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Perfect Phrases for Customer Service
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Perfect Phrases for Customer Service, second edition, provides the language you need for everyday customer service situations—and includes simple, effective techniques that can help you meet even the most demanding customer needs. Master the most effective words and phrases for:
- Defusing bad situations before they get worse
- Handling complaints patiently and professionally
- Satisfying customers and increasing sales
- Building long-term relationships with important customers
ISBN-13: 9780071745062
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: McGraw Hill LLC
Publication Date: 11-10-2010
Pages: 256
Product Dimensions: 7.98(w) x 11.70(h) x 0.48(d)
Series: Perfect Phrases
Robert Bacal is the author of Managing Performance and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Consulting, and he runs the management website work911.com.
Basics of Customer Service There must be a billion words written about customer service. Advice abounds, from the banal and obvious (smile when you talk on the phone) to complex and difficult suggestions about how to "create a corporate culture of excellent customer service." Amid all the words, simple or fancy, is a basic hidden truth about customer service: the person who interacts directly with the customer determines whether that customer perceives that he or she is receiving poor customer service, excellent service, or something in between. If you serve customers directly, you have the power to affect their perceptions. That customer contact is where "the rubber meets the road." If you provide service to customers, your words and behaviors are the tools you use to create a positive customer perception of you and the company you work for. Whether you're a novice working with customers or a seasoned pro, what you do and say will affect how customers see you. You can't help it. Customers will form opinions, so you might as well learn how to create positive opinions. But you need to know how to do that. It might be that you get paid minimum wage and you don't plan to stay in your customer service job. Why care what customers think? The answer is simple—self-interest! Customers who form negative opinions about you can make your life miserable. When they get angry, they complain, slow down service for others (making them mad), threaten, swear, and otherwise do things that add stress to your job. In some cases, their anger can escalate to the point where your physical safety is at risk. All because you couldn't be bothered or didn't care. It's to your benefit to provide decent customer service just for these reasons. More on what's in it for you in a moment. That's what this book is for—to teach you about the dozens and dozens of techniques you can use when interacting with customers so they'll walk away with positive feelings about the experience. You'll learn about very specific things you can do or say in all kinds of customer interactions. You'll learn how to deal with difficult customers. You'll learn how to approach customers and how to get information from them so you can do your job. You'll learn to deal with customer service problems quickly, efficiently, and professionally. Best of all, the techniques in this book will fit your needs, whether you serve burgers, staff the desk in a hotel, help people in health care environments, or even work for the government. This book will tell you exactly what to do and say, and it will provide you with numerous examples so you can use customer service techniques effectively. Let's get started! What's in It for Me? Why should you be concerned with providing excellent customer service? You don't own the company. You may not get paid more for providing excellent customer service. So, what's in it for you? There are three powerful reasons for learning to provide great customer service: greater job satisfaction, reduced stress and hassle, and enhanced job success. First, very few people derive any job satisfaction when they feel that the time they spend at work is "wasted." Most of us need to feel useful and productive—to make a difference, whether it's helping a fast food customer make healthier food choices or dispensing legal advice. When you provide high- quality customer service, you feel that you're making that difference and can derive pride in your work. The day goes faster. When you do a good job with a customer, such as calming down someone who's angry and complaining, you feel good about having achieved something. Perhaps more important than your own perceptions are the customer's perceptions, when you do a good job with a customer and he or she tells you what you've achieved. That feedback helps you feel good about yourself and your performance. Doing a good job and