HELP or TELL

HELP or TELL

When you have a customer reaching out to your organization for assistance, how do you help them; do you HELP or TELL.

Customers are needing your assistance because they are not as well informed as you are about your organization, processes etc., or they would work where you work

We buy products and services; needing support to maximize what we purchased.

So, when a customer calls you they are needing information, to learn how to maximize, to understand all the details; so they need HELP.

If you TELL someone you are demanding they know all about what they bought, implying the thought they are stupid. Who reads every detail about something they have bought? Who has time?

If you HELP someone you are sharing what you know to assist them with the product or services so they get the full benefit and opportunity to love your product or services. The customer will then share their positive experience.

Be Pleasant and Position

What do you think is the best way to be pleasant to a customer? Does it really matter the words you choose when you are working with a customer? Using positive words and pleasant tone will put you in a positive position, even if the information you have to provide is not favorable for the customer. People understand policy and process as long as they hear, see you are and did work for them, in their best interest. Some of the positive words to help represent you support the customer, working together to help resolve a question.

It is my pleasure
Let me see what I can do for you
Let us review together
Share with me
I have the following to share
I found some information for you

Knowledge

When you work in customer service, what are you doing? Are you there at your job just getting the next dollar? Do you really care about the customers calling to get assistance from you? You need to remember, if everyone knew everything about everything, no one would need your assistance for anything. You are the expert in your field, whether you feel like you are or not. You know more about what you do then someone not working at your job. SO, the idea of customer service is to SHARE your knowledge. Help customers understand and learn what they need to learn so they don't need to call back for the same question. The next question should be something else. You are the expert, so TEACH the customer. HELP the customer with your experience and next steps. That is CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Positioning

Talking to a customer is about what you can do not what you can't. Starting with "here is what I can do to assist you"  allows the conversation to start with I will help. You may not be able to solve the customers problem but your offering a solution without saying "no". It is easier for the customer to hear what you are offering.

The Correct Words

Work with words such as "My Pleasure", "Let me see what I an do for you", "Thank you", "Is there anything else I can assist you with today", "Let me connect you".....I know these words/phrases may sound really generic but they work. The reflection these words provide, is you are listening and willing to see what you can do. You are taking ownership of the issue and validating you are talking to a person.

How do you say hello?

Well sometimes it can depend on how your day starts but for a professional that shouldn't matter. Customers are allowed to some degree to be emotional but you as the person helping your customer is not permitted to. SO, how do you say hello? Over the phone it is important to use your tone and inflection to help manage your greeting/hello even if you don't feel like it. Plus the corny 'smile, the customer on the phone can hear it' actually works.......so just try the mirror and smile before answering the phone, this will help you train yourself for your greeting/hello. Also learn to listen to yourself and train your tone and inflection as well, you will be surprised what you can do when you actually listen to yourself.

Now, the face to face customer I think is harder to manage your emotion. You have body language which plays into your greeting/hello. You have to watch how your eyes and facial expressions developed. Sometimes the best option is to practice and set yourself up with a few greetings depending on the emotion of your customer.

It sounds really silly but really you need to have two personalities. You need to create your business personality and leave your actually personalty at the door when going to work. You will find it easier to work with your customers when you have trained or developed yourself.

Until next time............