be efficient, (and some of our customers will value that in itself), but not to the point where customers feel we’re rushing them, or not giving them the full attention, information, or services that they need.

When we looked at the things people do that make us feel bad when we’re the customer, we asked ‘why do they do it?’ Surely they know when they’re doing or saying things that irritate us?

Well it’s often time or work load pressures that cause their customer service and communications to slip! So when it’s us, we need to guard against doing the same thing!

How do we do it? We’re all busy and often stretched. So how can we avoid this time trap?

Time as a Resource

We sometimes feel we don’t have enough time; or if we’re lucky we might feel we have plenty of time. Wrong! We all have the same amount of time! We can’t change the amount available. We can only change ourselves and what we choose to do in that available time.

So the first thing to look at is our attitude. We need to accept that only we ourselves can manage our time. Not our boss; not the company; us. Our time is ours. We must make use of it in the best possible way. That’s what our employer wants us to do, isn’t it? – use it in the way that’s best for the company?

Yet people often feel that their time is not their own. The phone rings; the boss asks for something; or maybe the fire alarm goes off. So what they wanted to be doing gets interrupted. They feel that they have to respond. The truth is that they don’t have to respond! They could not answer the phone; tell the boss ‘no’; or even not head straight for the fire exit. These might all be bad choices – but they are choices! We always have choices, yet we tend to forget that. The result then is that we just respond without thinking and allow our time to be hi-jacked.

If we exercise choice, we might ask someone else to get the phone; or ask the boss if it would be OK in 10 minutes; though we would probably still head straight for the fire exit!

Here’s a key question:

“Am I making the best use of my time right now?”

You should, at any time of any day, or night, be able to answer this question – “YES”.

Could you always answer it yes? It doesn’t mean being busy all the time – relaxing might be the ‘best use of your time right now’, because that’s important. But it does mean that you’d be in control of your life!

Scheduling

The key then is to prioritise and schedule. We need to decide what to do and when.

Some of the things we have to do are things we know about in advance – ‘Plannable’ tasks. The meeting at 2.00 pm; the information a customer needs by 5.00. We can make a list of these – a ‘to do’ list – or put them in our diary, or Outlook. In other words we can plan when to do them.

Other things crop up unexpectedly – ‘Reactive’ tasks, – such as an urgent query from a customer – and some of these we will choose to respond to right away. However, if we fill our schedule with ‘Plannable’ things, there won’t be enough time left for these Reactive tasks. The only options would be to:

• Not respond to the unexpected requests – Reactive tasks
• Ditch or defer some of the Plannable tasks so we can respond
• Try to do everything, but rush it; work late; or take work home!

The right thing to do is to allow some time each day – a Reactive Buffer – for the Reactive tasks that we know are likely to come up. But how much? How can we possibly know what unexpected things are going to occur? And when will they occur? We don’t know!

We need an estimate of the proportion of each day that tends to be taken up with Reactive tasks. A time log (see below) would help us with that. If on a particular day we get less plannable work than the estimate, then we can add another plannable task into our schedule. If we get more, then we may have to defer a plannable task, but overall it’ll work out.

Time Log

A simple thing we should do is keep a time log for a day or so. Carry a clip board, (insert reference to using iPhone/Blackberry) or set up a table on your computer, and record everything you do. Decide what categories of your activity you want to know about – time with customers; paper work; reactive vs plannable; etc. Record everything down to about five minute chunks, including breaks. At the end you can go through the entries and work out the percentages of your day that were spent in each category.

With your time log done you’ll be able to plan how to schedule and use your time more effectively in future. Then down the track you can do another time log to see if you’ve been successful.

Prioritising

Prioritising is the process of deciding which tasks to do ‘prior’, or before, others. In other words it’s about sequencing our tasks so we can put them into our schedule in the best order to do them. We can do this with all our plannable tasks.

Reactive tasks that we choose to respond to immediately, we obviously tackle immediately! Those that we qualify and establish a timeframe for, become plannable.

But we need a basis for prioritising. This involves assessing how important, and how urgent, each task is compared to all the others on our list. And how do we know that?

Urgency

There maybe deadlines that our customer (external or internal) has set for the task which will tell us how urgent it is. The closer the deadline, the more urgent it is. Or we may choose its urgency ourselves by deciding that we want to do it now, today, tomorrow, or whatever.

Importance

This is less clear, and in the end we judge a task’s importance relative to the others on our list. So even if it’s a request from our boss, and she says it’s very important, we are still the only ones who can compare that importance with our other tasks.

A good way to tell a task’s importance is to ask yourself “What would happen if I didn’t do it?” If the answer’s “a disaster”, then it’s important! Or more positively, “If I do it, how much impact will it have on my success?”

But don’t get importance and urgency confused! They’re not the same thing! An activity can be urgent but not important – for example someone phones you to say it’s Jacky’s birthday morning tea and there’s cake now, but you’d better be quick!

And some really important tasks can appear on your to do list way before they become urgent. Like finishing these chapters! Completing it could have a big impact on your success, but you probably don’t have a deadline for it!

The Prioritising Matrix

Fortunately however, we don’t need to list every task in order of their importance! It is sufficient to decide on just two categories. Is it Important, or Less Important?

The classic approach to prioritising also divides the urgency – into Urgent and Less Urgent. We therefore have four groups of tasks, as in this diagram:

Clearly the A’s – Important and Urgent – are top priorities. These should be scheduled first. Because they’re important, they have to be done. Because they’re urgent they have to be done soon – now, later today, or whatever.

The D’s are the lowest priorities. They’re less important, so not that critical if they don’t get done at all! And they’re less urgent, so if you do choose to do them, it doesn’t need to be soon. Don’t schedule these until you’ve dealt with all the others.

The B’s and C’s are a bit more tricky! If we don’t break off what we’re doing, and go for the cake, we won’t get any! So we tend to make that choice, even if we’re working on a B. After all, the B may be important but it’s not urgent, so we’ll have plenty of time to finish it later!

It’s a very human and understandable choice. And OK if it’s a one-off. But the problem is that most of us make that choice ‘on auto-pilot’, and it’s not a one-off! We tend to make similar choices over and over! If we opt for the C’s above the B’s every time, what happens to the B’s? That’s right, they move forward in time until they’re URGENT! So we end up with more important and urgent A’s!

And what’s your life like if you have more and more A’s – work that’s important and urgent?! It gets stressful! You end up working late. And the chances are that some of those A’s won’t get done on time; or they’ll get done badly because they’ve been rushed; or they won’t get done at all! Disaster!!

So once the A’s are scheduled into your plan, schedule in the B’s. Only then should you fit in the C’s – and either do them now if they’re immediate requests, or slot them in soon, where your schedule allows for it (use your Reactive Buffer). Remember, it’s not a disaster if a less important task doesn’t get done! (And remember also that many ‘urgent’ requests can become Plannable and a bit less urgent if we qualify them!)

So another golden rule is …….

Always do the important tasks ahead of time

Six Key Steps to Better Time Management

1. Carry out a time log from time to time to check where your time goes. How much is reactive versus plannable? How much time are you putting into making your service to customers excellent?

2. Create a buffer in your schedule each day to accommodate the likely amount of reactive work

3.  Keep a ‘to-do’ list of plannable work, prioritise each item A, B, or C, and schedule it into your diary or Outlook.

4. Always schedule and do the B’s – the important plannable stuff – ahead of time, before it becomes important and urgent!

5. Always qualify incoming reactive tasks. Ask the person, does it really have to be done immediately? If they can give you a timeframe, even if it’s just 10 minutes, it turns the reactive task into a plannable one.

6.  Remember you always have a choice! Ask yourself regularly: “Am I making the best use of my time right now?”

Chapter Six

Customer Service Attitudes 

“It’s their attitude! They just don’t seem to care!”

How often do we feel, when we’re an unhappy customer, that the other person, or even their whole company, has the wrong attitude?

On the other hand, if we get treated really well, we might recognise that they have a great attitude.

But what do we mean? What is an attitude?

Behaviour

What we observe when we interact with someone else is their behaviour. We can see it and hear it:

• What they say and how they say it – voice and body language; and
• What they do, and how they do it – body language again.

What we cannot observe is the stuff inside – the thoughts and feelings that make up their attitudes. However we sometimes think we can, because we observe the behaviour, and then draw conclusions about their attitude.

Usually we get it more or less right, because people are basically similar, and we know that our own thoughts and feelings can cause us to behave in a similar way. If we know the person, we also know how they’ve behaved in the past.

However sometimes we may be inaccurate in our conclusions. In customer service we must be careful not to jump to conclusions about our customers’ attitude. They may be similar people to us, but they’re not the same!

Attitudes

This stuff inside is attitude. It’s a mixture of regular and habitual thoughts, feelings, values and beliefs that we have acquired over our lifetime. These can be about anything we do, or encounter, and are broadly either positive or negative. They also determine how we look at things – optimistic or pessimistic; looking forward to it or dreading it; etc.

Our attitudes cause us to approach and react to things the way that we do.

Most of the time we’re on auto-pilot, and our behaviour flows automatically from our attitudes. Researchers reckon we’re on autopilot 95% of the time!

The other 5% we think about what we’re doing and consciously control it. We can choose to follow the path that fits with our attitudes, (our ‘usual’ way of doing things), or it is possible for us to override that and do something different.

Attitude and Behaviour Change

The links between attitude and behaviour are really important to excellence in customer service!

Firstly we need to recognise that when we’re on auto-pilot our attitudes may cause us to behave towards a customer in a less than excellent way! For example:

• We may feel irritated by them for some reason, and so our communication, particularly our voice and expression may start to show impatience and frustration. They pick that up and start to feel bad about us.
• We may feel pressed for time and start showing ‘hurry up’ signals, which they resent!
• We may lack confidence in our own ability to provide what they need (technical information perhaps). Our voice and body language then starts to reflect this and our customer loses confidence in us.

Secondly, we need to be able to change our attitudes, and thus behaviour, when we do recognise it’s not the best for the situation. This is quite possible, but we do have to consciously monitor our own behaviour and be ready to change. And because it may be a shift away from our ‘usual’ way of doing things, it may take some effort!

Developing a Positive Attitude 

Delivering excellent customer service starts therefore with your attitude! You have to want to be a person who gives of their best, rather than just doing what someone told you to do! And attitudes come from inside you, they influence everything you say and do, so fixing your attitude is often the first and most important action in changing your life/career towards success.

Attitude is so important to employers that they will often employ somebody based on their positive attitude rather than their level of education or previous experience.  This is because a positive attitude, unlike skills and knowledge, is so hard to teach!

We aren’t always conscious that we show our attitudes to others.  Whether meeting a prospective customer for the first time, handling a customer complaint, or selling a product, it is always good to remember that through your behaviour, your attitude is showing all the time!

Attitude towards customers and customer service

Behaviour produced by your attitudes therefore is the way you communicate your mood or disposition to others.  When you are optimistic and anticipate successful encounters with others, you transmit a positive attitude, and they usually respond favourably. When you are pessimistic, and expect the worst, your attitude is often negative and people may tend to avoid you. Is your cup ‘half full’ or ‘half empty’? Recruiters are looking for ‘half full’ people! People who wish others ‘have a nice day’, and mean it!

To be an effective quality service provider, you must have a positive attitude.  Nothing else has higher priority.  A positive attitude is the way you look at things, and it projects in everything you say and do.  It reflects in your body language and voice tone, as well as in the words you choose.

Remember also that people who feel good about themselves produce good results, and feeling good is a key ingredient in producing a positive attitude.

Assertiveness

Many of our situations when dealing with customers require assertiveness. This is an alternative to being aggressive, submissive, or avoiding. If we let our emotions and attitudes kick in unchecked, we might say something offensive, roll over and give in to an unreasonable demand, or just quit – by asking someone else to handle it!

Assertiveness is an attitude we can adopt which leads to calm, steady, rational, controlled, but above all respectful behaviour – respectful of both ourselves (self-respect) and the other person. It can be tough, particularly when the other party is attacking us. With complaints for example, as we shall see in chapter 8 below, people can get quite worked up, and really have a go at us. But it’s vital to keep our cool! In other words, we need to stay assertive.

The way to do this is to keep our emotions in check, and consciously use calm, controlled communication, especially voice tone and body language. It’s a bit of a tight-rope walk, a balancing act. We should respect the customer and be fair to them, and respect ourselves, and the rights of our company to be treated fairly by them. So ask questions and acknowledge the points the person makes. But ensure that you make the points that you need to also. And avoid talking blame! In assertive mode you should be focused on seeking solutions – ones that are acceptable to both parties.

Check out the link  with more on assertiveness, including online tests to asses your assertiveness levels and how to develop assertiveness in your dealings with others http://www.mtstcil.org/skills/assert-intro.html

Chapter five 

Communication with customers Part 2 

Body language

‘Words may lie but the body seldom does!’

 To communicate effectively with customers we need to understand the language our body speaks so that we can:

• use it effectively to help others understand what we are saying
• recognise it in others, so that we can more accurately interpret what they are telling us.

All information reaching our brains can only enter via the five senses – sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.  Of those senses, the eyes are the most valuable, transmitting approximately 80% of the information that reaches our brains. About 14% goes in through our ears and the other senses handle the remaining 6%.

The communication ‘cake’ above shows that 55% of the meaning in communication is visual. The problem is that we put most of our effort into organising and delivering the words we use. Our ‘body-talk’ is left to fend for itself, and as a result tends to come out ‘unedited’, communicating what we really feel, which may or may not be helpful!

Here are the main elements of body language (including facial expression) that we need to be aware of:

Posture

Posture concerns the overall bearing of the body. It comprises the angle of the head, shoulders, hips and feet, direction and angle of inclination and position of arms and legs.

In general, people who feel comfortable with a situation and with themselves, raise their head and look openly at you. They may lean back slightly indicating that they are relaxed or lean forward slightly to indicate attentiveness.

People who are on the attack or who feel aggressive generally adopt a ‘full-frontal’  stance with head, shoulders, hips and feet all pointing at you. They will probably raise themselves up and lean forward in a dominating manner.  Those who are feeling defensive will probably ‘close-up’ physically, making themselves smaller; hands and arms may protect their mouth or abdomen; legs may be crossed tightly.

People feeling superior and arrogant may cross their legs openly (ankle of one leg resting on the knee of the other) and lean back with their hands clasped at the back of their head.

 Arms

People use their arms in a variety of ways. Some gesticulate frequently and others hardly at all. Points worth noting are:

• arms can be used to signify self-protection and defensiveness when they are folded tightly across the abdomen; or they can be held down, with hands clasped casually together, to signify relaxation.
• hands can be used to hide behind, covering part of the face; they can be used to demonstrate openness and honesty by showing open palms; they can be used to cut the air aggressively to emphasize points.
• fingers can be used to fidget, as in drumming the table to indicate impatience or boredom; they can be used to jab the air pointing to you; they can be used to wag at someone like a schoolteacher talking to a naughty pupil; they can be wagged threateningly like a stick.

Handshakes 

Shaking hands is a relic of the caveman era – whenever cavemen met they would hold their arms in the air with their palms exposed to show that no weapons were being held or concealed.  This gesture became modified over the centuries and is now a form of ritual greeting, in most English-speaking countries.

Some types of handshake! 

• The ‘Dead Fish’.

When the hand is cold or clammy; soft and placid, like a dead fish, people relate it to a weak character.

• The ‘Knuckle Grinder’.

When people grip your hand so firmly, that you think it will truly break! This handshake is the trademark of the aggressive ‘tough guy’ type.

• The ‘Stiff-Arm Thrust’.

Again used by ‘aggressive’ types, its main purpose is to keep you at a distance, and out of their intimate zone.  It is also used by people who originate from country areas who feel the need to protect their personal territory.

• The ‘Finger-Tip Grab’.

This feels a bit like the ‘stiff-arm thrust’ that has missed its mark.  It is also designed to keep the receiver at a distance. The initiator may appear to have a keen and enthusiastic attitude towards the receiver, however they often lack confidence.

• The ‘Double-hander’.

Very popular with politicians! The intention is to show sincerity, trust or depth of feeling towards the receiver.  They are really only suitable for close family members, or when the initiator wishes to convey empathy. If these circumstances are not present – the receiver may become suspicious and be ‘put-off’!

Legs

Like arm gestures, the gestures of our legs can also tell us a lot about people’s feelings.

Crossed legs are often a signal that a negative or defensive attitude may exist. Where arm-crossing was originally used to defend the heart and upper-body region, leg-crossing may be an attempt to shield the genital area.  Crossed legs are less negative than crossed arms. However, care should be taken when interpreting this gesture with women. Many women have been taught that it is the ‘ladylike’ way to sit!  It is unfortunate that this gesture can make them appear defensive.

The European Leg-Cross Position is where one leg neatly crossed over the other, is a normal position used by European cultures, and may be used to show a nervous, reserved or defensive attitude.  However, this gesture needs to be interpreted with others, and not in isolation or out of context.  E.g. People often like to sit like this during lectures, or if they are on uncomfortable chairs for long periods.  It is also a common gesture to see in cold weather.  However, when crossed legs are combined with crossed arms, the person may have withdrawn from the conversation.

The Leg-Lock Position may indicate that an argumentative or competitive attitude exists. It is a sitting position popular with American males – but not British males!  This gesture is considered most offensive in many cultures, where showing the sole of the shoe, or foot, is unacceptable in public.

The Ankle-Lock Position involves crossing, or folding, arms or legs may suggest that a negative or defensive attitude exists – and this is also the case with the crossing of ankles in the standing or sitting-up position.  Interviewers who observe this gesture may deduce that the candidate is ‘mentally biting her/his lip’ – indicating a holding back of a negative attitude, emotion, nervousness or fear.

Face

Human beings have more control over their facial muscles than any other animal on this planet!  As a result, the face is the most expressive part of our bodies.

The areas around the eyes and mouth are the most expressive. Raised eyebrows and an ‘O’ shaped mouth signify surprise, but raised eyebrows and an open smile indicate real pleasure; knotted eyebrows and a downturned mouth signify sadness, while knotted eyebrows and tightly pursed lips signify displeasure. There is hardly a single emotion that does not show in the face in such a way as to be instantly recognisable by someone else.

Eyes

Eye contact is very important to customer relationships.  If we avoid eye contact we can give the impression that we are shifty, lacking in confidence or disinterested. If eye contact is too intense, we might appear aggressive and make the client feel uncomfortable. If our eye contact is immediate and moderate (about 50-70% of the time) we give an entirely different impression.  Especially if accompanied by a pleasant facial expression.

We are effectively saying, ‘I am pleased to see you, I feel confident in myself. I am looking forward to our transaction!’.

Communication Channels

The communication process begins with the sender who has to make a decision about which channel to use. This could be a letter, e-mail, text, telephone, Skype, or by meeting the person or people face-to-face and speaking to them. Choice of channel is important, though circumstances will play a big part. It would take a lot of time and money to meet someone in London (if you’re in New Zealand) as opposed to sending them an email or phoning them!

However, the channel you choose for your message has a big impact on how it’s received!

E.g. If you wanted to end a personal relationship, would you send the person an email, a text, or a fax?  Would you speak to the person in front of other people in public? Or would it be better to speak personally to the individual in private?

It is well known that some folks will exchange multiple emails with a colleague in the next office rather than go through and speak to them! The subject may require discussion, and could probably be sorted in 30 seconds, but for whatever reason (laziness; or they don’t like each other!), the email channel gets used and wastes a lot of time!

Writing 

Writing can be great if you need to:

• Reach lots of people at once
• Provide a record for reference later
• Check and fine-tune your message before sending it – useful with tricky or complex messages
• Get a response, but you don’t need it immediately.
• Or maybe you deliberately want to keep a ‘distance’ from the other person. For example when a recruiting manager tells a candidate that they haven’t got the job!

However it’s not so good if the situation needs:

• Discussion in order to get full understanding, or to reach a decision.

And remember, from the communication cake we know that only 7% of the meaning of communication comes from words! So in writing, 93% – the voice and body language – is not available. This is why receivers tend to ‘read between the lines’ to try and flesh out the meaning. And sometimes they get it wrong, and imagine all sorts of interpretations that the sender never intended!

So be very careful with your choice of words, especially when the message has emotional or attitude content!

Phone

Phone is better than writing for discussion or emotional stuff – it has words (7%) plus voice (38%) – 45% of the cake. And it’s instantly two-way.

Face-to-face

There is no doubt that face-to-face communication is the most effective. 100% of the cake is in use, and sender and receiver can go round the cycle as many times as needed. But because the visual (55%) components of body language, including facial expression, are used both parties have the best chance to make themselves understood, particularly with emotional content.

Is it any wonder that companies all round the world spend squintillions of dollars on having sales people visit customers for face-to-face meetings! It’s because this is the most persuasive communication process, and figures prove that meetings get better sales results than phone calls, and phone calls better results than emails and websites. (The meetings are costly though, and results are of course never guaranteed. So wise companies use a mix of sales communication methods, and use meetings only where the chances of a sale are greatest).

Barriers To Communication

Despite all your best efforts at communicating effectively there may still be problems with getting your message across! These problems are described above as ‘interference’ in the Communications Model, and are collectively known as ‘Barriers to Communication’

Barriers to communication exist at both the sending and receiving stages of a communication. Let’s look at some of the most frequent barriers that exist in customer service situations

Sending

Lack of Clarity

Communicating ambiguously (double meanings), or using unclear meanings will result in confusion all round! If the sender chooses the wrong words, or uses words which you don’t understand, you’re going to struggle to keep listening

Articulation

When speaking, lack of clarity is often associated with poor articulation. We need to choose words that make sense to the receiver, and then pronounce them properly and clearly. Mispronunciation can cause ambiguity and mixed messages.

Mumbling…….bumbling……whispering…speaking to the floor….!! “It’s not what you say but the way that you say it…”  It doesn’t matter how interesting your message is, if you don’t project a clear voice, in the direction of the ‘audience’, how will they even hear what is said, let alone understand it?!

Non-Verbal Communication

As we saw in 5.4 and 5.5 above, our voice tone and body language convey a lot. For clear communication this needs to ‘match’ what our words are saying. When it does it reinforces our message. When it doesn’t it can be very confusing.

For example if your manager said in a quiet, dull voice, with a flat facial expression, “After lunch I’ve got something really exciting for you”, what would you believe? We’d probably be suspicious and confused!

Why does this happen? Well sometimes we let our underlying emotions prevail, even when we’re communicating on something different. So a contact centre consultant may just have finished a call with an angry and abusive caller who insulted them. On the next call their voice is shaky and weak, projecting a lack of confidence. The new caller then quickly becomes uncertain whether the consultant can help them, irrespective of the words the consultant uses!

