ComputerHunter.org |
|
|
|||
|
 |
Mastering Challenging Service Situations
During the course of everyday business, many of you encounter unsatisfied customers. How you and your staff handle these situations, will shape your service image and ultimately your bottom line. How can you best handle challenging situations? I have developed and practiced a simple method for just such encounters. If you follow the steps listed below, you will greatly improve the likelihood of achieving positive resolutions to challenging situations. Make a Connection Shake hands and introduce yourself. An introduction will add a personal aspect to the situation that can alleviate some hostility or anger that might surround the interaction. Acknowledge concern and show understanding. Get engaged in solving the problem. Respond only in a positive manner to negative feedback. Ask for information Clarify the issue. Ask probing questions,gather information and clarify the issue. Show understanding of the problem. What can I do for you? Discover what the customer needs to be satisfied. Suggest Offer a solution not an excuse. Shift from the problem to the process for resolution. Offer a choice between several options. Involve the customer in determining the solution. Explain any limitations if there are any. Check for Agreement Offer the preferred option and ensure customer understanding and support of the agreement. Explain the next course of action. Take Action and Deliver Produce the agreed upon solution. Look for ways to provide a meaningful extra touch and turn a poor memory into a positive one. Evaluate How could this situation have been avoided? How could it have been handled better? What skills can be trained as a result of this interaction? Reconnect Follow up with the customer. Ensure that the customer is satisfied with the resolution. Solicit feedback for improving service. Offer a sincere "thank you" to your now satisfied customer. Superior customer service is one of the most difficult deliverables facing the business world today. Why? Because employees do not take service personally and your customers do! Shift your perspective about service and make it personal. Ask yourself and your staff, "How many customers can we afford to lose today?" I am confident that if you train and instill my simple steps to "mastering" challenging customer situations, you and your business will see tremendous results. Remember, service is more than just a word, it is a necessity! © Anthony Mullins Anthony Mullins is the President and Coach for The Elite Coaching Alliance. He specializes in leadership development, strategic planning, 1-on-1 coaching, facilitation and inspirational speaking. He is the author of the upcoming book "Leadership Links." Anthony can be reached by e-mail: anthony@elitecoachingalliance.com Visit his website http://www.elitecoachingalliance.com
Google News - Top Stories
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Your Actions Tell Your Clients How You Expect To Be Treated There is a widely accepted principle of human behavior that goes something like this. "Your actions tell the world how you expect to be treated." Look all around you and you will find that the truth of this statement is as evident as the clothes you wear. 5 Ways Customer Service Managers are Implementing to Increase Customer Focus According to a Forum Corporation survey of commercial customers lost by 14 major service and manufacturing companies: The Nine Principles of Customer Service for the Travel Industry© If you want to learn how to get your clients to do your selling for you through excpetional customer service, read on. Learn customer service secrets from tourism professionals, apply them to your business and prosper. How To Keep Your Customers Coming Back -- Understanding Customer Retention Why do some businesses offer points, stamps or every tenth coffee for free? Make Sure You Get The Customer Perspective Businesses that fail, often forget to seek out the customer perspective. I have talked to some folks at businesses that were less than succesful, and when asked if they actively seek out customer comments, the answer invariably is no. Why don't they do that? Why not get the customer perspective? We Sell For Less and Our Stores Are a Mess! What kind of image do you present when marketing your products? Are you professional and well organized or does your store/site/whatever scream, "sloppy!," to those who matter the most: your customers? Let's see how one leading retailer is winning the sales war, but losing an important battle: store organization. Customer Service and The Human Experience Historically, customer service was delivered over the phone or in person. Customers didn't have many choices, and switching to competitors was cumbersome. Today, these methods are but two of the many possible touch points of entry for any given interaction. With all the options the Internet brings, competition is literally a click away. If, as has been reported, 65% of your business comes from current customers, then in order to stay in business, you best focus on winning the satisfaction and loyalty of those customers. Customer Feedback: Everyone has an Opinion - USE IT! Have you ever been in a department store and known exactly what you were looking for but couldn't locate any staff to help you find it? Think of your website as your very own department store, and your contact numbers, email addresses, and FAQ's navigational buttons as your staff. Without these handy interaction tools, your purchaser will get frustrated and E-shop somewhere else. Customer Service: Everyone is Fighting Their Own Personal Battles Relationships... Money... Health..The Past...Failure..Mental and Spiritual Battles..Time Constraints...Professional pressures.. 4 Things Your Clients Want From Your Company Sure, all clients are different. They have different kinds of strengths, weaknesses, cultures and goals. Even what blocks their efficiency and growth (blind spots) is different. Davis, Kingsley & Company has conducted hundreds of interviews and there are four strong themes that always emerge. Renewing Customer Loyalty Every business loses customers, but not many do much about getting them back. And that is a big mistake. Studies show that the average business looses 20 percent of its customer base each year. How to Keep Customers Who was it that said - "The customer is always right"? Well for those of you who can't get through the day without knowing, it was H Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridges's department store in London. Post Office, Incredible Lady Postmaster There are two Post Offices that I routinely visit. One is the office that delivers my mail and the other is frequently on the path of some daily errands. Many times, I will actually detour to visit that particular Post Office ... why? Should I Have My Company Mystery Shopped? I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said to me, "Oh, you do Mystery Shopping; I always wanted to do that!" I think most people do find the thought of posing as a customer and reporting back on how they were treated, rather intriguing. But there is a lot more to it that skulking around in a trench coat and spy glass! The Drawback of Hacking Off a Blogger Through Weak Process Gaps and Pathetic Customer Service With all of the recent data theft in the financial sector, it is important to make sure that we don't go crazy trying to protect ourselves from risk. Risk management does have a value but this value lies mostly on the front end. Reactionary risk management almost always produces a point at where the value of protecting oneself or one's customers overshadows the product or service that you are offering. The majority of companies always go beyond this point, some thinking they can even sell it to the customer as a security measure and build their brand with it. Cheap To Keep You've heard it all before when it comes to stats about customer retention. Acquiring a customer costs five to 10 times more than retaining one. Repeat customers spend, on average, 67 percent more. After 10 purchases a customer has referred as many as seven other people. Got A Consumer Problem? Millions of people, just like you, end up with a consumer problem that they just can't seem to get resolved. No matter what they do. Even though you are in the right, even though you are being treated improperly. You may needle and wheedle them, bellow and battle, but your problem still ends up unresolved. Sound familiar? If so, here's a proven, effective FREE technique you can use that can help you get immediate corrective action for those ongoing unresolved frustrating, sometimes nightmarish consumer problems such as billing errors, disputes, complaints, defective products and other consumer rights issues. The Logic of Emotion! Homebuyers are an interesting study. Watching people make their home buying decisions has brought me to the conclusion that every decision that every one of us makes is based in emotion. You heard me, it's all about the emotion. Before you deny what I am describing to you, let me begin with me. Dealing with Disgruntled Customers No matter how hard you try, in business you simply can't please everyone. You could have a highly trained customer service squadron and an award-winning product, but still you'd have some buyers who just weren't happy. The bad news is that unhappy customers are more eager to share their experiences than happy ones which could spell disaster for your business. You MUST Sweat the Small Stuff It's The Little Things That Make or Break a Small Business
|
|
|
|
|
