Customer Service 3 - Empathy

This is the third of my blogs on the topic of customer service and what separates ordinary service from excellent service. In previous months, I’ve considered the importance of a solid foundation of knowledge and basic skills, and listening skills. This time, I want to consider empathy as a skill.

When customers talk about a ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude, what they are actually referring to is an apparent lack of empathy. Empathy is a vital component of customer service. It means being able to put yourself in the customer’s shoes and consider the situation from their perspective.

Take a recent visit to a shop where I was buying paint. Whilst the assistant mixed the paint I’d requested I started to look through the wallpaper books. On her return, I sensed that far from being encouraged, my continued presence in the shop was an inconvenience. I was so sure that I was no longer welcome that I asked if it was OK to look for some wallpapers and curtain fabric whilst I was there.

“Well, I’m just shutting”, she replied, “because I need to look after the other shop during the lunch period.”

Now, the other shop was literally ten yards away on the other side of a narrow street.

I’m sure a solution could have been found. As a regular customer, perhaps the assistant could have trusted me enough to leave me in the first shop browsing whilst letting me know she’d be across in the other shop if I needed her or had made a choice.

But the assistant was completely absorbed by her own needs and focused on her own desires to give much attention to what my perspective might be. She had no interest in discovering that, far from living a few yards down the road, I’d travelled 15 miles to visit her shop, and that I wouldn’t have another opportunity to do so for a few weeks.

A lack of empathy for customers is a common problem and it’s usually caused by a disproportionate amount of attention being focused on internal policies, procedures or needs, when most of that focus should be on the needs of the customer.

A lack of empathy leads to customer transactions littered with phrases like: “That’s just the way it is”, “We can’t do that”, “It’s more than my job’s worth”, “It’s against the rules” etc.

In order to be more empathetic to our customers, there’s one skill we need to learn and practice – conversation. Asking the right questions in the right way, can provide us with lots of useful information that means that we are better prepared to understand our customers’ needs and meet them.

In the case of the interior design shop I visited, a couple of simple questions like: “Have you come far?” “What are you looking for today?”

Given that’d I’d been in several times before buying paint, she might even have said something like: “We’ve seen quite a lot of you recently. You must have quite a lot of decorating on?” This would naturally have led onto a conversation from which she could have discovered that I’d recently moved house and was in the process of working through it room by room – useful information for her to have.

Let me conclude with a positive example of empathy in practice. I recently visited Café Nero in Barnstaple, where I asked if they had any of the fruit and seed bars available. The Barista checked but she didn’t: “I’m sorry but we’ve only got frozen ones”, she said.

“They might be a bit hard”, I responded, smiling. “Then, as an after thought I asked: “I don’t suppose you can toast them from frozen”.

The Barista thought for a moment and after checking with a colleague said: “Well, they’re bread, so I don’t see why not. I’ll bring you one over when it’s done.”

Now I felt guilty about all the extra trouble I was putting her to. “Oh, don’t worry I said. I could just have a muffin. I’m sure that’ll be a lot less trouble for you.”

“Maybe”, she responded smiling warmly. “But you’d really like a toasted fruit and seed bar wouldn’t you?”

I left the café smiling from ear to ear because the friendly service I’d received. It required very little extra effort on the part of the Barista who’d served me really; just a little empathy.

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com

Customer Service 2 - Listening

Last month I said that, for me, there are four fundamental things that make the difference between poor customer service and outstanding customer service. These are: A foundation of knowledge and basic skills, listening, empathy and flexibility.

This month I want to consider the important role listening plays in customer service. We’ve all experienced occasions when we’ve thought, “Why didn’t you just listen?” perhaps when a sales assistant was intent on selling us a product that didn’t meet our needs or ignored a simple request.

It’s frustrating isn’t it? But hearing what the customer says, and acting on it, is only part of the story. Listening is much more than hearing. It’s about recognising the implications of what a customer tells you, asking the right questions to build a better understanding of their needs and wants, actively seeking feedback and using information from customers to improve service further in the future.

