Category: Customer Experience Design

Customer Experience Design by myragolden

Make Sure You Don’t Push Your Customers, Because They’ll Push Back

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When people feel pushed into a corner, they push back. If a customer senses you are defensive, rude, or unhelpful, it is natural for them to push back. They push back with their words, tone, or by asking to talk to a supervisor.

In a live De-escalation workshop recently, I had my audience divide up into pairs. And I had them identify as partner “A” or partner “B.”

Then I said,“Partner A, hold the palm of your hand up. And then I want you to place your palm next to Partner B’s palm.”

I then told Partner A to press against the palm of person B. After a couple of seconds, I asked, “How many of you who had the role of Partner B pushed against the palm of person A?”

About 75% of the hands when up. Which was interesting. I didn’t tell Partner B to press or push. I told Partner A, to press, but I gave no instructions of pressing or pushing to partner B.

So, I asked those with their hands up, “Why did you push against the palm of the other person?” They said things like, “They were pushing, so I pushed back.”

Pushing back, when someone pushes against you is what most of us do, including your customers.

When people feel pushed into a corner, they push back. If a customer senses you are defensive, rude, or unhelpful, it is natural for them to push back. They push back with their words, tone, or by asking to talk to a supervisor.

Minimize escalation in aggression or an escalation to a supervisor by not allowing yourself to push because pushing will almost always result in your customer pushing back.

I describe the Don’t Push idea in this short video. Use this video to teach your employees not to push.

We tend to push in these ways:

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Customer Experience Design by myragolden

This Is What You Say When a Customer Cusses At You

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I cuss. A lot. But never have I dared to cuss at a person in a customer service role. And I get rather upset about lousy customer service and still manage to talk nicely to people about any issues I encounter. Some people cuss, and yell and make threats when they are angry about customer service. This is not okay.

You have to draw the line on unacceptable behavior with customers, just as I hope you do in your interpersonal relationships when people disrespect you. You get the behavior you tolerate. So, don’t tolerate profane language.

Diplomatic comebacks to cussing set you up as professional and assertive, and they help you get the respect you deserve.

Here are seven comebacks for the customer who cusses at you. These responses are professional and will get the job done.

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Customer Experience Design by myragolden

Three Steps to Being Confident and Prepared When Talking to Employees About a Problem

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This is you. Confident and Prepared.

So, my 14-year son old got contact lenses for the first time last week. He’s struggling to get the contacts in. Every morning Warren comes downstairs to my bathroom so I can help him with his technique.

More than once he’s said, “I freakin’ hate contacts!” He even asked me to hold his upper eyelid up and steady for him. I explained, “I could hold your eyelid for you, but that won’t help you. You have to be able to do this yourself.”

Watching him struggle has been difficult. So, last night I had the idea to coach my son using the same three-step method I tell my clients to use when they have to help an employee through a problem or to give someone constructive feedback. This technique is what I call Know, Feel, Do.

What is it I want Warren to Know about contact insertion? How do I want him to Feel? And, what do I want him to Do?

Know. I want my son to Know that it takes time to get a technique down and to feel comfortable, this is normal for all new contact lens wearers. I want my son to know what approach works for me.

Feel. I want my son to feel grateful that he doesn’t have to wear glasses, thankful that I was willing to pay $418 out of pocket for a year supply of daily lenses. I want my son to feel that he can do this!

Do. I want my son to stop the negative self-talk, be patient, listen to my instruction and to be able to insert his contacts by this time next week and to be able to do it quickly.

God is good! Using my focused and positive Know, Feel, Do, this morning Warren got his contacts in in less than 10 minutes. Yesterday it took around 30 minutes, so this is a big deal.

You can use Know, Feel, Do to coach employees on a process, attitude problem or any performance issue. Here’s precisely how to apply Know, Feel, Do to your talks with employees.

