HANDLING IRATE CUSTOMERS 102: LASER LISTENING - WHAT ARE THEY REALLY SAYING?

1. Review the Principles Driving Your Team’s Customer Service Mission

2. Introduce the Lesson

SCRIPT: At our last meeting, we focused on one of the biggest challenges you face when confronted by irate customers: keeping your cool. Today we’re moving on to the next challenge: making sure that we’re

clear on the real problem or issue so we can address it quickly and effectively. To do that, we’re going to sharpen our listening skills. [Distribute copies of Handout 4B.]

3. Explain and Discuss the Skill(s) to Practice

SCRIPT: There are two related listening tactics I want you to be aware of and start to practice this week.

These will make you a great listener in every area of your life, not just here at work, and are particularly important to practice when emotions are running high. Basically, they’re the “laser surgery” that cuts through the anger the customer is throwing at you, so you can get to the real problems underneath.

LEADER’S NOTE:

SCRIPT: Those tactics are (1) check for understanding, and (2) repeat or paraphrase the complaint to acknowledge you heard it correctly. These tactics may sound simple, but they’re not easy to put into practice. Let’s take a closer look.

First, check for understanding. Picture an irate customer who is either babbling or saying almost nothing.

In either case, you have no idea what the real problem is. It’s hidden in the fog of the customer’s emotions.

Of course, you keep your cool and acknowledge their feelings—and how are you going to do that? [Elicit responses based on the previous lesson.] Then, you prepare to check for understanding.

LEADER’S NOTE:

SCRIPT: There are several strategies for drawing more information out of the customer. For example, you can simply say, “Tell me more about ...” and fill in the blank with the appropriate words. [Offer examples from your own experience; for instance, “Tell me more about why this product isn’t serving your needs.”]

Or, you can say, “I want to make sure I’ve got this right. Would you repeat what happened one more time?” Another possibility is, “Help me to understand the situation so we can get this resolved quickly.

Would you run that by me one more time?”

Are there any strategies that you have found useful? [Have the team add these additions to the handout.]

LEADER’S NOTE: Show Slide 102.3.

SCRIPT: Once you’ve checked for understanding, go on to the next tactic: Repeat or paraphrase the complaint to acknowledge you heard it correctly. You want to assure customers that you heard them clearly and have

really got it right. This will calm them down and position you as someone who’s there to help, not hassle.

Our lead-in statements are simple. You might say, “Let me make sure I heard you correctly”; or “Let me make sure I understand the problem correctly”; or “Let me see if I have all the facts here.” Then comes the hard

part: “What you’re saying is ...” Depending on your ability at laser listening, what follows makes or breaks the conversation. Did you really nail it? Did you really understand the problem or the situation? And, there’s no doubt about it, most customers will give you immediate feedback to let you know how well you did.

4. Conduct a Team Activity

LEADER’S NOTE: Create several role-plays based on situations in your business that might conclude with these customer statements: • “This store [or business] always messes up!”

• “That’s not what I was told the last time I called [or was in here].”

• “If I don’t get better service, I’m going to call the Better Business Bureau!”

Ask one member to play the irate customer, and call on others to respond using the tactics you just presented. Make this interchange fun and fast-paced.

5. Set Goals for the Week

LEADER’S NOTE: Ask members to look for as many opportunities as possible to practice these tactics with customers and one another during the coming week.

Distribute scorecards—large index cards will do— and a strip of fun stickers. Ask the team to “stick it to” members who are caught handling an irate customer well or who respond effectively to instant practice sessions. Challenge them to do on-the-spot role-plays throughout the week based on their own experiences or on scenarios you and your peer leaders create and distribute randomly. Finally, ask them to bring their scorecards and examples of what did and what didn’t work to the next meeting.

6. Assign Accountability for Follow-Up

LEADER’S NOTE: Everyone on the team is accountable for this assignment.

7. Announce Contest and Prizes

LEADER’S NOTE: The person who has the most stickers by the next team meeting receives a prize or is entered into a drawing.

 Handling Irate Customers 102: Laser Listening—What Are They Really Saying?

Laser Listening: Two Basic Tactics

1. Check for understanding.

• Strategies:

— “Tell me more about ...”