Let’s consider a simple scenario, where a businessman is booking a hotel room:

“Hello, I’d like to book a room for tonight please.”

“OK – can I take your name?”

“Pervis”

“OK Mr Pervis, that’s all booked for you.”

“Oh, sorry, can I have a quiet room at the back please. I’ve got a long journey to get to you and an early start tomorrow and I want to make sure I get some sleep.”

“Of course sir.”

The customer has been listened to. Hasn’t he? Well, yes, and no.

The customer has mentioned that he has a long journey and will be tired on arrival. An effective listener will ask some questions that might identify other customer needs – for example, what time will he be arriving?

Why is that important? Well, if he’s had a long journey and then, on arrival, finds that the restaurant is closed, he won’t be delighted. By asking the right questions now, you might be able to avoid problems later; in this case by alerting the customer to the potential problem. And you might create an opportunity to delight your customer; perhaps by offering to prepare some sandwiches for his arrival.

It’s about more than words too – listening, true listening, involves hearing pitch and tone of voice, hesitation, even accents. Why accents? Well, being able to identify an accent is actually a great way of building rapport with a customer: 

“Is that a Yorkshire accent?” 

“Yes”

“Whereabouts are you from?”

“Well Harrogate originally, but I live near York now.”

“Oh, I love that part of the world. My Aunt lives in a village called Helperby about 20 miles from Harrogate and York. Do you know it?”

And, when dealing with customers face to face, we need to ‘listen’ to body language too. What customers tell us through their actions and posture is as important as their words. Perhaps they’re tapping their fingers impatiently, looking at their watch, edging towards the door…

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com

Customer Service 1 - Knowledge and Skills

Shopping – you either love it or hate it. Mostly I fall into the former category but it is the one activity in life, when I’m most conscious of customer service, good and bad. 

For me, customer service boils down to four basic things. Three I’m going to focus on in future blogs – they are listening, empathy and flexibility. But for these to have any impact, there has to be a solid foundation of knowledge and basic skills.

What do I mean? Well, let me relay one experience I had buying some towels in a large department store (I know, I have an exciting life!) When I got to the till I was told that some of the products I was purchasing were half price. No-one seemed to be aware of this fact until they were scanned, which rather begged the question, why bother reducing them?

Still, a bonus for me, and I wasn’t complaining. Then came that question we’ve all faced a hundred times: “Do you have one of our store cards?” I explained that I didn’t. “If you open one today, you’ll save another 20%.” Now, normally, based on previous experiences, I would politely decline such an offer but 20% was quite a lot of money and so I said yes, OK, I would apply for one of their store cards.

And this is where the real problems began. The two young members of staff behind the till had clearly been incentivised to offer store cards but in practice had a very limited knowledge of the process involved and lacked the basic skills needed to enter the data required accurately too. The whole process (I’m not joking) took about 45 minutes, after which I was told my application had been successful. However, when they then tried to use my ‘new card’ to complete the purchase, it didn’t work. 

Eventually, I paid with my normal credit card (but still got my 20% discount). Unfortunately, and apparently by this stage it was all the till’s fault, the till didn’t produce a receipt when my transaction was complete. Clearly flummoxed by this state of affairs the shop assistant asked me to try again, a request I politely declined, explaining that I didn’t want to pay twice. Eventually a manager was summoned who was able to confirm that I had paid and produced a receipt from a computer ‘upstairs’. 

What was the end result? I spent at least an hour completing a purchase that should have taken minutes, during which time the store lost two other customers to my knowledge who got fed up waiting. 

The card that I had been sold did include some really good loyalty benefits and had my experience been better I probably would have adopted it as my preferred means of payment. But when, a week or so later, I received not one, but two new Mastercards, each with a different variation of my name, I immediately closed the account. 

In conclusion, I saved a huge amount of money but ended up with a poorer impression of the organisation I purchased my towels from. The store lost customers, time, money and goodwill and didn’t in reality actually gain a new card customer either.

