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Another Customer Service Training Article from Ron Kaufman

Popeye’s Chicken & Biscuits has launched another program called ‘Keeping In Touch’, in which Support Center employees contact Popeye’s customers every month.

Their job is to follow up with customers who’ve complained after the Restaurant Manager or Area Manager has taken action to resolve the complaint.

This program enables those not working with customers on a daily basis to better understand vital customer issues. It also spurs managers at the restaurants to provide rapid service recovery.

These programs are simple yet powerful and positive. The restaurant managers feel well supported and understood. The people working in ‘head office’ feel responsible and in touch with the customer service process.

And happy customers get the best of both worlds: rapid attention, genuine concern and follow-through from all parts of the organization.

Key Learning Point

Action Steps

Another Customer Service Training Article from Ron Kaufman

What a conversation! A British gentleman working in global logistics, his American entertainer wife who recently became a mother, an Australian event coordinator and me. Four different cultures – and different points of view.

We talked about the service we received at retail stores, banks, restaurants, hotels and airlines around the world. We each had very different opinions about what constitutes ‘good service’.

The logistics guy likes fast and efficient; pleasantries are incidental. The entertainer wants time to browse before she is approached, and feels ‘hurried’ if someone comes too close, too soon. The Australian feels just the opposite. She wants attention right away or she walks right out the door. And me? I like the ‘human touch’: a smile, friendly tone of voice, a twinkle in the eye.

Our differences are not surprising given our backgrounds. But what a challenge for committed service providers!

Should your service be reserved and polite, or outgoing and friendly? Should you be fast and efficient, or personal and attentive? Should you initiate contact and offer immediate help, or wait discreetly until you are asked?

What pleases one customer may easily disturb another. But you’ve got to do something. So what should you do?

Beneath the preferences of one person and another, I found ‘Three Steps to Welcome’ that always apply:

1. Acknowledge the person

2. Make a positive gesture

3. Extend an offer to help

Acknowledge the person means letting them know that you know they are there. This can be done with simple eye contact, a tip of your head or a momentary opening of your hand.

Have you ever been in a store with sales staff who completely ignored you? Did you feel awkward as they talked on the phone, or invisible as they chatted with each other?

Have you ever been happy to wait several minutes while a clerk helped someone else, because she acknowledged you first with a tiny gesture, raised eyebrows or a smile?

It doesn’t take much to acknowledge another person. But it does require something. One small gesture makes the difference.

Make a positive gesture doesn’t mean waving your hands and shouting ‘C’mon in!’ That might be good for a carnival or a bustling street on a busy night. But theatrics can be out of place at government offices, hospitals or jewelry stores where couples search slowly for rings.

At the government service counter, a positive gesture could be simply, ‘Next, please’. In a museum or fine restaurant, a slight tilt from the waist is enough. In a retail store, the wide sweep of your hand invites shoppers to browse freely.

Extend an offer to help is easy when spoken: ‘How may I help you?’ ‘Your passport, please’, ‘Good morning. My name is Ron’. In silence, two open hands mean ‘I am here to help you’. One guiding palm says ‘Come this way’, or ‘Have a seat’.

Your ‘Three Steps to Welcome’ will depend on where you work, whom you serve and what reputation you wish to create. This may take fine-tuning before you get it right.

When Giordano clothing stores first opened, the staff were too excited, cheering new customers and scaring timid ones right out of the store! Today, Giordano’s has refined the welcoming process to an elegant dance of body language, gestures, facial expressions and spoken words. They watch customers carefully and observe how they react. Staff know when to go slow and let new shoppers browse, and when to step forward with personal attention.

American Express went too far with their initial Platinum Card telephone service. Caller ID allowed Amex to know who was calling and answer the phone using the customer’s name. But customers were shocked to be addressed by name before they had introduced themselves. (Now Amex only uses your name after you’ve said it once yourself.)

Raffles Hotel understands that too much service can become unpleasant service. A personal welcome by the chef, the manager, the hostess, every waiter and busboy will scuttle the best hospitality intentions at dinner. Raffles’ Chief Executive Officer likens their style of service to ‘a gentle breeze’, soothing you when you want it, but never blowing too hard in your face.

Key Learning Point

Everyone entering your place of work should receive acknowledgment, positive gestures and an appropriate offer of assistance.

Action Steps

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Survey customers of all types: old and young, male and female, hurried and relaxed, on a budget or on a spree. Ask them how they like to be greeted. What would be ‘too much’, what would be ‘too little’?

Discuss the results with your colleagues and ask their opinions, too.

Decide which ‘Three Steps to Welcome’ match your company’s image and your customer base. Then set standards, practice with role-plays, train and supervise new staff. Use these three steps to make your customers feel recognized, appreciated and welcome.

