Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue II, 2016 | Page 97
CustomerService BY JOHN D I J U L I U S
“Compassion”&
“Empathy”
Powerful words in customer service
I
think the two most powerful words
employees need to have permeating through their consciousness are
“compassion” and “empathy.” When
you genuinely serve with compassion and
empathy, your customer service is on a
completely different level. The challenge is, How do you teach compassion
and empathy? How do you make them
more than just buzzwords and platitudes?
The top world-class customer experience organizations constantly put their
employees in the shoes of the customer.
When your employees really understand
the plight of the customer—what the
customer is going through, their daily
battles—it starts to crystallize for them
the critical importance of the customer
experience they deliver, as well as the
level of genuine caring they show each
customer.
• Customers are not rational. Emotions overpower and manipulate our
reasoning, and emotion leads to action.
Customer experience can trigger a wide
array of emotions that can have a great
influence on repeat business. Sometimes
we don’t know why we like going to a
certain place, but something drives us to
stop there. We make logical reasons about
why, defending the fact that it is based
on convenience or something else. But
the truth is that a business that delivers a
unique experience has emotional capital
that can be subconscious. On the other
hand, when we hear of a brand and have
negative thoughts, most often the case
is that one time a poor experience left a
permanent negative stamp on our mind.
• It is rational to be irrational. One
of the most confusing and frustrating
things to employees is the unreasonable
way customers can react to something
that seems so minor. However, when a
customer has expectations—not unrealistic expectations, but simple ones about
what it will be like to do business with
you—and the business fails to deliver, that
customer can get emotional. For instance,
the customer could be having a stressful
day, counting on the one company they
can always trust (these are typically your
best customers), yet this one time they
not only didn’t get to escape, their stress
level increased. Even though it may have
been the first time the company messed up
with a particular customer, that customer
can react emotionally. It is critical that
When your
employees really
understand the
plight of the
customer it starts
to crystallize for
them the critical
importance of the
customer experience
they deliver.
customer emotions be part of employee
service-recovery training—especially for
dissatisfied customers. Once employees
understand there is a good probability of
a customer reacting emotionally instead
of rationally, they won’t take it personally and are better able to make a brilliant comeback.
• Anti-no zone. My employees don’t
need to ask permission to do anything
for a customer except use the word “no.”
And to my knowledge, we have never
given permission. It doesn’t mean everything is a “yes,” but “no” is the word
heard most often in business. Train your
employees to eliminate it, treat it like a
swear word, and focus on alternatives. An
article entitled “Stop Trying To Delight
Your Customers” in the Harvard Business
Review demonstrates the power of removing the word “no” from your company’s
vocabulary. Ameriprise Financial asked
its customer service reps to capture every instance in which they were forced
to tell a customer “no.” While auditing
the “no’s,” the company found many dated policies that had been outmoded by
regulatory changes, systems, or process
improvements. During its first year of
“capturing the no’s,” Ameriprise modified or eliminated 26 policies. It has since
expanded the program by asking frontline reps to come up with other process
efficiencies, generating $1.2 million in
savings as a result.
• How hard do you make it for your
customers to resolve issues? A study
from the HBR article shows the level of
frustration customers have to go through
when trying to solve a problem:
• 56 percent reported having to reexplain an issue
• 57 percent reported having to switch
from the web to the phone to solve a
problem
• 59 percent reported expending moderate to high effort to resolve an issue
• 59 percent reported being transferred
• 62 percent reported having to repeatedly contact the company to resolve
an issue.
• The “AskOnce” promise. Another
great example from the article explains
how some companies are making low
effort by the customer the cornerstone
of their service value proposition. South
Africa’s Nedbank instituted an “AskOnce”
promise, which guarantees that the rep
who picks up the phone will own the
customer’s issue from start to finish.
The immediate mission is clear: leadership must train front-line employees
on mitigating disloyalty by reducing the
effort customers must make.
John R. DiJulius III, author
of The Customer Service
Revolution, is president of
The DiJulius Group, a customer service consulting firm
that works with companies
including Starbucks, Chickfil-A, Ritz-Carlton, Nestle, PwC, Lexus, and
many more. Call him at 216-839-1430 or
email [email protected].
MULTI-UNIT FRANCHISEE IS S U E II, 2016
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