Customer Service Tips Blog

Belittling is a dangerous action that you can do without even knowing.

Belittling: 

Saying or doing something that hurts someone and makes them feel put down.

When a courtesy ritual is ignored, for example you don’t acknowledge a customer, that person may feel belittled.  Belittling comes from the controlling part of behavior and is the result of insult and judgments.

Examples of belittling statements include:

• Why did you do that?

• Don’t be silly!

• What were you thinking?

• Why didn’t you…

• You shouldn’t do/say that.

• Those people are a pain.

• You should know better.

Take a customer’s problem seriously without passing judgment on them.  Demonstrate to your customer that you accept his or her frame of reference – even if it’s not how you would feel yourself.  Then take responsibility for solving the problem.

Robert Moment is an innovative customer service consultant, business coach and author of Invisible Profits: The Power of Exceptional Customer Service.  Visit Customer Service Training Skills and sign up for the FREE 5 day e-course, Creating “Wow” Customer Service Experiences.

Your tone of voice is just as important as the message you’re expressing.  In fact, sometimes the words are less important than the way you say them.  Your tone of voice can actually completely contradict the words you’re saying.

To demonstrate this, let’s look at each of the following phrases using the tone you would use if you were behaving in each of the six ways:

• I’m sorry.

• When will it be ready?

• That’s more than we budgeted for.

• Allow me to help.

• Is there anything I can do?

• I’ll take care of that

Note how different each phrase sounds depending on how you say it.  Observe how the message changes even though the words are the same.

The importance of the Tone of your Voice is an important customer service tip in building customer rapport and providing exceptional customer service.

Robert Moment is an innovative customer service consultant, business coach and author of Invisible Profits: The Power of Exceptional Customer Service.  Visit Customer Service Training Skills and sign up for the FREE 5 day e-course, Creating “Wow” Customer Service Experiences.

You can communicate with people on two entirely different levels:

• The human level

• The business level

In any interaction, including business interactions, there are human needs which must be met.  These include:

• Attention

• Courtesy

• Acceptance of the customer’s viewpoint

Should a customer become upset with any facet of your company’s core service, or delivery of that core service, strong feelings are likely to surface.  By ignoring the human side of an interaction, you may leave your customers feeling upset, even when you have done precisely what they’ve asked of you.

Every business interaction should be completed on two levels of equal importance:  your core service and the human element.  The situation should conclude with the customer feeling satisfied with both.

The human level becomes doubly important when a customer is upset.  This is because it is the human level that actually makes the customer feel cared for and well treated.  Therefore, providing only business satisfaction would leave the customer feeling cold.

Always consider the human and business levels of interaction with customers

Robert Moment is an innovative customer service consultant, business coach and author of Invisible Profits: The Power of Exceptional Customer Service.  Visit Customer Service Training Skills and sign up for the FREE 5 day e-course, Creating “Wow” Customer Service Experiences.

 To truly create an exceptional customer experience, you need to understand who your customers really are; it is all about the customer, after all.  So let’s start with the basics.  What exactly is a customer?

Customer: 

A person who relies on you for timeliness, quality and accuracy in your work.

While you may have believed that traditionally customers were limited to people who interact with your business in order to receive a service or product, notice that the above definition does not limit your customers solely to this group.  For the purposes of this blog, those individuals who interact with your organization in order to obtain a product or service will be referred to as “external” customers.

As you may have guessed, therefore, there are other types of customers who are referred to as “internal” customers.  These are individuals within your own organization who rely on you as well.

When you serve your internal customers well and create an exceptional customer experience for them, this will eventually have an effect on your external customers.

The key is to remember that your internal customers are just as deserving of a positive experience as your external ones.

Robert Moment is an innovative customer service consultant, business coach and author of Invisible Profits: The Power of Exceptional Customer Service.  Visit Customer Service Training Skills and sign up for the FREE 5 day e-course, Creating “Wow” Customer Service Experiences.

Here are five Email Etiquette Tips for Exceptional Customer Service:

• Utilize business email properly by understanding that it has three objectives, a Legal Objective, a Productivity Objective, and a Commercial Objective.  While email is a valuable tool, it can also be a conduit for trouble and can leave a bad image of your company.  Make sure the emails you send stick to your objective or reason for sending them. 

• Gain a positive first impression for you and your company by keeping the appearance of your email professional.  Take care to follow email etiquette by using sentence case, black text, an easy-to-read font, a concise subject line and discrete addressing.

• Utilize professional email addresses at work, and leave the personal ones at home.    Sexy@email.com, Goofball@email.com, and similar addresses do not leave a good business impression.  Also take care to keep your email on point, don’t chatter about unnecessary details.  Stick to the point.

• Spell check your correspondence and use proper grammar.  Again, it’s about being professional and showing your email recipients that you care and are willing to take a few minutes to draft a letter to them.  It’s about common courtesy and good first impressions.

• Reply to emails promptly.  Just like returning a phone call within 24 hours, it is good etiquette to reply to emails promptly too.  When you don’t, the sender feels that you’re ignoring them and that they’re unimportant to you.

