The Company Welcome Mat... How to Keep Customers Knocking on Your Door

By Nancy Friedman, The Telephone Doctor

"What is the biggest and most costly customer service mistake in business today?" Our answer is simple: "We’re just not friendly enough."

Customers should be treated as welcome guests when they call an organization. Instead, they’re often treated like an interruption or, even worse, an annoyance. More than 90 percent of all customer service includes a telephone call even though customer service mistakes happen anytime and in many ways.

These customer service tips will help you start or benchmark your own customer service training program. Bring your staff together at a time when everyone can attend and talk about any frustrating customer events. Discuss the outcomes and how they could have been. The meeting can be a short 15 minutes and it doesn’t need to be daily—but it does need to be done. Not having a customer service training program in place can cost every organization customers. Poor customer service creates a negative image for the entire organization, no matter how wonderful the products or services are that you offer.

Here are 3 of the biggest service mistakes that are most likely to anger customers into lifelong resentment toward an organization:

Mistake 1: Not Smiling.

Solution: Smile. It sounds insanely simplistic, doesn’t it? Since the telephone is the most commonly used mode of communication, we need to understand why a smile works. Customers can hear a smile. We recommend keeping a mirror by your desk, so when you pick up the receiver, you can tell if you’re smiling.

Smile even when you don’t feel like smiling. The caller doesn’t care if you feel like smiling or not. At Telephone Doctor, smiling before you pick up the phone is a condition of employment; not smiling is grounds for termination. Yes, I have exercised that option. With customer service as our top priority, we simply don’t tolerate not smiling before you pick up the phone. Frankly, I’d rather have the caller think your office is closed than to have you answer the phone in a negative mood.

Mistake 2: Not acknowledging a caller's request or problem.

Solution: Rapid response. We have a so-called "mental stamp" at Telephone Doctor that reads "RR," which means, "This request or piece of information needs an immediate and rapid response." Requests and problems need to be handled quickly. Delaying a request can cause more problems than the original request may seem.

Another good habit to get into is to ask the customer for a timeline. Our surveys found that when a customer is asked when he or she would like to receive the needed information, 80 percent did not automatically respond, "I need it now," as you might expect. This, eliminated needing to "get that to you right away." Often, callers won’t need something until tomorrow or next week. Asking for a timetable is good customer service.

Confirm a date or time. "As soon as possible" is not a time.

Mistake 3: Immediate rejection of a request.

Solution: Be a "double-checker." It’s so easy to tell people, "We don’t have it." or "Sorry, it’s past the deadline." or "We ran out of that report." Instead, try a soft rejection: "The last time I checked it wasn’t available but, let me double-check on that for you." It’s a wonderful way to defuse any disappointment about you not having what they called for in the first place. This simple statement immediately defuses some of the tension of not being able to fulfill a request completely. Double-checking allows us time to find a way to get what the person wanted after all.

You now have three simple techniques to kick-start or benchmark your customer service training program. To make these techniques happen, the entire staff needs to embrace the customer service program or it won’t work. Be firm. The organization’s entire image is at stake since it is unlikely to get a second chance.

Make the time to do this. What or who is more important than those customers? You’ll be surprised at how much fun it is to hear a customer say, "Thanks, you’ve been super."

---

Nancy Friedman is president of Telephone Doctor®, an international customer service training company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, specializing in customer service and telephone skills. She is a KEYNOTE speaker at association conferences and corporate gatherings and is the author of four best selling books. Call 314-291-1012 for more information or visit the Web site at http://www.telephonedoctor.com/.

Published in Networking Today, June 2007