And it could all have been so different if someone somewhere had invested a little more time and money on really basic skills and knowledge training.

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com

Remote Vision

Many of you may not be aware how physically diverse the Glasstap team is these days. Whilst I work remotely from home in Devon, most of the team remain based in Alston, Cumbria, whilst others work remotely from Leeds or elsewhere in Devon.

Mostly our remote team works outstandingly well together but just once in a while, I’m reminded how important communication is when we work remotely.

The other week I was having a video call with one of the team in Alston about a change we’d made to the Trainers’ Conference website. We’d added our new Unique Features pages, which lists some of the things that make Trainers’ Conference special. I was really pleased with the new page that had been put together by Craig and Lee and told Zoe so. I was surprised and disappointed that she didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm:

“It’s great isn’t it” I enthused. “I think it’s my favourite page yet?”

“Really?” replied Zoe. “Well, if you say so.” There was a pause before she continued: “But, don’t you think it needs some bullet points or something?”

“Oh, no” I said. “I think the capital letters are enough”.

“Oh… OK.”

A few minutes later Zoe called back. It turns out that we’d been looking at totally different things. The style sheet behind the website hadn’t refreshed when Zoe loaded the new page, so all she was seeing was a clump of text on the screen, with no graphic at all, whilst I was looking at the full package with neatly formatted text on a lovely new scroll graphic.

“I couldn’t understand why you thought it looked good” admitted Zoe laughing. “It was awful.” (She may not have used those exact words.)

It was a timely reminder of how important it is not to jump to conclusions when talking to remote colleagues and of the importance of questions and summary and clarification. Had I asked a few more questions like: “What don’t you like about it? Or, had we checked that we were looking at the same thing, a lot of confusion could have been avoided.

And yes, she does like it now. ☺

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com

The Tasks We Ignore

Well, it’s been a while since I last wrote a blog. It’s amazing isn’t it how time slips by when you start to put things off? Those tasks that you initially put off for a few days, and then a week, and then a month slowly sink in a quagmire of good intentions.

A quick glance at my email inbox now has revealed at the very top an email I sent myself in February 2009. An email that I’ve studiously ignored for two whole years! I’ve shocked myself with that revelation – I’m genuinely amazed that it’s two years since I had that idea for a new training exercise, started working on it and then got stuck, or bored, or sidetracked. The trouble is, it’s been there for so long that I’d stopped even noticing it –it’s like my brain’s been telling me that my inbox starts about four messages down. (There are two other long-standing messages – one from May 2009 and another from March 2010.)

The really strange thing is that I consider myself pretty organised these days (I didn’t used to be). If I’ve not managed my virtual in-tray (because that’s what email is) down to about 20 emails by the end of each week, I feel I’m losing control. 

I suspect I’m not alone in having incomplete tasks languishing somewhere like this. I can’t be the only one of us adept at turning a blind eye to things I don’t really want to do.

Which is why we should all take time periodically to review outstanding tasks and ruthlessly apply one of three Ds: Do it, Dump it or Delegate it. And stop doing the other one: Defer it. 

It might help if I think about why I’ve been deferring the task for so long. The reasons could include:

• It’ll take a long time.

• I won’t enjoy it.

Neither of these are good reasons to Dump the task. If the task is important and I am genuinely the best person to complete it then I need to be disciplined, put time aside and Do it. Perhaps I can reward myself with a bar of chocolate or some online shopping when it’s complete (and not before!) 

But, perhaps those aren’t the reasons why I’ve not completed the task. Perhaps, actually the reasons look more like this:

• I can’t see the point.

• The task involves a lot of effort with very little return.

• It’s poor use of my time.

• I want to dump the task but don’t want to say no to someone.

• I’m not the best person to complete the task.

In this case, I do need to consider Dumping it or Delegating it.

The key theme here is discipline. Effective time management demands it from time to time. 

