Innovative Customer Service Techniques

Identifying the most important need

Rational Need:
What a customer needs done

Emotional Need:
How a customer wants to feel about their experience.

Emotional needs are more important than rational needs. Help customers feel better before addressing rational needs.

LAURA:

• Listen
• Acknowledge
• Understand
• Relate
• Act

Winning the moments of truth

Moments of Truth:

1. First impression
2. Peak impression
3. Last impression

Neutral experiences are not memorable but good/great experiences are very memorable.

Making wait time more bearable

Managing expectations by providing an estimated wait time. Prevent line cutting to maintain fairness. Find ways to alleviate competition. Keep the line moving when you can. Make sure customers can’t tell how long the line is. Find a way to occupy customers while waiting. Offer updates to help with unpredictability.

Getting customers to know your name

• Introduce yourself
• Reintroduce yourself
• Call customers by name
• Leave a business card
• Become their point of contact
• Make your name visible
• Be genuine

Improving your powers of observation

Inattentional Blindness
Failure to notice something in plain sight because you’re focused on something else.

Interactive scenarios using playing cards that demonstrates very well this concept.

• Prioritize service
• Change focus periodically.
• Move to a different activity.

Overcoming the illusion of speed

Focused on speed, rather than quality.

• Slow down
• Prioritize service
• Make a connection

Understanding the consequences of multitasking

• Reduce distractions.
• Focus attention.

Avoiding directed attention fatigue

Directed Attention Fatigue:
When the part of the brain that allows us to concentrate amid distractions becomes fatigued.

• Distractibility
• Irritability
• Impatience
• Indecisiveness
• Procrastination

How to Avoid?

• Unplug
• Take a break
• Do quiet activities
• Go outside
• Sleep

Identifying the secrets of employee motivation

People are naturally motivated to do things they like doing. Demotivation is caused by a lack of success.

• Share successes vs. Share challenges
• Speak with pride vs. Speak with frustration

Ask yourself these three questions:

1. What customer service goals would you like to achieve?
2. How can you use your strengths in your job?
3. What solutions are within your control to make things better?

• Create a clear vision
• Fix broken processes
• Empower employees
• Find small wins daily

Increasing teamwork between departments

Conflict happens when we have different goals. Be transparent and find common goals. Teamwork can suffer when facing pressure from different directions. Different owners might approach service in different ways. Unite the team and fix broken processes.

Creating positive social pressure

Social pressure can cause people to act differently than they normally would.