Are Your Customer Service Skills Where They Should Be?

Most customer service people are excited about their first day at their new job.They go to work ready to hit the road running,and for the next few months, their days are filled with interesting things to do and learn, and new people to talk with. As they start working with their customers, they probably even exceed their own expectations with the level of customer  service they’re providing. They do it because they understand the importance of first  impressions.  But sooner or later, the newness of the job—or customer—wears off, the day-to-day demands of  the job settle in, and all the extra customer service they went out of their way to provide in the beginning starts getting old.
When a customer calls and you say you’ll get back to them,don't push the request to the side. If you do before you  know it, two days have passed, and the next conversation you have with their customer starts off  with a litany of excuses—sometimes lies—rather than informed and articulate answers. If you want to be thought of as a superstar when it comes  to customer service, handle the promises with a professional attitude toward solving the problem and keep your promises to the customer.

Take full responsibility for your own customer service skills. Customer service is not always an  easy job. It can be fun when everything is going great, but not so much when there’s a problem.As a customer service professional you already may know the basics of customer service, but do you  read the occasional article about trends in customer service? Do you ever take the time to  honestly reflect on how your customers might view your customer service skills? Do you have at  least one customer service role model who excels at customer service?

Customer service is more than just problem solving. Every conversation, message, and email you  are connected with represents not just your skill at it, but also how important you think it is. Your  good customer service will give your customer every reason to feel respected and appreciated. When your customer service skills are excellent, you’ll be well on  your way to building long­term profitable business relationships.

Are your customers dealing with a different version of you after they’ve done business with you for some time?  Here a three tips of advice.

1. If you are having a bad day, it's not your customer fault. Suck it up and put on a smile  and make their interests, concerns, or problems yours, and do it happily.

2. From the moment you say hello until you say goodbye you are being judged for better or  for worse. Surly you don't want to be the main topic at their business meetings as a bad  example of poor customer service.

3. Good morning, good afternoon, thank you for your business, we look forward to working  with you are words dear to your customer ears and go a long way.

Most of all if you are burned out, no longer care for the job (and customer service is about one of  the most demanding) talk to the person in the company that can help you get over those hurdles.  If you don't, the customers will go away and with it their revenue and with it your job. So remember , make everyday a great selling day!          

                         

Alan Luoma is a Sales Coach with extensive experience in industrial sales, sales management, new product development, sales and product training. He works with a national sustainable packaging company and their distributors to increase sales. Alan is an expert that speaks on eliminating behaviors that prevent you from being successful in sales and uncovering sales prevention departments that hinder your success. He is a member of the Hartford Springfield Speakers Network, The National Speakers Association and New England Speakers Association. You can view his profile on LinkedIn, or contact him at Luoma@snet.net

The Hidden Technique to Learn More Without Studying

Do you want a more effective way to learn?

Stop studying.

Start testing.

According to research in Science magazine, it turns out that there's actually a better way to learn than studying for a test.  That better way is to stop studying, and take an actual test.  

Testing, it turns out, is more effective at helping people retrieve knowledge later on than more traditional studying.  Some of those studying techniques include content review over sequenced chunks of time (or cramming), as well as concept mapping, which asks the learner to draw out connections between the different ideas of content on paper.

The conclusions from this research support the theory that people learn by doing.  It also shows why, when it comes to changing behaviors, there’s a big gap between knowing something and doing it.  (Or as I like to say, what is common sense is not often common practice.)

It may feel risky to try something new.    It moves us out of our comfort zone.

But isn't that what learning is?  Expanding beyond the familiar?  Testing (and doing) blazes new trails in our neurological wiring.  The more we activate these synaptic connections, the stronger the learning.  

So stop studying.  And start testing.

What other techniques help you learn better and faster? Join the conversation by leaving a comment below.

Protecting Your Sales Assets

I always get a kick out of companies who hire sales people with “experience", hand them a product book with pricing, and tell them to go out and secure new business. Sure, they save money on product and sales training in the short run, but they might lose potentially great salespeople too. As a salesperson, you can hope your sales manager knows what they're doing, or you can take matters into your own hands by building and protecting your own sales assets.

Protect Your First Impression by Knowing Everything about Your Product: When you stand in front of a prospect or customer and they know more about your business than you do, it’s time to go home. Whether it’s insurance, gasoline, machines or anything else, make sure you know what you're selling and that you're able to explain it simply and concisely. If you can't, your dog will happier to see you than the prospect or customer you're about to impress with how much you don’t know.

Very few business owners make their purchases based on an “I have to have it no matter what it costs” attitude. If they did, sales would be a simple game of who gets to the decision maker first. That’s not the case. Businesses flourish as the result of good fiscal management. If you want to flourish, you need to have a good explanation as to why someone should spend their money with you.

Protect Your Sales Pitch with Solid Economic Justifications: When it comes to a serious purchase where good value and a workable price are important, the very best tool a salesperson can use is the economic justification summary. Presented correctly and professionally, it will secure the order more often than not. It’s also an excellent tool to use to determine where to spend your time. Do your research so you'll know if your product or service makes economic sense for a potential client. If it doesn't, don't waste their time, or yours.  

I've seen many salespeople fail simply because they didn't plan their days, weeks, and years. In sales, if you're not producing the revenue expected of you, you're likely to become an expense your company decides they can't afford. It’s true you won't always have control over getting someone to sign on the dotted line, but you have absolute control over increasing your odds of making it happen simply by preparing yourself for success.