Well, I promised Louise I’d have a blog to her by the end of the weekend so that’s a big tick for me. (A public commitment to complete something can be a useful driver).

As for that task, well, it’s the weekend now, but I’ll look at it first thing on Monday, probably, or at least as soon as I’ve dealt with the emails that come in over the weekend, unless something else crops up…..soon anyway. ;-)

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com

I Might as well Do It Myself!

If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard a manager or supervisor over the years utter the words, “I might as well just do it myself”, I’d be quite a lot wealthier.

I suspect that everyone who’s ever had to manage anyone else has, at some point used the line, and I’m sure every parent has. Sometimes, other people just don’t seem to do things Right. By Right I mean, of course, the way you, or I, would.

Like the times others use a comma where I would use a semi-colon or full stop. Or ask a different question to the one that was on my lips during a sales call. Or, heaven forbid, make a mistake, which, of course, I would never do. (Oh, apart from that occasion when I forgot to … and that time when no-one seemed to notice that I hadn’t....)

Anyway, I digress. The point is, that if everyone completed every task in exactly the same way every time, our offices would be about as interesting as rooms filled with toasters. And all the manager would need to do is flip a switch in the morning.

And nothing would ever change.

Luckily, people are different; bringing their own mix of skills, attitudes and experiences to any task or role they’re presented with. They might not complete every task the way you would, they probably won’t complete some as well as you would, but probe the differences more deeply and you’ll probably find other things they do better than you, or ideas they’ve already implemented that you’ve never considered.

Great managers tend to be great coaches. And a great coach doesn’t help individuals become as good as the coach; they help people become as good as they can be.

Which is just as well: How many boxing titles did Angelo Dundee, who famously coached Mohammed Ali, win himself? (I think the answer is none though I'm relying on the internet here. I don't profess to know anything about sport!*)

So, next time you feel like saying, “I might as well just do it myself”, just remember that stepping in might be debilitating for you (have you really got time to do it yourself) and the member of staff. They might never be able to do what you do as well as you do, but they’ll probably be able to do what they do much better.

I’ll leave you to make sense of that.

*Except in World Cup years when I become an overnight expert in all things football.

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com

In the Naughty Corner

I was not always a model employee. Even during a period of considerable success in my previous career, when I’d transformed a department to deliver huge gains in productivity, morale and motivation, I could sometimes find myself in the naughty corner.

The most notable incidence came when during one coffee break, my colleagues and I came up with the idea of launching an ‘employee rag’. 

Our rationale was that the ‘rag’, which we named ‘Allegedly’, would raise morale and money for charity. It would create development opportunities for staff as they learnt editing and writing skills, and the involvement of both management (like myself) and more junior staff, would encourage teamwork and team pride.

That was the positive side of the motivation coin. The less positive was that we were feeling a bit rebellious as a result of a new heavy handed management approach from Head Office, following a change in our London-based MD, who’d never visited our Yorkshire offices (and to the best of my knowledge never did).

I volunteered to get the project off the ground and, as you’ve probably guessed, the whole thing blew up in my face. ‘Allegedly’ proved a little risqué for the new MD who, apparently, was particularly offended by a letter purportedly from him to our agony aunt, which simply read: “Nobody loves me”. 

Both I and my MD probably learnt a lot from this experience. I learnt quite a lot about disciplinary procedures from the receiving end, but I also learnt important lessons about evaluating ideas, risk management, networking, power and politics. 

The lessons I learnt about power and politics were clarified and brought home to me when I read the new modules Clare Forrest has written for Trainers’ Library. Power and politics can be uncomfortable concepts, but I wish I’d had the opportunity to learn about them through these brilliant new modules when I was a young manager. 

My MD would have benefited from them too: His response to the publication of ‘Allegedly’ not only created a black market for the magazine (with copies allegedly changing hands for ten times their face value in London), it also directly led to me being elected to the bank’s first international staff council and consequently to a huge increase in my own power and influence.

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com