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Another Customer Service Training Article from Ron Kaufman

One of my favorite airlines committed a customer interface blunder. They changed the automated telephone menu system for reservations, removed the 24-hour fast-access option for frequent flyers, set up the menu so it changes at various times of the day, and put long recorded messages on the system to ‘educate’ passengers while they wait.

I’ve called this airline many times. My fingers know which buttons to push to get what I need without delay. Now my fingers are lost and my ears are listening to long messages. I am still trying to figure out which menu works at which time of day and which buttons I need to push.

A similar experience took place when WordPerfect introduced ‘WordPerfect for Windows’ and all the function keys were changed. Long ago, WordPerfect was the word-processing program of choice.

But overnight my loyalty to WordPerfect evaporated. As long as I had to re-learn a whole new set of keystrokes, I might as well learn Microsoft Word. And what happened to WordPerfect? Massive decline in market share. (We all know what’s happening with Microsoft Word, now dominating the word processing arena.)

Key Learning Point

Action Steps

Another Customer Service Training Article from Ron Kaufman

I use a credit card for many business purchases. Since I travel a lot, this means quite a bit of money is charged throughout the year.

Therefore, I was pleased when my bank had a local hotel deliver a ‘basket of goodies’ to our home during the holidays.

The card attached thanked us for our support, and looked forward to another year of providing beneficial service.

Unfortunately, the basket included abalone, chocolate cake and cookies. I am vegetarian (no abalone), we don’t eat much chocolate (no cake), and we try to avoid extra sugar (bye-bye cookies).

I’m sure the hotel has other options: nuts, flowers, a voucher for dinner – any of which I would have appreciated more.

In fact, I would have loved a phone call saying, ‘Hello Mr. Kaufman. On behalf of your bank, we would like to send you a gift of your choice. Would you like wine, chocolate cake and cookies? Or would you prefer nuts and a large bouquet of flowers? Or perhaps a voucher for dinner at one of our fine restaurants? Or shall we donate the cash value to a charity of your choice?’

The cost to the bank would have been the same. The difference would be a phone call…and the desire to give customers what they want, not what you think they should want.

Key Learning Point

Action Steps

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Before launching your next customer promotion, call your customers first and ask them what they think. Then, give them what they want.

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Another Customer Service Training Article from Ron Kaufman

I am regularly amazed by brand new facilities that are obviously user-unfriendly. Huge investments of time and money…but who are they designing it for?!

A new airport in the Middle East is an impressive and expensive building. It’s huge, packed with stainless steel and halogen lights and lots of fancy gold.

But it takes six escalators, two moving sidewalks and 3,446 steps (I counted) to get from the aircraft door to the taxi door at curbside. And no baggage trolleys are provided.

What were the architects thinking about? Size? Grandeur? Physical exercise? Who were they designing it for?!

A sparkling new hotel opened in a major capital city. There is no clear signage directing guests from the ballrooms to the restrooms. The few signs that do exist are etched in muted gold on dark marble pillars.

More obvious signage was considered inappropriate for such elegant decor. Very stylish, very chic. But who were they designing it for?!

I received a business card with a realtor’s mailing address printed in four-point type. That’s very tiny print (less than half the size of these letters!) Graphic designers love tiny type. It’s so trendy, hip and cool. But it’s certainly not easy to read.

Who – and – what is a business card for?

I had to argue with the graphics company to print all the contact information in 14 point type on my stationery. (That’s bigger than these letters.) They said it was ‘too big, not nice, not sophisticated’. I said it had to be big to remain legible, even as ‘a fax of a fax’.

Try it with your stationery right now.

Fax a copy of your stationery to a friend, and ask her to fax it back to you. Now you have ‘a fax of a fax’. It happens a lot in business.

Now look closely at your contact information. If you have a 5, 6, 8 or 9 in your telephone number, is that number still easy to read? If the letter ‘i’ or ‘l’ appears in your mailing address, is it easy to distinguish those letters?

Who designed your stationery? Who approved your stationery? Who is your stationery really for?

At a new airline lounge in Hong Kong, a partition of colorful glass hangs from the ceiling. My luggage lightly brushed against it as I walked inside. The entire partition shook and several panels came undone.

A staff member hurried over and began carefully reassembling the panels. (Thank goodness nothing broke.) I felt was embarrassed and apologized profusely.

‘Don’t worry,’ she replied calmly. ‘This happens all the time.’

An airport lounge is a heavy traffic area. People are always moving in and out. What were the interior designers thinking? Who were they designing it for?!

Key Learning Point

Action Steps

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Review your physical surroundings, points of customer interaction, your product, packaging and procedures.

Find something that could be clearer, more helpful or more `customer-friendly’. And once you find it, fix it.

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