Leadership Flagship

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.~ John Quincy Adams

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  • 7 Customer Support Responses to Avoid

    7 Customer Support Responses to Avoid

    by: Margaret Wood, Freelancer

    One of the first things that companies introduce customer support personnel to is:  try to put yourself in your customer’s shoes.

    Why? When people call Customer Support, it’s for one of two reasons:

    1. They need help with a problem
    2. They have a question

    In either case, they have reached a level of frustration that they feel needs customer support attention.  The last thing you want to do is fuel the frustration.

    Here are 7 of the worst customer support responses that are not only insincere and disingenuous, but make you sound almost non-human.   Even AIs are programmed to sound more sympathetic and understand:

    1. “Apologize for inconvenience”
    The epitome of classic insincerity.  Even if you say something like “I’m terribly sorry for your trouble – let me see how I can help (get the right person to help you with that, etc”.  Way more personal and friendly, don’t you agree?
    2. “That’s our policy”

    The customer knows you have policies – they want someone to help them resolve an issue. Sending the customer “up the line” where they will be told the exact same thing you told them lets the customer know your company really doesn’t care.

    Try to at least explain why things are done as they are and the reasons behind your policies if you can.

    Every customer counts. Pay attention to reviews of your company.  Enough poor reviews for the same reasons may indicate your company may need to take a look at its policies, not to mention retain a happier customer.

    3. “You can find the answer here…”

    This one can make anyone cringe. Why not just tell them the answer if you have it?Customers don’t care how good your website looks. Just send a link or paste the answer  into an email and save them some time. That way, they have it right there and can go back to it as often as they like.

    4. Foul language 

    Don’t do it! It’s not worth losing your job over it! 

    You need to keep it together and rise above. Keep a friendly and professional tone and you’ll feel good about yourself.

    This one can raise the hair at the back of your neck.  However, the good news is – as an employee, nay, as a human being, you do not have to listen to abuse.

    By all rights, you can hang up on them by first saying something to effect of: “Please call me back when you’ve had a minute to calm down and are willing talk to me in a respectful manner. I cannot help you when you are cussing me out. I am hanging up now. Good bye.”  One of three things will happen: they will calm down immediately, or you will hang up on them, or they will hang up on you.

    I can almost guarantee you there is no respect manager  who cares about their employees would reprimand you if you were polite through the entire conversation – hopefully it was recorded.

    5. “No one’s ever complained about that before”
    What the customer hears: “It’s probably your fault, you dummy”. Don’t make your customers feel small -show some interest – there’s a first time for everything.  Get details, and give them the confidence that you will try to make it right.

    6. “That’s another department”
    Really? If your company only has one number listed for customer service or has 42 choices of extensions, how can you expect customers to dial the right department? If you have to redirect them to another department, you can preface it with, “Let me get you someone  who can help you with that. Do you mind if I place you on hold while I try to reach them for you?”

    7. “Thank you for your feedback”
    This one might be OK if you’ve provided an online review or satisfaction survey. But when it comes to customer service, how about a friendlier, softer, more personalized approach: “Thanks for taking your time to share your thoughts with us.” Make your customers feel appreciated.

    A last thought:

    You don’t want to sound unwilling to help, ignorant or condescending to your customer. So, put yourself in their place – how do you feel when you have to call a company regarding an issue you’ve encountered and run into these responses?

    Related Reading:

  • How to Unlock the Positives Behind Negatives – Meet the Process Communication Model®(PCM)

    How to Unlock the Positives Behind Negatives – Meet the Process Communication Model®(PCM)

    The Positives Behind Negative Attention: How to apply the principles of PCM

    Posted on 10-09-2017, by:Nate Regier

     

    “You can’t unlock a lock with a lock. You have to unlock a lock with a key.” (more…)

  • 5 Steps to Successfully Communicating Your Point (without Interruptions)

    5 Steps to Successfully Communicating Your Point (without Interruptions)

    Why Being Interrupted Is Most Likely Your Fault…

    Excerpt from Post on 10-09-2017, by:Stacey Hanke  
    Most people believe they get interrupted because that is simply how the interrupting person behaves. In reality, the blame more often lies with the speaker rather than the interrupter.
    Your listeners may be interrupting you because you take too long to get to the point or because you never pause to let them get a word in edgewise. (more…)
  • Conflict Resolution: Skills That Can Turn Conflicts into Opportunities