taking pride in how you serve customers are ways to prevent job burnout. Second, deliver quality customer service and you will save yourself a lot of stress and hassle. When you learn and use customer service skills, you are far less likely to get into protracted, unpleasant, and upsetting interactions with a customer. You make yourself less of a target for customer wrath. That's because customer service skills help keep customers from becoming angry and reduce the length and intensity of the anger when and if difficult customer service situations occur. Third, learning and using quality customer service techniques helps form the perceptions of those who may be able to help your career—supervisors, managers, and potential employers. Using these techniques makes you look good to everyone, and that's critical in getting promoted, receiving pay raises, and getting new job opportunities. Managers and supervisors notice when a customer asks for you specifically because you do such a good job or comments positively about how you've helped. Of course, you may have other reasons to want to provide the best customer service possible. You may want to contribute to the success of your employer. You may like the feeling of having other employees look up to you as a good model. Or you may even benefit directly if you work on a commission basis. In many jobs, people who are good at customer service earn more. Regardless of your reasons, quality customer service techniques can be learned, and you can learn them with a little effort. In the rest of this chapter, we'll provide an overview of customer service principles and issues and explain how to use this book. In the next chapter, we'll describe 60 techniques you should be using. The rest of the book is dedicated to showing you how to use those techniques. Different Kinds of Customers Before we continue, we should clarify what the word "customer" means. You're probably familiar with our starting definition: the customer is the person who pays for goods or services that you provide. This definition works in some contexts, but not all. It breaks down in situations where money doesn't directly change hands. For example, people often interact with government, public schools, and other organizations. They receive goods or services from them, but do not pay anything directly to them. We need to change our definition so that people who interact with these organizations fall under our definition of customer, since they, too, deserve high-quality customer service, even if they aren't paying directly. Here's a better definition: the customer is the person next in line who receives your output (service, products). That person may purchase goods or services directly or receive output you create or deliver without direct payment. The person may be outside your company, but this definition also includes anyone within the company who receives output from you. There are four basic types of customers. Regardless of type, each customer deserves to receive top-quality customer service, and each can make your work life miserable if you don't provide it. First, there are external paying customers. These are the people who pay to eat in a restaurant, pay for health care and legal advice, or pay to stay in a hotel. Second, there are internal customers. These are people who receive output (services, products, information) that you create or provide, but who are in the same organization as you. Internal customers may be billed via interdepartmental charge systems, or there may be no payment system in place. For example, human resources staff members involved in hiring employees, in effect, work for internal customers (the manageRead an Excerpt
PERFECT PHRASES for CUSTOMER SERVICE
Hundreds of Ready-to-Use Phrases for Handling Any Customer Service Situation
By Robert Bacal The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Copyright © 2011The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-07-174506-2
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
(Continues...)
Excerpted from PERFECT PHRASES for CUSTOMER SERVICE by Robert Bacal. Copyright © 2011 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Preface to the Second Edition ix Part 1 Succeeding at Customer Service Chapter 1 Basics of Customer Service 3 What's in it for Me? 4 Different Kinds of Customers 6 First Things First-Dispelling an Important Customer Service Myth 8 Understanding what Customers Want 10 How to get the most from this Book 13 Chapter 2 Customer Service Tools and Techniques 15 Above and Beyond the Call of Duty 16 Acknowledge Customer's Needs 16 Acknowledge Without Encouraging 17 Active Listening 17 Admit Mistakes 18 Allow Venting 18 Apologize 19 Appropriate Nonverbals 19 Appropriate Smiles 19 Arrange Follow-Up 20 Ask Probing Questions 20 Assurances of Effort 21 Assurances of Results 21 Audience Removal 