The vast majority of customers we spoke with made the task pleasant and enjoyable.

This is a quote from Tom Vanderwell while he was doing surveys with people at a store’s checkout line.  It applies to every thing you do, honestly.  The majority of your interactions with people are pleasant and enjoyable, but a single bad apple tends to make your day gloomy and dark — forcing you to consider that the rest of the day might suck! This, however, isn’t the case.

In his post, Tom gives a great suggestion:

Each time you have a pleasant, friendly customer – jot down a hash mark or write the customer’s name on your sheet. When one of those negative customers comes along, look down at your sheet and refresh your memory of all the pleasant customers you’ve talked with.

Unless you’re in a truly horrid job and dealing with truly horrid people, I guarantee that you will begin to realize that your day isn’t really that bad.

If you present or use powerpoint for anything (training, business pitches, customer quality reviews, etc), please read both of these.  They’ll help you out significantly.  Some of these I’ve been guilty of, but I certainly make an effort not to fall into any of these traps too terribly often.

My personal failure is “Failure to rehearse“. I  always feel awkward rehearsing, so tend to wing it a bit too much.  I’ve been working on that thought!

My personal pet peeve is one of the ones that QAQNA’s writer, Tom Vander Well, has as well - “Reciting bullet points“.

Come on, people.. I learned how to read when I was little.  If all you’re going to do is read what is on the slide, just email it to me. Save both of us some time!

Her question was:

I am wondering if you might have some experience with this….It hasn’t been much of an issue for us, but staff that is making outbound calls have had some problems with sound blasts when calls connect. There is concern that this could actually do damage to their ears. Are you familiar with Sound Shield or any other types of systems or headsets that somehow filter or block noises over a certain decibel?

She was able to get some information that may be of help to people reading here.  What she’s found is below — I don’t endorse any of it as I haven’t actually had any experience with selecting headsets:

I have now been told that acoustic shock protection is now standard in many headsets, so we’ll look into that.  Just as an FYI, I did find a few articles with some information about this.

This article highlights a particular type of headset. and another about the dangers of hearing damage to headset wearers…

This one is about some type of software…

This article specifically mentions a product called Sound Shield.

Four more articles about Sound Shield..
http://www.headsets-australia.com/soundshield-acoustic-devices.html
http://www.polaris.com.au/SoundShield.asp
http://www.stretchnow.com.au/products/clearheadsets/soundshield.html
http://www.acousticshock.org/?id=statements

Here’s a few that I want to stress.

• Having customers hear your kids playing in the background

Working in a noisy area or with the TV on is distracting and no way to excel. A quiet workplace is the key to success when working from home – it is essential for concentration and for receiving business calls. When customers can hear kids, dogs, TV and other noises in the background, they most likely will assume you are not devoting your full attention to your work. If your customer can hear the noise, there is a good chance that your supervisor could hear the noise as well. A good home office sounds just like a good office environment – silent.

• Using “ancient” technology

Frequently losing Internet or phone connection while working from home will prevent you from doing your job and ultimately lead to losing it. Most companies that allow you to work from home will have specific technology requirements to ensure that their applications function effectively – not adhering to these could be grounds for termination.

• Not understanding the definition of multitasking

Doing laundry or other household chores while on the clock are not perks of working at home. Work time is work time and should be dedicated to professional duties. Mixing personal and professional duties will lead to unfocused work, unsatisfactory performance and a potential job hunt in the near future.

• Spending your work time shopping online

Just because the boss cannot walk by your desk at any moment and see what you are working on does not mean you don’t have to work. When working from home, it is important to be able to prioritize and work efficiently. Goals still need to be met and dedicated work time should be spent doing just that … work.

• “Showing up” late or consistently “leaving” early

Just as your co-workers and supervisors expect you to arrive on time in an office setting, they expect the same when working from home. Responsibility and dedication are extremely important. You must be able to motivate yourself to keep on schedule to succeed when working from home.

To me, the rest are common sense and even apply to a standard office job. Things like “Don’t mouth off to a customer” should be logical and a part of your professional career.

