Communicating Positively with Your Customers

Communicating Positively with Your Customers

Communicating Positively with Your Customers

Communicating positively with your customers is crucial for you and your organization. You should think out everything from your greeting to your closing statements before you come into contact with a customer. Know what you want and need to say, avoid unnecessary details or discussion, and be prepared to answer questions about the organization, its products and services, and the customer’s order. The important thing to remember that you should continually seek new knowledge and skills that can help in improving customer service.

To maximize your potential and create a positive outcome with customers, use the PLAN acronym as a guide to effective communication with those with whom you come into contact. The model stands for:

  • Prepare for Positive Customer Interactions.
  • Let Your Customers Know They Are Important.
  • Address Your Customer’s Expectations Positively.
  • Nurture a Continuing Relationship.

Source: Customer Service Skills for Success, 6th ed. by Robert W. Lucas, scheduled for Spring 2014 publication by McGraw Hill Higher Ed.

Additional customer communication strategies can be found in How to Be a Great Call Center Representative and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

About Robert C. Lucas

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

The Importance of Customer Service Representatives in Organizational Success

The Importance of Customer Service Representatives in Organizational Success

The Importance of Customer Service Representatives

in Organizational Success

The business of customer service is all about people. Whether you are the CEO discussing strategic relationships with potential business partners, a salesperson sharing product or service information with a potential customer, a call center representative gathering information from a caller on the phone, or a receptionist greeting a visitor to the organization, they all have one thing in common . . . effective communication is crucial in aiding the exchange of information. Customer satisfaction and successful product and service fulfillment hinge on the abilities of customer service representatives and others in your organization, to transmit and receive messages freely and effectively with current and potential customers. The ultimate goal is to deliver the best customer service possible.

All customer experiences are a combination of people coming together for a common purpose; interacting face to face, via technology, or in writing; and merging individual beliefs, values, and expectations. Depending on the skill and finesse of the service provider, this can mean either a positive or negative outcome.

One variable over which you have little control as a service provider is the emotional state of your customers. When you first encounter someone, you have no idea if he or she is happy, sad, optimistic, angry, vindictive, or in some other frame of mind. That is why you must have an arsenal of interpersonal skills in your service toolbox upon which you can draw. A key element in this equation is the ability to effectively express yourself verbally and to ask appropriate questions, listen, and analyze customer needs, wants, and expectations. You must then take correct and decisive action in order to satisfy the customer.

As a customer service professional, you have the power to make or break the organization. You are the front line in delivering quality service to your customers. Your appearance, actions or inactions, and ability to communicate say volumes about the organization and its focus on customer satisfaction.  Additionally, in order to be successful, you need knowledge and skill in communicating verbally, nonverbally, across genders and cultures, and with a variety of personality types. For all these reasons, you should continually work to enhance your knowledge and skills, strive to project a professional image, and go out of your way to make a  customer’s visit or conversation with you a pleasant and successful one.

To learn more about the role that customer service representatives play in organizational success and how to create a customer-centric environment that results in brand and customer loyalty, get a copy of the book Customer Service Skills for Success.

About Robert C. Lucas, the expert who is explaining the Importance of Customer Service

Representatives in Organizational Success

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

Positive Customer Service Experience at the Casselberry, Florida T-Mobile

Positive Customer Service Experience at the Casselberry, Florida T-Mobile

Positive Customer Service Experience

at the Casselberry, Florida T-Mobile

When I ask learners or audience members in my training or presentation groups to relate a story of a recent customer service experience they had, I typically hear of a negative encounter that they remember. Unfortunately, that is the norm that many people who deal with service providers experience, especially when the event is related to technology. This is often the result of poor customer service skills, lack of adequate or effective customer service training, and overall ineffective customer relations management from the company or customer service representatives involved.

On my visit to the Casselberry, Florida T-Mobile store yesterday, I had a refreshingly positive experience. I had trouble with my Samsung phone that had been going on all day while I attended a local Florida Writers Association conference. The trouble turned out to be “operator error.”  Since I was at T-Mobile, I figured I might as well get answers to numerous questions that I’d be wanting to ask related to the phone functions and my service agreement. I’d put off dealing with these for some time.

