Category: Customer Experience Design

Customer Experience Design by myragolden

3 De-escalation Strategies for Angry Customers

My daughter and I were driving home from church Sunday afternoon. We were in the left hand turn lane behind another car. We had the green arrow, yet the car in front of me hadn’t started to accelerate. The driver behind me laid on the horn something terrible. I actually turned around to look at her. She let up for a second and then honked again. “Ridiculous,” I said to my daughter. In the rearview mirror I saw the lady was giving me the middle finger, all because she assumed I was the holdup at the light.

About the time I got flipped off, the driver in front of me turned left and I followed. The honking profane driver quickly accelerated and then drove side -by-side me. What? Then she literally drove into my lane, nearly hitting me!

I found myself getting heated and frankly, I wanted to cuss. But my daughter was in the car and I had to ensure her safety, as well as my own. So, I had to de-escalate the situation. In my peripheral I could see the lady gesturing at me still. I avoided eye contact, didn’t return the bird gesture and I didn’t even utter words that the driver wouldn’t hear anyway. I slowed down just a bit so that she had to pass me. And then, it was over.

My mistake in this situation was physically turning around and looking at the driver. That enticed the driver to continue and become more aggressive. Fortunately, I’m skilled in de-escalation because I teach de-escalation in my Verbal Aikido training sessions. The moment I realized my error, I moved into de-escalation. My de-escalation tactic in this situation was to avoid eye contact, so not to appear threatening or aggressive, and to choose silence as opposed to profanity. I let it go and the out of control driver was defused, or at least, the situation for me and my daughter was calm.

De-escalation is a strategic tool that your employees can use when they find themselves in a ridiculous situation with an agitated, angry or out of control customer. Not unlike what I experienced in traffic 2 days ago.

Examples of de-escalation include:

Continue reading 3 De-escalation Strategies for Angry Customers
Customer Experience Design by myragolden

Sipping My Dark Italian Roast and Doing a Run-through for, “Coaching & Monitoring”

webinar-rehearsal

I’m sitting at my desk, sipping my dark Italian roast latte and doing a run-through of tomorrow’s web training, “Coaching & Monitoring” and boy, am I excited! This is such an important training because it addresses head-on the 4 biggest challenges supervisors and managers face with monitoring and coaching customer service employee:

  1. How to design the most effective monitoring form
  2. How to address problem performance in the most diplomatic way
  3. How to deal with whining and complaining employees
  4. How to hold employees accountable for making improvement

So often I find that supervisors don’t monitor and coach consistently and if they are consistent with recording calls, they aren’t always strong and confident in giving constructive feedback. Without feedback, there really is no value in recording calls.

Continue reading Sipping My Dark Italian Roast and Doing a Run-through for, “Coaching & Monitoring”

Customer Experience Design by myragolden

This Is How to Talk To An Employee About a Problem {3 Steps}

One of the things I’m working on this year is giving you tools to help you coach your employees and hold them accountable, so that they are positioned to deliver the best possible customer experience.

The way YOU do that is, you go into discussions with your employees with a plan, and with confidence. I’m going to give you a 3-step method for how to talk to your employees about a problem, be that problem attitude, attendance, the way they interact with customers, anything.

Use what I call KFD

Continue reading This Is How to Talk To An Employee About a Problem {3 Steps}
Customer Experience Design by myragolden

People Generally Perform Better When They Get Feedback. But You Knew That Already.

Live Guided Webinars with Myra Golden

People generally perform better when they get feedback. And here’s a perfect example of how helpful feedback is.

Continue reading People Generally Perform Better When They Get Feedback. But You Knew That Already.
Customer Experience Design by myragolden

I Ordered Groceries Through Walmart’s Online Ordering. Here’s How it Went.

fullsizerender

A few months ago I got a postcard in the mail from Walmart announcing online grocery ordering and pickup. The idea immediately appealed to me because I hate grocery shopping. There are not many things I actually loathe, but grocery shopping is one of those things.

Last night I was making my task list for what I needed to accomplish today and tomorrow, and my mood turned sour when I had to type in “grocery shop.” But then I remembered Walmart has online ordering, and I decided to give it a try.

My grocery list was already made because I just tell Alexa (Amazon’s Echo Dot) what I need as I discover the need. So, I sat down in my home office with a glass of 2014 red wine, incense burning, a fountain flowing and smooth jazz playing, and I ordered my groceries. This is how grocery shopping should be!

Continue reading I Ordered Groceries Through Walmart’s Online Ordering. Here’s How it Went.
Customer Experience Design by myragolden

2-Pronged Approach to Your Best Customer Experience Yet

The Best Customer Experience Your Brand Has Ever Seen!

This New Year my goal is to help you get to the best customer experience your brand has ever seen. We’ll do that by fiercely focusing on 2 areas:

1. Coaching, Feedback, and Accountability. In this area I want to give you the tools and plans that will build your confidence and skill in coaching your team to optimal performance, by addressing unacceptable performance and by holding employees accountable.

2. Friendliness, Empathy and Connection. I want to give you the tools and methods to position your employees to deliver a welcoming, warm and refreshing customer experience.

So, how exactly will these goals be met?

Continue reading 2-Pronged Approach to Your Best Customer Experience Yet
Customer Experience Design by myragolden

Web Self-Service Strategies Every Business Should Be Using

hires

Story highlights:
5 web self-service strategies that will slash your incoming support calls

My Business Phone (Almost) Never Rings.

And That Makes Me a Genius.

I remember back to my first few years in business when I was tethered to my BlackBerry, constantly returning phone calls and replying to emails. My business phone rang so much that I needed to hire an answering service.

Things are different today. For one, I am not shackled to my smartphone! And two, and this is a biggie – my office phone rarely rings.

My non-ringing business line is not a bad thing. I have worked strategically to create a web self-service strategy that answers more than 95% of my customers’ questions. And this well-designed strategy has made my support calls nearly vanish.

No doubt, my business is a small business. Most large businesses won’t slash incoming calls by 95% with even the best self-service strategy. But research cited by Harvard Business Review shows that by improving the help section on your website, you can reduce calls by 5% — easily.

Three out of 4 consumers prefer to solve their customer service issues on their own. And 65% of consumers say that they feel good about themselves and the company they are doing business with when they resolve a problem without talking to customer service. Here’s one last statistic for you. Fifty-seven percent of inbound calls come from customers who went to the website first! That startling statistic is from Harvard Business Review.

Here’s how I make my customers feel good about themselves and my company, while reducing my support call volume. Five simple ways. 

Continue reading Web Self-Service Strategies Every Business Should Be Using