Receiving

Not Listening Actively

Inattention (not listening!) accounts for much of the problem!  There is a huge difference between listening and hearing – hearing is a physiological process (“I have ears, I can hear”), whereas active listening requires real effort. Competition for attention from everything else going on around us can make it difficult to concentrate solely on listening to what’s being said, and most of us are pretty good at pretending to listen whilst thinking about/doing/looking at something else! (We’ve included more on listening skills in 5.7 below)

Personal issues

If we have a headache, or are feeling tired or unwell, we may find it difficult to listen effectively to others.  From time to time we even encounter someone that we really don’t like, and that too can create a personal barrier in our ability to listen effectively.

Lack of Interest

If you have no interest in what is being said, boredom sets in pretty quickly!

Premature Evaluation

… or jumping to conclusions! You may think you know what’s coming next…. and then not bother to listen to the rest of the message.

Culture

Often our non-verbals (what we don’t say) can cause barriers between people from different cultures. Some gestures have different meanings. For example, in some cultures it is polite to belch loudly after a meal to show appreciation, whereas in other cultures, this would be considered very rude. Pointing and spitting are acceptable in some cultures, and not in others. In the PacificIslands it is considered very rude to sit on a desk or table, whereas in other parts of the world it wouldn’t be an issue. 

Lack of eye contact is another area that can create barriers in communication.  Different cultures have different customs regarding eye contact.  Most western cultures regard eye contact positively during conversation and will think a person is rather suspicious or rude if they show reluctance in maintaining eye contact.  However in other cultures it can be considered extremely rude and arrogant if you continue eye contact while conversing.

Mistrust and prejudice often affect the communications between cultures. When people of different colour, culture or language interact with one another, there may be an undercurrent of antagonism or suspicion.

When people from different cultures interact – they may each follow different rules of communication – rules that are often unknown to others in the communication.  This can result in unintentional insult, inaccurate judgments, and a range of other miscommunications.  In the same way, communication techniques that work well to members of one culture may prove disturbing or offensive to members of another.

Emotions

Emotions often act as communication barriers. When we feel intensely, whether it be love, hate, fear, anger… we can’t communicate well!  Emotions block out the rational and logical side of our brain stopping us from evaluating and interpreting messages clearly.

Stereotyping

How often have you heard remarks like “Young people nowadays, they’re so selfish/loud/rude….etc..”…?  This is standard stereotypical behaviour – where a group of people (often an entire nation!) are judged by the behaviours of a few, and you may well end up treated in a particular way as a result of your age, nationality, appearance or other factors. We tend to approve or disapprove of other people based on our own views and experiences – and this can have a major impact on our interpersonal communication.

Physical Differences

A range of physical barriers exist that can be major causes of misunderstandings or communication breakdowns. Examples include:

• Noise from machinery or people
• Poor eyesight or hearing
• Tiredness
• Poor ventilation
• Stress
• Literacy problems (reading or writing)

Age Differences

An age difference is a major cause of communication difficulties within families. Interests and activities of different age groups don’t always mix! The social conventions of a particular generation may be different to another generation – and anyone who does not follow the ‘rules’ or conventions are considered ‘in the wrong’.  Parents have difficulty communicating with their children because a child cannot share the parental experience – while the parent may have forgotten what it’s like to be a child!

Organisational Differences

Within organisations there may be levels of ‘hierarchy’ where people work alongside each other at different levels of authority, for example, Managing Director, Manager, Supervisor, Clerk, Office Junior. Often – people at different levels may experience difficulties in having good effective communication – as their status and role in the organisation is so different.

Organisations may also create communication barriers themselves. The way that information is circulated, or how processes are managed can cause this.  Excessive paperwork, secrecy, unnecessary rules and regulations often create barriers and misunderstandings.

It’s clear from the above list that communication barriers can be set up all too easily – and that gaining rapport and achieving smooth relationships can be quite tricky!

 Listening Skills

“We were born with two ears and one mouth – we should use them in that proportion!”

As small children we learn speech from the adults around us and begin to develop this skill, increasing our vocabulary as we progress through life.  Listening, although the most important skill in effective communication, is not taught and we tend to think of it as a natural function…  Provided we have no physical hearing disability, we assume that because we can hear, we already know how to listen, so why do we need to learn to listen effectively?

If you are at all typical, studies have shown that listening takes up more of your waking hours than any other activity! A study of people of various backgrounds showed that 70% of their waking moments were spent in communication, and of that time:

Writing =  9%             Reading =  16%

Talking =  30%            Listening =  45%

Unfortunately – few people are really good listeners.  Researchers claim that 75% of oral communication is ignored, misunderstood or quickly forgotten!

Listening is NOT the same thing as hearing!  Hearing is a physiological process – a passive process that occurs without any attention or effort.  Listening is quite different – it involves creating meaning for ourselves out of what we hear, and unlike hearing is an ACTIVE process.  Listening doesn’t just happen – you must make it happen.  Listening takes energy and commitment.

Being able to listen efficiently and effectively will increase your ability to communicate with others.

Remember that the speaker and listener are partners in communication, both are equally important if full understanding is to take place, and both have 50% responsibility for the success of the outcome!

Let’s take a look next at what it is that stops us listening actively, and how we can improve.

Barriers To Active Listening

Thinking time

Although nearly half our time is spent listening, most of us do not listen well, largely because we can think far faster than we can speak.  In fact, our brains can process approximately 500 – 800 words in the same time it takes us to speak 200 – 250 words.

This gives us a lot of spare thinking time while we are listening to a person speak.  Rather than use this spare time to gather our own thoughts together in order to respond to what the speaker is saying, we let our minds wander.  This is just one of the many ways in which we can be distracted and which act as a barrier to effective listening.

Preoccupation with self

In the famous words of Bette Middler,

‘That’s enough about me, let’s talk about you.  What do you think about me!’’ 

This is a classic barrier to active listening because we appear to be listening to somebody speaking but actually we’re thinking about our self, or about a similar situation we found ourselves in.

You may even begin to rehearse your responses, while the other person is still speaking, or you may fall into the habit of ‘capping’!  Whatever has happened to them has happened to you – only far worse in your case.  So, in an effort to make them feel better about their experience, you respond with something like; ‘Oh, if you think that’s bad, wait until I tell you what happened to me.’!  During this time of self-focus, you have inevitably missed what the speaker is saying.

Prejudices

Our personal prejudices can cause us either to switch off mentally, or to be over sensitive to the remarks made by the speaker.  Such reactions can be triggered off by the speaker’s clothes, accessories, hair, accent, looks, style of delivery, words used – even the sex or race of the speaker can affect our prejudices.

When our prejudices are active ‘we hear what we want to hear’, and put our own interpretation on what is said.  We then spend our thinking time composing rebuttals, questions or even clever responses to trip up or antagonize the speaker.

Environmental/Physical

All of the following factors can make us ‘switch off’ from listening to what is being said, to allow our minds to temporarily concentrate on our surroundings:

• Room too hot; too cold
• Chair too hard; too soft
• Noise (e.g. telephone)
• Lighting too bright; too dim
• Draughts
• Poor ventilation; stuffy atmosphere
• Smells; perfume
• Interruptions
• Distractions – external, such as a fly buzzing round; or internal, such as a random out-of-the-blue thought!

“Are you listening – or are you just waiting for your chance to speak?”

Feedback

In part 1 we discuss how important feedback is. So when we’re the receiver we should volunteer good quality feedback so the sender knows how we’ve interpreted their message. That means when it’s our turn to speak, we don’t just make our next point, but we refer to what they’ve just said first.

When seeking to give customers excellence, this also has the important benefit of acknowledging what they’ve said, and showing that we’re paying attention and taking them seriously. It in effect pays them a compliment, and it’s great for building rapport. (Look back at the things you identified in Section 2 of this book that make you feel bad when you’re the customer. I bet you’ve come across this – not having your point acknowledged!)

However, you can’t properly refer to what they’ve just said unless you were genuinely listening! So giving feedback has one other extremely important benefit! To be able to do it at all, you have to listen actively!

(School teachers know this! If they think that a student isn’t listening they ask them: “What have I just been talking about?” If the student really was day-dreaming then of course they can’t give an answer!)

So here’s another golden rule: 

“To be a good listener, always be ready to give feedback”

Questioning

To satisfy customers we need to provide what the customer wants, and for excellence we need to exceed their expectations. But we need to know first what those wants and expectations are! A lot of our communication therefore involves finding out about their wants and expectations, and this means asking questions.

We also, as we have seen above, need to get feedback from them. We need to know if we’ve been understood the way we intended; and whether the things we offer, or do for them, meet their requirements. And we need to know if they agree or disagree with the ideas and propositions we put to them.

So questions are an essential part of our communication process. However our questions are not always effective! Sometimes we don’t phrase our questions very well, and as a result we don’t get very useful answers!

Unfortunately we are ‘on auto-pilot’ 95% of the time, and our questions often just role off the tongue without enough thought!

The most common mistake is to use a ‘closed’ question when an ‘open’ one would be better. This is because we naturally use closed questions 80% of the time, and they tend to be easier to formulate.

Closed Questions

These are questions that can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’. They use questioning words like: ‘can’, ‘will’, ‘should’, ‘do’, ‘are’, etc. So they’re great if you just want a ‘yes or no’ answer.

“Do you want to book that now?” …. “Yes”.

Open Questions

These cannot be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’. So they tend to get more information. The information may be a single word, as in:

What’s your name?” ……. “Andrew”

Or it may be much more, (provided the receiver has something to say!), as in:

What did you think of the Rugby World Cup result?” … “Wow! I was so relieved we won. It was great spectacle too; and brilliant for New Zealand”.

Open questions use the following seven questioning words:

Who, what, where, when, how, why, and which.

 What’s the ‘Right’ Question?

The common mistake is to ask a closed question when an open one would be better, as in:

“Didn’t you think the RWC result was fantastic?” … “Yes I did”.

Not only does this get less information form the person, but it’s really about your idea, not theirs! It’s actually just asking if they agree with you – which is fine if that’s what you want to do. The problem comes if we ask our question this way (on auto-pilot) when we really do want to know what they think!

The key therefore, as with all communication is to be clear in our mind what we are trying to achieve – in this case what we want to find out. Then we need to choose the best form of question for that – the most appropriate structure and choice of words.

Chapter five 

Communication with customers Part 1 

We can already see that how we communicate with customers is a key part of giving great customer service. There are a lot of possible reasons for communication. For example we may need to:

• build rapport with our customers – show that we’re friendly, professional, and on their ‘wavelength’
• find out exactly what our customers want
• explain what our product or service is and why it’s good value for them
• help them become clearer about what they want. (Believe it or not, customers are often not quite sure what they want, or aren’t aware of all the options)
• confirm that we understand them and what’s important to them
• resolve difficulties or complaints
• sell them extra products or services that they might need

To do this there are many different facets to communication. We can all talk; but precisely what we say, and how we say it, is critical to our success as a customer service provider. And if we choose to, we can all get better at it. We can practise our communication skills; and also the judgements we need to make about what to say, and how to say it, in each situation.

The main skills and judgements include:

• Presenting information or ideas
• Asking questions
• Listening
• Giving feedback so they know we understand them
• And above all, projecting the right attitude by using the right voice tone and body language.

These ‘non-verbal’ elements are often the most critical! We shall see below that when assessing a person’s attitude people take most notice of voice tone and body language! In fact we can often tell a person’s attitude just by looking at them! And when they speak, we can tell even more by how they sound.

This section looks at the various components and applications of communication to customer service situations.

 Communication Process

In order for us to understand HOW to communicate – it is important to be clear about WHAT communication is, how it works – and why sometimes it doesn’t!

Communication is a two-way process…. and cannot take place if there is nobody to communicate with!  Just as an actor needs an audience, a teacher needs students; a customer service professional needs customers!!

Communication works by messages travelling between a Sender and a Receiver – with both parties swapping roles constantly. The process is dynamic (constantly changing) and circular.

 There are many definitions of communication – let’s look at a simple and clear definition:

“Communication is the transmission from one person to another of a message which is understood by the receiver in the way the sender intended”

 The ‘message’ being transmitted may be factual information, ideas, thoughts or feelings.

 Did you notice that effective communication consists of both SENDING clear messages and RECEIVING them? So both people in any communication have shared responsibility for ensuring clear and effective two-way communication.

The emphasis is on ‘shared responsibility’ – if you don’t understand something, or you have a communication breakdown, don’t blame the other person – you are both involved in the communication together!

“..you each have 50% responsibility for the success or failure of the communication”

Sending

The process begins with the Sender, who has a message to communicate.  They need to formulate the message in their head and then deliver it. If they are initiating the communication exchange, they may also choose the communication channel – written (words only), phone (words plus voice tone), or face-to-face (words plus voice plus body language).

 The key for the sender is to be clear on what they want to say and why; and then choose words (and voice tone/body language) that are most likely to be understood by the receiver.

Receiving

When the Receiver gets the message, they process the information mentally, and develop an understanding of what was meant.  Sometimes the understanding of the receiver is very different from that of the sender!  Life is full of conversations which start with ‘Don’t get me wrong but’….. or ‘Don’t take this the wrong way….’.  These sayings are used because we know in advance that what we are about to say could be misunderstood!

 Interference

Messages often become distorted or confused during the communication process and this distortion is known as ‘Interference.’  Interference is anything that prevents the message from being received in the way the sender intended.

Interference could include noise, language problems, geographical distance, or many other causes. These interferences are known as “Barriers to Communication” – things that get in the way and stop us from communicating effectively. To increase our chances for successful communication we need to identify what the barriers could be, and try to eliminate them.  (More below on this)

Feedback

Because of the importance of checking our understanding in effective communication, the receiver should offer feedback to the sender, checking and testing understanding, making sure that they are clear on what has been said.

Feedback represents a unique form of message – sent in response to other messages – and like other messages, it can take many forms. A frown, a smile, a shake or nod of the head, a punch in the mouth! – these are all forms of feedback.  Feedback tells you how your communication is being received, and whether is being understood the way you intended – or not.

When a communication is really important, the receiver should give feedback in words – a summary perhaps of the key points. In important situations, like air traffic control, the protocol is that the receiver will echo the message word for word! Effectiveness in communicating with others depends greatly on your ability to give and receive appropriate feedback.

When you are the sender, and the message is important, if the receiver doesn’t naturally offer feedback you should ask for it.

Feedback is a message back to the sender, and is also therefore subject to interference. So sometimes we may even need feedback on the feedback! The cycle should continue until the sender is confident that the receiver understands the message the way that they, the sender, intended!

Once this happens, the communication cycle is complete!

The Communication Cake

When people use spoken language to communicate, they don’t just listen to what is said in order to understand the message. They also look at the person who is speaking to see what their body and face are doing, and listen to the way they are saying the words. This helps them understand the full message.

Studies tell us that the percentage of understanding that is gained from the spoken word is considerably less than the meaning that people gain from listening to a person’s tone of voice and looking at their non-verbal communication. This ‘cake’ is a chart which shows that on average, 55% of meaning lies in the body language; 38% in the voice tone; and just 7% in the choice of words!

Even though the ‘cake’ says only 7% of the meaning lies in the choice of words, the words are still critical. It is the words that convey the facts and the detail.

Choosing the right words

The golden rule is to be sure that you choose words that the other person will understand. And think first about what you want to get across. Engage the brain before opening the mouth!

However sometimes the ideas we have in our mind cannot be easily put into words.  These ideas may include feelings and attitudes which are not easy for others to understand.  We all know how difficult it is to talk to someone who doesn’t know our language. But it’s just as difficult if the people we are talking to, in the same language, interpret our words differently from us for some reason.

Consider the problems when someone:

• uses jargon or technical terms we do not know
• uses long words we’ve never heard of
• uses slang or swearing which we don’t like

Words are far more than just a dictionary meaning.  There is a wealth of meaning, and layers of feeling built into them.

 Language Style

We also use different styles of language for different situations.  Our casual slang may be OK for the pub or club – but you may find yourself in trouble if you were to use it with an airline passenger or your boss at work! This chart insert popup? Shows that language ranges from very formal through to very casual, with everything in between.

When interacting with customers (whether external or internal), we need to decide which language style to use. We should consider four key questions:

1.  What is the formality of the situation? A job interview, for example, requires at least a moderately formal style, and maybe very formal if it is a panel interview for a senior position. A lunch with a colleague would almost certainly be fairly informal or even casual, depending on how well you know the other person.
2.  How well do you know the receiver? As mentioned above, the language style you choose to communicate with depends a lot on your relationship with the other person. You can be very informal with friends, but if you’re meeting your boyfriend/girlfriend’s mother for the first time you will almost certainly start of moderately formal until you know her better.
3. What will the other person be comfortable with? Some people make it clear from the beginning that they are an informal friendly person who wants to be known by his first name, enjoys a laugh, and may even want to give you a warm hug when you leave. Other people prefer to stay more formal until they know you better, so don’t rush this and allow the communication to unfold before you start lapsing into casual communications with a new person.
4. The sensitivity of the message? Some communications are more sensitive than others, such as discussions around lack of performance in a job, ill health or bereavement, problems in the home or workplace. Most of this type of communication requires at least a moderately formal style, out of respect, and professionalism. This is not the place for casual chats.

 Jargon, long words, and slang

Try to avoid using jargon or technical terms that customers may not know. However, jargon can be very useful since it is usually shorter and quicker. So if you do choose to use jargon, just make sure that the other person understands it.

Also it may be tempting to use long words. Even when speaking the same native language, you may have a better range of vocabulary than your receiver does.

The Oxford English Dictionary has over a quarter of a million words – yet most of us use less than 10% of those! As a result, we often use inappropriate or unclear words – and hope the receiver is on the same wavelength as we are!  It’s not necessary to use long words, or a lot of words, – just use the right words.

The precipitation within the Iberian peninsular descends predominantly upon the extensive uninterrupted horizontal land form.

 (The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain)!

 Remember the golden rule: Be sure that you choose words that the other person will understand.

And never use slang words or ‘street’ language with customers – it’s just not professional. Rude or offensive language of course is an absolute ‘no no’ in any workplace, particularly working for airlines.

Misunderstandings

If others don’t understand what you are saying – don’t just repeat it again! Or even worse, say it louder! If they misunderstood you first time they probably will the second! So either get them to tell you, through feedback, what is their understanding so far. This’ll tell you where you need to do some more explaining. Or, if you do choose to repeat the whole message, try explaining it differently – in different words.

And don’t blame the receiver of the message if they don’t understand! It could be your responsibility for not explaining it clearly, or for not choosing words that they can understand. The first thing you should do if you suspect you’ve been misunderstood is evaluate how well you communicated your message.

Did you select words which:

• convey the exact meaning
• indicate the appropriate emotion
• suit the formality level of the situation?

Did you choose words which they could understand and accept?

Even when we have chosen the words carefully we may still find that our message is not understood in the way that we had hoped. 

Voice Tone and Clarity

When this happens it’s worth thinking about one of the other aspects of verbal communication: voice tone.

Your tone of voice may say more than the actual words you use. In the communication ‘cake’ above, we saw that 38% of the meaning is carried by the tone. This important feature of everyday speech is so powerful that it can make or break a communication, so it’s worth learning a little about it.

We all have the ability to adjust the tone of our voice to suit the moment as voice tone is very useful in expressing emotions. For example curt, harsh, loud words can illustrate anger. Soft, murmuring, soothing tones can express pleasure. Tone is also used in other ways, to indicate the end of a sentence or message (lowering the tone), or indicating a question (raising the tone). The kiwi accent is known for its rising tone at the end of sentences, suggesting a constant round of questions!

Voice tone includes a number of other factors:

Pitch:  This relates to the sound of your voice, such as a very high shrieky voice or low voice. Voice pitch can be changed through training and practice, for example if you have a very high voice you can work on lowering it so it sounds more imposing and authoritative. Generally we should vary our pitch as we speak, in a way that suits the topic. The alternative – a steady even pitch, can-be-very-dull-and-boring!

Volume: How loud you speak influences your message significantly, and we all know how shouting, for example, changes the way in which a message is received. Speaking too softly can also affect how a communication is received, particularly if the receiver can’t hear you. However speaking softly can also be very powerful as others have to listen very actively to your message.

The effects of voice tone are significant. People develop much of their perception of you based purely on your tone of voice, particularly on the phone. If your tone is clear and strong they will think of you as confident. People who speak hesitantly in a soft voice tone are often considered weak or shy. People who speak with no inflection at all, with little variation in voice tone, are often thought of as boring or dull.

A good test of the power of voice tone is to try it out on a dog! Speak to him in a loud, angry tone, saying the words ‘Good dog!’ and he’ll usually cower and look sad, even though you’re actually giving him a compliment. Change your tone to a soothing, happy, upbeat tone and say ‘Bad dog!’ and he’ll wag his tail and look excited and happy! He doesn’t understand the words, just the voice tone, and responds almost totally to that alone.

The good news is that whatever your voice, your tone can be worked on and changed. Most actors, TV presenters, singers and others in public life have worked on making their voice better, so why not you!

Chapter 4 

What is good value? 

Customers always want good value for money (VFM). I know I do! So how does this fit into the picture?

The first thing is that Value and Price are NOT the same thing. Value is what you get; price is what you pay out

VALUE = GET vs PAY-OUT

 So you can pay out a lot, and still feel it’s been good VFM, provided you get a lot in return. Otherwise we would always buy the cheapest option, and clearly people don’t always do that.

For example in the days of Concorde, passengers would willingly pay three times the normal fare to get from London to New York a bit quicker; or to have the ‘Concorde experience’. Definitely not the cheapest option but they obviously thought it was worth it!

And ask yourself – do you always buy the cheapest clothes? Why not?

So the cheapest option is often NOT the best deal. The item you buy might not be as good. The top you buy isn’t quite the right colour; or it shrinks first time you wash it. The cheap dust-buster doesn’t have enough oomph to suck anything up! Cheap price does not necessarily mean good value!

However if you shop around and find something exactly the same but at a lower price, then you would consider that better VFM.

But of course we can’t just lower our prices! That way our companies would go bust! If we lower our prices, as in the budget airline ‘price wars’, we have to lower our costs as well. And airlines do that by reducing the on-board catering; reducing baggage allowances; increasing load factors by cancelling under-booked flights, etc. The value is a bit less for less money, but makes flying affordable for more people.

 Perception of Value

Value is a perception and our perception of value has two parts to it.

• What we get materially, and
• How we feel about it emotionally.