Upon my arrival at the store, Retail Associate Luis Baca quickly greeted me in a friendly manner. I immediately recognized through his nonverbal communication and demeanor and for his overall interpersonal communication style that I had the “right guy.” My intuition proved to be correct in the next thirty minutes as he patiently addressed each issue that I had. During the process, I found out that previous information received at a different store about a corporate discount for military retirees was incorrect. Ultimately, Luis educated me on phone functioning, got me the military discount to which I was entitled, helped me switch to a different phone plan that I asked about and saved me over $60.00 a month on my mobile phone bill. As someone who has been providing customer service training for over two decades, and a customer service author and consultant, I give Luis an A+ for his knowledge, customer service skills, and the service that he provided.

Service like I received yesterday and my overall satisfaction with the company are the main reasons that I have stayed loyal to T-Mobile for almost six years and moved my wife over from AT&T last year. By continually addressing my needs, wants and expectations, the company saves me time and money, reduces my stress levels related to mobile service and continues to reinforce my satisfaction with them.

About Robert C. Lucas – Your Customer Service Expert.

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

Customer Service Communication Quote – Henry Ford

Customer Service Communication Quote – Henry Ford

“If there is any one secret of success it lies in the ability

to get the other person’s point of view

and see things from that person’s angle

as well as from your own.” – Henry Ford

Customer Service Communication Quote - Henry Ford

Here are a few more amazing quotes by Henry Ford…

  • There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.
  • You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.
  • I cannot discover anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.
  • An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.
  • Whatever you have, you must either use or lose. – Henry Ford
  • If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.
  • There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.
  • As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.
  • You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year. – Henry Ford
  • Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
  • If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.
  • Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs.
  • I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night. – Henry Ford
  • Quality means doing it right when no one is looking. – Henry Ford Quote
  • Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services.
  • A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one.
  • A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
  • A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.
  • Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
  • I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.
  • There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little ones. – Henry Ford 
  • Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.
  • Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves are far better than mere giving.
  • Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.
  • Don’t find fault, find a remedy. – Henry Ford
  • Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.
  • Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
  • Failure is simply the opportunity you see to begin again, this time more intelligently.

Learn All About Robert C. ‘Bob’ Lucas Now a

Understand Why He is an Authority in the Customer Service Skills Industry

Robert C. ‘Bob’ Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

In my book Customer Service Skills for Success, I define customer service as “the ability of knowledgeable, capable, and enthusiastic employees to deliver products and services to their internal and external customers in a manner that satisfies identified and unidentified needs and ultimately results in positive word-of-mouth publicity and return business.”

Body Language Impacts Customer Service

Body Language Impacts Customer Service

In addition to verbal and written messages, you continually provide nonverbal cues that tell a lot about your personality, attitude, and willingness and ability to assist customers. Customers receive and interpret the messages you send, just as you receive and interpret their messages.

Body Language Impacts Customer Service

By recognizing, understanding, and reacting appropriately to the body language of your customers, as well as using positive body language yourself, you will communicate with them more effectively. The key to “reading” your customer’s body language is to realize that your interpretations should be used only as an indicator of the customer’s true message meaning. This is because background, culture, physical condition, communication ability, and many other factors influence whether and how well people use body cues. Placing too much importance on nonverbal cues could lead to miscommunication and possibly a service breakdown.

One secret to effectively interpreting nonverbal cues sent by your customers is to watch for clusters of messages rather than a single signal or cue. This means to listen closely to what your customer is saying verbally while watching their nonverbal cues closely. If their words seem to be saying something different from the signals you received, watch further or do a quick perception check. To do this, ask a question for clarification. For example, “I just heard you say …but I noticed that nonverbally you were not smiling. I am not sure if I should take your words at face value or if you were making a joke. Which was it?”

By recognizing that your ability to effectively interpret body language is just one more tool in your customer service toolbox, you are on your way to delivering the best customer service possible.

For suggestions on how to successfully communicate nonverbally with your customers, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

About Robert C. Lucas

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

Customer Service Quotes – George S. Patton

Customer Service Quotes – George S. Patton

Delivering excellent customer service requires more than just going through the mechanical process of performing the requirements of your job as a customer service representative. To truly excel as a service professional, you must be willing to build a strong interpersonal relationship with your customers. This includes identifying and meeting the needs, wants and expectations of each individual customer rather than treating all customers in a similar manner. By effectively interacting with every customer with whom you come into contact, you strengthen your image and that of your organization.