— “I want to make sure I’ve got this right. Would you repeat what happened one more time?”

— “Help me to understand the situation so we can get this resolved quickly. Would you run that by me one more time?”

— Other strategies:

2. Repeat or paraphrase the complaint to acknowledge that you heard it correctly.

• Lead-ins:

— “Let me make sure I heard you correctly.”

— “I want to make sure I understand the problem correctly.”

— “Let me see if I have all the facts about the situation.”

• Then:

— “What you’re saying is ...”

ASSIGNMENT OF THE WEEK

Practice and stick it to ’em!

FUNCTION VERSUS PURPOSE - CUSTOMER SATISFACTION PERSPECTIVE

FUNCTION VERSUS PURPOSE
Which Consideration: Function Or Purpose?


Picture this instead: What if the moment your fellow on the ladder sees the overburdened mom returning from the pool, he thinks to himself,

‘‘My routine daily function is to change light bulbs, paint ceilings, and fix pipes, but the reason I’m here, my purpose, is to help create a memorable experience for guests’’?

Understanding this, he immediately climbs down and opens the door for her—before she has to fumble with the door handle or knock to get attention.

The maintenance engineer—inspired by your leadership—has now provided genuine service that anticipates the customer’s needs. The timing of the engineer’s intervention is the only measurable change, but what a difference that tiny change makes!

Suddenly this employee has anticipated a customer’s need, a need she has not yet expressed. In doing so, he has honored her idiosyncratic life circumstances—her individual humanity.

This extraordinary kind of service is a highly reliable path to winning customer loyalty.

You probably have doubts.You may doubt that your maintenance engineer or other rank and file worker would ever anticipate the needs of customers so masterfully. We’ll show you how and why he can and will. You may doubt that you can afford to create such lavish standards of service. As one of our students put it, ‘‘In one of Leonardo’s five-star resorts, I can see it, maybe.

But in Micah’s bootstrapped ventures—how does he pull off that level of service? As for my own company, I need my maintenance workers to stay up on their ladders, thank you very much!’’

Actually, creating extraordinary service systems is a cost-effective proposition for almost any business: the natural outcome of a systematic approach to customers. And such service pays great dividends in reasonably short order.

LIFETIME VALUE (LTV) IS A KEY REQUISITE TO REALISE THE FULL CUSTOMER VALUE

CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE BASIC INFORMATION
What Is The Importance Of Customer Lifetime Value?


Lifetime values and relationship values require the cradle-to-grave mentality. An organisation has got to want to attract the customer early in his buying cycle, and retain that customer for the duration of that customer’s buying life.

Good examples of this include mortgage businesses, which look to retain the customer over an extensive period of time, offering products as and when they come on-line, so that the customer remains a customer with them long after the mortgage has been settled. Banks and insurance companies are pretty good at applying the cradle-to-grave mentality also.

Setting about offering a service level that attracts and retains the customer year-on-year is the next task to be undertaken. Customer value has to be seen as a best estimate.

While the estimates can be quite accurate and certain accounting procedures followed, the actual value of the customer can be curtailed by many different incidences throughout the life cycle of the relationship. A customer could relocate to a different region where your service offering is not available, or the customer could succumb to a tragic illness and cut short the relationship, and many, many other possibilities exist.

However, the LTV estimate can give a bigger picture across the organisation if talking in terms of customer segments and growth numbers, which is a difficult calculation also. If the company is calculating year-on-year growth of a set amount and fails for any reason to reach that, the knock-on effects of those calculations and LTVs is quite significant.

You cannot grow turnover without the customers spending and if you have not attracted the level of customers with the LTVs that you assumed, then you are very unlikely to reach your end result.

There are three factors on which to base your LTV calculation: historic trends, current figures or future potential. The difficulty with future potential is that it’s not backed up by any actual data and therefore tends to be viewed with a little more scepticism.


Figures based on current trends are often seen as having been ‘cherry-picked’. The idea of basing figures on current activity assumes that current activity has been exceptionally good. That leaves us with the historic data, and in many ways this is the safest and best-recognised way of assuming future LTVs.