When we book a hotel room, the material value is in somewhere to sleep and keep our clothes; emotionally we may feel special because the room has touches of luxury and great views, or if the people there are lovely to us!

But value is an individual thing. It is what each person considers important to them, and we’re all different. I like a window seat when I fly. Other people like the aisle seat; or they just don’t mind. On long haul for some the entertainment is most important; for others it’s the leg-room.

When you get right down to it there are always some differences between what different organisations offer us as customers. The Concorde flight was actually not the same as a 747 flight London to New York. It was quicker; and it was a supersonic experience.

Many of the differences are material ones, and often quite minor. The food the airline serves for example; or the range of movies. But following on from sections 2 and 3 above, the differences may also be in quality of service – how customers get treated by the staff.

In the travel and tourism industries the material differences are often small. Competing airlines tend to fly the same routes, from the same airports, with very similar planes, flight times, and prices. The big hotel chains have similar rooms and facilities.

The great opportunity for us therefore is to increase the emotional value of our customers’ purchase by giving them excellent personal service. Exceeding their expectations in the way they are treated will make then FEEL good, and increase their loyalty and repeat purchasing from us. When they shop around and do their online research, we want them to remember that they get treated well by us, and that price isn’t everything. This is serious stuff! We can make a big difference to our companies’ performance.

Winning With Customers 

Working through these lessons will help you to develop excellence in your dealings with customers. The aim is for them to be your ‘fans’, not just your ‘customers’. That way they’ll come back again and again, and tell everyone how great you are!

So we need to know how to create a great customer experience, whatever type of organisation we work for, and whatever our role is. And it’s not just those of you who interact with our customers who have an influence. ‘Back room’ functions too need to be carried out with customer satisfaction in mind, since everything we do affects them in the end. In addition what we do for our colleagues, and how well we do it, will affect how they do their job, which in turn will affect the experience our customers get from dealing with us.

What’s more, knowing how to give great service does not automatically mean people will do it. We’ve all had poor service at one time or another – unfriendly, slow, impersonal etc – but I bet it wasn’t because the people concerned didn’t know it was important. They were probably just busy, or stressed, or had just had a row at home! So while these lessons help you to know how to give great service, it also helps you adopt the right attitude – always!

How to complete the chapters

You can do the chapters in bits when it suits you. It should take about 20 hours in total. There are some reading and examples, and some fun exercises and activities to help you relate the ideas to your own role and situation. It is very important that you do these activities – they’ll really help your learning. In the gold version, there is an Action Plan template. Use this to make your plans for improving your customer service.

Contents

Chapter 1 -Who Is Your Customer?

• How do we treat customers?
• External customers
• Internal customers

Chapter 2 – What Customers Need and Want

• What exactly are they after?
• What do they expect from us?
• What happens when a customer is dissatisfied?

Chapter 3 – Service Excellence

• What is it?
• How do you achieve it?
• How do you maintain it?

Chapter 4 – Providing Good Value

• What is good value?
• Perception of value

Chapter 5 – Communication With Customers

• Communication process
• Choosing the right words
• Body language
• Overcoming barriers
• Dealing with ‘differences’

Chapter 6 – Customer Service Attitudes

• Behaviour
• Attitudes
• Developing a positive attitude
• Attitudes towards customers

Chapter 7 – Giving Customers Enough Time

• Using time as a resource
• Scheduling
• Time logs
• Prioritising

Chapter 8 – Handling Complaints

• Thinking about feelings
• Our attitudes towards complaints
• Complaints process
• Referring complaints to others

Chapter One 

Who is your customer?

Before we ask ‘who’ is our customer, we need to know ‘what’ is a customer? A customer is anyone you provide goods or services for. They may pay you or your company for this, or may do something else for you in return. Customers can be ‘External’ or ‘Internal’.

External Customers

These are people outside your company. They may be called many things, but in the travel and tourism industries they are usually referred to as clients, passengers or guests. They are all customers just the same!

External customers usually pay money for your goods or services. Examples might be:

• Someone who rents a car from a car hire company at the airport.
• A passenger who books a flight to Sydney.

Do we always meet or communicate with our External Customers? No. You could be working in your company’s accounts department. What you do still affects your company’s customers though, for example if you make a mistake. Or you could be a baggage handler at the airport – you load and unload your customer’s bags, but don’t ever meet them. However, what you do definitely affects their view of the service they get – for instance if their bag is lost or damaged, or takes for ever to reach the belt on arrival!

Internal Customers

These are people inside your company. They need you to provide them with information perhaps, or complete a task by a certain time. Your boss in fact is probably your biggest internal customer! They don’t individually pay us for these services (though hopefully your company does!), but if we let them down they can’t do their job properly. That in turn could mean that an external customer gets bad service. Examples might be:

• A travel agent who needs tickets produced by us in the Ticketing Dept. to forward to a client
• A call centre consultant who wants a quote from our department to discuss with a client

But how do we treat our internal customers? Do we give them the same consideration and prompt attention that we (hopefully) give our external customers? I suspect that when it’s a colleague our attitude may be different! “Oh it’s only for Joe. I can leave that for a bit”. Or “That’ll have to do for Mary. She’ll have to finish it off herself”.

You have finished your Free Preview for this course.

You have three course options for the full course:

The BRONZE course option includes 9 comprehensive lessons only.

The popular SILVER course option includes:

• 9 comprehensive lessons
• several quizzes
• a final assessment
• Certificate of Completion.

The most comprehensive GOLD course option includes:

• 9 comprehensive lessons
• several quizzes a final assessment
• Certificate of Completion
• AND access to our friendly, experienced staff who monitor this course 5 days a week;
• communication with fellow students via the online forum;
• monitoring & reporting for your business or school.

Winning With Customers 

Working through these lessons will help you to develop excellence in your dealings with customers. The aim is for them to be your ‘fans’, not just your ‘customers’. That way they’ll come back again and again, and tell everyone how great you are!

So we need to know how to create a great customer experience, whatever type of organisation we work for, and whatever our role is. And it’s not just those of you who interact with our customers who have an influence. ‘Back room’ functions too need to be carried out with customer satisfaction in mind, since everything we do affects them in the end. In addition what we do for our colleagues, and how well we do it, will affect how they do their job, which in turn will affect the experience our customers get from dealing with us.

What’s more, knowing how to give great service does not automatically mean people will do it. We’ve all had poor service at one time or another – unfriendly, slow, impersonal etc – but I bet it wasn’t because the people concerned didn’t know it was important. They were probably just busy, or stressed, or had just had a row at home! So while these lessons help you to know how to give great service, it also helps you adopt the right attitude – always!

How to complete the chapters

You can do the chapters in bits when it suits you. It should take about 20 hours in total. There are some reading and examples, and some fun exercises and activities to help you relate the ideas to your own role and situation. It is very important that you do these activities – they’ll really help your learning. In the gold version, there is an Action Plan template. Use this to make your plans for improving your customer service.

Contents

Chapter 1 -Who Is Your Customer?

• How do we treat customers?
• External customers
• Internal customers

Chapter 2 – What Customers Need and Want

• What exactly are they after?
• What do they expect from us?
• What happens when a customer is dissatisfied?

Chapter 3 – Service Excellence

• What is it?
• How do you achieve it?
• How do you maintain it?

Chapter 4 – Providing Good Value

• What is good value?
• Perception of value

Chapter 5 – Communication With Customers

• Communication process
• Choosing the right words
• Body language
• Overcoming barriers
• Dealing with ‘differences’

Chapter 6 – Customer Service Attitudes

• Behaviour
• Attitudes
• Developing a positive attitude
• Attitudes towards customers

Chapter 7 – Giving Customers Enough Time

• Using time as a resource
• Scheduling
• Time logs
• Prioritising

Chapter 8 – Handling Complaints

• Thinking about feelings
• Our attitudes towards complaints
• Complaints process
• Referring complaints to others

Chapter One 

Who is your customer?

Before we ask ‘who’ is our customer, we need to know ‘what’ is a customer? A customer is anyone you provide goods or services for. They may pay you or your company for this, or may do something else for you in return. Customers can be ‘External’ or ‘Internal’.

External Customers

These are people outside your company. They may be called many things, but in the travel and tourism industries they are usually referred to as clients, passengers or guests. They are all customers just the same!

External customers usually pay money for your goods or services. Examples might be:

• Someone who rents a car from a car hire company at the airport.
• A passenger who books a flight to Sydney.

Do we always meet or communicate with our External Customers? No. You could be working in your company’s accounts department. What you do still affects your company’s customers though, for example if you make a mistake. Or you could be a baggage handler at the airport – you load and unload your customer’s bags, but don’t ever meet them. However, what you do definitely affects their view of the service they get – for instance if their bag is lost or damaged, or takes for ever to reach the belt on arrival!

Internal Customers

These are people inside your company. They need you to provide them with information perhaps, or complete a task by a certain time. Your boss in fact is probably your biggest internal customer! They don’t individually pay us for these services (though hopefully your company does!), but if we let them down they can’t do their job properly. That in turn could mean that an external customer gets bad service. Examples might be:

• A travel agent who needs tickets produced by us in the Ticketing Dept. to forward to a client
• A call centre consultant who wants a quote from our department to discuss with a client

But how do we treat our internal customers? Do we give them the same consideration and prompt attention that we (hopefully) give our external customers? I suspect that when it’s a colleague our attitude may be different! “Oh it’s only for Joe. I can leave that for a bit”. Or “That’ll have to do for Mary. She’ll have to finish it off herself”.

Winning With Customers 

Working through these lessons will help you to develop excellence in your dealings with customers. The aim is for them to be your ‘fans’, not just your ‘customers’. That way they’ll come back again and again, and tell everyone how great you are!

So we need to know how to create a great customer experience, whatever type of organisation we work for, and whatever our role is. And it’s not just those of you who interact with our customers who have an influence. ‘Back room’ functions too need to be carried out with customer satisfaction in mind, since everything we do affects them in the end. In addition what we do for our colleagues, and how well we do it, will affect how they do their job, which in turn will affect the experience our customers get from dealing with us.

What’s more, knowing how to give great service does not automatically mean people will do it. We’ve all had poor service at one time or another – unfriendly, slow, impersonal etc – but I bet it wasn’t because the people concerned didn’t know it was important. They were probably just busy, or stressed, or had just had a row at home! So while these lessons help you to know how to give great service, it also helps you adopt the right attitude – always!

How to complete the chapters

You can do the chapters in bits when it suits you. It should take about 20 hours in total. There are some reading and examples, and some fun exercises and activities to help you relate the ideas to your own role and situation. It is very important that you do these activities – they’ll really help your learning. In the gold version, there is an Action Plan template. Use this to make your plans for improving your customer service.

Contents

Chapter 1 -Who Is Your Customer?

• How do we treat customers?
• External customers
• Internal customers

Chapter 2 – What Customers Need and Want

• What exactly are they after?
• What do they expect from us?
• What happens when a customer is dissatisfied?

Chapter 3 – Service Excellence

• What is it?
• How do you achieve it?
• How do you maintain it?

Chapter 4 – Providing Good Value

• What is good value?
• Perception of value

Chapter 5 – Communication With Customers

• Communication process
• Choosing the right words
• Body language
• Overcoming barriers
• Dealing with ‘differences’

Chapter 6 – Customer Service Attitudes

• Behaviour
• Attitudes
• Developing a positive attitude
• Attitudes towards customers

Chapter 7 – Giving Customers Enough Time

• Using time as a resource
• Scheduling
• Time logs
• Prioritising

Chapter 8 – Handling Complaints

• Thinking about feelings
• Our attitudes towards complaints
• Complaints process
• Referring complaints to others

Chapter One 

Who is your customer?

Before we ask ‘who’ is our customer, we need to know ‘what’ is a customer? A customer is anyone you provide goods or services for. They may pay you or your company for this, or may do something else for you in return. Customers can be ‘External’ or ‘Internal’.

External Customers

These are people outside your company. They may be called many things, but in the travel and tourism industries they are usually referred to as clients, passengers or guests. They are all customers just the same!

External customers usually pay money for your goods or services. Examples might be:

• Someone who rents a car from a car hire company at the airport.
• A passenger who books a flight to Sydney.

Do we always meet or communicate with our External Customers? No. You could be working in your company’s accounts department. What you do still affects your company’s customers though, for example if you make a mistake. Or you could be a baggage handler at the airport – you load and unload your customer’s bags, but don’t ever meet them. However, what you do definitely affects their view of the service they get – for instance if their bag is lost or damaged, or takes for ever to reach the belt on arrival!

Internal Customers

These are people inside your company. They need you to provide them with information perhaps, or complete a task by a certain time. Your boss in fact is probably your biggest internal customer! They don’t individually pay us for these services (though hopefully your company does!), but if we let them down they can’t do their job properly. That in turn could mean that an external customer gets bad service. Examples might be:

• A travel agent who needs tickets produced by us in the Ticketing Dept. to forward to a client
• A call centre consultant who wants a quote from our department to discuss with a client

But how do we treat our internal customers? Do we give them the same consideration and prompt attention that we (hopefully) give our external customers? I suspect that when it’s a colleague our attitude may be different! “Oh it’s only for Joe. I can leave that for a bit”. Or “That’ll have to do for Mary. She’ll have to finish it off herself”.

Winning With Customers 

Working through these lessons will help you to develop excellence in your dealings with customers. The aim is for them to be your ‘fans’, not just your ‘customers’. That way they’ll come back again and again, and tell everyone how great you are!

So we need to know how to create a great customer experience, whatever type of organisation we work for, and whatever our role is. And it’s not just those of you who interact with our customers who have an influence. ‘Back room’ functions too need to be carried out with customer satisfaction in mind, since everything we do affects them in the end. In addition what we do for our colleagues, and how well we do it, will affect how they do their job, which in turn will affect the experience our customers get from dealing with us.

What’s more, knowing how to give great service does not automatically mean people will do it. We’ve all had poor service at one time or another – unfriendly, slow, impersonal etc – but I bet it wasn’t because the people concerned didn’t know it was important. They were probably just busy, or stressed, or had just had a row at home! So while these lessons help you to know how to give great service, it also helps you adopt the right attitude – always!

How to complete the chapters

You can do the chapters in bits when it suits you. It should take about 20 hours in total. There are some reading and examples, and some fun exercises and activities to help you relate the ideas to your own role and situation. It is very important that you do these activities – they’ll really help your learning. In the gold version, there is an Action Plan template. Use this to make your plans for improving your customer service.

Contents

Chapter 1 -Who Is Your Customer?

• How do we treat customers?
• External customers
• Internal customers

Chapter 2 – What Customers Need and Want

• What exactly are they after?
• What do they expect from us?
• What happens when a customer is dissatisfied?

Chapter 3 – Service Excellence

• What is it?
• How do you achieve it?
• How do you maintain it?

Chapter 4 – Providing Good Value

• What is good value?
• Perception of value

Chapter 5 – Communication With Customers

• Communication process
• Choosing the right words
• Body language
• Overcoming barriers
• Dealing with ‘differences’

Chapter 6 – Customer Service Attitudes

• Behaviour
• Attitudes
• Developing a positive attitude
• Attitudes towards customers

Chapter 7 – Giving Customers Enough Time

• Using time as a resource
• Scheduling
• Time logs
• Prioritising

Chapter 8 – Handling Complaints

• Thinking about feelings
• Our attitudes towards complaints
• Complaints process
• Referring complaints to others

Chapter One 

Who is your customer?

Before we ask ‘who’ is our customer, we need to know ‘what’ is a customer? A customer is anyone you provide goods or services for. They may pay you or your company for this, or may do something else for you in return. Customers can be ‘External’ or ‘Internal’.

External Customers

These are people outside your company. They may be called many things, but in the travel and tourism industries they are usually referred to as clients, passengers or guests. They are all customers just the same!

External customers usually pay money for your goods or services. Examples might be:

• Someone who rents a car from a car hire company at the airport.
• A passenger who books a flight to Sydney.

Do we always meet or communicate with our External Customers? No. You could be working in your company’s accounts department. What you do still affects your company’s customers though, for example if you make a mistake. Or you could be a baggage handler at the airport – you load and unload your customer’s bags, but don’t ever meet them. However, what you do definitely affects their view of the service they get – for instance if their bag is lost or damaged, or takes for ever to reach the belt on arrival!

Internal Customers

These are people inside your company. They need you to provide them with information perhaps, or complete a task by a certain time. Your boss in fact is probably your biggest internal customer! They don’t individually pay us for these services (though hopefully your company does!), but if we let them down they can’t do their job properly. That in turn could mean that an external customer gets bad service. Examples might be:

• A travel agent who needs tickets produced by us in the Ticketing Dept. to forward to a client
• A call centre consultant who wants a quote from our department to discuss with a client

But how do we treat our internal customers? Do we give them the same consideration and prompt attention that we (hopefully) give our external customers? I suspect that when it’s a colleague our attitude may be different! “Oh it’s only for Joe. I can leave that for a bit”. Or “That’ll have to do for Mary. She’ll have to finish it off herself”.

Chapter 8

Handling Complaints 

Even if we and our colleagues do everything right, our customers can still complain! Maybe because their expectations are unreasonably high! So we still have to be able to handle complaints in an effective and professional manner.

However we’re almost certainly not perfect! obviously if our company is at fault, it’s crucial that we handle the complaint well. Research has shown that if a customer does complain (unlike the 96% of dissatisfied customers who don’t!), it’s a great opportunity!

What? An opportunity?

Yes, complaints are an opportunity because:

• They tell us about things that our customers are unhappy with. We may not always be aware of these. Plus, the number of people who complain about a thing tells us how important it is to fix it.
• If a complaint is handled well, we may also be able to keep that customer for the future. In fact some Air New Zealand research a few years back showed that a customer can become even more loyal, provided their complaint was well handled. When dealing with complaints, just like anything else, we need to exceed the customer’s expectations!

Feelings

How do you feel when you’re about to make a complaint about something?

I bet your list included some of these:

•  Angry
• Confused
• I’m in the right
• Frustrated
• Annoyed
• Wastes my time
• Won’t achieve anything
• Apprehensive
• Nervous .. etc!

At the very least, customers are going to have to spend time pursuing their complaint – time they could be spending on something else.

So complaining customers can have a range of feelings, and if we’re dealing with them we need to watch out for these early on. It’s also quite common for people to work themselves up before complaining – perhaps because they expect it to be a challenging and unpleasant experience. The result of this is that they may seem much more emotional than the situation would appear to warrant!

Our Attitude

Then there’s our own feelings and attitudes.

Do you enjoy handling complaints? If you don’t, might that show? If they’re angry towards you, might you feel angry back? Might you feel resentful that you’re having to deal with the problem, when perhaps it wasn’t you that caused it in the first place?

How then might the complaining customer react to our feelings? If we have any kind of negative feelings about the complaint, or the complainer, they’ll show, and almost certainly make the situation worse!

As we saw in chapter 6 however, we can manage and modify our attitudes as long as we’re aware of them. Never is this more important than when we’re handling a complaint. We must find a way of adopting a positive attitude.

Options for this could include:

• It’s an opportunity – to find out what went wrong and put it right for the future
• It’s an opportunity – to satisfy an unhappy customer and keep them dealing with us
• It’s a professional challenge – an opportunity to test my customer service skills and get a good result
• It’s a professional challenge – to solve a problem with a good solution.

And if the customer is aggressive or angry towards you, the key is to be assertive. Stay calm and in control, and don’t them get to you!

Complaints Process

When dealing with a complaint face-to-face or on the phone, there are some basic steps to go through.

1.     Listen: Encourage the customer to explain their problem and concerns. Listen actively and give feedback to show that you understand. If they’re     ‘worked up’, let them go on until they calm down.

2.     Empathise: Accept and acknowledge their feelings. Show you’re genuinely concerned and want to resolve their problem. Some people worry that this might seem like agreeing too early that we’re at fault (before we’ve established what happened). Empathising is not the same as admitting blame.

3.    Clarify: Ask questions to get more information about the problem and the customers concerns. Make sure you have a full picture of what happened and why it’s an issue for the customer.

4.   Negotiate: Offer a solution; ask what they would like. Discuss options, be flexible and aim for a win:win. Stay assertive, respecting their requests, but not giving in if they’re unrealistic. Confirm agreements by summarising, and maybe in writing also.

5.   Action: The worst result would be to agree a solution and then not implement it! You’d definitely lose the customer then. So take action. If others in your company need to be involved, make sure the solution is OK with them!

6.   Follow up: If you handled the complaint right through, you should take responsibility for any promises made. You have to chase up colleagues if they needed to do something for you or the customer.

You should also get back to the customer afterwards to check that the solution worked for them. This confirms completion; confirms your continued interest in the customer; and confirms the customer’s satisfaction.

Referring Complaints to Others

Sometimes once we start handling a complaint we realise that we’re not the best person to deal with it. Perhaps we don’t have the expertise (a technical issue with another department for instance), or we don’t have the authority to agree to what the customer is asking for. In such cases it’s OK to pass the complaint on.

However, it’s not OK to pass it on just to give yourself an easier life! (People do!)

If we do pass it on though it’s important to do so in the right way:

• Identify the right person to pass it on to. You do not want the customer to be passed on again!
• Get all the information about it – taking the above process to Step 3 perhaps.
• Keep the customer informed. Tell them what you’re doing and why it’ll be best for them. Don’t leave them on hold indefinitely!
• Brief the person you’re passing the complaint to. Tell them the facts so far, plus any offers or promises you made or tried to get accepted. The idea is to avoid the new person going over all the same stuff again with the customer!
• Follow up afterwards with your colleague and agree what your future role will be in relation to this complaint and this customer.

Complaints are Good!

Finally, complaints are good. That’s the attitude we need to be able to handle successfully. And they really are good. They:

• Tell us where we could be doing better
• Help reduce future complaints
• Identify new opportunities
• Help to lose fewer customers
• Help measure the effectiveness or our organisation.

In line with the theme of these lessons, the way we treat our customers when they complain, whether internal or external, can make all the difference. Customers will often stay with us, even when something can’t be fixed for them, just because they feel we’ve gone the extra mile in trying to sort it for them.

Congratulations, this concludes your Online Course – Winning with Customers!

Would you like to stand out in your industry? We recommend the following courses in addition to the one you have just completed:

• Tour Guiding Online – fine tune your Tour Guiding
• Selling Skills Online – to perfect your sales ability
• Cruise Training Online – if you want to specialize in your guiding for cruise passengers
• Cabin Crew Online – specific to people who want to become a Flight Attendant
• Ground Crew Online – for those who want to work at the airport or for an airline
• Careers in Tourism and Travel – to broaden your knowledge of the travel and tourism industries

Chapter 8

Handling Complaints 

Even if we and our colleagues do everything right, our customers can still complain! Maybe because their expectations are unreasonably high! So we still have to be able to handle complaints in an effective and professional manner.