Working from home, as an employee, is a luxury that shouldn’t be abused.  The company is hiring you to do a job effectively, so do that.  Be professional.  Those that don’t? They’re the ones that make life difficult for the rest of the people that want to work from home.. they’re the ones that make the managers go “Why should I?”

If you’re asked the question, answer it with fault that can also be perceived as a strength (perfectionism, focus, control, etc) and explain how you’re working on controlling / bettering it.

I’ve got a membership to theladders.com and they write articles every so often. One of their latest articles has to do with the weakness question and how to improve it. I thought it was quite insightful. Due to it requiring a membership, I won’t copy the entire thing here but if you’ve got one, you can read it in their Ops ladder career advice section.

The writer, Rob Sullivan, suggests that interviewers ask the following question instead.

“Someone who doesn’t know you well doesn’t like you. What are five adjectives he or she might use to describe you?”

Once the interviewer has the answer, then ask…

“Now, let’s imagine you are on a team with a new person at the company. You notice there’s some tension between the two of you. You also realize that this person would probably describe you as …[insert their list of 5 adjectives]. How would you handle the situation?”

From an interviewer’s perspective, I think that this would be quite interesting and more insightful than a regurgitated Q&A. The advantage to the pair of questions is also that you’ll also be more likely to surprise the interviewee which tends to get a more direct and truthful response.

If you’re the interviewee, he suggests that you answer the question of “What are your weaknesses” with your answer to the above question. For example, in his case, he’d say:

Sometimes people who don’t know me particularly well get the wrong impression and see me as intense, angry and sometimes even aloof. Even though people who know me well would never use those words to describe me, I know I can come across that way at times. For this reason, I am taking steps to be seen as more kind and approachable – like being the person who smiles and says hello to strangers.”

What would you do or say?

To the technician in the blog post above, it meant nothing. The person was simply an object to be worked on, as though he were in a factory and the child was nothing but a generic “widget”. There’s a difference — if you’re in a factory, then you don’t deal with customers on your constant stream of objects. If you CHOSE to work with customers, then come on… DEAL with it. YOU made that decision. YOU should have the courtesy to actually do what it is that you’re supposed to — help the customer.

“If you have the customer’s phone number (from a voicemail or a callback request), put it into your system and see if anything comes up. If you have their email address, look it up. If you have their name, see what you can find.”

Phenominal.

“Once you’ve found the customer’s account, see if there is anything obviously wrong with it that could be causing a problem. Check to see who they are. When did they last call? The goal is just to glance at the screen and get a basic idea of who this customer is and what their story is about.”

Perfect.

If you’re going to call the customer back anyway, take the time to know who they are. This is very important and really quite simple.

As a story of a situation where this has not happened, I have a company that delivers water to my house. The only reason I am still with them is because their water is some of the only water that I can actually drink (I hate water… but it’s good for you!).

They are supposed to deliver to our house every 2 weeks, take the empty 5-gallon jugs of water and replace them with new ones. It doesn’t sound too hard to me. The problem is that since the beginning of the year, they haven’t hit one delivery date. I call up the next day and ask for a new delivery. About 1/2 the time, I get water the next day. The other 1/2, I have to call up a SECOND time. And so forth — sometimes it takes over a week to get the water that should have been there on a pre-scheduled, every 2 week basis.

So! Lately, I’ve gotten completely irritated with it and have been escalating to their route representative. I did that 3 months ago. I talked to him twice, but it didn’t get resolved. So I escalated to their Central Texas area manager a month ago. The way this works is that the contact center sends my information over to him by email and then he calls. When he called me, he didn’t know what I was calling about.

He should have asked for information if the call center didn’t provide it. He should have known exactly how many times I’d called up before, exactly what it was I was calling about, and what he was going to do about it.

To make things worse, they missed my delivery three weeks ago again. So I called up once more and escalated to him a second time. He called back — and left a single message saying “I guarantee you’ll have water tomorrow, thank you.” Come on!? That’s the best you can do after you’ve already talked to me? Ridiculous. But fine. I’ll accept that your service sucks, your water’s good.