22 Bonus Buy Off 22 Broken Record 22 Close Interactions Positively 23 Common Courtesy 23 Complete Follow-Up 24 Contact Security/Authorities/Management 24 Disengage 25 Distract 25 Empathy Statements 26 Expedite 26 Expert Recommendations 27 Explain Reasoning or Actions 27 Face-Saving Out 28 Find Agreement Points 28 Finish Off/Follow Up 29 Isolate/Detach Customer 29 Level 29 Manage Height Differentials/Nonverbals 30 Manage Interpersonal Distance 30 Not Taking the Bait 31 Offering Choices/Empowering 32 Plain Language 32 Preemptive Strike 33 Privacy and Confidentiality 33 Pros and Cons 34 Provide Alternatives 34 Provide a Customer Takeaway 35 Provide Explanations 35 Question Instead of State 36 Refer to Supervisor 36 Refer to Third Party 37 Refocus 38 Set Limits 38 Some People Think That (Neutral Mode) 40 Stop Sign-Nonverbal 40 Suggest an Alternative to Waiting 41 Summarize the Conversation 41 Telephone Silence 42 Thank-Yous 43 Timeout 43 Use Customer's Name 43 Use of Timing with Angry Customers 44 Verbal Softeners 44 Voice Tone-Emphatic 45 When Question 45 You're Right! 46 Part 2 Dealing with Specific Customer Situations 1 When you're Late or Know You'll Be Late 49 2 When a Customer Is in a Hurry 52 3 When a Customer Jumps Ahead in a Line of Waiting Customers 54 4 When a Customer Asks to Be Served Ahead of Other Waiting Customers 56 5 When a Customer Interrupts a Discussion between the Employee and Another Customer 58 6 When a Customer has a Negative Attitude About Your Company Due to Past Experiences 60 7 When You Need to Explain a Company Policy or Procedure 63 8 When a Customer Might Be Mistrustful 66 9 When the Customer Has Been Through Voicemail Hell 69 10 When a Customer Is Experiencing a Language Barrier 72 11 When the Customer Has been "Buck-Passed" 75 12 When a Customer Needs to Follow a Sequence of Actions 77 13 When the Customer Insults Your Competence 79 14 When a Customer Won't Stop Talking on the Phone 81 15 When the Customer Swears or Yells #1 83 16 When the Customer Swears or Yells #2 86 17 When a Customer Won't Stop Talking and Is Getting Abusive on the Phone #1 89 18 When a Customer Won't Stop Talking and Is Getting Abusive on the Phone #2 92 19 When a Customer Has Been Waiting in a Line 95 20 When You Don't Have the Answer 97 21 When Nobody Handy Has the Answer 101 22 When You Need to Place a Caller on Hold 104 23 When You Need to Route a Customer Phone Call 107 24 When You Lack the Authority to ... 109 25 When a Customer Threatens to go Over Your Head 111 26 When a Customer Demands to Speak with Your Supervisor 113 27 When a Customer Demands to Speak with Your Supervisor, Who Isn't Available 116 28 When a Customer Threatens to Complain to the Press 118 29 When a Customer Demands to Speak to the "Person in Charge" 121 30 When a Customer Makes an Embarrassing Mistake 125 31 When a Customer Withholds Information Due to Privacy Concerns 128 32 When a Customer Threatens Bodily Harm or Property Damage 131 33 When a Customer Is Confused About What He or She Wants or Needs 135 34 When a Customer Makes a Racist Remark 138 35 When a Customer Makes a Sexist Remark 141 36 When a Customer Refuses to Leave 144 37 When a Customer Accuses You of Racism 147 38 When a Customer Plays One Employee Off Another ("So-and-So Said") 150 39 When a Customer Might Be Stealing 154 40 When a Customer Is Playing to an Audience of Other Customers 156 41 When a Customer Exhibits Passive-Aggressive Behavior 159 42 When a Customer Uses Nonverbal Attempts to Intimidate 162 43 When a Customer Makes Persistent and Frequent Phone Calls 165 44 When Someone Else Is Not Responding (No Callback) 168 45 When You Need to Clarify Commitments 172 46 When a Customer Wants Information You're Not Allowed to Give 175 47 When a Customer Makes a Suggestion to Improve Service 177 48 When You Can't Find a Customer's Reservation/Appointment 180 49 When You're Following Up on a Customer Complaint 183 50 Properly Identifying the Internal Customer 186 51 When an Internal Customer Isn't Following Procedures to Request Service 189 52 When the Customer Wants Something that Won't Fill His Need 192 53 When You Want Feedback from the Customer 195 54 When a Customer Complains About Red Tape and Paperwork 198 55 When You Need to Respond to a Customer Complaint Made in Writing 201 56 When a Reservation/Appointment Is Lost and You Can't Meet the Commitment 204 57 When Customers Are Waiting in a Waiting Room 207 58 When a Customer Complains about a Known Problem 210 59 When a Customer Asks Inappropriate Questions 212 60 When a Customer Tries an Unacceptable Merchandise Return 214 Part 3 Social Media and Customer Service The Connection Between Social Media and Customer Service 221 61 Scanning, Watching, Searching (Proactive) 227 62 Triage: Proactively Prioritizing Complaints/Comments 229 63 Contact! 232 64 Proactive Complaint Handling 234Table of Contents