However we’re almost certainly not perfect! obviously if our company is at fault, it’s crucial that we handle the complaint well. Research has shown that if a customer does complain (unlike the 96% of dissatisfied customers who don’t!), it’s a great opportunity!

What? An opportunity?

Yes, complaints are an opportunity because:

• They tell us about things that our customers are unhappy with. We may not always be aware of these. Plus, the number of people who complain about a thing tells us how important it is to fix it.
• If a complaint is handled well, we may also be able to keep that customer for the future. In fact some Air New Zealand research a few years back showed that a customer can become even more loyal, provided their complaint was well handled. When dealing with complaints, just like anything else, we need to exceed the customer’s expectations!

Feelings

How do you feel when you’re about to make a complaint about something?

I bet your list included some of these:

•  Angry
• Confused
• I’m in the right
• Frustrated
• Annoyed
• Wastes my time
• Won’t achieve anything
• Apprehensive
• Nervous .. etc!

At the very least, customers are going to have to spend time pursuing their complaint – time they could be spending on something else.

So complaining customers can have a range of feelings, and if we’re dealing with them we need to watch out for these early on. It’s also quite common for people to work themselves up before complaining – perhaps because they expect it to be a challenging and unpleasant experience. The result of this is that they may seem much more emotional than the situation would appear to warrant!

Our Attitude

Then there’s our own feelings and attitudes.

Do you enjoy handling complaints? If you don’t, might that show? If they’re angry towards you, might you feel angry back? Might you feel resentful that you’re having to deal with the problem, when perhaps it wasn’t you that caused it in the first place?

How then might the complaining customer react to our feelings? If we have any kind of negative feelings about the complaint, or the complainer, they’ll show, and almost certainly make the situation worse!

As we saw in chapter 6 however, we can manage and modify our attitudes as long as we’re aware of them. Never is this more important than when we’re handling a complaint. We must find a way of adopting a positive attitude.

Options for this could include:

• It’s an opportunity – to find out what went wrong and put it right for the future
• It’s an opportunity – to satisfy an unhappy customer and keep them dealing with us
• It’s a professional challenge – an opportunity to test my customer service skills and get a good result
• It’s a professional challenge – to solve a problem with a good solution.

And if the customer is aggressive or angry towards you, the key is to be assertive. Stay calm and in control, and don’t them get to you!

Complaints Process

When dealing with a complaint face-to-face or on the phone, there are some basic steps to go through.

1.     Listen: Encourage the customer to explain their problem and concerns. Listen actively and give feedback to show that you understand. If they’re     ‘worked up’, let them go on until they calm down.

2.     Empathise: Accept and acknowledge their feelings. Show you’re genuinely concerned and want to resolve their problem. Some people worry that this might seem like agreeing too early that we’re at fault (before we’ve established what happened). Empathising is not the same as admitting blame.

3.    Clarify: Ask questions to get more information about the problem and the customers concerns. Make sure you have a full picture of what happened and why it’s an issue for the customer.

4.   Negotiate: Offer a solution; ask what they would like. Discuss options, be flexible and aim for a win:win. Stay assertive, respecting their requests, but not giving in if they’re unrealistic. Confirm agreements by summarising, and maybe in writing also.

5.   Action: The worst result would be to agree a solution and then not implement it! You’d definitely lose the customer then. So take action. If others in your company need to be involved, make sure the solution is OK with them!

6.   Follow up: If you handled the complaint right through, you should take responsibility for any promises made. You have to chase up colleagues if they needed to do something for you or the customer.

You should also get back to the customer afterwards to check that the solution worked for them. This confirms completion; confirms your continued interest in the customer; and confirms the customer’s satisfaction.

Referring Complaints to Others

Sometimes once we start handling a complaint we realise that we’re not the best person to deal with it. Perhaps we don’t have the expertise (a technical issue with another department for instance), or we don’t have the authority to agree to what the customer is asking for. In such cases it’s OK to pass the complaint on.

However, it’s not OK to pass it on just to give yourself an easier life! (People do!)

If we do pass it on though it’s important to do so in the right way:

• Identify the right person to pass it on to. You do not want the customer to be passed on again!
• Get all the information about it – taking the above process to Step 3 perhaps.
• Keep the customer informed. Tell them what you’re doing and why it’ll be best for them. Don’t leave them on hold indefinitely!
• Brief the person you’re passing the complaint to. Tell them the facts so far, plus any offers or promises you made or tried to get accepted. The idea is to avoid the new person going over all the same stuff again with the customer!
• Follow up afterwards with your colleague and agree what your future role will be in relation to this complaint and this customer.

Complaints are Good!

Finally, complaints are good. That’s the attitude we need to be able to handle successfully. And they really are good. They:

• Tell us where we could be doing better
• Help reduce future complaints
• Identify new opportunities
• Help to lose fewer customers
• Help measure the effectiveness or our organisation.

In line with the theme of these lessons, the way we treat our customers when they complain, whether internal or external, can make all the difference. Customers will often stay with us, even when something can’t be fixed for them, just because they feel we’ve gone the extra mile in trying to sort it for them.

Congratulations, this concludes your Online Course – Winning with Customers!

Would you like to stand out in your industry? We recommend the following courses in addition to the one you have just completed:

• Tour Guiding Online – fine tune your Tour Guiding
• Selling Skills Online – to perfect your sales ability
• Cruise Training Online – if you want to specialize in your guiding for cruise passengers
• Cabin Crew Online – specific to people who want to become a Flight Attendant
• Ground Crew Online – for those who want to work at the airport or for an airline
• Careers in Tourism and Travel – to broaden your knowledge of the travel and tourism industries

Chapter 7

Giving Customers Enough Time 

Our external and internal customers will only consider us ‘excellent’ if we give them enough time. That means that we have to manage our workload so that we can fit in all the things that each of our customers, in their different ways, really value. We still need to be efficient, (and some of our customers will value that in itself), but not to the point where customers feel we’re rushing them, or not giving them the full attention, information, or services that they need.

When we looked at the things people do that make us feel bad when we’re the customer, we asked ‘why do they do it?’ Surely they know when they’re doing or saying things that irritate us?

Well it’s often time or work load pressures that cause their customer service and communications to slip! So when it’s us, we need to guard against doing the same thing!

How do we do it? We’re all busy and often stretched. So how can we avoid this time trap?

Time as a Resource

We sometimes feel we don’t have enough time; or if we’re lucky we might feel we have plenty of time. Wrong! We all have the same amount of time! We can’t change the amount available. We can only change ourselves and what we choose to do in that available time.

So the first thing to look at is our attitude. We need to accept that only we ourselves can manage our time. Not our boss; not the company; us. Our time is ours. We must make use of it in the best possible way. That’s what our employer wants us to do, isn’t it? – use it in the way that’s best for the company?

Yet people often feel that their time is not their own. The phone rings; the boss asks for something; or maybe the fire alarm goes off. So what they wanted to be doing gets interrupted. They feel that they have to respond. The truth is that they don’t have to respond! They could not answer the phone; tell the boss ‘no’; or even not head straight for the fire exit. These might all be bad choices – but they are choices! We always have choices, yet we tend to forget that. The result then is that we just respond without thinking and allow our time to be hi-jacked.

If we exercise choice, we might ask someone else to get the phone; or ask the boss if it would be OK in 10 minutes; though we would probably still head straight for the fire exit!

Here’s a key question:

“Am I making the best use of my time right now?”

You should, at any time of any day, or night, be able to answer this question – “YES”.

Could you always answer it yes? It doesn’t mean being busy all the time – relaxing might be the ‘best use of your time right now’, because that’s important. But it does mean that you’d be in control of your life!

Scheduling

The key then is to prioritise and schedule. We need to decide what to do and when.

Some of the things we have to do are things we know about in advance – ‘Plannable’ tasks. The meeting at 2.00 pm; the information a customer needs by 5.00. We can make a list of these – a ‘to do’ list – or put them in our diary, or Outlook. In other words we can plan when to do them.

Other things crop up unexpectedly – ‘Reactive’ tasks, – such as an urgent query from a customer – and some of these we will choose to respond to right away. However, if we fill our schedule with ‘Plannable’ things, there won’t be enough time left for these Reactive tasks. The only options would be to:

• Not respond to the unexpected requests – Reactive tasks
• Ditch or defer some of the Plannable tasks so we can respond
• Try to do everything, but rush it; work late; or take work home!

The right thing to do is to allow some time each day – a Reactive Buffer – for the Reactive tasks that we know are likely to come up. But how much? How can we possibly know what unexpected things are going to occur? And when will they occur? We don’t know!

We need an estimate of the proportion of each day that tends to be taken up with Reactive tasks. A time log (see below) would help us with that. If on a particular day we get less plannable work than the estimate, then we can add another plannable task into our schedule. If we get more, then we may have to defer a plannable task, but overall it’ll work out.

Time Log

A simple thing we should do is keep a time log for a day or so. Carry a clip board, (insert reference to using iPhone/Blackberry) or set up a table on your computer, and record everything you do. Decide what categories of your activity you want to know about – time with customers; paper work; reactive vs plannable; etc. Record everything down to about five minute chunks, including breaks. At the end you can go through the entries and work out the percentages of your day that were spent in each category.

With your time log done you’ll be able to plan how to schedule and use your time more effectively in future. Then down the track you can do another time log to see if you’ve been successful.

Prioritising

Prioritising is the process of deciding which tasks to do ‘prior’, or before, others. In other words it’s about sequencing our tasks so we can put them into our schedule in the best order to do them. We can do this with all our plannable tasks.

Reactive tasks that we choose to respond to immediately, we obviously tackle immediately! Those that we qualify and establish a timeframe for, become plannable.

But we need a basis for prioritising. This involves assessing how important, and how urgent, each task is compared to all the others on our list. And how do we know that?

Urgency

There maybe deadlines that our customer (external or internal) has set for the task which will tell us how urgent it is. The closer the deadline, the more urgent it is. Or we may choose its urgency ourselves by deciding that we want to do it now, today, tomorrow, or whatever.

Importance

This is less clear, and in the end we judge a task’s importance relative to the others on our list. So even if it’s a request from our boss, and she says it’s very important, we are still the only ones who can compare that importance with our other tasks.

A good way to tell a task’s importance is to ask yourself “What would happen if I didn’t do it?” If the answer’s “a disaster”, then it’s important! Or more positively, “If I do it, how much impact will it have on my success?”

But don’t get importance and urgency confused! They’re not the same thing! An activity can be urgent but not important – for example someone phones you to say it’s Jacky’s birthday morning tea and there’s cake now, but you’d better be quick!

And some really important tasks can appear on your to do list way before they become urgent. Like finishing these chapters! Completing it could have a big impact on your success, but you probably don’t have a deadline for it!

The Prioritising Matrix

Fortunately however, we don’t need to list every task in order of their importance! It is sufficient to decide on just two categories. Is it Important, or Less Important?

The classic approach to prioritising also divides the urgency – into Urgent and Less Urgent. We therefore have four groups of tasks, as in this diagram:

Clearly the A’s – Important and Urgent – are top priorities. These should be scheduled first. Because they’re important, they have to be done. Because they’re urgent they have to be done soon – now, later today, or whatever.

The D’s are the lowest priorities. They’re less important, so not that critical if they don’t get done at all! And they’re less urgent, so if you do choose to do them, it doesn’t need to be soon. Don’t schedule these until you’ve dealt with all the others.

The B’s and C’s are a bit more tricky! If we don’t break off what we’re doing, and go for the cake, we won’t get any! So we tend to make that choice, even if we’re working on a B. After all, the B may be important but it’s not urgent, so we’ll have plenty of time to finish it later!

It’s a very human and understandable choice. And OK if it’s a one-off. But the problem is that most of us make that choice ‘on auto-pilot’, and it’s not a one-off! We tend to make similar choices over and over! If we opt for the C’s above the B’s every time, what happens to the B’s? That’s right, they move forward in time until they’re URGENT! So we end up with more important and urgent A’s!

And what’s your life like if you have more and more A’s – work that’s important and urgent?! It gets stressful! You end up working late. And the chances are that some of those A’s won’t get done on time; or they’ll get done badly because they’ve been rushed; or they won’t get done at all! Disaster!!

So once the A’s are scheduled into your plan, schedule in the B’s. Only then should you fit in the C’s – and either do them now if they’re immediate requests, or slot them in soon, where your schedule allows for it (use your Reactive Buffer). Remember, it’s not a disaster if a less important task doesn’t get done! (And remember also that many ‘urgent’ requests can become Plannable and a bit less urgent if we qualify them!)

So another golden rule is …….

Always do the important tasks ahead of time

Six Key Steps to Better Time Management

1. Carry out a time log from time to time to check where your time goes. How much is reactive versus plannable? How much time are you putting into making your service to customers excellent?

2. Create a buffer in your schedule each day to accommodate the likely amount of reactive work

3.  Keep a ‘to-do’ list of plannable work, prioritise each item A, B, or C, and schedule it into your diary or Outlook.

4. Always schedule and do the B’s – the important plannable stuff – ahead of time, before it becomes important and urgent!

5. Always qualify incoming reactive tasks. Ask the person, does it really have to be done immediately? If they can give you a timeframe, even if it’s just 10 minutes, it turns the reactive task into a plannable one.

6.  Remember you always have a choice! Ask yourself regularly: “Am I making the best use of my time right now?”

Chapter 7

Giving Customers Enough Time 

Our external and internal customers will only consider us ‘excellent’ if we give them enough time. That means that we have to manage our workload so that we can fit in all the things that each of our customers, in their different ways, really value. We still need to be efficient, (and some of our customers will value that in itself), but not to the point where customers feel we’re rushing them, or not giving them the full attention, information, or services that they need.

When we looked at the things people do that make us feel bad when we’re the customer, we asked ‘why do they do it?’ Surely they know when they’re doing or saying things that irritate us?

Well it’s often time or work load pressures that cause their customer service and communications to slip! So when it’s us, we need to guard against doing the same thing!

How do we do it? We’re all busy and often stretched. So how can we avoid this time trap?

Time as a Resource

We sometimes feel we don’t have enough time; or if we’re lucky we might feel we have plenty of time. Wrong! We all have the same amount of time! We can’t change the amount available. We can only change ourselves and what we choose to do in that available time.

So the first thing to look at is our attitude. We need to accept that only we ourselves can manage our time. Not our boss; not the company; us. Our time is ours. We must make use of it in the best possible way. That’s what our employer wants us to do, isn’t it? – use it in the way that’s best for the company?

Yet people often feel that their time is not their own. The phone rings; the boss asks for something; or maybe the fire alarm goes off. So what they wanted to be doing gets interrupted. They feel that they have to respond. The truth is that they don’t have to respond! They could not answer the phone; tell the boss ‘no’; or even not head straight for the fire exit. These might all be bad choices – but they are choices! We always have choices, yet we tend to forget that. The result then is that we just respond without thinking and allow our time to be hi-jacked.

If we exercise choice, we might ask someone else to get the phone; or ask the boss if it would be OK in 10 minutes; though we would probably still head straight for the fire exit!

Here’s a key question:

“Am I making the best use of my time right now?”

You should, at any time of any day, or night, be able to answer this question – “YES”.

Could you always answer it yes? It doesn’t mean being busy all the time – relaxing might be the ‘best use of your time right now’, because that’s important. But it does mean that you’d be in control of your life!

Scheduling

The key then is to prioritise and schedule. We need to decide what to do and when.

Some of the things we have to do are things we know about in advance – ‘Plannable’ tasks. The meeting at 2.00 pm; the information a customer needs by 5.00. We can make a list of these – a ‘to do’ list – or put them in our diary, or Outlook. In other words we can plan when to do them.

Other things crop up unexpectedly – ‘Reactive’ tasks, – such as an urgent query from a customer – and some of these we will choose to respond to right away. However, if we fill our schedule with ‘Plannable’ things, there won’t be enough time left for these Reactive tasks. The only options would be to:

• Not respond to the unexpected requests – Reactive tasks
• Ditch or defer some of the Plannable tasks so we can respond
• Try to do everything, but rush it; work late; or take work home!

The right thing to do is to allow some time each day – a Reactive Buffer – for the Reactive tasks that we know are likely to come up. But how much? How can we possibly know what unexpected things are going to occur? And when will they occur? We don’t know!

We need an estimate of the proportion of each day that tends to be taken up with Reactive tasks. A time log (see below) would help us with that. If on a particular day we get less plannable work than the estimate, then we can add another plannable task into our schedule. If we get more, then we may have to defer a plannable task, but overall it’ll work out.

Time Log

A simple thing we should do is keep a time log for a day or so. Carry a clip board, (insert reference to using iPhone/Blackberry) or set up a table on your computer, and record everything you do. Decide what categories of your activity you want to know about – time with customers; paper work; reactive vs plannable; etc. Record everything down to about five minute chunks, including breaks. At the end you can go through the entries and work out the percentages of your day that were spent in each category.

With your time log done you’ll be able to plan how to schedule and use your time more effectively in future. Then down the track you can do another time log to see if you’ve been successful.

Prioritising

Prioritising is the process of deciding which tasks to do ‘prior’, or before, others. In other words it’s about sequencing our tasks so we can put them into our schedule in the best order to do them. We can do this with all our plannable tasks.

Reactive tasks that we choose to respond to immediately, we obviously tackle immediately! Those that we qualify and establish a timeframe for, become plannable.

But we need a basis for prioritising. This involves assessing how important, and how urgent, each task is compared to all the others on our list. And how do we know that?

Urgency

There maybe deadlines that our customer (external or internal) has set for the task which will tell us how urgent it is. The closer the deadline, the more urgent it is. Or we may choose its urgency ourselves by deciding that we want to do it now, today, tomorrow, or whatever.

Importance

This is less clear, and in the end we judge a task’s importance relative to the others on our list. So even if it’s a request from our boss, and she says it’s very important, we are still the only ones who can compare that importance with our other tasks.

A good way to tell a task’s importance is to ask yourself “What would happen if I didn’t do it?” If the answer’s “a disaster”, then it’s important! Or more positively, “If I do it, how much impact will it have on my success?”

But don’t get importance and urgency confused! They’re not the same thing! An activity can be urgent but not important – for example someone phones you to say it’s Jacky’s birthday morning tea and there’s cake now, but you’d better be quick!

And some really important tasks can appear on your to do list way before they become urgent. Like finishing these chapters! Completing it could have a big impact on your success, but you probably don’t have a deadline for it!

The Prioritising Matrix

Fortunately however, we don’t need to list every task in order of their importance! It is sufficient to decide on just two categories. Is it Important, or Less Important?

The classic approach to prioritising also divides the urgency – into Urgent and Less Urgent. We therefore have four groups of tasks, as in this diagram:

Clearly the A’s – Important and Urgent – are top priorities. These should be scheduled first. Because they’re important, they have to be done. Because they’re urgent they have to be done soon – now, later today, or whatever.

The D’s are the lowest priorities. They’re less important, so not that critical if they don’t get done at all! And they’re less urgent, so if you do choose to do them, it doesn’t need to be soon. Don’t schedule these until you’ve dealt with all the others.

The B’s and C’s are a bit more tricky! If we don’t break off what we’re doing, and go for the cake, we won’t get any! So we tend to make that choice, even if we’re working on a B. After all, the B may be important but it’s not urgent, so we’ll have plenty of time to finish it later!

It’s a very human and understandable choice. And OK if it’s a one-off. But the problem is that most of us make that choice ‘on auto-pilot’, and it’s not a one-off! We tend to make similar choices over and over! If we opt for the C’s above the B’s every time, what happens to the B’s? That’s right, they move forward in time until they’re URGENT! So we end up with more important and urgent A’s!

And what’s your life like if you have more and more A’s – work that’s important and urgent?! It gets stressful! You end up working late. And the chances are that some of those A’s won’t get done on time; or they’ll get done badly because they’ve been rushed; or they won’t get done at all! Disaster!!

So once the A’s are scheduled into your plan, schedule in the B’s. Only then should you fit in the C’s – and either do them now if they’re immediate requests, or slot them in soon, where your schedule allows for it (use your Reactive Buffer). Remember, it’s not a disaster if a less important task doesn’t get done! (And remember also that many ‘urgent’ requests can become Plannable and a bit less urgent if we qualify them!)

So another golden rule is …….

Always do the important tasks ahead of time

Six Key Steps to Better Time Management

1. Carry out a time log from time to time to check where your time goes. How much is reactive versus plannable? How much time are you putting into making your service to customers excellent?

2. Create a buffer in your schedule each day to accommodate the likely amount of reactive work

3.  Keep a ‘to-do’ list of plannable work, prioritise each item A, B, or C, and schedule it into your diary or Outlook.

4. Always schedule and do the B’s – the important plannable stuff – ahead of time, before it becomes important and urgent!

5. Always qualify incoming reactive tasks. Ask the person, does it really have to be done immediately? If they can give you a timeframe, even if it’s just 10 minutes, it turns the reactive task into a plannable one.

6.  Remember you always have a choice! Ask yourself regularly: “Am I making the best use of my time right now?”

Chapter Six

Customer Service Attitudes 

“It’s their attitude! They just don’t seem to care!”

How often do we feel, when we’re an unhappy customer, that the other person, or even their whole company, has the wrong attitude?

On the other hand, if we get treated really well, we might recognise that they have a great attitude.

But what do we mean? What is an attitude?

Behaviour

What we observe when we interact with someone else is their behaviour. We can see it and hear it:

• What they say and how they say it – voice and body language; and
• What they do, and how they do it – body language again.

What we cannot observe is the stuff inside – the thoughts and feelings that make up their attitudes. However we sometimes think we can, because we observe the behaviour, and then draw conclusions about their attitude.

Usually we get it more or less right, because people are basically similar, and we know that our own thoughts and feelings can cause us to behave in a similar way. If we know the person, we also know how they’ve behaved in the past.

However sometimes we may be inaccurate in our conclusions. In customer service we must be careful not to jump to conclusions about our customers’ attitude. They may be similar people to us, but they’re not the same!

Attitudes

This stuff inside is attitude. It’s a mixture of regular and habitual thoughts, feelings, values and beliefs that we have acquired over our lifetime. These can be about anything we do, or encounter, and are broadly either positive or negative. They also determine how we look at things – optimistic or pessimistic; looking forward to it or dreading it; etc.

