The Role of Technology in Customer Service

One thing is sure in today’s global economy; Internet marketing and sales are major components of a global and personal wealth strategy.

Research conducted by McKinsey and Company “…into the Internet economies of the G-8 nations as well as Brazil, China, India, South Korea, and Sweden finds that the web accounts for a significant and growing portion of global GDP. Indeed, if measured as a sector, Internet-related consumption and expenditure are now bigger than agriculture or energy. On average, the Internet contributes 3.4 percent to GDP in the 13 countries covered by the research.”

Further, “The United States is the largest player in the global Internet supply ecosystem, capturing more than 30 percent of global Internet revenues and more than 40 percent of net income.

Source: Internet matters: The Net’s sweeping impact on growth, jobs, and prosperity Internet matters: The Net’s sweeping impact on growth, jobs, and prosperity, Pélissié
du Rausas, M., Manyika, J., Hazan, E., Bughin, J., Chui, M., and Said, R.. McKinsey Global Institute.

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.

Dealing with Difficult Customers

by Robert W. Lucas

Dealing with Difficult Customers

You may think of difficult customer contacts as those in which you have to deal with negative, angry, demanding, or aggressive people. These are just a few of the types of potentially difficult interactions that you may encounter as a customer service representative.

From time to time, you will also be called upon to help customers who can be described in one or more of the following ways:

Are dissatisfied with your service or products.
Are indecisive or lack knowledge about your product, service, or policies.
Are you rude or inconsiderate of others?
Are talkative.
Are internal customers with special requests.
Speak a primary language other than yours.
Are you elderly and need extra assistance.
Are young and inexperienced who might need to be guided in making a good choice.
Have some type of disability.

Each of the above categories can be difficult to handle, depending on your knowledge, experience, abilities and organizational policies. A key to successfully serving all types of customers is to treat each person as an individual. If you stereotype people, you will likely damage the customer-provider relationship and might even generate complaints to your supervisor or legal action against you and your organization based on perceived discrimination. Avoid labeling people according to their behavior. Do not mentally categorize people (put them into groups) according to the way they speak, act, or look—and then treat everyone in a “group” the same way.

Ultimately, you will deliver successful service through your effective communication skills, positive attitude, patience, knowledge, service experience, and willingness to help the customer. Your ability to focus on the situation or problem and not on the person will be a very important factor in your success. Making the distinction between the person and the problem is especially important when you are faced with difficult situations in the service environment. Although you may not understand or approve of a person’s behavior, he or she is still your customer. Try to make the interaction a positive one, and if necessary ask for assistance from a co-worker or refer the problem to an appropriate level in your operational chain of command.

For ideas and strategies on how to deal with a variety of different customers and customer situations, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success, Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and How to Be a Great Call Center Representative.

About Robert C. Lucas

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

Effective Customer Communication Quote – George Ross

by Robert W. Lucas

Effective Customer Communication Quote – George Ross

“To be successful, you have to be able to relate to people; they have to be satisfied with your personality to be able to do business with you and to build a relationship of mutual trust.” George Ross

The ability to build and maintain solid relationships, and ultimately develop a level of trust, is a key skill that customer service representatives must master if they are going to be successful in the business world.

As a professional service provider, you must study human nature and become adept at the interpersonal skills of verbal and non-verbal communication, listening skills, and assessing behavioral styles and personality. You must also be able to understand and interact with people from diverse backgrounds.

For more ideas on how to better interact with and serve the needs of diverse customers, get copies of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures and Customer Service Skills for Success.

About Robert C. Lucas

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

Customer Service Inspirational Quote – Sam Walton

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Inspirational Quote – Sam Walton

“High Expectations are the key to everything.” – Sam Walton

A key to being a successful customer service representative is gaining the knowledge and skills necessary to deal with a changing global business environment. In today’s world, it is not enough for service providers to simply be knowledgeable about their organization’s products and services. They must also have effective interpersonal skills (e.g. verbal, nonverbal and listening), knowledge of the needs, wants and expectations of different demographic groups (e.g. gender, cultural, ethnic, age and abilities), and solid customer service skills. These crucial skills can provide the tools to effectively communicate and handle the types of interactions that can occur daily in any customer-provider interaction (e.g. negotiation, conflict resolution, sales, and service recovery).