Well, that was the case until this Monday. When, for yet another time, they missed my delivery. 2 delivers, 2 escalations.. don’t you think they’d get it right? Now, I’ve escalating to the Vice President level and am waiting for a call back. I wonder if he’ll call and have no idea who I am, why I’m calling. Granted, he was supposed to call yesterday — and didn’t. I called their call center again and they’ve said I’ll get a call today. If not, I guess I’ll go talk to their area President.

Well, I rambled some, but the idea is still the same. If you have a customer with a problem and you’re calling him back, at least know why they called and why you’re calling them back — if not more than that. More than that, as Service Untitled said, would be a great experience.

When you get busy and the adrenaline is running, you may find yourself speaking to customers faster than normal. I am going to ask you to take a deep breath before you speak, so that you can relax just enough to slow your speech down.

Even though you don’t mean to, when you speak fast, the customer could develop the perception that you are trying to rush them. This may even be true, but it is not the impression you want to leave your valuable customers. Slowing your speech also leaves the customer with the perception that you are more sincere and have time for them.

This is also extremely true in call centers — maybe even more so. The entire perception that people have of your service is verbal. There are no body signals. There is no eye contact. Your tone is everything. Keep this in mind the next time that a customer has contacted you and you start speaking quickly — whether because you’re busy or because they’re pushing your nerves. Even in a call center that focuses solely on your AHT, you’ll find that customers are more satisfied and they’ll actually understand you quicker if you talk slightly slower. Their response won’t, nearly as often, be “Can you repeat that?”

Slow down. We’re not in a hurry.

Reactions that I’ve had in organizations where I’ve helped implement sales environments into a customer service center range the entire length of the spectrum from “Cool! I can now work towards commissions or helping the company” to “I was hired on to do customer service and will never ever sell something.  You can’t make me.”  Really?

Imagine the following summarized conversation between Service Center (SC) and Customer X (X):

X: Hey, I’m calling in because my product isn’t working. It’s serial number 1234.

SC: Great! Let me find you a local repair center. That serial number is definitely under warranty and will be for a while longer.

X: Thanks for your help.

3 months later

X: Hey, about 3 months ago, my product failed and I had to have it repaired. It looks like it is doing it again. My serial number is 1234.

SC: I’m sorry, sir. Your product is no longer under warranty.

X: What?! That sucks. I wish you had an extended warranty.

SC: We do, sir, but you would have had to purchase this before your product was out of warranty.

X: ….

The Service Center has now failed in their charter to offer the customer the best service that they can.  Most self-coined “customer service agents”, however, don’t realize that.  They perceive talking to the customer about anything that could be a sale to be a negative because it is “sales” related.

The same conversation should have gone more along the lines of:

X: Hey, I’m calling in because my product isn’t working. It’s serial number 1234.

SC: Great! Let me find you a local repair center. That serial number is definitely under warranty, but it appears that it won’t be much longer. Did you know about our extended warranty coverage?  We would then be able to ensure that you didn’t have a lapse in your product support.

X: Thanks for your help.  I’m glad you mentioned that! Can you give me more information?

The fact of the matter is that all too often, customer service organizations completely ignore the major opportunities that they have to be able to generate revenue for their overall company.  Service centers shouldn’t need to be a 100% cost center.   Some, such as the one I am currently consulting for, would have a very hard time breaking even through revenue due to corporate or divisional policies, but there’s no reason that there can’t be some sales or some revenue being generated!

Some examples of service-oriented-sales opportunities include:

• Extended or UltraValue Warranties
• Accessories to physical products
• Product upgrades (with, or without, a trade in policy)
• Software updates
• Software or hardware enhancements
• Webinar training

Every business has their own opportunity, their own area that they could offer extra service to the customer and make the customer really happy by mentioning (selling) something.  It’s just a question of figuring out what that something is.

Is your group a customer service center refusing to sell? Remember, there are a lot of situations where NOT selling is more damaging to your customer service (even though the customer may not realize it).

ZDNet.co.uk has an article called “10 flagrant grammar mistakes that make you look stupid” that is really quite interesting to read.  #2 is the one that I used to be very guilty of — its versus it’s.  I’ve become significantly better in the past few years simply by virtue of paying close attention to them each time I use the words.  I’m sure most of us have an error that we make that simply hangs around, refusing to leave one’s vocabulary.

Take the time to pay attention to what you write.