A statement by General George S. Patton sums up an approach for you to take in dealing with customers in the future:

Customer Service Quotes - George S. PattonFor additional ideas on how to better serve your customers, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success and How to Be a Great Call Center Representative.

Learn All About Robert C. ‘Bob’ Lucas Now

Understand Why He is an Authority in the Customer Service Skills Industry

Robert C. ‘Bob’ Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

In my book Customer Service Skills for Success, I define customer service as “the ability of knowledgeable, capable, and enthusiastic employees to deliver products and services to their internal and external customers in a manner that satisfies identified and unidentified needs and ultimately results in positive word-of-mouth publicity and return business.”

Listening to Customers Quote – Ross Perot

Listening to Customers Quote – Ross Perot

“Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face.

You’d be amazed how many companies

don’t listen to their customers.” Ross Perot

Active listening is the key element in communications with your customers. Whether face-to-face or over the telephone, you must not only hear what customers are saying; you must get their intended meaning. To do this you must stop everything else you are doing and focus on the customer. You also have to receive, analyze and respond appropriately to their messages. Anything less will likely lead to a service breakdown and damage to the customer-provider relationship.

Former U.S. presidential candidate and businessman, Ross Perot, summed this concept up in a statement he once made:

Listening to Customers Quote - Ross PerotFor strategies and techniques to improve your listening skills when dealing with customers, get copies of How to Be A Great Call Center Representative and Customer Service Skills for Success.

Learn All About Robert C. ‘Bob’ Lucas Now & Understand Why He is an Authority in the Customer Service Skills Industry

Robert C. ‘Bob’ Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

In my book Customer Service Skills for Success, I define customer service as “the ability of knowledgeable, capable, and enthusiastic employees to deliver products and services to their internal and external customers in a manner that satisfies identified and unidentified needs and ultimately results in positive word-of-mouth publicity and return business.”

Listening Quote – Ralph Nichols

Listening Quote – Ralph Nichols

Actively listening to your customers is one of the easiest ways to ensure that you not only get the correct message that they send, but also that you show respect and you care about them. As you listen to your customers, you also start to better understand them and recognize some of their values, beliefs, needs, wants and expectations.

Dr. Ralph Nichols, sometimes called the “Father of Listening,” summarized the importance of listening in the following quote:

Listening Quote - Ralph Nichols

For ideas and suggestions on how to effectively listen to your customers, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and How to Be A Great Call Center Representative.

About Robert C. Lucas

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills.

Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Bob Lucas B.S., M.A., M.A, CPLP is the principal in Robert W. Lucas Enterprises, Inc and an internationally-known author; learning and performance professionals. He has written and contributed to numerous books on the subject of customer service skill training.

He regularly conducts workshops on creative training, train-the-trainer, customer service, interpersonal communication, and management,
and supervisory skills.

Learn more about Bob and his organization at www.robertwlucas.com and follow his blogs at www.robertwlucas.com/wordpress,
www.customerserviceskillsbook.com, and www.thecreativetrainer.com. Like Bob at www.facebook.com/robertwlucasenterprises

Nonverbal Communication Quote – Peter F. Drucker

Nonverbal Communication Quote – Peter F. Drucker

Various studies indicate that the majority of message meaning during an interaction between two people is often received through nonverbal means (e.g. facial expressions, gestures, and vocal qualities). Even as you speak to your customers, they are likely to be extracting additional messages from your physical presence, how you look and what you are doing. And when you throw cultural and other diversity factors (e.g. gender, abilities, or age) into the situational equation, there is a good opportunity for misinterpretation. This is because people often assign meaning to nonverbal cues based on their values, beliefs, and life experiences.

For all the reasons listed above, it is crucial that you and other employees become students of human behavior. You should also educate yourselves about values and beliefs from different groups so that you are aware of potential interpretations that might be made of gestures that you or your customer(s) might use.

A quote by management guru, Peter F. Drucker sums up the importance of recognizing and properly interpreting nonverbal cues.

Nonverbal Communication Quote - Peter F. Drucker

For ideas and strategies on effectively communicating nonverbally with your customers, check out: Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures; Customer Service Skills for Success; and How to Be a Great Call Center Representative.

Here are a few more amazing Peter Drucker quotes to enjoy reading.