For additional information and ideas on how to deliver effective customer service in a diverse world, get copies of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures 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.

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.”

How to Improve Customer Satisfaction

by Robert W. Lucas

How to Improve Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is different from one person to the next. Thus, the answer to “How do I improve customer satisfaction?” is a complex one to answer. At the root of the solution is the acceptance by customer service representatives and others in an organization that all internal and external customers are unique and have different needs, wants and expectations. They must, therefore, be addressed as individuals and not as a group based on outward appearance (e.g. race, gender, age, ethnic or religious background and other factors typically used to label people).

Obviously, training and education to raise awareness about factors related to human behavior, diversity, customer service skills, interpersonal communication, and the organization’s products and services are crucial in providing quality service. Successful organizations and managers realize this and strive to provide quality information to everyone in their system on a regular basis. Above that, it is the individual service provider’s responsibility to adopt an attitude focused on customer-centric behavior and actively take opportunities to discover customer needs, wants and expectations and then apply their knowledge and skills to satisfy them.

While there is no one solution to the issue of customer satisfaction, there are many roads to success if service providers take the effort to act in a professional manner and work with customers to partner on successful outcomes for both the customer and the organization.

To get a better understanding of factors related to different customer groups and potential strategies for identifying and addressing their needs, wants and expectations, get copies of Please Every Customer: Providing Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures, Customer Service Skills for Success and How to Be a Great Call Center Representative.

Differing Time Management Perspectives in a Global Customer Service World

by Robert W. Lucas

Differing Time Management Perspectives in a Global Customer Service World

As a service provider, you may encounter someone whose view of time differs significantly from yours. You should learn to adapt. Many cultures view the past, present and future differently and may place more or less importance on them than others outside their culture do. This may put a strain on the customer-provider relationship if you are not aware of their perspective or are not willing to make concessions for the differences.

Implications of time perspective differences vary greatly throughout the world. In countries like China, if you are late for a business meeting you might lose face or somehow make them feel disrespected. In other countries, you might be expected to wait for your customers, even when you have a set appointment time. For example, if you are in sales and travel to other parts of the world, you might arrive expecting a meeting at a certain time and date, only to find out that the person you are supposed to meet is out of the office or on vacation even though you called the week before to verify the appointment. Even so, always verify meetings multiple times and in writing before proceeding to them, especially if your customer is from outside your culture. Keeping subordinates and foreign businesspeople waiting for an extended period of time even when there is a scheduled appointment is not uncommon in some countries (e.g. Middle Eastern), especially when a higher-level executive is involved. Expect this and be prepared to wait patiently.

When dealing with customers who frequent your organization, if you are serving someone from another culture, you may find that they show up late for appointments. To compensate, you have to decide whether to build in some flexibility to your schedule or to turn a customer away when they arrive late. Obviously, the latter could mean a breakdown in the customer-provider relationship or a lost customer.

The bottom line on dealing with cultural perspectives on time is to recognize that there are differences. As a result, you may have to change your own mindset if you plan to do business with people from other countries ad cultures. Making such adjustments can lead to opportunities for providing customer service excellence and building a reputation as a service professional who is keenly aware of global diversity.

For more guidance on dealing with cultural differences when delivering service in a diverse world, read Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Robert C. Lucas

About Robert C. Lucas

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

Quote on Change – Charles Darwin

by Robert W. Lucas

Quote on Change – Charles Darwin

Change is constant in the world. This is especially true in the customer service profession. Recent decades have seen the advent of computerized and technology-based service delivery, shifts in economies, an evolving diverse customer population and many other factors that have required service providers and organizations to adapt.

Some organizations and individuals have made the transition fairly well intact, while others have fallen by the wayside.

Charles Darwin summed the situation up when he said:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives,

nor the most intelligent,

but the one most responsive to change.”

Charles Darwin

Who was Charles Darwin?

Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809, in The Mount House, Shrewsbury, United Kingdom. He was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist. he received his formal education from Christ’s College in Cambridge. Charles Darwin was best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. During his lifetime he received many awards including Copley Medal, Royal Medal, and Wollaston Medal. His proposition that led to these awards was that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors and are now widely accepted and considered a foundational concept in science. He past away on April 19, 1882, at his home called the Down House in Downe, United Kingdom.

Here are a few more quotes from Charles Darwin…

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” – Charles Darwin
“Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal.”
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” – Charles Darwin
“Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his means of subsistence.” – Charles Darwin
“The very essence of instinct is that it’s followed independently of reason.”
“A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.” – Charles Darwin
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races throughout the world.”
“I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.”
“My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts.”
“To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.” – Charles Darwin
“A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives – of approving of some and disapproving of others.”
“It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed in any subject as I am in mine.” – Charles Darwin
“On the ordinary view of each species having been independently created, we gain no scientific explanation.”
“How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children.” – Charles Darwin
“I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them.”
“The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.” – Charles Darwin
“We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities… still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”
“I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions.”
“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” – Charles Darwin

Learn about Robert C. Lucas, a customer service guru, and award-winning author…

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

Preparing to Serve a Diverse Customer Base

by Robert W. Lucas

Preparing to Serve a Diverse Customer Base

Many organizations and employees have realized the importance of creating a fair and equal environment in which everyone feels respected and valued. This is especially important in a service environment where employees encounter customers who have different characteristics.

Providing good customer service can be challenging on any given day. That is why updating customer service skills is a crucial part of professional development for any customer service representative. And, when you factor in elements of diversity, providing great customer service can become difficult for many service providers who lack sufficient knowledge and experience in dealing with diverse individuals.

To ensure that you are ready for potential situations in which you will be serving people of different age, gender, ability, cultural and religious background, and numerous other diversity factors, consider participating in the following initiatives:

Honestly evaluate your own biases towards people from a given group and develop some strategies for overcoming them.
Visit a restaurant that serves ethnic foods other than that of your native culture.
Share your own story with someone from a different group (e.g. age, gender, ethnic background, or religion) and see how their life experiences compare or differ from yours.
Identify at least one resource for diversity information and visit it each month.
Take a language course to learn a new language.
Visit a religious institution, museum or historical monument of a culture different from your own.
Volunteer to work with people whose race, age, gender, or cultural backgrounds are different from your own.

For more ideas and strategies on dealing with customers who have diverse backgrounds that may be different from yours, read Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Impact of Values and Beliefs on Customer Service

by Robert W. Lucas

Impact of Values and Beliefs on Customer Service

Values are based on the deeply held beliefs of a culture or subculture. These beliefs might be founded in religion, politics, or group mores. They drive thinking and actions and are so powerful that they have served as the basis for arguments, conflicts, and wars for hundreds of years.

To be effective in dealing with others, service providers should not ignore the power of values and beliefs, nor should they think that their value system is better than that of someone else’s. The key to service success is to be open-minded and accept that someone else has a different belief system that determines his or her needs. With this in mind you, as a service provider, should strive to use all the positive communication and needs identification you have read about thus far in order to satisfy the customer.

Cultural values can be openly expressed or subtly demonstrated through behavior. They can affect your interactions with your customers in a variety of ways. As you encounter people from cultures other than yours, consider the connection of values with behavior. Also, think of ways that you might adjust your approach to customer service in order to ensure a satisfactory experience for diverse customers. Keep in mind that the degree to which customers have been acculturated to prominent cultural standards will determine how they act.

Your goal is to provide excellent service to the customer. In order to achieve success in accomplishing this goal, you must be sensitive to, tolerant of, and empathetic toward customers. You do not need to adopt the beliefs of others, but you should adapt to them to the extent that you provide the best service possible to all of your customers.

For useful ideas and strategies on better understanding and interacting with people from diverse backgrounds, get a copy of Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Nonverbal Customer Communication Strategies

by Robert W. Lucas

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.

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

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