How Employers Can Teach Employees Great Customer Service

A sale happens inside a customer’s mind. It is also where it is replayed, remembered, and redefined continually after. The following four tools and techniques are a part of a winning strategy of customer service when executed together.

1. What assumptions are the customers making?

People always make assumptions. Assumptions affect every interpersonal communication and can be helpful or hurtful.

1. Consider what assumptions you are making about your customers. Are you assuming that they like you, your brand or your product? Or are you assuming they don’t trust you?

2. Think about what assumptions they are making of you. People think of what they expect, so before you deliver on any customer service, you have to get into the mind of your customer, and understand what they’re assuming will happen when they interact with you.

Perception is a two-way street: people see you and you see them. It is important to first become aware of the assumptions that you make about others. It is also as important to consider how others see you as this will help you have an influence over the effects of perception on your relationships.

2. How are you acknowledging your customers?

A human interaction can only be successful if the customer’s assumptions are acknowledged. Acknowledgement communicates authenticity. For businesses and brands, it can be the act of apologising that redeems a company from a mistake. For individuals, it is a way of clearing the air before being able to move forward in a relationship.

What are the assumptions, true or false, your prospective customers most frequently make about you or your company? What can you say or do to acknowledge these assumptions, in order to proceed with the relationship?

3. How are you building anticipation to heighten emotions?

A mind is in a constant state of anticipation, making predictions about the future, and then rewarding or punishing you for being right or wrong.

You can raise anticipation levels in a sales interaction by painting a picture of how the customer’s future may look. What can you say to get a customer excited about a future payoff? What emails could you send to heighten their sense of anticipation? Is there a way to create anticipation through generating tension?

Think about how you can build anticipation so when a customer finally makes their purchase, they feel like it’s a cause for celebration.

4. What are you doing to surprise, delight and finally astonish your customers

Excellent customer service comes down to how well you are able to astonish your customer. A customer might have assumptions that you may have acknowledge and deliver on what they anticipated.

But without an extra step, providing something they previously thought impossible, they will not walk away feeling astonished. Astonishment taps into your customer’s emotional brain, and it is there where brand loyalty becomes rooted and repeat business generated. Astonishment is what leads to 5-star Facebook reviews.

Your customers will want to experience your business again and share it with friends if you leave them astonished.

So how can you add moments of astonishment to your interactions? What surprises can you plan? How can you take things a step beyond meeting their anticipated expectations and deliver something they would not have imagined possible?

Teach these tactics to your employees, and they will be masters at delivering magical customer service.

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This article is based on Kostya Kimlat’s How To Teach Employees To Execute Customer Service Magic?: The four aces of A+ rating