  • “Management by objective works – if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time you don’t.” – Peter Drucker
  • “Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.”
  • “Accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer.” – Peter Drucker
  • “Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right.”
  • “If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.”
  • “What gets measured gets improved.” – Peter Drucker
  • “Results are gained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems.” – Peter Drucker
  • “Long-range planning does not deal with the future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.”
  • “Meetings are a symptom of bad organization. The fewer meetings the better.” – Peter Drucker
  • “Leadership is not magnetic personality–that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not making friends and influencing people –that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.”
  • “The better a man is the more mistakes he will make for the more things he will try.”
  • “One cannot buy, rent or hire more time. The supply of time is totally inelastic. No matter how high the demand, the supply will not go up. There is no price for it. Time is totally perishable and cannot be stored. Yesterday’s time is gone forever, and will never come back. Time is always in short supply. There is no substitute for time. Everything requires time. All work takes place in, and uses up time. Yet most people take for granted this unique, irreplaceable and necessary resource.”
  • “Time is the scarcest resource of the manager; If it is not managed, nothing else can be managed.”
  • “What you have to do and the way you have to do it is incredibly simple. Whether you are willing to do it, that’s another matter.” – Peter Drucker
  • “The three most charismatic leaders in this century inflicted more suffering on the human race than almost any trio in history: Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. What matters is not the leader’s charisma. What matters is the leader’s mission.”
  • “No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.”
  • “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.”
  • “The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say “I.” And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say “I.” They don’t think “I.” They think “we”; they think “team.” They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but “we” gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.” – Peter Drucker
  • “Business has only two functions — marketing and innovation.”

About Robert C. Lucas – Blogger, Author, and a fan of Peter Drucker

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

The key to successfully making money as an author and/or self-publisher is to brand yourself and your company and to make yourself and your book(s) a household name. Part of this is face-to-face interaction with people at trade shows, library events, book readings, book store signings, blogging or guest blogging on a topic related to their book(s). Another strategy involves writing articles and other materials that show up online and are found when people search for a given topic related to a topic about which the author has written.

If you need help building an author platform, branding yourself and your book(s) or generating recognition for what you do, Make Money Writing Books will help. Bob’s popular book addresses a multitude of ideas and strategies that you can use to help sell more books and create residual and passive income streams. The tips outlined in the book are focused to help authors but apply to virtually any professional trying to increase personal and product recognition and visibility.

Nonverbal Customer Communication Strategies

Nonverbal Customer Communication Strategies

As a customer service professional, it is impossible for you to “not” send nonverbal messages to your customers. They are evaluating you based on your posture, facial expressions, height, body type and condition, skin color, complexion, clothing, jewelry, and many other nonverbal cues. Your goal should be to eliminate communication barriers and to pay attention to all these factors. You should also strive to communicate a message of professionalism and that you are alert, happy, capable and ready to serve your customer.

Nonverbal Customer Communication Strategies

On the telephone, your tone and attitude should project a positive, upbeat and professional presence that helps encourage people to continue to do business with you and your organization.

When speaking with a customer face-to-face, you should avoid negative body cues and facial gestures like frowning, crossing arms across the chest, using eye contact inappropriately as your customer speaks, pointing fingers at someone, rubbing the back of your neck or the bridge of your nose, or any other movement that might indicate boredom, stress, frustration or displeasure since some cultures view these things negatively.  Also, you should be conscious of nervous habits that you might have which could say to the customer that you are impatient, uncertain, or otherwise not confident about a given situation (e.g. a sale). For example, fidgeting, jingling change or playing with items in your pocket, twirling the ends of your hair, clicking a ballpoint pen, biting nails, looking at your watch, or rubbing your hands together.

When interacting with your customers, it is important that you monitor your own nonverbal cues and those that they use. In doing so, remember that just because someone from a culture uses a nonverbal cue similar to one that your culture uses does not mean that it has the same meaning with which you are familiar. Learning to appropriately interpret and appreciate different nonverbal cues used by customers from around the world will give you a big advantage over your competition when dealing with people from various cultural and diverse backgrounds.

An important thing to remember is that you should not assign meaning to a nonverbal cue that you see a customer use out of context (e.g. their verbal and nonverbal messages do not seem to match). This is because the same gesture (e.g. a smile) might have different meanings when used by someone based on the situation, their level of emotion, the environment, a person that they are with, time, the customer’s cultural background and your personal frame of reference related to the signal.

To better discover ways to communicate positively in a global business environment, get a copy of Please Every Customer: Delivering stellar customer service across cultures.

About Robert C. Lucas

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

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