Our attitudes cause us to approach and react to things the way that we do.

Most of the time we’re on auto-pilot, and our behaviour flows automatically from our attitudes. Researchers reckon we’re on autopilot 95% of the time!

The other 5% we think about what we’re doing and consciously control it. We can choose to follow the path that fits with our attitudes, (our ‘usual’ way of doing things), or it is possible for us to override that and do something different.

Attitude and Behaviour Change

The links between attitude and behaviour are really important to excellence in customer service!

Firstly we need to recognise that when we’re on auto-pilot our attitudes may cause us to behave towards a customer in a less than excellent way! For example:

• We may feel irritated by them for some reason, and so our communication, particularly our voice and expression may start to show impatience and frustration. They pick that up and start to feel bad about us.
• We may feel pressed for time and start showing ‘hurry up’ signals, which they resent!
• We may lack confidence in our own ability to provide what they need (technical information perhaps). Our voice and body language then starts to reflect this and our customer loses confidence in us.

Secondly, we need to be able to change our attitudes, and thus behaviour, when we do recognise it’s not the best for the situation. This is quite possible, but we do have to consciously monitor our own behaviour and be ready to change. And because it may be a shift away from our ‘usual’ way of doing things, it may take some effort!

Developing a Positive Attitude 

Delivering excellent customer service starts therefore with your attitude! You have to want to be a person who gives of their best, rather than just doing what someone told you to do! And attitudes come from inside you, they influence everything you say and do, so fixing your attitude is often the first and most important action in changing your life/career towards success.

Attitude is so important to employers that they will often employ somebody based on their positive attitude rather than their level of education or previous experience.  This is because a positive attitude, unlike skills and knowledge, is so hard to teach!

We aren’t always conscious that we show our attitudes to others.  Whether meeting a prospective customer for the first time, handling a customer complaint, or selling a product, it is always good to remember that through your behaviour, your attitude is showing all the time!

Attitude towards customers and customer service

Behaviour produced by your attitudes therefore is the way you communicate your mood or disposition to others.  When you are optimistic and anticipate successful encounters with others, you transmit a positive attitude, and they usually respond favourably. When you are pessimistic, and expect the worst, your attitude is often negative and people may tend to avoid you. Is your cup ‘half full’ or ‘half empty’? Recruiters are looking for ‘half full’ people! People who wish others ‘have a nice day’, and mean it!

To be an effective quality service provider, you must have a positive attitude.  Nothing else has higher priority.  A positive attitude is the way you look at things, and it projects in everything you say and do.  It reflects in your body language and voice tone, as well as in the words you choose.

Remember also that people who feel good about themselves produce good results, and feeling good is a key ingredient in producing a positive attitude.

Assertiveness

Many of our situations when dealing with customers require assertiveness. This is an alternative to being aggressive, submissive, or avoiding. If we let our emotions and attitudes kick in unchecked, we might say something offensive, roll over and give in to an unreasonable demand, or just quit – by asking someone else to handle it!

Assertiveness is an attitude we can adopt which leads to calm, steady, rational, controlled, but above all respectful behaviour – respectful of both ourselves (self-respect) and the other person. It can be tough, particularly when the other party is attacking us. With complaints for example, as we shall see in chapter 8 below, people can get quite worked up, and really have a go at us. But it’s vital to keep our cool! In other words, we need to stay assertive.

The way to do this is to keep our emotions in check, and consciously use calm, controlled communication, especially voice tone and body language. It’s a bit of a tight-rope walk, a balancing act. We should respect the customer and be fair to them, and respect ourselves, and the rights of our company to be treated fairly by them. So ask questions and acknowledge the points the person makes. But ensure that you make the points that you need to also. And avoid talking blame! In assertive mode you should be focused on seeking solutions – ones that are acceptable to both parties.

Check out the link  with more on assertiveness, including online tests to asses your assertiveness levels and how to develop assertiveness in your dealings with others http://www.mtstcil.org/skills/assert-intro.html

Chapter Six

Customer Service Attitudes 

“It’s their attitude! They just don’t seem to care!”

How often do we feel, when we’re an unhappy customer, that the other person, or even their whole company, has the wrong attitude?

On the other hand, if we get treated really well, we might recognise that they have a great attitude.

But what do we mean? What is an attitude?

Behaviour

What we observe when we interact with someone else is their behaviour. We can see it and hear it:

• What they say and how they say it – voice and body language; and
• What they do, and how they do it – body language again.

What we cannot observe is the stuff inside – the thoughts and feelings that make up their attitudes. However we sometimes think we can, because we observe the behaviour, and then draw conclusions about their attitude.

Usually we get it more or less right, because people are basically similar, and we know that our own thoughts and feelings can cause us to behave in a similar way. If we know the person, we also know how they’ve behaved in the past.

However sometimes we may be inaccurate in our conclusions. In customer service we must be careful not to jump to conclusions about our customers’ attitude. They may be similar people to us, but they’re not the same!

Attitudes

This stuff inside is attitude. It’s a mixture of regular and habitual thoughts, feelings, values and beliefs that we have acquired over our lifetime. These can be about anything we do, or encounter, and are broadly either positive or negative. They also determine how we look at things – optimistic or pessimistic; looking forward to it or dreading it; etc.

Our attitudes cause us to approach and react to things the way that we do.

Most of the time we’re on auto-pilot, and our behaviour flows automatically from our attitudes. Researchers reckon we’re on autopilot 95% of the time!

The other 5% we think about what we’re doing and consciously control it. We can choose to follow the path that fits with our attitudes, (our ‘usual’ way of doing things), or it is possible for us to override that and do something different.

Attitude and Behaviour Change

The links between attitude and behaviour are really important to excellence in customer service!

Firstly we need to recognise that when we’re on auto-pilot our attitudes may cause us to behave towards a customer in a less than excellent way! For example:

• We may feel irritated by them for some reason, and so our communication, particularly our voice and expression may start to show impatience and frustration. They pick that up and start to feel bad about us.
• We may feel pressed for time and start showing ‘hurry up’ signals, which they resent!
• We may lack confidence in our own ability to provide what they need (technical information perhaps). Our voice and body language then starts to reflect this and our customer loses confidence in us.

Secondly, we need to be able to change our attitudes, and thus behaviour, when we do recognise it’s not the best for the situation. This is quite possible, but we do have to consciously monitor our own behaviour and be ready to change. And because it may be a shift away from our ‘usual’ way of doing things, it may take some effort!

Developing a Positive Attitude 

Delivering excellent customer service starts therefore with your attitude! You have to want to be a person who gives of their best, rather than just doing what someone told you to do! And attitudes come from inside you, they influence everything you say and do, so fixing your attitude is often the first and most important action in changing your life/career towards success.

Attitude is so important to employers that they will often employ somebody based on their positive attitude rather than their level of education or previous experience.  This is because a positive attitude, unlike skills and knowledge, is so hard to teach!

We aren’t always conscious that we show our attitudes to others.  Whether meeting a prospective customer for the first time, handling a customer complaint, or selling a product, it is always good to remember that through your behaviour, your attitude is showing all the time!

Attitude towards customers and customer service

Behaviour produced by your attitudes therefore is the way you communicate your mood or disposition to others.  When you are optimistic and anticipate successful encounters with others, you transmit a positive attitude, and they usually respond favourably. When you are pessimistic, and expect the worst, your attitude is often negative and people may tend to avoid you. Is your cup ‘half full’ or ‘half empty’? Recruiters are looking for ‘half full’ people! People who wish others ‘have a nice day’, and mean it!

To be an effective quality service provider, you must have a positive attitude.  Nothing else has higher priority.  A positive attitude is the way you look at things, and it projects in everything you say and do.  It reflects in your body language and voice tone, as well as in the words you choose.

Remember also that people who feel good about themselves produce good results, and feeling good is a key ingredient in producing a positive attitude.

Assertiveness

Many of our situations when dealing with customers require assertiveness. This is an alternative to being aggressive, submissive, or avoiding. If we let our emotions and attitudes kick in unchecked, we might say something offensive, roll over and give in to an unreasonable demand, or just quit – by asking someone else to handle it!

Assertiveness is an attitude we can adopt which leads to calm, steady, rational, controlled, but above all respectful behaviour – respectful of both ourselves (self-respect) and the other person. It can be tough, particularly when the other party is attacking us. With complaints for example, as we shall see in chapter 8 below, people can get quite worked up, and really have a go at us. But it’s vital to keep our cool! In other words, we need to stay assertive.

The way to do this is to keep our emotions in check, and consciously use calm, controlled communication, especially voice tone and body language. It’s a bit of a tight-rope walk, a balancing act. We should respect the customer and be fair to them, and respect ourselves, and the rights of our company to be treated fairly by them. So ask questions and acknowledge the points the person makes. But ensure that you make the points that you need to also. And avoid talking blame! In assertive mode you should be focused on seeking solutions – ones that are acceptable to both parties.

Check out the link  with more on assertiveness, including online tests to asses your assertiveness levels and how to develop assertiveness in your dealings with others http://www.mtstcil.org/skills/assert-intro.html

Chapter five 

Communication with customers Part 2 

Body language

‘Words may lie but the body seldom does!’

 To communicate effectively with customers we need to understand the language our body speaks so that we can:

• use it effectively to help others understand what we are saying
• recognise it in others, so that we can more accurately interpret what they are telling us.

All information reaching our brains can only enter via the five senses – sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.  Of those senses, the eyes are the most valuable, transmitting approximately 80% of the information that reaches our brains. About 14% goes in through our ears and the other senses handle the remaining 6%.

The communication ‘cake’ above shows that 55% of the meaning in communication is visual. The problem is that we put most of our effort into organising and delivering the words we use. Our ‘body-talk’ is left to fend for itself, and as a result tends to come out ‘unedited’, communicating what we really feel, which may or may not be helpful!

Here are the main elements of body language (including facial expression) that we need to be aware of:

Posture

Posture concerns the overall bearing of the body. It comprises the angle of the head, shoulders, hips and feet, direction and angle of inclination and position of arms and legs.

In general, people who feel comfortable with a situation and with themselves, raise their head and look openly at you. They may lean back slightly indicating that they are relaxed or lean forward slightly to indicate attentiveness.

People who are on the attack or who feel aggressive generally adopt a ‘full-frontal’  stance with head, shoulders, hips and feet all pointing at you. They will probably raise themselves up and lean forward in a dominating manner.  Those who are feeling defensive will probably ‘close-up’ physically, making themselves smaller; hands and arms may protect their mouth or abdomen; legs may be crossed tightly.

People feeling superior and arrogant may cross their legs openly (ankle of one leg resting on the knee of the other) and lean back with their hands clasped at the back of their head.

 Arms

People use their arms in a variety of ways. Some gesticulate frequently and others hardly at all. Points worth noting are:

• arms can be used to signify self-protection and defensiveness when they are folded tightly across the abdomen; or they can be held down, with hands clasped casually together, to signify relaxation.
• hands can be used to hide behind, covering part of the face; they can be used to demonstrate openness and honesty by showing open palms; they can be used to cut the air aggressively to emphasize points.
• fingers can be used to fidget, as in drumming the table to indicate impatience or boredom; they can be used to jab the air pointing to you; they can be used to wag at someone like a schoolteacher talking to a naughty pupil; they can be wagged threateningly like a stick.

Handshakes 

Shaking hands is a relic of the caveman era – whenever cavemen met they would hold their arms in the air with their palms exposed to show that no weapons were being held or concealed.  This gesture became modified over the centuries and is now a form of ritual greeting, in most English-speaking countries.

Some types of handshake! 

• The ‘Dead Fish’.

When the hand is cold or clammy; soft and placid, like a dead fish, people relate it to a weak character.

• The ‘Knuckle Grinder’.

When people grip your hand so firmly, that you think it will truly break! This handshake is the trademark of the aggressive ‘tough guy’ type.

• The ‘Stiff-Arm Thrust’.

Again used by ‘aggressive’ types, its main purpose is to keep you at a distance, and out of their intimate zone.  It is also used by people who originate from country areas who feel the need to protect their personal territory.

• The ‘Finger-Tip Grab’.

This feels a bit like the ‘stiff-arm thrust’ that has missed its mark.  It is also designed to keep the receiver at a distance. The initiator may appear to have a keen and enthusiastic attitude towards the receiver, however they often lack confidence.

• The ‘Double-hander’.

Very popular with politicians! The intention is to show sincerity, trust or depth of feeling towards the receiver.  They are really only suitable for close family members, or when the initiator wishes to convey empathy. If these circumstances are not present – the receiver may become suspicious and be ‘put-off’!

Legs

Like arm gestures, the gestures of our legs can also tell us a lot about people’s feelings.

Crossed legs are often a signal that a negative or defensive attitude may exist. Where arm-crossing was originally used to defend the heart and upper-body region, leg-crossing may be an attempt to shield the genital area.  Crossed legs are less negative than crossed arms. However, care should be taken when interpreting this gesture with women. Many women have been taught that it is the ‘ladylike’ way to sit!  It is unfortunate that this gesture can make them appear defensive.

The European Leg-Cross Position is where one leg neatly crossed over the other, is a normal position used by European cultures, and may be used to show a nervous, reserved or defensive attitude.  However, this gesture needs to be interpreted with others, and not in isolation or out of context.  E.g. People often like to sit like this during lectures, or if they are on uncomfortable chairs for long periods.  It is also a common gesture to see in cold weather.  However, when crossed legs are combined with crossed arms, the person may have withdrawn from the conversation.

The Leg-Lock Position may indicate that an argumentative or competitive attitude exists. It is a sitting position popular with American males – but not British males!  This gesture is considered most offensive in many cultures, where showing the sole of the shoe, or foot, is unacceptable in public.

The Ankle-Lock Position involves crossing, or folding, arms or legs may suggest that a negative or defensive attitude exists – and this is also the case with the crossing of ankles in the standing or sitting-up position.  Interviewers who observe this gesture may deduce that the candidate is ‘mentally biting her/his lip’ – indicating a holding back of a negative attitude, emotion, nervousness or fear.

Face

Human beings have more control over their facial muscles than any other animal on this planet!  As a result, the face is the most expressive part of our bodies.

The areas around the eyes and mouth are the most expressive. Raised eyebrows and an ‘O’ shaped mouth signify surprise, but raised eyebrows and an open smile indicate real pleasure; knotted eyebrows and a downturned mouth signify sadness, while knotted eyebrows and tightly pursed lips signify displeasure. There is hardly a single emotion that does not show in the face in such a way as to be instantly recognisable by someone else.

Eyes

Eye contact is very important to customer relationships.  If we avoid eye contact we can give the impression that we are shifty, lacking in confidence or disinterested. If eye contact is too intense, we might appear aggressive and make the client feel uncomfortable. If our eye contact is immediate and moderate (about 50-70% of the time) we give an entirely different impression.  Especially if accompanied by a pleasant facial expression.

We are effectively saying, ‘I am pleased to see you, I feel confident in myself. I am looking forward to our transaction!’.

Communication Channels

The communication process begins with the sender who has to make a decision about which channel to use. This could be a letter, e-mail, text, telephone, Skype, or by meeting the person or people face-to-face and speaking to them. Choice of channel is important, though circumstances will play a big part. It would take a lot of time and money to meet someone in London (if you’re in New Zealand) as opposed to sending them an email or phoning them!

However, the channel you choose for your message has a big impact on how it’s received!

E.g. If you wanted to end a personal relationship, would you send the person an email, a text, or a fax?  Would you speak to the person in front of other people in public? Or would it be better to speak personally to the individual in private?

It is well known that some folks will exchange multiple emails with a colleague in the next office rather than go through and speak to them! The subject may require discussion, and could probably be sorted in 30 seconds, but for whatever reason (laziness; or they don’t like each other!), the email channel gets used and wastes a lot of time!

Writing 

Writing can be great if you need to:

• Reach lots of people at once
• Provide a record for reference later
• Check and fine-tune your message before sending it – useful with tricky or complex messages
• Get a response, but you don’t need it immediately.
• Or maybe you deliberately want to keep a ‘distance’ from the other person. For example when a recruiting manager tells a candidate that they haven’t got the job!

However it’s not so good if the situation needs:

• Discussion in order to get full understanding, or to reach a decision.

And remember, from the communication cake we know that only 7% of the meaning of communication comes from words! So in writing, 93% – the voice and body language – is not available. This is why receivers tend to ‘read between the lines’ to try and flesh out the meaning. And sometimes they get it wrong, and imagine all sorts of interpretations that the sender never intended!

So be very careful with your choice of words, especially when the message has emotional or attitude content!

Phone

Phone is better than writing for discussion or emotional stuff – it has words (7%) plus voice (38%) – 45% of the cake. And it’s instantly two-way.

Face-to-face

There is no doubt that face-to-face communication is the most effective. 100% of the cake is in use, and sender and receiver can go round the cycle as many times as needed. But because the visual (55%) components of body language, including facial expression, are used both parties have the best chance to make themselves understood, particularly with emotional content.

Is it any wonder that companies all round the world spend squintillions of dollars on having sales people visit customers for face-to-face meetings! It’s because this is the most persuasive communication process, and figures prove that meetings get better sales results than phone calls, and phone calls better results than emails and websites. (The meetings are costly though, and results are of course never guaranteed. So wise companies use a mix of sales communication methods, and use meetings only where the chances of a sale are greatest).

Barriers To Communication

Despite all your best efforts at communicating effectively there may still be problems with getting your message across! These problems are described above as ‘interference’ in the Communications Model, and are collectively known as ‘Barriers to Communication’

Barriers to communication exist at both the sending and receiving stages of a communication. Let’s look at some of the most frequent barriers that exist in customer service situations

Sending

Lack of Clarity

Communicating ambiguously (double meanings), or using unclear meanings will result in confusion all round! If the sender chooses the wrong words, or uses words which you don’t understand, you’re going to struggle to keep listening

Articulation

When speaking, lack of clarity is often associated with poor articulation. We need to choose words that make sense to the receiver, and then pronounce them properly and clearly. Mispronunciation can cause ambiguity and mixed messages.

Mumbling…….bumbling……whispering…speaking to the floor….!! “It’s not what you say but the way that you say it…”  It doesn’t matter how interesting your message is, if you don’t project a clear voice, in the direction of the ‘audience’, how will they even hear what is said, let alone understand it?!

Non-Verbal Communication

As we saw in 5.4 and 5.5 above, our voice tone and body language convey a lot. For clear communication this needs to ‘match’ what our words are saying. When it does it reinforces our message. When it doesn’t it can be very confusing.

For example if your manager said in a quiet, dull voice, with a flat facial expression, “After lunch I’ve got something really exciting for you”, what would you believe? We’d probably be suspicious and confused!

Why does this happen? Well sometimes we let our underlying emotions prevail, even when we’re communicating on something different. So a contact centre consultant may just have finished a call with an angry and abusive caller who insulted them. On the next call their voice is shaky and weak, projecting a lack of confidence. The new caller then quickly becomes uncertain whether the consultant can help them, irrespective of the words the consultant uses!

Receiving

Not Listening Actively

Inattention (not listening!) accounts for much of the problem!  There is a huge difference between listening and hearing – hearing is a physiological process (“I have ears, I can hear”), whereas active listening requires real effort. Competition for attention from everything else going on around us can make it difficult to concentrate solely on listening to what’s being said, and most of us are pretty good at pretending to listen whilst thinking about/doing/looking at something else! (We’ve included more on listening skills in 5.7 below)

Personal issues

If we have a headache, or are feeling tired or unwell, we may find it difficult to listen effectively to others.  From time to time we even encounter someone that we really don’t like, and that too can create a personal barrier in our ability to listen effectively.

Lack of Interest

If you have no interest in what is being said, boredom sets in pretty quickly!

Premature Evaluation

… or jumping to conclusions! You may think you know what’s coming next…. and then not bother to listen to the rest of the message.

Culture

Often our non-verbals (what we don’t say) can cause barriers between people from different cultures. Some gestures have different meanings. For example, in some cultures it is polite to belch loudly after a meal to show appreciation, whereas in other cultures, this would be considered very rude. Pointing and spitting are acceptable in some cultures, and not in others. In the PacificIslands it is considered very rude to sit on a desk or table, whereas in other parts of the world it wouldn’t be an issue. 

Lack of eye contact is another area that can create barriers in communication.  Different cultures have different customs regarding eye contact.  Most western cultures regard eye contact positively during conversation and will think a person is rather suspicious or rude if they show reluctance in maintaining eye contact.  However in other cultures it can be considered extremely rude and arrogant if you continue eye contact while conversing.

Mistrust and prejudice often affect the communications between cultures. When people of different colour, culture or language interact with one another, there may be an undercurrent of antagonism or suspicion.

When people from different cultures interact – they may each follow different rules of communication – rules that are often unknown to others in the communication.  This can result in unintentional insult, inaccurate judgments, and a range of other miscommunications.  In the same way, communication techniques that work well to members of one culture may prove disturbing or offensive to members of another.

Emotions

Emotions often act as communication barriers. When we feel intensely, whether it be love, hate, fear, anger… we can’t communicate well!  Emotions block out the rational and logical side of our brain stopping us from evaluating and interpreting messages clearly.

Stereotyping

How often have you heard remarks like “Young people nowadays, they’re so selfish/loud/rude….etc..”…?  This is standard stereotypical behaviour – where a group of people (often an entire nation!) are judged by the behaviours of a few, and you may well end up treated in a particular way as a result of your age, nationality, appearance or other factors. We tend to approve or disapprove of other people based on our own views and experiences – and this can have a major impact on our interpersonal communication.

Physical Differences

A range of physical barriers exist that can be major causes of misunderstandings or communication breakdowns. Examples include:

• Noise from machinery or people
• Poor eyesight or hearing
• Tiredness
• Poor ventilation
• Stress
• Literacy problems (reading or writing)

Age Differences

An age difference is a major cause of communication difficulties within families. Interests and activities of different age groups don’t always mix! The social conventions of a particular generation may be different to another generation – and anyone who does not follow the ‘rules’ or conventions are considered ‘in the wrong’.  Parents have difficulty communicating with their children because a child cannot share the parental experience – while the parent may have forgotten what it’s like to be a child!

Organisational Differences

Within organisations there may be levels of ‘hierarchy’ where people work alongside each other at different levels of authority, for example, Managing Director, Manager, Supervisor, Clerk, Office Junior. Often – people at different levels may experience difficulties in having good effective communication – as their status and role in the organisation is so different.

Organisations may also create communication barriers themselves. The way that information is circulated, or how processes are managed can cause this.  Excessive paperwork, secrecy, unnecessary rules and regulations often create barriers and misunderstandings.