If you have a group of customers who have behaved in a certain way upon which you are basing your LTV activity, then the chances are this will be accepted as potential for future behaviour, given that your service levels and performance levels remain the same.

Any improvement in service levels can impact on the LTV calculation over a sustained period.

MAKING CUSTOMER HAPPY IS JOB #1 - CUSTOMER SERVICE TRUTH

MAKE THE CUSTOMERS HAPPY TUTORIALS - CUSTOMER SERVICE GOLDEN RULE
How To Make The Customer Happy?

The customer is the reason you have a job. You are in the customer service business, and this should be your mantra. You may also want to add to your mantra that without customers, customer service employees are not needed.

You have learned the most common reasons for customer dissatisfaction are employees who ignore customers, don’t listen, aren’t responsible, aren’t knowledgeable, and don’t follow up.

You also learned that most of the time, customers will not even complain. They just will not come back.

The only way for you to know if you are making customers happy is to always stay on top of your game.

Performance Prompts
• You present the face of your business, so learn how to present yourself properly at all times.
• Your coworkers look to your entire team and your manager to set the level of expectation. Whatever you are willing to accept is what you are going to get, so set the bar high.
• Do not anticipate what customers need. Ask them what they need.
• Ask what you are doing right and what you can do to improve. Then, tune in to customers’ replies.
• Make sure customers are important to you. If they are important to you, they will be important to your coworkers.
• Always stay tuned in to your customers—and to your coworkers—to stay one step ahead of the crowd.

None of this is rocket science. Giving high quality customer service is really very simple. It begins—and ends—with your commitment to your customers. Learn how to do your job well.

Expect the best from yourself and from your coworkers. Nothing less is acceptable for you to build a strong and loyal customer base.

When This Happens . . .
Mrs. Jones just pulled into your parking lot. She is a customer who complains about everything. Your coworkers start making wise cracks and derogatory comments about her. They jokingly say that you will have to handle her.

Try This
You feel the same about Mrs. Jones, so it would be easy to join your coworkers in making jokes. Don’t. If you joke or talk negatively about a customer, it gives them the green light to do the same.

Show your coworkers that you are above making fun of your customers. Say something like, “Hey Guys, Mrs. Jones does a lot of business here. We don’t know anything about her personal situation, so let’s help her without judging her.

” Then step up to the plate and show your coworkers how to give exceptional customer service, even to one of your most difficult customers.

When your coworkers see how you treat Mrs. Jones, they will be less likely to make fun of her in the future.
Remember, the customer is the reason you have a job. Without customers, customer service employees are not needed.

CUSTOMER LOYALTY - INDICATOR OF GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE

FIVE (5) FACTORS THAT MOTIVATES CUSTOMER LOYALTY 
What Factors That Motivates Customer Loyalty?


Customer Loyalty
Texas A&M University’s Leonard Berry and his associates (1994) found there are five predominant factors that motivate customers to be loyal. Berry’s findings have been used in customer service research by many organizations, and they provide the framework for popular books such as Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service, by Kristin Anderson and Ron Zemke (1998).

The five main factors that influence customer loyalty are

1. Reliability: The capability to deliver the service that was promised, in a dependable and accurate way

2. Responsiveness: Eagerness to help customers and to deliver prompt service

3. Assurance: Employee skill, knowledge, and courtesy, and the ability to solve problems confidently and convey trust

4. Empathy: Caring, individual attention, and interest in building relationships with customers

5. Tangibles: Appearance of buildings, facilities, equipment, and communication materials.

You might think of these factors as part of a customer’s hierarchy of needs, including the essentials (deliver what you promise) as well as higher order needs (deliver with care).

This hierarchy is similar to Maslow’s theory (1987) that people are motivated first by the basics, but also by more sophisticated needssuch as self-esteem and self-actualization.

Another tool for considering customer loyalty is customer relationship management. CRM is a popular concept that focuses on building lifelong relationships with customers, and marketing products and services based on customer needs.

The CRM model encourages doing what it takes to retain customers. This includes personalizing transactions as much as possible in order to gain loyalty. Personalizing increases the value an organization has to customers, and vice versa.