Have you ever been in a store, or on the phone with a customer service representative, and get the distinct feeling they’d rather be anywhere else than helping you?
Yeah – I’ve been there too.
While I know that a $7-$10 hour job isn’t the greatest thing to wake up to every morning, I’d like people to at least pretend they want to help me. At the very least, point me to someone who wants to.
Which bring us to our numbers 13 and 14 on the Top 25 Things You Should Do In Customer Service list:
• Let the customer know you are there to help them
• Let a customer know what steps you’re taking to help them
Seems pretty straight-forward, right? Well, it is – but you’d be surprised by how many service representatives fail at these two steps.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s almost an automatic response for any customer service rep to ask a customer how can they help them. The question is – do they really follow through with helping them – or even care?
When a customer seeks assistance, they want someone to help them who is confident. They want someone who not only knows how to take care of the problem, but WILL take care of the problem for them.
Or maybe there’s not even a problem. Maybe they just have a simple question, or need to be pointed in the right direction.
Regardless of what their need is, it’s your responsibility to make sure you go out of your way to not only help them, but to let them know HOW you’re helping them.
How do you let a customer know how you’re going to help them? Easy. You TELL them how.
That may sound a bit patronizing, and honestly, that’s not my intent here. I’m simply pointing it out because I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times where the customer is left without a clue what is going on behind the scenes while they wait for someone to help them.
Why is this important? If you’ve been on the other end of this as a customer, you already know why. And if you’re anything like me, you want to know what’s going on at all times.
It’s extremely frustrating to have to wait on someone and not know if they’re actually doing anything to help you. Which doesn’t bode well for a customer’s patience. And the last thing you want on your hands is an even more irritated customer.
So keep it simple and give them the facts – just the facts ma’am.
Here’s an example of a typical way I would handle this:
“So Mr. Customer, here’s what I’m going to do to help resolve your problem” (remember to repeat the problem back to them so they know you understand it correctly).
“First, once I get off the phone with you, I’m going to contact the service techs to see if we can get that install date pushed up for tomorrow. I’ll have to confirm with them before anything else, so I’ll do my best to get you the date you need.
Next, once I confirm the date, I’ll contact the warehouse and expedite your shipment order so we can get it immediately.
Then I’ll contact your sales rep and let him know what’s going on and make sure he contacts you today as well.
I’ll call you back no later than 3pm today to let you know what’s going on and confirm everything, or let you know if we run into any problems. Is that ok with you? And here’s my number just in case you need to contact me sooner or haven’t heard from Sales.”
Keep it brief, clear-cut, and in order. The customer will no longer have to worry about anything because they know exactly what you’re doing.
When you do this, you’re asserting your authority, and in turn, your customer maintains confidence you’ll make things happen. If you have regular customers, this goes a looong way to building a great relationship with them.
When you have a customer confident in your abilities, you can screw up (and you will) and they’ll be that much more forgiving because they know (A) It doesn’t typically happen from you, and (B) you’re going to fix it with (hopefully) minimal impact to them.
And let me rephrase what I said earlier about going out of your way to help a customer. You’re not actually “going out of your way”. “Going out of your way” means you’re doing something you didn’t have to do in the first place.
If you’re in the customer service, it’s your JOB to help customers. That’s why they’re talking to you in the first place. So do everyone a favor and ALWAYS perform your job better than anyone else. The customer will be thrilled and you’ll end up with a more satisfying day than you thought you’d ever had.