It’s clear from the above list that communication barriers can be set up all too easily – and that gaining rapport and achieving smooth relationships can be quite tricky!

 Listening Skills

“We were born with two ears and one mouth – we should use them in that proportion!”

As small children we learn speech from the adults around us and begin to develop this skill, increasing our vocabulary as we progress through life.  Listening, although the most important skill in effective communication, is not taught and we tend to think of it as a natural function…  Provided we have no physical hearing disability, we assume that because we can hear, we already know how to listen, so why do we need to learn to listen effectively?

If you are at all typical, studies have shown that listening takes up more of your waking hours than any other activity! A study of people of various backgrounds showed that 70% of their waking moments were spent in communication, and of that time:

Writing =  9%             Reading =  16%

Talking =  30%            Listening =  45%

Unfortunately – few people are really good listeners.  Researchers claim that 75% of oral communication is ignored, misunderstood or quickly forgotten!

Listening is NOT the same thing as hearing!  Hearing is a physiological process – a passive process that occurs without any attention or effort.  Listening is quite different – it involves creating meaning for ourselves out of what we hear, and unlike hearing is an ACTIVE process.  Listening doesn’t just happen – you must make it happen.  Listening takes energy and commitment.

Being able to listen efficiently and effectively will increase your ability to communicate with others.

Remember that the speaker and listener are partners in communication, both are equally important if full understanding is to take place, and both have 50% responsibility for the success of the outcome!

Let’s take a look next at what it is that stops us listening actively, and how we can improve.

Barriers To Active Listening

Thinking time

Although nearly half our time is spent listening, most of us do not listen well, largely because we can think far faster than we can speak.  In fact, our brains can process approximately 500 – 800 words in the same time it takes us to speak 200 – 250 words.

This gives us a lot of spare thinking time while we are listening to a person speak.  Rather than use this spare time to gather our own thoughts together in order to respond to what the speaker is saying, we let our minds wander.  This is just one of the many ways in which we can be distracted and which act as a barrier to effective listening.

Preoccupation with self

In the famous words of Bette Middler,

‘That’s enough about me, let’s talk about you.  What do you think about me!’’ 

This is a classic barrier to active listening because we appear to be listening to somebody speaking but actually we’re thinking about our self, or about a similar situation we found ourselves in.

You may even begin to rehearse your responses, while the other person is still speaking, or you may fall into the habit of ‘capping’!  Whatever has happened to them has happened to you – only far worse in your case.  So, in an effort to make them feel better about their experience, you respond with something like; ‘Oh, if you think that’s bad, wait until I tell you what happened to me.’!  During this time of self-focus, you have inevitably missed what the speaker is saying.

Prejudices

Our personal prejudices can cause us either to switch off mentally, or to be over sensitive to the remarks made by the speaker.  Such reactions can be triggered off by the speaker’s clothes, accessories, hair, accent, looks, style of delivery, words used – even the sex or race of the speaker can affect our prejudices.

When our prejudices are active ‘we hear what we want to hear’, and put our own interpretation on what is said.  We then spend our thinking time composing rebuttals, questions or even clever responses to trip up or antagonize the speaker.

Environmental/Physical

All of the following factors can make us ‘switch off’ from listening to what is being said, to allow our minds to temporarily concentrate on our surroundings:

• Room too hot; too cold
• Chair too hard; too soft
• Noise (e.g. telephone)
• Lighting too bright; too dim
• Draughts
• Poor ventilation; stuffy atmosphere
• Smells; perfume
• Interruptions
• Distractions – external, such as a fly buzzing round; or internal, such as a random out-of-the-blue thought!

“Are you listening – or are you just waiting for your chance to speak?”

Feedback

In part 1 we discuss how important feedback is. So when we’re the receiver we should volunteer good quality feedback so the sender knows how we’ve interpreted their message. That means when it’s our turn to speak, we don’t just make our next point, but we refer to what they’ve just said first.

When seeking to give customers excellence, this also has the important benefit of acknowledging what they’ve said, and showing that we’re paying attention and taking them seriously. It in effect pays them a compliment, and it’s great for building rapport. (Look back at the things you identified in Section 2 of this book that make you feel bad when you’re the customer. I bet you’ve come across this – not having your point acknowledged!)

However, you can’t properly refer to what they’ve just said unless you were genuinely listening! So giving feedback has one other extremely important benefit! To be able to do it at all, you have to listen actively!

(School teachers know this! If they think that a student isn’t listening they ask them: “What have I just been talking about?” If the student really was day-dreaming then of course they can’t give an answer!)

So here’s another golden rule: 

“To be a good listener, always be ready to give feedback”

Questioning

To satisfy customers we need to provide what the customer wants, and for excellence we need to exceed their expectations. But we need to know first what those wants and expectations are! A lot of our communication therefore involves finding out about their wants and expectations, and this means asking questions.

We also, as we have seen above, need to get feedback from them. We need to know if we’ve been understood the way we intended; and whether the things we offer, or do for them, meet their requirements. And we need to know if they agree or disagree with the ideas and propositions we put to them.

So questions are an essential part of our communication process. However our questions are not always effective! Sometimes we don’t phrase our questions very well, and as a result we don’t get very useful answers!

Unfortunately we are ‘on auto-pilot’ 95% of the time, and our questions often just role off the tongue without enough thought!

The most common mistake is to use a ‘closed’ question when an ‘open’ one would be better. This is because we naturally use closed questions 80% of the time, and they tend to be easier to formulate.

Closed Questions

These are questions that can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’. They use questioning words like: ‘can’, ‘will’, ‘should’, ‘do’, ‘are’, etc. So they’re great if you just want a ‘yes or no’ answer.

“Do you want to book that now?” …. “Yes”.

Open Questions

These cannot be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’. So they tend to get more information. The information may be a single word, as in:

What’s your name?” ……. “Andrew”

Or it may be much more, (provided the receiver has something to say!), as in:

What did you think of the Rugby World Cup result?” … “Wow! I was so relieved we won. It was great spectacle too; and brilliant for New Zealand”.

Open questions use the following seven questioning words:

Who, what, where, when, how, why, and which.

 What’s the ‘Right’ Question?

The common mistake is to ask a closed question when an open one would be better, as in:

“Didn’t you think the RWC result was fantastic?” … “Yes I did”.

Not only does this get less information form the person, but it’s really about your idea, not theirs! It’s actually just asking if they agree with you – which is fine if that’s what you want to do. The problem comes if we ask our question this way (on auto-pilot) when we really do want to know what they think!

The key therefore, as with all communication is to be clear in our mind what we are trying to achieve – in this case what we want to find out. Then we need to choose the best form of question for that – the most appropriate structure and choice of words.

Chapter five 

Communication with customers Part 2 

Body language

‘Words may lie but the body seldom does!’

 To communicate effectively with customers we need to understand the language our body speaks so that we can:

• use it effectively to help others understand what we are saying
• recognise it in others, so that we can more accurately interpret what they are telling us.

All information reaching our brains can only enter via the five senses – sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.  Of those senses, the eyes are the most valuable, transmitting approximately 80% of the information that reaches our brains. About 14% goes in through our ears and the other senses handle the remaining 6%.

The communication ‘cake’ above shows that 55% of the meaning in communication is visual. The problem is that we put most of our effort into organising and delivering the words we use. Our ‘body-talk’ is left to fend for itself, and as a result tends to come out ‘unedited’, communicating what we really feel, which may or may not be helpful!

Here are the main elements of body language (including facial expression) that we need to be aware of:

Posture

Posture concerns the overall bearing of the body. It comprises the angle of the head, shoulders, hips and feet, direction and angle of inclination and position of arms and legs.

In general, people who feel comfortable with a situation and with themselves, raise their head and look openly at you. They may lean back slightly indicating that they are relaxed or lean forward slightly to indicate attentiveness.

People who are on the attack or who feel aggressive generally adopt a ‘full-frontal’  stance with head, shoulders, hips and feet all pointing at you. They will probably raise themselves up and lean forward in a dominating manner.  Those who are feeling defensive will probably ‘close-up’ physically, making themselves smaller; hands and arms may protect their mouth or abdomen; legs may be crossed tightly.

People feeling superior and arrogant may cross their legs openly (ankle of one leg resting on the knee of the other) and lean back with their hands clasped at the back of their head.

 Arms

People use their arms in a variety of ways. Some gesticulate frequently and others hardly at all. Points worth noting are:

• arms can be used to signify self-protection and defensiveness when they are folded tightly across the abdomen; or they can be held down, with hands clasped casually together, to signify relaxation.
• hands can be used to hide behind, covering part of the face; they can be used to demonstrate openness and honesty by showing open palms; they can be used to cut the air aggressively to emphasize points.
• fingers can be used to fidget, as in drumming the table to indicate impatience or boredom; they can be used to jab the air pointing to you; they can be used to wag at someone like a schoolteacher talking to a naughty pupil; they can be wagged threateningly like a stick.

Handshakes 

Shaking hands is a relic of the caveman era – whenever cavemen met they would hold their arms in the air with their palms exposed to show that no weapons were being held or concealed.  This gesture became modified over the centuries and is now a form of ritual greeting, in most English-speaking countries.

Some types of handshake! 

• The ‘Dead Fish’.

When the hand is cold or clammy; soft and placid, like a dead fish, people relate it to a weak character.

• The ‘Knuckle Grinder’.

When people grip your hand so firmly, that you think it will truly break! This handshake is the trademark of the aggressive ‘tough guy’ type.

• The ‘Stiff-Arm Thrust’.

Again used by ‘aggressive’ types, its main purpose is to keep you at a distance, and out of their intimate zone.  It is also used by people who originate from country areas who feel the need to protect their personal territory.

• The ‘Finger-Tip Grab’.

This feels a bit like the ‘stiff-arm thrust’ that has missed its mark.  It is also designed to keep the receiver at a distance. The initiator may appear to have a keen and enthusiastic attitude towards the receiver, however they often lack confidence.

• The ‘Double-hander’.

Very popular with politicians! The intention is to show sincerity, trust or depth of feeling towards the receiver.  They are really only suitable for close family members, or when the initiator wishes to convey empathy. If these circumstances are not present – the receiver may become suspicious and be ‘put-off’!

Legs

Like arm gestures, the gestures of our legs can also tell us a lot about people’s feelings.

Crossed legs are often a signal that a negative or defensive attitude may exist. Where arm-crossing was originally used to defend the heart and upper-body region, leg-crossing may be an attempt to shield the genital area.  Crossed legs are less negative than crossed arms. However, care should be taken when interpreting this gesture with women. Many women have been taught that it is the ‘ladylike’ way to sit!  It is unfortunate that this gesture can make them appear defensive.

The European Leg-Cross Position is where one leg neatly crossed over the other, is a normal position used by European cultures, and may be used to show a nervous, reserved or defensive attitude.  However, this gesture needs to be interpreted with others, and not in isolation or out of context.  E.g. People often like to sit like this during lectures, or if they are on uncomfortable chairs for long periods.  It is also a common gesture to see in cold weather.  However, when crossed legs are combined with crossed arms, the person may have withdrawn from the conversation.

The Leg-Lock Position may indicate that an argumentative or competitive attitude exists. It is a sitting position popular with American males – but not British males!  This gesture is considered most offensive in many cultures, where showing the sole of the shoe, or foot, is unacceptable in public.

The Ankle-Lock Position involves crossing, or folding, arms or legs may suggest that a negative or defensive attitude exists – and this is also the case with the crossing of ankles in the standing or sitting-up position.  Interviewers who observe this gesture may deduce that the candidate is ‘mentally biting her/his lip’ – indicating a holding back of a negative attitude, emotion, nervousness or fear.

Face

Human beings have more control over their facial muscles than any other animal on this planet!  As a result, the face is the most expressive part of our bodies.

The areas around the eyes and mouth are the most expressive. Raised eyebrows and an ‘O’ shaped mouth signify surprise, but raised eyebrows and an open smile indicate real pleasure; knotted eyebrows and a downturned mouth signify sadness, while knotted eyebrows and tightly pursed lips signify displeasure. There is hardly a single emotion that does not show in the face in such a way as to be instantly recognisable by someone else.

Eyes

Eye contact is very important to customer relationships.  If we avoid eye contact we can give the impression that we are shifty, lacking in confidence or disinterested. If eye contact is too intense, we might appear aggressive and make the client feel uncomfortable. If our eye contact is immediate and moderate (about 50-70% of the time) we give an entirely different impression.  Especially if accompanied by a pleasant facial expression.

We are effectively saying, ‘I am pleased to see you, I feel confident in myself. I am looking forward to our transaction!’.

Communication Channels

The communication process begins with the sender who has to make a decision about which channel to use. This could be a letter, e-mail, text, telephone, Skype, or by meeting the person or people face-to-face and speaking to them. Choice of channel is important, though circumstances will play a big part. It would take a lot of time and money to meet someone in London (if you’re in New Zealand) as opposed to sending them an email or phoning them!

However, the channel you choose for your message has a big impact on how it’s received!

E.g. If you wanted to end a personal relationship, would you send the person an email, a text, or a fax?  Would you speak to the person in front of other people in public? Or would it be better to speak personally to the individual in private?

It is well known that some folks will exchange multiple emails with a colleague in the next office rather than go through and speak to them! The subject may require discussion, and could probably be sorted in 30 seconds, but for whatever reason (laziness; or they don’t like each other!), the email channel gets used and wastes a lot of time!

Writing 

Writing can be great if you need to:

• Reach lots of people at once
• Provide a record for reference later
• Check and fine-tune your message before sending it – useful with tricky or complex messages
• Get a response, but you don’t need it immediately.
• Or maybe you deliberately want to keep a ‘distance’ from the other person. For example when a recruiting manager tells a candidate that they haven’t got the job!

However it’s not so good if the situation needs:

• Discussion in order to get full understanding, or to reach a decision.

And remember, from the communication cake we know that only 7% of the meaning of communication comes from words! So in writing, 93% – the voice and body language – is not available. This is why receivers tend to ‘read between the lines’ to try and flesh out the meaning. And sometimes they get it wrong, and imagine all sorts of interpretations that the sender never intended!

So be very careful with your choice of words, especially when the message has emotional or attitude content!

Phone

Phone is better than writing for discussion or emotional stuff – it has words (7%) plus voice (38%) – 45% of the cake. And it’s instantly two-way.

Face-to-face

There is no doubt that face-to-face communication is the most effective. 100% of the cake is in use, and sender and receiver can go round the cycle as many times as needed. But because the visual (55%) components of body language, including facial expression, are used both parties have the best chance to make themselves understood, particularly with emotional content.

Is it any wonder that companies all round the world spend squintillions of dollars on having sales people visit customers for face-to-face meetings! It’s because this is the most persuasive communication process, and figures prove that meetings get better sales results than phone calls, and phone calls better results than emails and websites. (The meetings are costly though, and results are of course never guaranteed. So wise companies use a mix of sales communication methods, and use meetings only where the chances of a sale are greatest).

Barriers To Communication

Despite all your best efforts at communicating effectively there may still be problems with getting your message across! These problems are described above as ‘interference’ in the Communications Model, and are collectively known as ‘Barriers to Communication’

Barriers to communication exist at both the sending and receiving stages of a communication. Let’s look at some of the most frequent barriers that exist in customer service situations

Sending

Lack of Clarity

Communicating ambiguously (double meanings), or using unclear meanings will result in confusion all round! If the sender chooses the wrong words, or uses words which you don’t understand, you’re going to struggle to keep listening

Articulation

When speaking, lack of clarity is often associated with poor articulation. We need to choose words that make sense to the receiver, and then pronounce them properly and clearly. Mispronunciation can cause ambiguity and mixed messages.

Mumbling…….bumbling……whispering…speaking to the floor….!! “It’s not what you say but the way that you say it…”  It doesn’t matter how interesting your message is, if you don’t project a clear voice, in the direction of the ‘audience’, how will they even hear what is said, let alone understand it?!

Non-Verbal Communication

As we saw in 5.4 and 5.5 above, our voice tone and body language convey a lot. For clear communication this needs to ‘match’ what our words are saying. When it does it reinforces our message. When it doesn’t it can be very confusing.

For example if your manager said in a quiet, dull voice, with a flat facial expression, “After lunch I’ve got something really exciting for you”, what would you believe? We’d probably be suspicious and confused!

Why does this happen? Well sometimes we let our underlying emotions prevail, even when we’re communicating on something different. So a contact centre consultant may just have finished a call with an angry and abusive caller who insulted them. On the next call their voice is shaky and weak, projecting a lack of confidence. The new caller then quickly becomes uncertain whether the consultant can help them, irrespective of the words the consultant uses!

Receiving

Not Listening Actively

Inattention (not listening!) accounts for much of the problem!  There is a huge difference between listening and hearing – hearing is a physiological process (“I have ears, I can hear”), whereas active listening requires real effort. Competition for attention from everything else going on around us can make it difficult to concentrate solely on listening to what’s being said, and most of us are pretty good at pretending to listen whilst thinking about/doing/looking at something else! (We’ve included more on listening skills in 5.7 below)

Personal issues

If we have a headache, or are feeling tired or unwell, we may find it difficult to listen effectively to others.  From time to time we even encounter someone that we really don’t like, and that too can create a personal barrier in our ability to listen effectively.

Lack of Interest

If you have no interest in what is being said, boredom sets in pretty quickly!

Premature Evaluation

… or jumping to conclusions! You may think you know what’s coming next…. and then not bother to listen to the rest of the message.

Culture

Often our non-verbals (what we don’t say) can cause barriers between people from different cultures. Some gestures have different meanings. For example, in some cultures it is polite to belch loudly after a meal to show appreciation, whereas in other cultures, this would be considered very rude. Pointing and spitting are acceptable in some cultures, and not in others. In the PacificIslands it is considered very rude to sit on a desk or table, whereas in other parts of the world it wouldn’t be an issue. 

Lack of eye contact is another area that can create barriers in communication.  Different cultures have different customs regarding eye contact.  Most western cultures regard eye contact positively during conversation and will think a person is rather suspicious or rude if they show reluctance in maintaining eye contact.  However in other cultures it can be considered extremely rude and arrogant if you continue eye contact while conversing.

Mistrust and prejudice often affect the communications between cultures. When people of different colour, culture or language interact with one another, there may be an undercurrent of antagonism or suspicion.

When people from different cultures interact – they may each follow different rules of communication – rules that are often unknown to others in the communication.  This can result in unintentional insult, inaccurate judgments, and a range of other miscommunications.  In the same way, communication techniques that work well to members of one culture may prove disturbing or offensive to members of another.

Emotions

Emotions often act as communication barriers. When we feel intensely, whether it be love, hate, fear, anger… we can’t communicate well!  Emotions block out the rational and logical side of our brain stopping us from evaluating and interpreting messages clearly.

Stereotyping

How often have you heard remarks like “Young people nowadays, they’re so selfish/loud/rude….etc..”…?  This is standard stereotypical behaviour – where a group of people (often an entire nation!) are judged by the behaviours of a few, and you may well end up treated in a particular way as a result of your age, nationality, appearance or other factors. We tend to approve or disapprove of other people based on our own views and experiences – and this can have a major impact on our interpersonal communication.

Physical Differences

A range of physical barriers exist that can be major causes of misunderstandings or communication breakdowns. Examples include:

• Noise from machinery or people
• Poor eyesight or hearing
• Tiredness
• Poor ventilation
• Stress
• Literacy problems (reading or writing)

Age Differences

An age difference is a major cause of communication difficulties within families. Interests and activities of different age groups don’t always mix! The social conventions of a particular generation may be different to another generation – and anyone who does not follow the ‘rules’ or conventions are considered ‘in the wrong’.  Parents have difficulty communicating with their children because a child cannot share the parental experience – while the parent may have forgotten what it’s like to be a child!

Organisational Differences

Within organisations there may be levels of ‘hierarchy’ where people work alongside each other at different levels of authority, for example, Managing Director, Manager, Supervisor, Clerk, Office Junior. Often – people at different levels may experience difficulties in having good effective communication – as their status and role in the organisation is so different.

Organisations may also create communication barriers themselves. The way that information is circulated, or how processes are managed can cause this.  Excessive paperwork, secrecy, unnecessary rules and regulations often create barriers and misunderstandings.

It’s clear from the above list that communication barriers can be set up all too easily – and that gaining rapport and achieving smooth relationships can be quite tricky!

 Listening Skills

“We were born with two ears and one mouth – we should use them in that proportion!”

As small children we learn speech from the adults around us and begin to develop this skill, increasing our vocabulary as we progress through life.  Listening, although the most important skill in effective communication, is not taught and we tend to think of it as a natural function…  Provided we have no physical hearing disability, we assume that because we can hear, we already know how to listen, so why do we need to learn to listen effectively?

If you are at all typical, studies have shown that listening takes up more of your waking hours than any other activity! A study of people of various backgrounds showed that 70% of their waking moments were spent in communication, and of that time:

Writing =  9%             Reading =  16%

Talking =  30%            Listening =  45%

Unfortunately – few people are really good listeners.  Researchers claim that 75% of oral communication is ignored, misunderstood or quickly forgotten!

Listening is NOT the same thing as hearing!  Hearing is a physiological process – a passive process that occurs without any attention or effort.  Listening is quite different – it involves creating meaning for ourselves out of what we hear, and unlike hearing is an ACTIVE process.  Listening doesn’t just happen – you must make it happen.  Listening takes energy and commitment.

Being able to listen efficiently and effectively will increase your ability to communicate with others.

Remember that the speaker and listener are partners in communication, both are equally important if full understanding is to take place, and both have 50% responsibility for the success of the outcome!

Let’s take a look next at what it is that stops us listening actively, and how we can improve.

Barriers To Active Listening

Thinking time

Although nearly half our time is spent listening, most of us do not listen well, largely because we can think far faster than we can speak.  In fact, our brains can process approximately 500 – 800 words in the same time it takes us to speak 200 – 250 words.

This gives us a lot of spare thinking time while we are listening to a person speak.  Rather than use this spare time to gather our own thoughts together in order to respond to what the speaker is saying, we let our minds wander.  This is just one of the many ways in which we can be distracted and which act as a barrier to effective listening.

Preoccupation with self

In the famous words of Bette Middler,

‘That’s enough about me, let’s talk about you.  What do you think about me!’’ 

This is a classic barrier to active listening because we appear to be listening to somebody speaking but actually we’re thinking about our self, or about a similar situation we found ourselves in.

