Customer Service Wisdom with Kate Nasser

My work for 20+ years has focused on truly memorable customer service for your business acclaim and customer loyalty. Yet some of my recent experiences as a customer, bring me to write this post for businesses of all sizes, industries, and professions.

Customer Service Reps (CSRs), call center agents, customer care associates, technical support & help desk analysts, are often tethered to a desk or a pager. The best ones are key links in the chain of service or sales and don't see it as a life in chains.

How do they achieve this zen like state working in what so many others consider to be a stressful and confining job?

Here are the answers I have collected over the last 20 years of teaching these inspired CSRs and technical support professionals:

• Chained to the desk or a pager means you are focusing on yourself. Remembering you are a key link in the chain keeps you focused on the customer.
• Satisfaction comes from knowing that you helped - made their life easier, found the solution, made the experience fun, lifted them up.
• On tough days, I take pride in how great I am under pressure. Other CSRs buckle, I don't.
• I never let envy of other jobs rob me of the joy of my current life.
• Before working as a Technical Support analyst, I was in the Coast Guard patrolling in the Gulf of Mexico. I was shot at daily by drug running boats. Trust me, tech. support work is not stressful!

Service is different than servitude. The former you choose, the latter you don't.

Choose:

• Your attitude every day. Why let angry or rude customers change your choice?
• To see the value in what you do; a key link in the chain.
• To educate yourself about business success by learning directly from the customers.
• To be a CSR, Help Desk or Technical Support Analyst at an enlightened company.
• As leaders, to enlighten your organization's approach to customer service and to help change your industry with your enlightened view.
• To evolve and grow every day of your life.

You can choose to be a strong link for others if your mindset is one of service. Not of servitude.

To deliver truly memorable service and secure customer loyalty, follow these four steps:

1. Make it personal. Know your customer then greet and treat them that way. Don't treat your known customers as unknown. A true loyalty killer.

2. Make it easy for the customer. Bureaucracy kills customer loyalty. Also, procedures can kill listening and that kills customer loyalty. If you are going to use scripts, they should be guidelines to discussion, not marching orders!

3. Make it happen. Train, assess, and empower staff to serve. If the reps can't deviate from a strict procedure, they cannot serve the customer. Inspire and empower them to make it happen.

4. Make it memorable. Customers remember moments and consistently memorable service. Many leaders have mistaken this to mean routine repetition. This contrived approach kills loyalty. Create a culture and practice of caring and follow-through to produce authentic sincere moments to remember - each and every time.

Inspire, train, and empower your staff to: Make it personal, make it easy, make it happen, make it memorable. It is still the way to up the loyalty!

Please share yourown customer service wisdom below.

Visit Kate Nasser's website here to find more inspiration for your contact center operations.