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Customer Experience Design by myragolden

Four of The Best Books I Read in 2017

My Favorite Books of 2017

Note: This is a rare post that is not about customer service. Scroll on down if my book list doesn’t interest you. My ego won’t be bruised. 🙂 

I read voraciously, on planes, in between conference calls, while onions saute and in the spring and summer, on my patio. I read hardbacks, love nestling up with my Kindle, and I also listen to a lot of Audible books. During my holiday vacation, I did little more than reading, and oh, how I loved that! In fact, I had to slip a bookmark in my current read just to write this post for you.

As a Happy New Year gift to you, I’m sharing four of my favorite books from 2017. Maybe this short list will inspire someone. I’d love to hear some of your favorite books from 2017, or to just hear about what you’re reading right now. Share with me some great reads! Here’s my list.

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Customer Experience Design by myragolden

When You, As A Customer Service Representative, Take Things Personally, You Make Your Job Harder

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I’ll never forget the day I saw a fight, literally a fist-fight, between a customer and an employee. It was at Kmart.

I was 16, and I worked at Kmart on Admiral in Tulsa. My 17-year old co-worker and good friend, Beverly, said to a customer who wanted to return some worn out clothing,

“We’re not taking that junk back!”

“Excuse me?” the customer said.

Beverly, serious as a heart attack, said again, “We’re not taking that junk back.”

“Little B$#&@, yes you will!” No, she didn’t!

Matching the customer word for word, Beverly spit out, “B$#&@, no we won’t!” I was glad Beverly got this customer and not me.

The customer punched Beverly! For real, she did!

What did my friend Beverly do then? Well, she knocked the crap out of the customer, and within 2 seconds, they were in an all-out brawl at the Service Desk.

My teenage friend Beverly saw the customer as getting away with something, and she took that personally. Her personalization caused her to be completely unwilling to work with the customer. She didn’t want to discuss things, and she certainly didn’t want to give the customer an in-store credit.

Taking things personally often is a demonstration of your loyalty to the company and your insistence on things being fair and right. But, sometimes, personalization can get in the way of serving the customer and moving things forward.

Last week I delivered a customer service training session where part of our focus was moving employees out of an attitude of personalization to an emphasis on finding a win-win solution for problems. One of the ways I tackled this issue was through small group discussion. Here’s one of the activities I led in that workshop (in small groups):

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Customer Experience Design by myragolden

Join My Telephone Skills Online Training. Now in progress.

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How did 2017 go for you? Employees still struggling with how to control calls with unreasonable customers? Your customer experience still not where you know it needs to be? Still trying to get your people to convey empathy? I know. The struggle is real.

The real question is: how will you gear up to make 2018 better?

Let me give your people the tactics, skills, and inspiration they need so they can deliver experiences that make you feel proud.

I try to make my training easy – for you, your employees, and even for me, by offering it online. I still do onsite training, of course, but online training saves time and money. And it keeps me off of planes.

There’s no sense stressing over 2017’s results. Let me help your workgroup thrive in 2018.

Imagine 2018….

Continue reading Join My Telephone Skills Online Training. Now in progress.
Customer Experience Design by myragolden

4 Things Customer Service Agents Can Do to Convey Empathy to Customers

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In this article I show you what empathy is using an experience with my teenage daughter, and then I deliver 4 tactical ideas you can apply right now to express empathy: Put yourself in your customer’s place, Sense the Situation From the Customer’s Perspective, Discuss What’s Upsetting the Customer, and Coming Up with Ways to Fix the Problem

My daughter and I were in New York. We’d spent the day sight-seeing, and back at the hotel, my daughter’s iPhone showed all of her photos as blurry – not just the photos she’d taken that day, but every picture on her phone.

To my 17-year old daughter, a problem with photos and her phone camera is catastrophic. It would have been easy for me to dismiss this as, “There are bigger things in life for you to worry about.” And that was my real temptation. But I could see she was distraught over this.

Empathy is putting yourself in another person’s place. Sensing their situation, from their perspective. It’s also discussing the things that are upsetting to the person, maybe coming up with ideas to get them out of the situation they’re in.

So, instead of dismissing my daughter’s photo problem as no big deal (because to me, it wasn’t a big deal), I chose empathy.

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