You may even begin to rehearse your responses, while the other person is still speaking, or you may fall into the habit of ‘capping’!  Whatever has happened to them has happened to you – only far worse in your case.  So, in an effort to make them feel better about their experience, you respond with something like; ‘Oh, if you think that’s bad, wait until I tell you what happened to me.’!  During this time of self-focus, you have inevitably missed what the speaker is saying.

Prejudices

Our personal prejudices can cause us either to switch off mentally, or to be over sensitive to the remarks made by the speaker.  Such reactions can be triggered off by the speaker’s clothes, accessories, hair, accent, looks, style of delivery, words used – even the sex or race of the speaker can affect our prejudices.

When our prejudices are active ‘we hear what we want to hear’, and put our own interpretation on what is said.  We then spend our thinking time composing rebuttals, questions or even clever responses to trip up or antagonize the speaker.

Environmental/Physical

All of the following factors can make us ‘switch off’ from listening to what is being said, to allow our minds to temporarily concentrate on our surroundings:

• Room too hot; too cold
• Chair too hard; too soft
• Noise (e.g. telephone)
• Lighting too bright; too dim
• Draughts
• Poor ventilation; stuffy atmosphere
• Smells; perfume
• Interruptions
• Distractions – external, such as a fly buzzing round; or internal, such as a random out-of-the-blue thought!

“Are you listening – or are you just waiting for your chance to speak?”

Feedback

In part 1 we discuss how important feedback is. So when we’re the receiver we should volunteer good quality feedback so the sender knows how we’ve interpreted their message. That means when it’s our turn to speak, we don’t just make our next point, but we refer to what they’ve just said first.

When seeking to give customers excellence, this also has the important benefit of acknowledging what they’ve said, and showing that we’re paying attention and taking them seriously. It in effect pays them a compliment, and it’s great for building rapport. (Look back at the things you identified in Section 2 of this book that make you feel bad when you’re the customer. I bet you’ve come across this – not having your point acknowledged!)

However, you can’t properly refer to what they’ve just said unless you were genuinely listening! So giving feedback has one other extremely important benefit! To be able to do it at all, you have to listen actively!

(School teachers know this! If they think that a student isn’t listening they ask them: “What have I just been talking about?” If the student really was day-dreaming then of course they can’t give an answer!)

So here’s another golden rule: 

“To be a good listener, always be ready to give feedback”

Questioning

To satisfy customers we need to provide what the customer wants, and for excellence we need to exceed their expectations. But we need to know first what those wants and expectations are! A lot of our communication therefore involves finding out about their wants and expectations, and this means asking questions.

We also, as we have seen above, need to get feedback from them. We need to know if we’ve been understood the way we intended; and whether the things we offer, or do for them, meet their requirements. And we need to know if they agree or disagree with the ideas and propositions we put to them.

So questions are an essential part of our communication process. However our questions are not always effective! Sometimes we don’t phrase our questions very well, and as a result we don’t get very useful answers!

Unfortunately we are ‘on auto-pilot’ 95% of the time, and our questions often just role off the tongue without enough thought!

The most common mistake is to use a ‘closed’ question when an ‘open’ one would be better. This is because we naturally use closed questions 80% of the time, and they tend to be easier to formulate.

Closed Questions

These are questions that can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’. They use questioning words like: ‘can’, ‘will’, ‘should’, ‘do’, ‘are’, etc. So they’re great if you just want a ‘yes or no’ answer.

“Do you want to book that now?” …. “Yes”.

Open Questions

These cannot be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’. So they tend to get more information. The information may be a single word, as in:

What’s your name?” ……. “Andrew”

Or it may be much more, (provided the receiver has something to say!), as in:

What did you think of the Rugby World Cup result?” … “Wow! I was so relieved we won. It was great spectacle too; and brilliant for New Zealand”.

Open questions use the following seven questioning words:

Who, what, where, when, how, why, and which.

 What’s the ‘Right’ Question?

The common mistake is to ask a closed question when an open one would be better, as in:

“Didn’t you think the RWC result was fantastic?” … “Yes I did”.

Not only does this get less information form the person, but it’s really about your idea, not theirs! It’s actually just asking if they agree with you – which is fine if that’s what you want to do. The problem comes if we ask our question this way (on auto-pilot) when we really do want to know what they think!

The key therefore, as with all communication is to be clear in our mind what we are trying to achieve – in this case what we want to find out. Then we need to choose the best form of question for that – the most appropriate structure and choice of words.

Chapter five 

Communication with customers Part 1 

We can already see that how we communicate with customers is a key part of giving great customer service. There are a lot of possible reasons for communication. For example we may need to:

• build rapport with our customers – show that we’re friendly, professional, and on their ‘wavelength’
• find out exactly what our customers want
• explain what our product or service is and why it’s good value for them
• help them become clearer about what they want. (Believe it or not, customers are often not quite sure what they want, or aren’t aware of all the options)
• confirm that we understand them and what’s important to them
• resolve difficulties or complaints
• sell them extra products or services that they might need

To do this there are many different facets to communication. We can all talk; but precisely what we say, and how we say it, is critical to our success as a customer service provider. And if we choose to, we can all get better at it. We can practise our communication skills; and also the judgements we need to make about what to say, and how to say it, in each situation.

The main skills and judgements include:

• Presenting information or ideas
• Asking questions
• Listening
• Giving feedback so they know we understand them
• And above all, projecting the right attitude by using the right voice tone and body language.

These ‘non-verbal’ elements are often the most critical! We shall see below that when assessing a person’s attitude people take most notice of voice tone and body language! In fact we can often tell a person’s attitude just by looking at them! And when they speak, we can tell even more by how they sound.

This section looks at the various components and applications of communication to customer service situations.

Communication Process

In order for us to understand HOW to communicate – it is important to be clear about WHAT communication is, how it works – and why sometimes it doesn’t!

Communication is a two-way process…. and cannot take place if there is nobody to communicate with!  Just as an actor needs an audience, a teacher needs students; a customer service professional needs customers!!

Communication works by messages travelling between a Sender and a Receiver – with both parties swapping roles constantly. The process is dynamic (constantly changing) and circular.

 There are many definitions of communication – let’s look at a simple and clear definition:

“Communication is the transmission from one person to another of a message which is understood by the receiver in the way the sender intended”

 The ‘message’ being transmitted may be factual information, ideas, thoughts or feelings.

 Did you notice that effective communication consists of both SENDING clear messages and RECEIVING them? So both people in any communication have shared responsibility for ensuring clear and effective two-way communication.

The emphasis is on ‘shared responsibility’ – if you don’t understand something, or you have a communication breakdown, don’t blame the other person – you are both involved in the communication together!

“..you each have 50% responsibility for the success or failure of the communication”

Sending

The process begins with the Sender, who has a message to communicate.  They need to formulate the message in their head and then deliver it. If they are initiating the communication exchange, they may also choose the communication channel – written (words only), phone (words plus voice tone), or face-to-face (words plus voice plus body language).

 The key for the sender is to be clear on what they want to say and why; and then choose words (and voice tone/body language) that are most likely to be understood by the receiver.

Receiving

When the Receiver gets the message, they process the information mentally, and develop an understanding of what was meant.  Sometimes the understanding of the receiver is very different from that of the sender!  Life is full of conversations which start with ‘Don’t get me wrong but’….. or ‘Don’t take this the wrong way….’.  These sayings are used because we know in advance that what we are about to say could be misunderstood!

Interference

Messages often become distorted or confused during the communication process and this distortion is known as ‘Interference.’  Interference is anything that prevents the message from being received in the way the sender intended.

Interference could include noise, language problems, geographical distance, or many other causes. These interferences are known as “Barriers to Communication” – things that get in the way and stop us from communicating effectively. To increase our chances for successful communication we need to identify what the barriers could be, and try to eliminate them.  (More below on this)

Feedback

Because of the importance of checking our understanding in effective communication, the receiver should offer feedback to the sender, checking and testing understanding, making sure that they are clear on what has been said.

Feedback represents a unique form of message – sent in response to other messages – and like other messages, it can take many forms. A frown, a smile, a shake or nod of the head, a punch in the mouth! – these are all forms of feedback.  Feedback tells you how your communication is being received, and whether is being understood the way you intended – or not.

When a communication is really important, the receiver should give feedback in words – a summary perhaps of the key points. In important situations, like air traffic control, the protocol is that the receiver will echo the message word for word! Effectiveness in communicating with others depends greatly on your ability to give and receive appropriate feedback.

When you are the sender, and the message is important, if the receiver doesn’t naturally offer feedback you should ask for it.

Feedback is a message back to the sender, and is also therefore subject to interference. So sometimes we may even need feedback on the feedback! The cycle should continue until the sender is confident that the receiver understands the message the way that they, the sender, intended!

Once this happens, the communication cycle is complete!

The Communication Cake

When people use spoken language to communicate, they don’t just listen to what is said in order to understand the message. They also look at the person who is speaking to see what their body and face are doing, and listen to the way they are saying the words. This helps them understand the full message.

Studies tell us that the percentage of understanding that is gained from the spoken word is considerably less than the meaning that people gain from listening to a person’s tone of voice and looking at their non-verbal communication. This ‘cake’ is a chart which shows that on average, 55% of meaning lies in the body language; 38% in the voice tone; and just 7% in the choice of words!

Even though the ‘cake’ says only 7% of the meaning lies in the choice of words, the words are still critical. It is the words that convey the facts and the detail.

Choosing the right words

The golden rule is to be sure that you choose words that the other person will understand. And think first about what you want to get across. Engage the brain before opening the mouth!

However sometimes the ideas we have in our mind cannot be easily put into words.  These ideas may include feelings and attitudes which are not easy for others to understand.  We all know how difficult it is to talk to someone who doesn’t know our language. But it’s just as difficult if the people we are talking to, in the same language, interpret our words differently from us for some reason.

Consider the problems when someone:

• uses jargon or technical terms we do not know
• uses long words we’ve never heard of
• uses slang or swearing which we don’t like

Words are far more than just a dictionary meaning.  There is a wealth of meaning, and layers of feeling built into them.

 Language Style

We also use different styles of language for different situations.  Our casual slang may be OK for the pub or club – but you may find yourself in trouble if you were to use it with an airline passenger or your boss at work! This chart insert popup? Shows that language ranges from very formal through to very casual, with everything in between.

When interacting with customers (whether external or internal), we need to decide which language style to use. We should consider four key questions:

1.  What is the formality of the situation? A job interview, for example, requires at least a moderately formal style, and maybe very formal if it is a panel interview for a senior position. A lunch with a colleague would almost certainly be fairly informal or even casual, depending on how well you know the other person.
2.  How well do you know the receiver? As mentioned above, the language style you choose to communicate with depends a lot on your relationship with the other person. You can be very informal with friends, but if you’re meeting your boyfriend/girlfriend’s mother for the first time you will almost certainly start of moderately formal until you know her better.
3. What will the other person be comfortable with? Some people make it clear from the beginning that they are an informal friendly person who wants to be known by his first name, enjoys a laugh, and may even want to give you a warm hug when you leave. Other people prefer to stay more formal until they know you better, so don’t rush this and allow the communication to unfold before you start lapsing into casual communications with a new person.
4. The sensitivity of the message? Some communications are more sensitive than others, such as discussions around lack of performance in a job, ill health or bereavement, problems in the home or workplace. Most of this type of communication requires at least a moderately formal style, out of respect, and professionalism. This is not the place for casual chats.

 Jargon, long words, and slang

Try to avoid using jargon or technical terms that customers may not know. However, jargon can be very useful since it is usually shorter and quicker. So if you do choose to use jargon, just make sure that the other person understands it.

Also it may be tempting to use long words. Even when speaking the same native language, you may have a better range of vocabulary than your receiver does.

The Oxford English Dictionary has over a quarter of a million words – yet most of us use less than 10% of those! As a result, we often use inappropriate or unclear words – and hope the receiver is on the same wavelength as we are!  It’s not necessary to use long words, or a lot of words, – just use the right words.

The precipitation within the Iberian peninsular descends predominantly upon the extensive uninterrupted horizontal land form.

 (The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain)!

 Remember the golden rule: Be sure that you choose words that the other person will understand.

And never use slang words or ‘street’ language with customers – it’s just not professional. Rude or offensive language of course is an absolute ‘no no’ in any workplace, particularly working for airlines.

Misunderstandings

If others don’t understand what you are saying – don’t just repeat it again! Or even worse, say it louder! If they misunderstood you first time they probably will the second! So either get them to tell you, through feedback, what is their understanding so far. This’ll tell you where you need to do some more explaining. Or, if you do choose to repeat the whole message, try explaining it differently – in different words.

And don’t blame the receiver of the message if they don’t understand! It could be your responsibility for not explaining it clearly, or for not choosing words that they can understand. The first thing you should do if you suspect you’ve been misunderstood is evaluate how well you communicated your message.

Did you select words which:

• convey the exact meaning
• indicate the appropriate emotion
• suit the formality level of the situation?

Did you choose words which they could understand and accept?

Even when we have chosen the words carefully we may still find that our message is not understood in the way that we had hoped. 

Voice Tone and Clarity

When this happens it’s worth thinking about one of the other aspects of verbal communication: voice tone.

Your tone of voice may say more than the actual words you use. In the communication ‘cake’ above, we saw that 38% of the meaning is carried by the tone. This important feature of everyday speech is so powerful that it can make or break a communication, so it’s worth learning a little about it.

We all have the ability to adjust the tone of our voice to suit the moment as voice tone is very useful in expressing emotions. For example curt, harsh, loud words can illustrate anger. Soft, murmuring, soothing tones can express pleasure. Tone is also used in other ways, to indicate the end of a sentence or message (lowering the tone), or indicating a question (raising the tone). The kiwi accent is known for its rising tone at the end of sentences, suggesting a constant round of questions!

Voice tone includes a number of other factors:

Pitch:  This relates to the sound of your voice, such as a very high shrieky voice or low voice. Voice pitch can be changed through training and practice, for example if you have a very high voice you can work on lowering it so it sounds more imposing and authoritative. Generally we should vary our pitch as we speak, in a way that suits the topic. The alternative – a steady even pitch, can-be-very-dull-and-boring!

Volume: How loud you speak influences your message significantly, and we all know how shouting, for example, changes the way in which a message is received. Speaking too softly can also affect how a communication is received, particularly if the receiver can’t hear you. However speaking softly can also be very powerful as others have to listen very actively to your message.

The effects of voice tone are significant. People develop much of their perception of you based purely on your tone of voice, particularly on the phone. If your tone is clear and strong they will think of you as confident. People who speak hesitantly in a soft voice tone are often considered weak or shy. People who speak with no inflection at all, with little variation in voice tone, are often thought of as boring or dull.

A good test of the power of voice tone is to try it out on a dog! Speak to him in a loud, angry tone, saying the words ‘Good dog!’ and he’ll usually cower and look sad, even though you’re actually giving him a compliment. Change your tone to a soothing, happy, upbeat tone and say ‘Bad dog!’ and he’ll wag his tail and look excited and happy! He doesn’t understand the words, just the voice tone, and responds almost totally to that alone.

The good news is that whatever your voice, your tone can be worked on and changed. Most actors, TV presenters, singers and others in public life have worked on making their voice better, so why not you!

Chapter five 

Communication with customers Part 1 

We can already see that how we communicate with customers is a key part of giving great customer service. There are a lot of possible reasons for communication. For example we may need to:

• build rapport with our customers – show that we’re friendly, professional, and on their ‘wavelength’
• find out exactly what our customers want
• explain what our product or service is and why it’s good value for them
• help them become clearer about what they want. (Believe it or not, customers are often not quite sure what they want, or aren’t aware of all the options)
• confirm that we understand them and what’s important to them
• resolve difficulties or complaints
• sell them extra products or services that they might need

To do this there are many different facets to communication. We can all talk; but precisely what we say, and how we say it, is critical to our success as a customer service provider. And if we choose to, we can all get better at it. We can practise our communication skills; and also the judgements we need to make about what to say, and how to say it, in each situation.

The main skills and judgements include:

• Presenting information or ideas
• Asking questions
• Listening
• Giving feedback so they know we understand them
• And above all, projecting the right attitude by using the right voice tone and body language.

These ‘non-verbal’ elements are often the most critical! We shall see below that when assessing a person’s attitude people take most notice of voice tone and body language! In fact we can often tell a person’s attitude just by looking at them! And when they speak, we can tell even more by how they sound.

This section looks at the various components and applications of communication to customer service situations.

Communication Process

In order for us to understand HOW to communicate – it is important to be clear about WHAT communication is, how it works – and why sometimes it doesn’t!

Communication is a two-way process…. and cannot take place if there is nobody to communicate with!  Just as an actor needs an audience, a teacher needs students; a customer service professional needs customers!!

Communication works by messages travelling between a Sender and a Receiver – with both parties swapping roles constantly. The process is dynamic (constantly changing) and circular.

 There are many definitions of communication – let’s look at a simple and clear definition:

“Communication is the transmission from one person to another of a message which is understood by the receiver in the way the sender intended”

 The ‘message’ being transmitted may be factual information, ideas, thoughts or feelings.

 Did you notice that effective communication consists of both SENDING clear messages and RECEIVING them? So both people in any communication have shared responsibility for ensuring clear and effective two-way communication.

The emphasis is on ‘shared responsibility’ – if you don’t understand something, or you have a communication breakdown, don’t blame the other person – you are both involved in the communication together!

“..you each have 50% responsibility for the success or failure of the communication”

Sending

The process begins with the Sender, who has a message to communicate.  They need to formulate the message in their head and then deliver it. If they are initiating the communication exchange, they may also choose the communication channel – written (words only), phone (words plus voice tone), or face-to-face (words plus voice plus body language).

 The key for the sender is to be clear on what they want to say and why; and then choose words (and voice tone/body language) that are most likely to be understood by the receiver.

Receiving

When the Receiver gets the message, they process the information mentally, and develop an understanding of what was meant.  Sometimes the understanding of the receiver is very different from that of the sender!  Life is full of conversations which start with ‘Don’t get me wrong but’….. or ‘Don’t take this the wrong way….’.  These sayings are used because we know in advance that what we are about to say could be misunderstood!

Interference

Messages often become distorted or confused during the communication process and this distortion is known as ‘Interference.’  Interference is anything that prevents the message from being received in the way the sender intended.

Interference could include noise, language problems, geographical distance, or many other causes. These interferences are known as “Barriers to Communication” – things that get in the way and stop us from communicating effectively. To increase our chances for successful communication we need to identify what the barriers could be, and try to eliminate them.  (More below on this)

Feedback

Because of the importance of checking our understanding in effective communication, the receiver should offer feedback to the sender, checking and testing understanding, making sure that they are clear on what has been said.

Feedback represents a unique form of message – sent in response to other messages – and like other messages, it can take many forms. A frown, a smile, a shake or nod of the head, a punch in the mouth! – these are all forms of feedback.  Feedback tells you how your communication is being received, and whether is being understood the way you intended – or not.

When a communication is really important, the receiver should give feedback in words – a summary perhaps of the key points. In important situations, like air traffic control, the protocol is that the receiver will echo the message word for word! Effectiveness in communicating with others depends greatly on your ability to give and receive appropriate feedback.

When you are the sender, and the message is important, if the receiver doesn’t naturally offer feedback you should ask for it.

Feedback is a message back to the sender, and is also therefore subject to interference. So sometimes we may even need feedback on the feedback! The cycle should continue until the sender is confident that the receiver understands the message the way that they, the sender, intended!

Once this happens, the communication cycle is complete!

The Communication Cake

When people use spoken language to communicate, they don’t just listen to what is said in order to understand the message. They also look at the person who is speaking to see what their body and face are doing, and listen to the way they are saying the words. This helps them understand the full message.

Studies tell us that the percentage of understanding that is gained from the spoken word is considerably less than the meaning that people gain from listening to a person’s tone of voice and looking at their non-verbal communication. This ‘cake’ is a chart which shows that on average, 55% of meaning lies in the body language; 38% in the voice tone; and just 7% in the choice of words!

Even though the ‘cake’ says only 7% of the meaning lies in the choice of words, the words are still critical. It is the words that convey the facts and the detail.

Choosing the right words

The golden rule is to be sure that you choose words that the other person will understand. And think first about what you want to get across. Engage the brain before opening the mouth!

However sometimes the ideas we have in our mind cannot be easily put into words.  These ideas may include feelings and attitudes which are not easy for others to understand.  We all know how difficult it is to talk to someone who doesn’t know our language. But it’s just as difficult if the people we are talking to, in the same language, interpret our words differently from us for some reason.

Consider the problems when someone:

• uses jargon or technical terms we do not know
• uses long words we’ve never heard of
• uses slang or swearing which we don’t like

Words are far more than just a dictionary meaning.  There is a wealth of meaning, and layers of feeling built into them.

 Language Style

We also use different styles of language for different situations.  Our casual slang may be OK for the pub or club – but you may find yourself in trouble if you were to use it with an airline passenger or your boss at work! This chart insert popup? Shows that language ranges from very formal through to very casual, with everything in between.

When interacting with customers (whether external or internal), we need to decide which language style to use. We should consider four key questions:

1.  What is the formality of the situation? A job interview, for example, requires at least a moderately formal style, and maybe very formal if it is a panel interview for a senior position. A lunch with a colleague would almost certainly be fairly informal or even casual, depending on how well you know the other person.
2.  How well do you know the receiver? As mentioned above, the language style you choose to communicate with depends a lot on your relationship with the other person. You can be very informal with friends, but if you’re meeting your boyfriend/girlfriend’s mother for the first time you will almost certainly start of moderately formal until you know her better.
3. What will the other person be comfortable with? Some people make it clear from the beginning that they are an informal friendly person who wants to be known by his first name, enjoys a laugh, and may even want to give you a warm hug when you leave. Other people prefer to stay more formal until they know you better, so don’t rush this and allow the communication to unfold before you start lapsing into casual communications with a new person.
4. The sensitivity of the message? Some communications are more sensitive than others, such as discussions around lack of performance in a job, ill health or bereavement, problems in the home or workplace. Most of this type of communication requires at least a moderately formal style, out of respect, and professionalism. This is not the place for casual chats.

 Jargon, long words, and slang

Try to avoid using jargon or technical terms that customers may not know. However, jargon can be very useful since it is usually shorter and quicker. So if you do choose to use jargon, just make sure that the other person understands it.

Also it may be tempting to use long words. Even when speaking the same native language, you may have a better range of vocabulary than your receiver does.

The Oxford English Dictionary has over a quarter of a million words – yet most of us use less than 10% of those! As a result, we often use inappropriate or unclear words – and hope the receiver is on the same wavelength as we are!  It’s not necessary to use long words, or a lot of words, – just use the right words.

