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Build Extreme Loyalty And Generate Predictable Streams of Revenue

The lifetime value of a customer is exponentially greater than the value of a series of single transactions from one-time customers, so building a customer service culture is crucial to the success of your company.

You know that it only takes one Tweet or Facebook status update to seriously damage a company’s reputation.

One bad customer experience can cost you a customer for life.

Hospitality, travel, retail, healthcare, call centers, and financial services are especially prone to losing customers who have a negative experience.

Think about negative customer service experiences you have had yourself.  You know that it doesn’t take much for a customer to decide that you and your company aren’t worth his or her time, effort, and money.

Because there are so many competitors in the marketplace, it is crucial that you turn your customer service into a competitive advantage.

Turn Customer Service Into A Competitive Advantage

The  Customer Service Profile™ adds objective data to your existing hiring process by measuring how well a person fits the behaviors that create outstanding customer service for specific customer service jobs in your organization.

The Customer Service pre-employment assessment helps you to identify, select, and develop customer service employees who are most likely to deliver the type of customer service that will delight your customers and clients.

In addition to six crucial customer service behaviors, our customer service assessments also look at what specific situational behaviors create a high level of customer service, and show where  your current and future employees align (or do not align) with the company’s perspective.

Skills can be learned by employees willing to put forth the effort, but our personalities and core behaviors are difficult to change.

That’s why we work with our clients to carefully consider how well an employee’s core behaviors fit with the actual job he or she will be performing.

We help you develop peak performance models for your customer service jobs by providing multiple questions against which potential candidates are measured.

Next, you give a link to your candidate(s) and when they complete the assessment, the reports - in including customized interview questions and coaching suggestions are automatically emailed to you.

Fast. Easy. Powerful.

Here are six behaviors of your customer-facing employees that make the biggest difference for your business. Each of these is measured and reported on by our Customer Service hiring assessment.

It’s easy for your people to become defensive when they’re presented with problems, especially if it seems that the person presenting the problem has a hidden agenda. For example, a hotel employee might be cynical about a guest who calls to complain about his room and demands an upgrade to an executive suite.

What should they do?

Is this a real problem? Is this a high- maintenance guest who feels entitled to only the best? Or is this person a freeloader? This cynicism is a normal reaction, but a particularly untrusting employee will focus on the validity of the problem rather than a solution that is amenable to all parties involved.

The optimal degree of trustworthiness depends on your business, but naiveté is never optimal.

For example, to be successful an IRS agent will probably be less trusting than the front desk clerk of a Ritz-Carlton hotel.

Your people have to get it right because you jeopardize your chance to build long-term, loyal customers if they  assume from the outset that customer motives are not honorable.

Your customers don’t know what they don’t know.

So it's important not to offend them by making them feel stupid or like they are bothering you with their questions and assumptions. Even if they have heard the same thing hundreds of times, your customer service people have to use the appropriate amount of tact with each customer and situation.

Tact is particularly important in technology and healthcare fields where specialized technical knowledge is required.

The bottom line is that how you say something to a customer can be just as important as what you say, especially in an emotionally charged situation.

Customers like to feel valuable and liked, and they get turned off very quickly when they sense that you don’t care about the pain they’re feeling.

Even if you can’t help them because the situation is beyond your control, acknowledge that you understand both the situation and their frustration.

A good example is a delayed flight caused by inclement weather.

Even though the airline is not technically at fault, travelers appreciate it when the airline employees demonstrate that they care and work to rebook the flight. On the other hand, if travelers feel that no one from the airline cares about the problem, they will be even more upset and the bad memories will linger even longer.

Obviously, no customer wants the person serving her to be distracted or preoccupied.

Ever go to the local mall and try to get help from a teenager focused more on texting her friends than helping you find what you’re looking for?

On the other hand, being too focused can be a bad thing.

Have you ever asked an innocent question out of curiosity and then found yourself stuck for an eternity while a customer support person hunts endlessly for an answer? This person is likely so focused on getting the answer that he doesn’t realize that you really don’t care that much about it and would rather not wait for an answer to an inessential question.

Be sure your people understand the degree of focus required for the job.

Companies that provide the best service think in terms of the customer, and this requires employee willingness and flexibility.

Highly flexible people can be creative problem solvers, but they risk becoming bored if the problems they are trying to solve are routine or repetitious. They may also try to over complicate simple issues just so they can add variety to their assignments.

On the other hand, It’s easy to assume that your customer-facing employees should be flexible in order to accommodate customer needs, but this isn’t always the case.

Less flexible people often prefer routine or repetitious tasks that change little over time. New methods or routines can overwhelm them. They are often better suited for customer interactions that involve routine tasks with clearly defined rules and procedures.

The Customer Service Profile helps you identify the appropriate amount of flexibility required to be successful and how well your candidates match it.

The key is understanding your customers’ objectives and expectations, and then aligning your people with your customers.

The Ritz-Carlton is famous for empowering its frontline people to make good decisions that allow them to deliver exceptional experiences for customers. This is obviously a good thing given their ultra-luxury market segment.

Some positions also require high conformity due to legal, regulatory and safety requirements.

In this case, it is best to balance the need to conform with high empathy and tact since it is unlikely that the service provider will be able to bend the rules. Your customer-facing people should be aware of the stress this places on the customer, and they should be able to let the customer know that they feel his or her pain.

Customer Service Profile is a trademark of Profiles International

HR Strategies Today is dedicated to helping organizations of all sizes use the latest advances in technology and psychology to hire, develop, and retain high performing employees and teams.

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