Moments Magnificence by Customer Service Superstars
Customer Service Superstars are friendly and helpful when delivering the customer experience. Listening is their highest form of courtesy. The bottom-line to excellent customer service is the quality of the customer interactions in person, on the phone or online. This requires you treat customers with respect, dignity and grace. A negative attitude, poor systems or use of systems, and a lack of courtesy drives customers away.
Duh? This emphasis is for all the companies and people that deliver horrible customer service and probably don’t think that they do. Doesn’t this only makes sense? Are you hearing this? Why is this so foreign to so many? Stick it out and consider two approaches for engaging customers: egocentric and altruistic customer service.
An Egocentric Customer Experience
First of all, there is a self-centered approach to relating to customers or other people for that matter. This means your focus is on you not others. What’s most important is what’s happening to you and how it affects you and why you do or don’t like it. If it doesn’t go your way, you get irritated, frustrated and angry and let people know. Yes, this is the wrong approach for customer service. It comes from a lack of maturity or a non-caring attitude. Not caring is a disease that has to be cured. Many companies and employees end up here. Companies who take this approach believe in profit over people. Tons of research says that higher profits come from investing in helping employees succeed. Then, they in turn provide better customer service. This is so unfortunate and unnecessary.
An Altruistic Customer Experience
In contrast is the other-centered approach. Your goal here is to genuinely assist everybody. For this reason it includes customers and your colleagues too. A successful businessman Bob Conklin said, ‘Help other people get what they want and you will get what you want.” Notice how he said this. First you help, then you get. This is a caring approach when done with integrity. In other words, you value how others are affected by your actions. You wish them well and try to do the right thing for them. If they have a problem or complaint, even though it wasn’t your fault, you go out of your way to support them. This is a prerequisite for Customer Service Superstars. They deliver because they want to, it’s an inherent value. As a result, fewer companies and employees end up here.
Customer Service Superstars Key Moments of Truth
You can organize your customer engagement into four key areas. Here are the definitions:
- Moments of Truth are anything you or the company does that directly or indirectly affects a customer’s perception of you (remember, you are the company you work for) or your organization. They make up a customer’s journey or cycle. These moments of truth can become misery, mediocrity or magnificence for the customer.
- Moments of Misery show up when you do less than what customers expect. This is poor service.
- Moments of Mediocrity are created when you only meet a customers expectations. This is average service.
- Moments of Magnificence- are designed as you exceed the customers expectations. This is exceptional service.
Moments of Magnificence for Customer Service Superstars
A Customer Service Superstar’s goal is to treat customers much better than they expect. They do this by self-managing each moment of truth so the customer experiences exceptional service. Therefore, to learn what to do, think of what impresses you as a customer? Furthermore, think of what you wish people in customer service roles would do much better? In addition, be open to continuing education to become more effective.
Hence, all awesome service begins with courtesy and friendliness. Next, the service person needs to be engaging and positive. So, this could include asking a few questions and listening to what the customer wants or needs. Most noteworthy, the Customer Service Superstar really begins to solve the customer’s problem. This may include defining the product or service, offering options, and handling a problem. Or, just taking an order. Also, Customer Service Superstars keep learning about dealing with people. They read up on product info. They learn how to better help the customer use the company’s online or web based resources. An excellent conclusion to serving the customer includes a summary, positive final words and a thank you. Finally, Customer Service Superstars always follow-up to add that extra value to the customer experience.
Pulling it all Together
When a person (or a company) does all of this well during the customer experience, customers are extremely satisfied, if not supremely loyal. As a result, it’s magnificent but rarely found today. However, it doesn’t have to be. It’s a science because certain steps must be followed. It’s also an art because you can add your personality and flair to it while pleasing each customer. This is a differentiation. As a result, it stands out when done uniquely geared to each customer’s goal. Certainly, this is the essence of Customer Service Superstars. Even more, almost all employees can and will serve customers this way. Yet, their managers have to learn to lead more effectively.
Do you want to achieve your career goals and reach more success? If so, check out this complimentary guide called Success Practices.
Do you want to fast track your customer service success? If you do, check out our book, Superstar Customer Service.
