Customer Service Tips Blog

There are words that are productive – words that care - and words that are simply unproductive and should not be used – words that don’t care.

Unproductive words should be avoided in customer interactions because they tend to produce undesired results, especially in a situation where the customer is already upset.  In fact, by utilizing the wrong words, you may actually be creating a larger customer service problem with your customer.  By minimizing these words, however, you vastly encourage more positive interactions.

Among the more negative words that don’t care are “have to” and “can’t.”  These are phrases which reflect controlling behavior and may aggravate people even if they weren’t upset in the first place.

For example, consider how you’d feel if you phoned a business and were put on hold for a long time.  Someone finally picks up the phone and when you explain yourself, they tell you “You  have to call a different number for that service,” or “You can’t do that at this number.”

The words, “I’ll try” are also tricky.  Therefore, “try” should be avoided in favor of something more promising such as, “I’ll do all I can to resolve that.”

The right words play a major role in creating exceptional customer service.

Robert Moment is an innovative customer service consultant, business coach and author of Invisible Profits: The Power of Exceptional Customer Service.  Robert specializes in teaching customer service training that create “wow” experiences and generate profitable results.  Visit Customer Service Training Skills and Sign-up for the FREE 5 Day e-course “Creating ‘Wow’ Customer Service Experiences.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 12:37 am and is filed under Customer Service. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.