Protect Your Career with a Plan: It’s simple and straight forward: Plan—follow up, then plan—follow up, etc. If you do this, then you have a very good idea of where your money is coming from. Do you know which accounts are a definite? Do you know which prospects are ready to do business with you? Do you regularly review where you are and what you have to do to correct any potential shortfall? Are you concentrating on revenue? Or are you wasting your energy on activities that have nothing to do with increased revenue?

When you take the time to regularly review your sales assets, you are protecting them by making sure they are all in tip-top shape. It’s a solid investment towards your continued success.

Alan Luoma is a Sales Coach and Speaker with extensive experience in industrial sales, sales management, and sales and product training. He holds key accounts with a national sustainable packaging company, is a motivational speaker, and provides sales training to individuals and groups. He is a member of the Hartford Springfield Speakers Network. You can view his profile on LinkedIn, or contact him at Luoma@snet.

Professional Speaking is like Acting

Saturday March 14^th is Opening Night for Arsenic and old Lace at the Thomaston Opera House Thomaston CT. This play is a classic and as a film it was actor Cary Grant’s most favorite of his film career. I play the part of Martha Brewster in this clever farce about two elderly sisters famous in their Brooklyn neighborhood for their acts of charity and what happens to the lonely old men who come to their house looking for a room. There is also the brother who thinks he is Teddy Roosevelt and another brother who has escaped from a mental institution.

The third brother who is a theater critic is in for many surprises. There are laughs, ahas, and emotional moments. Speaking is like this play or any play for it must use the PIE principal. That is to persuade, inform and entertain. As a speaker new to the art, an emerging speaker or a Professional Speaker one must adhere to some of the same principles that are used in theater. From the pre-speech or theater, body and vocal warm-ups to the concluding round of applause, each one of us is in charge of what we send out to our audience.

In Greek terms we would look to Ethos, Logos and Pathos. When writing your speech all three aspects must be included. Ethos is using credibility or ethical persuasion to convince the audience of who you are as a speaker or who you are portraying as an actor. Logos is logical and appeals to the intellect and reason. As speakers this is backed with research studies and statistics, in theater it uses numbers and facts. Pathos is a way of appealing to the audience through emotions. Love, hate, guilt and anger all appeal to emotions whether through a speech or acting on stage. Your speech needs to be sprinkled with a steady stream of humor and stories if you want to get paid!

So come see Arsenic and Old Lace to receive hundreds of ideas through staging, voice adaptation, movement and timing. This play written by Joseph Kesselring and performed on Broadway from 1939 to 1944 and then made into movies is more than an evening’s entertainment. It is directed by the creative Lucia Dressel and will be your conversation starter for weeks to come.

Come early and enjoy the organist on an original silent movie organ. Isn’t it amazing how we have evolved since Aristotle created Ethos, Logos and Pathos? Speaking of evolving, I need to go over the script before tonight’s rehearsal!

I am:         Carolyn Finch
             Communication LifeStyle Expert
          Comference, Convention and Community-Inspirational Speaker

Call me at:  office:  203 725 3133        cell: 203 512 4798         carolyn@carolynfinch.com

 

Prepare Your Team for Victory

Has your company recently experienced a setback or struggled in a certain area? Most organizations experience highs, but must also deal with the lows – it’s a little thing called “adjusting” which can improve their overall performance. If your business kept doing the same thing, they would keep getting the same results. If it’s working – great! But, if it’s not, we need to make some changes. But how?

With Thanksgiving less than a week away, I can’t help but think of football. A group of 11 guys on each side are battling to score the most points to win the game. If you don’t play football, you can always participate in a Fantasy Football league. It’s a great way to build and sharpen useful life skills like: preparation, research, strategy, and risk. You can’t win a season, by ignoring your team. You must constantly check up on your team and make weekly adjustments.

Let’s look at Fantasy Football as a model for building a winning team. Follow these steps and apply them to your “real” working team, and see positive results.

Hire the right people. Did I say hire the best people? No, because you can’t always afford to hire the best, but you can ask the right questions in an interview, which can lead to the future star. In Fantasy Football, we start each season with a draft. During this step, we pick each individual player for our team, but we must do our research before the draft to build a successful team. All the top players get picked by the competing teams in the first few rounds, so you need to do some digging to find the “diamonds in the rough” in the later rounds.

Always look to improve your current team. Are some members of your team, holding you back from peak performance? Have a conversation with them and let them know your expectations. If they don’t improve in the coming weeks, you need to make some adjustments to your team. In Fantasy Football, you are only as good as your team. If certain players are constantly getting injured or are consistently performing below expectations, your team will suffer some losses in the standings. You need to drop the underachievers and pick up some new hungry talent on the waiver wire. This will ignite some energy on your team and help you win some games.

“Football teaches you hard work. It takes a lot of unspectacular preparation to have spectacular results in both business and football.” – Roger Staubach

The best companies don’t rest on their laurels. They are constantly improving and always searching for the “right” talent to create a winning team. It’s easy to be complacent and sit back, but if are willing do your research, prepare and take some risks, you can compete with the best of them.

As a Professional Organizer, Speaker, Author, Podcast Producer & Host, Rick Woods helps residents and businesses make room for clarity, by getting rid of the clutter that gets in their way.

Listen to Rick's free weekly podcast "Make Room For Clarity", which focuses on interviewing business & health experts by visiting www.makeroomforclarity.com.

Inquire about Rick's professional organizing business, "The Functional Organizer, LLC.", which focuses on decluttering, organizing, paper filing and time management by visiting www.tforganizer.com.