    Conflict Resolution: Skills That Can Turn Conflicts into Opportunities

    By: Margaret Wood, Freelancer 10/12/2017

    Conflict resolution is all about finding amicable solutions to disagreements amongst two people. Whether the disagreement is financial,  personal, emotional or political, when a dispute arises, often the best course of action is negotiation to resolve the disagreement. (more…)

  • 5 Top Techniques to Help Reduce Stress and Bring You Back to Center

    5 Top Techniques to Help Reduce Stress and Bring You Back to Center

    Wellness Starts With Awareness

     Posted on 10-09-2017, by:
    Jeff Davidson
    Breathing Space Institute
    A Time magazine editorial lauded one of their senior writers who died of a massive heart attack at age 44. They described him as a “vivid personality, first-class intellect, bracing professionalism.” The editorial / obituary said that this fellow did an extraordinary number of things extraordinarily well. He vigorously filled his post, and also wrote extensively about politics, social issues, the media, and books.
    In addition to those things, he frequently appeared on TV panels, ready to express provocative, but well thought out opinions. This gentleman lectured, wrote books, and freelanced for other publications. Amazingly, they say that he had a wide, varied circle of friends, people at every level.
    A Moment of Silence, Please
    I was aghast when the editorial/obituary said that this fellow rarely did fewer than two things at once and lauded him for doing so. He “opened his mail while discoursing on story ideas. When he went to lunch with a co-worker, he often took a book.” Apparently, he never turned down an assignment and he attacked the most mundane task as if a Pulitzer Prize “depended on it.”The piece concluded by observing that this gentleman had a forthcoming book wherein he decried that “it was a simple fact that ‘some people are better than others – smarter, harder working, more learned, more productive, harder to replace.’”

    Cramming can Kill You
    Don’t the good people at this magazine understand that cramming everything into your life at hyper speed leads to early death? I wrote to the magazine following this commentary, although I didn’t expect them to answer. I asked, “Where was the reflection in his life? When did he pause?

    When did he ever reset his body clock? I understood that he was a notable individual, but to praise him publicly for doing two things at once, and in the same breath recount that he died of “a massive heart attack at 44 is dripping with irony.”

    This person was the antithesis of someone who masters his environment. Rather, he let all assignments, all intellectual queries, all interests, anything, apparently, that appeared on his personal radar screen, to master him.

    What About You?
    In your life, what are some techniques that you could use daily to pause, collect your thoughts, reduce your level of stress, and move on with relative grace and ease?

             1. Close your eyes for as little as 60 seconds and visualize a pleasurable scene. It could be a waterfall, a favorite hiking trail, a mountain top view, the shoreline, a campfire, or simply the image of a loved one. Any time that you can visualize a pleasurable scene, it is like resetting your internal clock. You get an immediate “time out.” Think of it as a vacation of the mind. When you return to where you are, invariably, you will be in at least a slightly better frame of mind.

    2. As a variation on this theme, with your eyes closed, listen to music with your headphones. When you are concentrating solely on music that you like, giving it the undivided attention of one of your senses, the time begins to expand. A three or four minute song goes by, perceptually, in ten minutes.

    3. Allow one of your senses–smell, taste, or touch–to dominate. For the next several minutes, close your eyes and simply explore your immediate environment by touch only. Yes, I know that you already know how many of these things will feel when you touch them. Make a game out of it.

    Pretend that your sense of touch was the only vehicle that you had for understanding your environment. When you open your eyes again, the world will look a little different, and things will be a little less intense.

    Do the same with your sense of smell. If you are in an office environment, and think that you don’t have options, look around you. Perhaps, there is a non-toxic smelling magic marker nearby. How about a flower or lead pencil or a cup of coffee? When have you stopped and actually smelled the coffee?

    4. Play with Rover. Interacting with pets enables you to reset your internal clock. A growing body of evidence shows that pets have a calming, tranquil effect on people.

    5. Notice your breath. Breath is the key to life. If you can’t breathe, you can’t live. In a particularly stressful environment, you may be engaging in shallow breathing. If you can draw three deep breaths, you will find that you can more easily feel in control.