Critical
Customer
Service
Skills

Lifezone
Training
Newsletter -
Edition
April 2011

Critical Skills Essential to gain Competitive Advantage are:

1. Humble and Pleasing Personality for all who Connect with Customers
2. Passion - to take care of Customers
3. Willingness - to be Flexible when required
4. Self-motivation to keep up the Momentum & Right Attitude
5. Goal-orientation to win Customers - Company’s Mission Statement should be Achieved
6. Knowledge of Products/Service/Customers/ Competition/Markets
7. Excellent Communication Skills which is often a Major obstacle
8. Powerful Presentation of Both - Staff and Service to Impress Customers
9. Persuasive Skills to Convince & Handle Difficult Customers
10. Responsible Attitude – Towards taking Ownership
11. Eagerness to learn about Customers and Business
12. Commitment to meet Deadlines or Promises

Key Steps to take to Improve:

1. Find the lowest paid Person in your Organization and ask them what they think customers want from your organization, then drivers, Frontline staff etc..
2. Spend some time (half-day every quarter) in Customer Service where calls come and listening / watching/ learning what the on-going issues are.
3. Visit a Valuable Customers / client every Month and take feedback about the service provided
4. Arrange meetings to discuss ‘Why do we do it this way? Or why do we not respond on time? Etc…… This meeting is to learn and not find fault at this stage. You want people to open up and tell you rather than hide things.
5. You could also put the responsibility on them at the meeting for them to arrange another meeting for them to Discuss and find Solutions to Current Problems and so Assurance can be given to Customers.
6. Shut your office door or sit alone and identify what your organization does that is not adding value to organisation or customer and has never changed – Take Corrective action
7. Calculate what it costs your organisation every-time screw-up Happens or lost sales …..
8. Figure out how much of your staff’s and managers’ and your’s time is spent dealing with things that go wrong.
9. Agree new Solutions and Deadlines with teams. Time wasted or Additional costs can become targets to be achieved and responsibility levels before implementing. Also confirm that review will take place at regular Intervals
10. Discuss if training is Required in areas where their Performance is Suffering and plan the Training.
11. Devise a method of getting Customer feedback regularly and evaluate it.
12. Find out how service Improvement teams Work (and fail), and see how you can help them.
13. Create Customer-Centric Culture. All for one and one for all, that’s the team building motto.

Get your employees to work with each other the best they can. Team building could be part of your corporate culture. They need to understand that what’s good for the company is also good for them and vice versa. Incentive programs are perhaps the best way to go about this. The closer knit relationships you have between employees and the company the more likely it will be that employees will work hard to make the company better. The more an employee feels that he is an essential part of a team the happier he will be to perform for that team. The end result is better performance all around.

Be Successful -- Bip Parmar

Copyright © Lifezone Training Compiled and Designed by Bip Parmar

Bip Parmar (U.K. based Visiting Faculty for Lifezone Training India) is a Leadership Expert, Communication Specialist, Personal and Professional Coach, Qualified Management and Marketing Consultant (U.K.) with 25 years of Training experience.