The precipitation within the Iberian peninsular descends predominantly upon the extensive uninterrupted horizontal land form.

 (The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain)!

 Remember the golden rule: Be sure that you choose words that the other person will understand.

And never use slang words or ‘street’ language with customers – it’s just not professional. Rude or offensive language of course is an absolute ‘no no’ in any workplace, particularly working for airlines.

Misunderstandings

If others don’t understand what you are saying – don’t just repeat it again! Or even worse, say it louder! If they misunderstood you first time they probably will the second! So either get them to tell you, through feedback, what is their understanding so far. This’ll tell you where you need to do some more explaining. Or, if you do choose to repeat the whole message, try explaining it differently – in different words.

And don’t blame the receiver of the message if they don’t understand! It could be your responsibility for not explaining it clearly, or for not choosing words that they can understand. The first thing you should do if you suspect you’ve been misunderstood is evaluate how well you communicated your message.

Did you select words which:

• convey the exact meaning
• indicate the appropriate emotion
• suit the formality level of the situation?

Did you choose words which they could understand and accept?

Even when we have chosen the words carefully we may still find that our message is not understood in the way that we had hoped. 

Voice Tone and Clarity

When this happens it’s worth thinking about one of the other aspects of verbal communication: voice tone.

Your tone of voice may say more than the actual words you use. In the communication ‘cake’ above, we saw that 38% of the meaning is carried by the tone. This important feature of everyday speech is so powerful that it can make or break a communication, so it’s worth learning a little about it.

We all have the ability to adjust the tone of our voice to suit the moment as voice tone is very useful in expressing emotions. For example curt, harsh, loud words can illustrate anger. Soft, murmuring, soothing tones can express pleasure. Tone is also used in other ways, to indicate the end of a sentence or message (lowering the tone), or indicating a question (raising the tone). The kiwi accent is known for its rising tone at the end of sentences, suggesting a constant round of questions!

Voice tone includes a number of other factors:

Pitch:  This relates to the sound of your voice, such as a very high shrieky voice or low voice. Voice pitch can be changed through training and practice, for example if you have a very high voice you can work on lowering it so it sounds more imposing and authoritative. Generally we should vary our pitch as we speak, in a way that suits the topic. The alternative – a steady even pitch, can-be-very-dull-and-boring!

Volume: How loud you speak influences your message significantly, and we all know how shouting, for example, changes the way in which a message is received. Speaking too softly can also affect how a communication is received, particularly if the receiver can’t hear you. However speaking softly can also be very powerful as others have to listen very actively to your message.

The effects of voice tone are significant. People develop much of their perception of you based purely on your tone of voice, particularly on the phone. If your tone is clear and strong they will think of you as confident. People who speak hesitantly in a soft voice tone are often considered weak or shy. People who speak with no inflection at all, with little variation in voice tone, are often thought of as boring or dull.

A good test of the power of voice tone is to try it out on a dog! Speak to him in a loud, angry tone, saying the words ‘Good dog!’ and he’ll usually cower and look sad, even though you’re actually giving him a compliment. Change your tone to a soothing, happy, upbeat tone and say ‘Bad dog!’ and he’ll wag his tail and look excited and happy! He doesn’t understand the words, just the voice tone, and responds almost totally to that alone.

The good news is that whatever your voice, your tone can be worked on and changed. Most actors, TV presenters, singers and others in public life have worked on making their voice better, so why not you!

Chapter 4 

What is good value? 

Customers always want good value for money (VFM). I know I do! So how does this fit into the picture?

The first thing is that Value and Price are NOT the same thing. Value is what you get; price is what you pay out

VALUE = GET vs PAY-OUT

 So you can pay out a lot, and still feel it’s been good VFM, provided you get a lot in return. Otherwise we would always buy the cheapest option, and clearly people don’t always do that.

For example in the days of Concorde, passengers would willingly pay three times the normal fare to get from London to New York a bit quicker; or to have the ‘Concorde experience’. Definitely not the cheapest option but they obviously thought it was worth it!

And ask yourself – do you always buy the cheapest clothes? Why not?

So the cheapest option is often NOT the best deal. The item you buy might not be as good. The top you buy isn’t quite the right colour; or it shrinks first time you wash it. The cheap dust-buster doesn’t have enough oomph to suck anything up! Cheap price does not necessarily mean good value!

However if you shop around and find something exactly the same but at a lower price, then you would consider that better VFM.

But of course we can’t just lower our prices! That way our companies would go bust! If we lower our prices, as in the budget airline ‘price wars’, we have to lower our costs as well. And airlines do that by reducing the on-board catering; reducing baggage allowances; increasing load factors by cancelling under-booked flights, etc. The value is a bit less for less money, but makes flying affordable for more people.

 Perception of Value

Value is a perception and our perception of value has two parts to it.

• What we get materially, and
• How we feel about it emotionally.

When we book a hotel room, the material value is in somewhere to sleep and keep our clothes; emotionally we may feel special because the room has touches of luxury and great views, or if the people there are lovely to us!

But value is an individual thing. It is what each person considers important to them, and we’re all different. I like a window seat when I fly. Other people like the aisle seat; or they just don’t mind. On long haul for some the entertainment is most important; for others it’s the leg-room.

When you get right down to it there are always some differences between what different organisations offer us as customers. The Concorde flight was actually not the same as a 747 flight London to New York. It was quicker; and it was a supersonic experience.

Many of the differences are material ones, and often quite minor. The food the airline serves for example; or the range of movies. But following on from sections 2 and 3 above, the differences may also be in quality of service – how customers get treated by the staff.

In the travel and tourism industries the material differences are often small. Competing airlines tend to fly the same routes, from the same airports, with very similar planes, flight times, and prices. The big hotel chains have similar rooms and facilities.

The great opportunity for us therefore is to increase the emotional value of our customers’ purchase by giving them excellent personal service. Exceeding their expectations in the way they are treated will make then FEEL good, and increase their loyalty and repeat purchasing from us. When they shop around and do their online research, we want them to remember that they get treated well by us, and that price isn’t everything. This is serious stuff! We can make a big difference to our companies’ performance.

Chapter 4 

What is good value? 

Customers always want good value for money (VFM). I know I do! So how does this fit into the picture?

The first thing is that Value and Price are NOT the same thing. Value is what you get; price is what you pay out

VALUE = GET vs PAY-OUT

 So you can pay out a lot, and still feel it’s been good VFM, provided you get a lot in return. Otherwise we would always buy the cheapest option, and clearly people don’t always do that.

For example in the days of Concorde, passengers would willingly pay three times the normal fare to get from London to New York a bit quicker; or to have the ‘Concorde experience’. Definitely not the cheapest option but they obviously thought it was worth it!

And ask yourself – do you always buy the cheapest clothes? Why not?

So the cheapest option is often NOT the best deal. The item you buy might not be as good. The top you buy isn’t quite the right colour; or it shrinks first time you wash it. The cheap dust-buster doesn’t have enough oomph to suck anything up! Cheap price does not necessarily mean good value!

However if you shop around and find something exactly the same but at a lower price, then you would consider that better VFM.

But of course we can’t just lower our prices! That way our companies would go bust! If we lower our prices, as in the budget airline ‘price wars’, we have to lower our costs as well. And airlines do that by reducing the on-board catering; reducing baggage allowances; increasing load factors by cancelling under-booked flights, etc. The value is a bit less for less money, but makes flying affordable for more people.

 Perception of Value

Value is a perception and our perception of value has two parts to it.

• What we get materially, and
• How we feel about it emotionally.

When we book a hotel room, the material value is in somewhere to sleep and keep our clothes; emotionally we may feel special because the room has touches of luxury and great views, or if the people there are lovely to us!

But value is an individual thing. It is what each person considers important to them, and we’re all different. I like a window seat when I fly. Other people like the aisle seat; or they just don’t mind. On long haul for some the entertainment is most important; for others it’s the leg-room.

When you get right down to it there are always some differences between what different organisations offer us as customers. The Concorde flight was actually not the same as a 747 flight London to New York. It was quicker; and it was a supersonic experience.

Many of the differences are material ones, and often quite minor. The food the airline serves for example; or the range of movies. But following on from sections 2 and 3 above, the differences may also be in quality of service – how customers get treated by the staff.

In the travel and tourism industries the material differences are often small. Competing airlines tend to fly the same routes, from the same airports, with very similar planes, flight times, and prices. The big hotel chains have similar rooms and facilities.

The great opportunity for us therefore is to increase the emotional value of our customers’ purchase by giving them excellent personal service. Exceeding their expectations in the way they are treated will make then FEEL good, and increase their loyalty and repeat purchasing from us. When they shop around and do their online research, we want them to remember that they get treated well by us, and that price isn’t everything. This is serious stuff! We can make a big difference to our companies’ performance.

Chapter 3

What is service excellence? 

We say something is excellent when it is better than we expect. It has excelled; it has gone beyond the norm. So service excellence is service which is better than expected.

We can therefore identify three levels:

1. Below expectations                        ‘Poor’ service
2. Meets expectations                         ‘Good’ service
3. Exceeds expectations                    ‘Excellent’ service

If we stay with how we treat customers, our list from Chapter One (Free Preview) of what customers need and want was:

For service excellence we need to do these things to a level beyond what the customer expects.

Phew, you say! That’s a big ask! The good news is it doesn’t have to be all of them every time, and even quite small things can make ordinary service excellent.

For example my local bakery makes barista coffee. I can identify five things that make their service excellent:

• They remember their regular customers’ name, and use it
• They remember their regular customers’ order (mine’s a medium cappuccino with two sugars)
• They start making your coffee when you walk in (in the morning), without you having to say anything
• If they’re busy, and it takes a little longer, they apologise that you’ve had to wait.
• They always say ’Have a nice day’ as you leave (and mean it!)

The result is that they have very loyal customers – several hundred with coffee club cards!

But there’s a catch (or two)

Catch #1.  A previous employee of the bakery, who was their number one coffee maker, used to start making my coffee when he saw my car pull up outside, so I got it even quicker! When he left, and the other people there didn’t do that, I was slightly disappointed!

So once you’ve exceeded a customer’s expectations, that new level of service becomes ‘normal’. So we have to

1. Maintain the new level we’ve set, and
2. Be constantly finding other new ways of exceeding our customers’ expectations!

And there’s another catch

Catch # 2 Not all customers want the same things. For some, speed of service might not be important. They might be retired and actually value some friendly banter and not being served too quickly! (And I’ve seen my bakery do that too, as long as it doesn’t slow down the service for other customers!)

So how do we know what our customers are going to value in terms of service excellence? Well, two main ways. We can try different things and see how they respond; and we can ask them! Either way we must be sensitive to our customers as individuals. I know I’m not the only person to have walked out of a clothes shop because the assistant insisted on engaging me in conversation when I was in a bad mood and I clearly didn’t want to!

Chapter 3

What is service excellence? 

We say something is excellent when it is better than we expect. It has excelled; it has gone beyond the norm. So service excellence is service which is better than expected.

We can therefore identify three levels:

1. Below expectations                        ‘Poor’ service
2. Meets expectations                         ‘Good’ service
3. Exceeds expectations                    ‘Excellent’ service

If we stay with how we treat customers, our list from Chapter One (Free Preview) of what customers need and want was:

For service excellence we need to do these things to a level beyond what the customer expects.

Phew, you say! That’s a big ask! The good news is it doesn’t have to be all of them every time, and even quite small things can make ordinary service excellent.

For example my local bakery makes barista coffee. I can identify five things that make their service excellent:

• They remember their regular customers’ name, and use it
• They remember their regular customers’ order (mine’s a medium cappuccino with two sugars)
• They start making your coffee when you walk in (in the morning), without you having to say anything
• If they’re busy, and it takes a little longer, they apologise that you’ve had to wait.
• They always say ’Have a nice day’ as you leave (and mean it!)

The result is that they have very loyal customers – several hundred with coffee club cards!

But there’s a catch (or two)

Catch #1.  A previous employee of the bakery, who was their number one coffee maker, used to start making my coffee when he saw my car pull up outside, so I got it even quicker! When he left, and the other people there didn’t do that, I was slightly disappointed!

So once you’ve exceeded a customer’s expectations, that new level of service becomes ‘normal’. So we have to

1. Maintain the new level we’ve set, and
2. Be constantly finding other new ways of exceeding our customers’ expectations!

And there’s another catch

Catch # 2 Not all customers want the same things. For some, speed of service might not be important. They might be retired and actually value some friendly banter and not being served too quickly! (And I’ve seen my bakery do that too, as long as it doesn’t slow down the service for other customers!)

So how do we know what our customers are going to value in terms of service excellence? Well, two main ways. We can try different things and see how they respond; and we can ask them! Either way we must be sensitive to our customers as individuals. I know I’m not the only person to have walked out of a clothes shop because the assistant insisted on engaging me in conversation when I was in a bad mood and I clearly didn’t want to!

Chapter 3

What is service excellence? 

We say something is excellent when it is better than we expect. It has excelled; it has gone beyond the norm. So service excellence is service which is better than expected.

We can therefore identify three levels:

1. Below expectations                        ‘Poor’ service
2. Meets expectations                         ‘Good’ service
3. Exceeds expectations                    ‘Excellent’ service

If we stay with how we treat customers, our list from Chapter One (Free Preview) of what customers need and want was:

For service excellence we need to do these things to a level beyond what the customer expects.

Phew, you say! That’s a big ask! The good news is it doesn’t have to be all of them every time, and even quite small things can make ordinary service excellent.

For example my local bakery makes barista coffee. I can identify five things that make their service excellent:

• They remember their regular customers’ name, and use it
• They remember their regular customers’ order (mine’s a medium cappuccino with two sugars)
• They start making your coffee when you walk in (in the morning), without you having to say anything
• If they’re busy, and it takes a little longer, they apologise that you’ve had to wait.
• They always say ’Have a nice day’ as you leave (and mean it!)

The result is that they have very loyal customers – several hundred with coffee club cards!

But there’s a catch (or two)

Catch #1.  A previous employee of the bakery, who was their number one coffee maker, used to start making my coffee when he saw my car pull up outside, so I got it even quicker! When he left, and the other people there didn’t do that, I was slightly disappointed!

So once you’ve exceeded a customer’s expectations, that new level of service becomes ‘normal’. So we have to

1. Maintain the new level we’ve set, and
2. Be constantly finding other new ways of exceeding our customers’ expectations!

And there’s another catch

Catch # 2 Not all customers want the same things. For some, speed of service might not be important. They might be retired and actually value some friendly banter and not being served too quickly! (And I’ve seen my bakery do that too, as long as it doesn’t slow down the service for other customers!)

So how do we know what our customers are going to value in terms of service excellence? Well, two main ways. We can try different things and see how they respond; and we can ask them! Either way we must be sensitive to our customers as individuals. I know I’m not the only person to have walked out of a clothes shop because the assistant insisted on engaging me in conversation when I was in a bad mood and I clearly didn’t want to!

Chapter Two

What customers need and want 

Obviously, our external customers want the material things we offer. For example they might want:

• To travel to Hong Kong and back
• A hotel room for three days
• A hire car waiting for them at the airport.

And of course they want good value for money. Our internal customers also want the material things we do for them. For example:

• Documents completed for them to process or pass to a client
• Activity reports each week for our manager.

But all types of customers also need and want something else. They need and want us to be easy, efficient, and pleasant to deal with. So in addition to what we do for them, we should also deliver excellence in how we do it.

Customers want us to be:

Accurate  – Work accurately without mistakes
Timely  – Be on time (or even faster!) with what we do.
Courteous – Be friendly, polite, courteous and helpful at all times
Clear – Communicate clearly
Informative – Keep them informed when something’s a bit complicated, or when it takes time to complete
Proactive – Take the initiative in helping them, rather than waiting for them to ask us
Interested – Show a genuine interest in them and their needs
Willing  – Go the extra mile, or do something special.

Customers don’t want us to:

Moan – Tell them our problems!
Be negative  – Focus exclusively on why a thing can’t be done!

Yet we do come across people who do this, don’t we?!

We probably don’t do the ‘bad’ things all the time. But do we do them sometimes? Even sometimes is too often! And do we always do the good stuff?

And what happens if external customers do feel bad? They’ll do one or more of the following things:

• Complain to you, or someone else at your company
• Go somewhere else next time
• Moan to other people about you, your company, and what you did to make them feel bad.
• Make a formal industry complaint or take legal action.

Is this serious stuff, or is it just ‘life’s like that’, and a bit frustrating?

 Studies a few years ago showed that:

• 70% of customers who are dissatisfied, for whatever reason, go somewhere else next time!

BUT …… only

• 4% bother to complain!

So, in most cases we don’t know why customers have chosen to use someone else next time, and we don’t have a chance to improve things for them! When people do complain, it’s valuable information, even if we can’t fix what went wrong and keep them as a customer! We’ll talk about this a lot more in Chapter 8 on Complaints. So 70% will go elsewhere! That means our company has to be constantly finding new customers to replace the ones who leave us. That in turn means extra costs – like advertising, sales people calling on them, etc. But even the 30% of dissatisfied customers who do come back will be affected. For example, if you went back to someone you had bad service from, maybe because you had no choice (they could be the only company available for you to use), wouldn’t you be a bit cagey, a bit awkward perhaps, a bit more demanding, to try and ensure that you got better service this time? Even the dissatisfied customers you keep will be harder to deal with in future. Why don’t more dissatisfied customers complain? Well it’s because they may only be a little bit dissatisfied, and it’s not worth complaining. But it’ll still be enough to make them use a competitor next time! Or maybe they don’t believe that complaining will achieve anything! But it gets worse. People who are dissatisfied tend to tell other people. The same studies showed that about 10 other people get told by each dissatisfied customer. As a result we‘re probably losing customers that we never even had in the first place! However, now that we have social networking and review sites like Trip Advisor, even more people will get to know if one of our customers is dissatisfied with our service! 50% of customers planning a holiday for example will check on Trip Advisor before finalising and booking their destination and accommodation! And most of the entries there will be criticisms! It seems to be human nature that far more people post reviews about a bad experience than about a good experience!

So it is serious. In terms of service quality, the studies mentioned above found that of those dissatisfied customers who did go elsewhere, 70% went because of how they were treated, rather than what they got materially, or the price! I bet this ties in with what you found out in Trip Advisor!

Dissatisfied internal customers? What happens to them? They may complain; and they may moan to other people, but they probably don’t have the option of going elsewhere next time. They probably have to keep dealing with us when we’re employed by the same company. So what are the consequences of this internal dissatisfaction? The answer is internal mistrust, poor teamwork, and a bad working atmosphere, and nobody likes that. Plus, this in turn is bound to affect the service our company gives to external customers, so once again, this is serious stuff!

Chapter Two

What customers need and want 

Obviously, our external customers want the material things we offer. For example they might want:

• To travel to Hong Kong and back
• A hotel room for three days
• A hire car waiting for them at the airport.

And of course they want good value for money. Our internal customers also want the material things we do for them. For example:

• Documents completed for them to process or pass to a client
• Activity reports each week for our manager.

But all types of customers also need and want something else. They need and want us to be easy, efficient, and pleasant to deal with. So in addition to what we do for them, we should also deliver excellence in how we do it.

Customers want us to be:

Accurate  – Work accurately without mistakes
Timely  – Be on time (or even faster!) with what we do.
Courteous – Be friendly, polite, courteous and helpful at all times
Clear – Communicate clearly
Informative – Keep them informed when something’s a bit complicated, or when it takes time to complete
Proactive – Take the initiative in helping them, rather than waiting for them to ask us
Interested – Show a genuine interest in them and their needs
Willing  – Go the extra mile, or do something special.

Customers don’t want us to:

Moan – Tell them our problems!
Be negative  – Focus exclusively on why a thing can’t be done!

Yet we do come across people who do this, don’t we?!

We probably don’t do the ‘bad’ things all the time. But do we do them sometimes? Even sometimes is too often! And do we always do the good stuff?

And what happens if external customers do feel bad? They’ll do one or more of the following things:

• Complain to you, or someone else at your company
• Go somewhere else next time
• Moan to other people about you, your company, and what you did to make them feel bad.
• Make a formal industry complaint or take legal action.

Is this serious stuff, or is it just ‘life’s like that’, and a bit frustrating?

 Studies a few years ago showed that:

• 70% of customers who are dissatisfied, for whatever reason, go somewhere else next time!

BUT …… only

• 4% bother to complain!

So, in most cases we don’t know why customers have chosen to use someone else next time, and we don’t have a chance to improve things for them! When people do complain, it’s valuable information, even if we can’t fix what went wrong and keep them as a customer! We’ll talk about this a lot more in Chapter 8 on Complaints. So 70% will go elsewhere! That means our company has to be constantly finding new customers to replace the ones who leave us. That in turn means extra costs – like advertising, sales people calling on them, etc. But even the 30% of dissatisfied customers who do come back will be affected. For example, if you went back to someone you had bad service from, maybe because you had no choice (they could be the only company available for you to use), wouldn’t you be a bit cagey, a bit awkward perhaps, a bit more demanding, to try and ensure that you got better service this time? Even the dissatisfied customers you keep will be harder to deal with in future. Why don’t more dissatisfied customers complain? Well it’s because they may only be a little bit dissatisfied, and it’s not worth complaining. But it’ll still be enough to make them use a competitor next time! Or maybe they don’t believe that complaining will achieve anything! But it gets worse. People who are dissatisfied tend to tell other people. The same studies showed that about 10 other people get told by each dissatisfied customer. As a result we‘re probably losing customers that we never even had in the first place! However, now that we have social networking and review sites like Trip Advisor, even more people will get to know if one of our customers is dissatisfied with our service! 50% of customers planning a holiday for example will check on Trip Advisor before finalising and booking their destination and accommodation! And most of the entries there will be criticisms! It seems to be human nature that far more people post reviews about a bad experience than about a good experience!

So it is serious. In terms of service quality, the studies mentioned above found that of those dissatisfied customers who did go elsewhere, 70% went because of how they were treated, rather than what they got materially, or the price! I bet this ties in with what you found out in Trip Advisor!

Dissatisfied internal customers? What happens to them? They may complain; and they may moan to other people, but they probably don’t have the option of going elsewhere next time. They probably have to keep dealing with us when we’re employed by the same company. So what are the consequences of this internal dissatisfaction? The answer is internal mistrust, poor teamwork, and a bad working atmosphere, and nobody likes that. Plus, this in turn is bound to affect the service our company gives to external customers, so once again, this is serious stuff!