Customer Care Professional

'Always do it right. This will surprise some and astonish the rest' Mark Twain. Imagine a place where everyone chooses to provide you with excellent, heartfelt customer care, where you never feel you have asked a stupid question, where you always feel like you are not wasting someone's time, where you feel important and special. Do you remember that person or company who provided you with such a wonderful service, you left feeling great? Your mood changed, your faith in the Human Race was restored, you wanted to go out and do nice things for other people.

If you can remember only one single individual company that met your required needs, how sad!! Ideally, we should be able to say, no matter where I go, I am always treated well, I get the service I expect, and I never need to complain because my needs have been anticipated. Customer Satisfaction is not sufficient - satisfaction implies that one has met a customer's expectations but has not necessarily exceeded them. We need to exceed expectations by achieving Excellence.

As a Customer Care Professional you have chosen to deal with people on a day-to-day basis - this means you cannot afford to have a bad day - EVER!!! It should be a sense of pride to provide quality customer care, not because the company insists upon it! Quality is the attitude that directs everything we do, and how we approach each situation. It is doing it RIGHT the first time. Customer Service Professionals will WOW their customers every time rather than just meet the required needs.

Why does the Customer contact you - there are a number of reasons, but the main one is 'To get good, caring and professional service'. Customers want to be treated as individuals with an individual problem - not as 'another difficult statistic'. You may deal with the same problem every time the phone rings but for the Customer this is a very real concern that affects their lives. They are looking for a solution that is specific to their problem - they want to be treated with importance, with care and concern.

How can we ensure we provide Excellent Customer Service where we can WOW the Customer? The keys are: Commitment to our Clients, Our Co-Workers, Providing a Positive Attitude, Taking on a Sense of Ownership and Pride, Good Communication, Maintaining Privacy and Confidentiality and always giving a Five Star Service. You will never have a second chance to make a first impression.

The Moment of Truth

Saying 'Have a nice Day' - you have to believe it, think it, and mean it. Jan Carlson of SAS Airlines coined a phrase 'The Moment of Truth'. This occurs whenever and wherever there is Customer Contact. This is when the Customer forms their perception of the company, its products, its people and its services.

The challenge for any company is to manage these Moments of Truth so that the perceptions are positive. Each encounter you or your colleague has with a customer on the phone or face-to-face is a moment of truth. How each call is handled provides you with the most opportune moment of truth where you can make a positive impact and help your customers feel good about doing business with you and your company. Attitude is everything.

Life is about choices - every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or a bad mood. You can choose to learn from a situation or be a victim. You can choose to listen to people complain or you can choose to point out the positive side of things. The bottom line - it is your choice how you live your life.

Facing the Difficult Customer

Let's face it - there are those customers whom we really do not want to deal with. They are they ones who make the Customer Care Professional's life very difficult. But today, more than ever, you cannot afford to lose a single customer. The times have created a competitive environment and we have to keep the customer satisfied, loyal and for life. Service, not cost will keep customers coming back. Authentic service is value based. Everyone in the company needs to believe, feel and act on the values that drive authentic service.

During the busy times, when you are feeling the pressure, stressed or not quite feeling the best, is when the difficult customer seems to appear. They never seem to be a problem when you are feeling great, right? How strange! Could this be because our guards are down and we just do not feel 'in the mood' to handle them? Possibly. So perhaps it is not the personality of the customer that you are dealing with but the projection of your own personality! This is the time when you have to be more professional and alert than ever. At this point you need to ask what the customer is hoping for - to be taken seriously, respect, immediate action and to be listened to. That's all! Look at the customer as different, not difficult.

There are different customer types that you will come into contact with. These types can range from being aggressive, less aggressive and just plain difficult. Often it does seem easier to ignore or work around these difficult types of people rather than to invite them to discuss the situation. However, to win these people over it usually just takes your time and listening without interrupting, not to argue or contradict and let them know you understand the cause of their anger and frustration.

Providing Excellence

There are a number of skills and competencies that a good Customer Care Professional should have. These include - an awareness of the customers needs, listening and responding to the customer, offering help, speaking clearly and concisely, being perceptive to the customers needs, being prepared when dealing with the customer, ensuring customer satisfaction and providing excellent communication.

You will also need to have energy, flexibility, sensitivity and integrity, be honest, caring and decisive, be willing to exceed the demands of the customer and above all follow up your promises to the customer. By dealing with your customer in this manner, you will find those difficult customers of the past, a very distant memory.

Article prepared by Commercial Services Bureau (CSB) Ltd.

Since 1987, CSB Ltd. has been servicing the local and international business community with its range of employment/recruitment related services. It has helped thousands of employees improve their job conditions and careers, and employers obtain the ideal staff for their organisations.