Follow these five customer service tips for exceptional email etiquette in the workplace. 

Robert Moment is an innovative customer service consultant, business coach and author of Invisible Profits: The Power of Exceptional Customer Service.  Visit Customer Service Training Skills and sign up for the FREE 5 day e-course, Creating “Wow” Customer Service Experiences.

Handling customer service complaints is very important for creating exceptional customer service.

Here are four customer service tips to resolve customer complaints:

1. Use your emotion defusing skills by showing empathy, asking questions, and providing options.
2. Apologize, stating the reason for your apology.
3. Provide information.
4. Ask questions.

These four steps work to resolve unproductive emotions and begin the process of resolution.

Robert Moment is an innovative customer service consultant, business coach and author of Invisible Profits: The Power of Exceptional Customer Service.  Visit Customer Service Training Skills and sign up for the FREE 5 day e-course, Creating “Wow” Customer Service Experiences.

Here are five customer service tips for reducing stress in the workplace:

• Communicate with your team on a regular basis.  Communication allows employees to express ideas, eliminates gossip, and to feel valued as team members.

• Celebrate.  A positive workplace can make or break the customer service team.  When you enjoy going to work, you will interact better with customers.  Celebrate achievements, holidays, and even personal good news with your team.

• Respect your team.  Respect their ability to do their jobs, respect their knowledge and insight, and respect their lives outside of work.  It’s an important part of making a workplace a positive environment.

• Inspire your team by sharing your enthusiasm.  Enthusiasm is one of the most inspirational and contagious form of motivation.  Make work fun, make goals attainable and challenging, and give people the opportunity to laugh, be themselves, and enjoy coming to work.

• Make the choice not to have reactions to what other people are feeling.  Remind yourself that their emotions are not aimed at you, personally, but at the situation.  This will allow you to stay calm in all situations and refuse to let others push your buttons.

Implement these customer service tips to reduce stress in the workplace. 

Robert Moment is an innovative customer service consultant, business coach and author of Invisible Profits: The Power of Exceptional Customer Service.  Visit Customer Service Training Skills and sign up for the FREE 5 day e-course, Creating “Wow” Customer Service Experiences.

Here are some customer service tips which affect the impact you have on your customers:

• Show courtesy in the best ways that you can.  Courtesy means that you have a positive attitude, that you’re available and supportive of your customers, and that you go out of your way to make your customer’s day.  Courtesy is exceptional customer service.

• Smile.  Share a positive attitude with your customers and they’ll return the favor.

• Support your customers by being present, both physically and emotionally, for them.  Listen, give them your full attention, and respond respectfully to their wants, needs, and concerns.

Focus on these customer service tips to have a positive impact on your customers.

Robert Moment is an innovative customer service consultant, business coach and author of Invisible Profits: The Power of Exceptional Customer Service.  Visit Customer Service Training Skills and sign up for the FREE 5 day e-course, Creating “Wow” Customer Service Experiences.

Here are some customer service tips for creating positive results.

• Accept that mistakes are inevitable.  Once you accept that they’re going to happen, you can build your skill and ability to provide exceptional customer service.  Every mistake is an opportunity to learn, grow, and build a relationship with your customer.

• Make the extra effort to show your customer that you care.  Mistakes happen; use them as an opportunity to build your relationship.  Go above and beyond simply by rectifying the mistake, personally calling to apologize, or by sending a note or gift. 

• Empathize with customers that want you to do things you can do, but which you are unwilling to do.  For example, something which is against company policy.  Tempers can rise when someone knows that you can do something for them but that you’re unwilling.  Avoid escalating tempers, by making an empathetic statement and then providing options.

• Be creative when there is a chance that you can make an exception for your customer.  Occasionally, a customer will want something that you’re able, but unwilling, to give them.  Let them know that you understand their feelings and that you will try to meet their needs, but also offer them other options.

Implement these customer service tips to create positive customer results. 

Robert Moment is an innovative customer service consultant, business coach and author of Invisible Profits: The Power of Exceptional Customer Service.  Visit Customer Service Training Skills and sign up for the FREE 5 day e-course, Creating “Wow” Customer Service Experiences.

Here are some customer service tips for building rapport with customers:

• Ask questions to move emotional conversations to the track you want.  For example: With whom did you speak the last time you called?”

• Establish rapport with your customer by showing empathy.  Once you can show your customer that you understand and acknowledge his or her feelings, then you’ll be able to move toward a productive resolution and a business level interaction.

• Offer a number of options to lead your customer toward making choices and guide the interaction along a productive path.  For example:  “Would you prefer to have the item shipped to your home address, work address, or simply pick it up here?”  Choices make customers feel like they’re in control of the situation.

These customer service tips will allow you to build rapport with customers.

Robert Moment is an innovative customer service consultant, business coach and author of Invisible Profits: The Power of Exceptional Customer Service.  Visit Customer Service Training Skills and sign up for the FREE 5 day e-course, Creating “Wow” Customer Service Experiences.