customer service tech training – jimbaston.com

Is Your Field Service Team Missing Opportunities to Help Your Customers?

Jim — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 14:30:46 +0000

Here is a simple test for you. Count the number of “F”s in the sentence below.

Don’t read any further until you have decided your number.

If you said six “F”s, then congratulations! If you said anything else, don’t feel bad. Most people see three. Look at the sentence again. Did you miss the “F”s in “OF”? Now that you see the “F”s, it’s pretty obvious right? It makes us wonder why we missed it in the first place.

Now, think of your service business. Opportunities to help your customers should be obvious too. Or are they as obvious as we might think? Is your service team missing opportunities to help your customers?

Even with a Process in Place, Is Your Customer Seeing All the “F’s”?

Perhaps you have encouraged your field team to look for ways that you could help your customers achieve their business goals. You’ve set up processes and systems to capture any opportunities identified. You may have even told your customers your intentions and why your field team’s actions are not only unique but of great value for the them. Even with all of this in place, how confident are you that they are seeing all of the “F”s – that is, how confident are you that they are not missing any opportunities to help the customer to be better off.

Four Actions to Ensure Your Field Service Team Does Not Miss Important Opportunities

Here are four actions that you can take to help ensure that your field service team does not miss opportunities that are important.

1. Establish a customer visit routine

Whenever your field service professional calls on a customer, ensure that each one of them follows a specific process which may include steps like:

- Stopping by the customer’s office to explain the nature of the visit upon arrival and asking if anything has changed since their last visit.
- Stopping by the customer’s office after the work is completed to go over what was done and asking if there is anything else they would like them to address while they are there.

2. Have your field team follow up on previous recommendations

Your customers are busy and, even with the best of intentions, some of your recommendations will get forgotten. It’s a valuable service that you provide when your follow up reminds the customer to address something that had completely slipped their minds. This is particularly important if the recommendation would prevent something that could seriously and negatively impact the customer if it is not addressed.

3. If appropriate, have your field team ask the customer to take them on a tour of their facilities

While on the tour, the field professional can point out ideas where you may be able to help and even some issues that may not be related to your business at all but will help the customer see that there are improvements that can be made.

4. Share best practices between team members

Whenever a field service member makes a recommendation that benefits a customer in a significant way, share it with the rest of the team. What was the issue at hand? How did the recommendation help the customer? How many other customers might benefit from a similar recommendation? What do these customers look like? What questions might the field professional ask to uncover whether they could benefit from a similar recommendation?

Every time we make a proactive recommendation to a customer, we have an opportunity to help them toward achieving their business goals. But, recognizing opportunities is not always as easy as we may first assume. Andmissed opportunities might result in a problem for the customer. Help your field team establish a process that will minimize lost opportunities and further enhance the value that you offer to your customers.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim Baston

“I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one”

– Mark Twain

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Building Personal and Professional Credibility

Jim — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 14:56:12 +0000

There is a lot of interest in teaching field service technicians to promote services. This makes sense as the field service professional is in the best position to recognize opportunities and to discuss these with their customers. To help them, many firms look to courses to train their field teams how to sell. But, if you’re serious about engaging your technicians in product and service promotion as part of your strategy to enhance service levels, then building personal and professional credibility are the most important skills needed for proactive service teams.

Remember That They Are NOT Salespeople

Regardless of how proactive you want your technicians to be, it is important to remember that they are not salespeople and, in the interests of your business success, you don’t want them to be. You want your customers to see them as trusted advisors who are using their expertise to help them achieve their business goals. The most important skills they need are the abilities to communicate their personal and professional credibility to the customer.

Establishing Trust Between Field Service Professionals and Customers

Field service professionals who are recognized as skilled in promoting services know how important it is that the customer trusts them. That trust must be in their personal motives (trusting that they are making recommendations in the interest of the customer and not their own) and their professional competence (they know what they are talking about).

These successful field engineers understand that their personal and professional credibility is earned over time by the way they interact with their customers. They take steps to build their credibility through every customer interaction, regardless of how insignificant it might seem.

Understanding Good Communication Skills

Their success in promoting services is not because they are polished sales professionals, but because customers trust their motives and their judgment and are willing to listen to them and take action. Understanding good communication skills helps of course.

The ability to present a recommendation to the customer in a way that communicates the benefits of taking action from the customer’s perspective helps the customer see the value in taking action. The skill of exploring hesitation can help customers make informed decisions and avoid problems. But, if your technicians do not have personal and professional credibility with the customer, they won’t be successful in promoting services, regardless of how helpful the recommendation is or how skilled they are in promoting it.

So, if you really want your technicians to enthusiastically embrace your strategy to engage them in business development, focus on teaching them how to build credibility with the customer. Ensure that they know that they are not selling, but rather providing a valuable service to the customer. Then provide them with some basic approaches to communicate the benefits of their recommendations effectively so that the customer can make an informed decision.

Jim Baston

“Earn trust, earn trust, earn trust. Then you can worry about the rest.”

– Seth Godin

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Developing a Proactive Business Development Culture for the Time Strapped Service Manager

Jim — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 15:03:38 +0000

You believe that you can offer a better service by getting your field service team to make recommendations aimed at helping your customers to be better off. You have taken steps to support your expectations of a more proactive approach by your techs, including providing training and putting in place a process to capture leads and communicate progress on all opportunities. However, you are disappointed that more techs have not fully embraced this strategy and time is not a luxury you have to devote to this problem.

If this sounds like you, then here are five steps that you can take to changing to a proactive business development culture when time is a limiting factor.

Don’t Stop Talking

Take every opportunity to speak about the proactive business development by technicians’ initiative and how it benefits customers. Start and end every meeting by mentioning the strategy and tying it back to the topic at hand.

Remind your technicians that you have taken this approach because, when they use their knowledge and expertise to make recommendations that will help their customers achieve their business goals, they are providing a higher level of service. Use every interaction as an opportunity to reinforce the value that they bring by taking this initiative. Don’t stop talking.

Watch Your Language

People take important clues from the words that we use so it is critical that we use language that focuses on the service we are providing through the proactive efforts of our techs. Avoid words like selling or promoting and focus every conversation on the subject on how it helps the customer.

Remember that you are offering a service by engaging your technicians in business development efforts. Your reward comes when the customer recognizes the value in the technicians’ recommendations and rewards you with more work and greater loyalty. Use words that communicate service. Watch your language.

Become a Super Model

Our employees look to our actions to determine if we really mean what we say. For example, if you are encouraging everyone to pitch in and go the extra mile, but show up each morning after 10:00 AM and leave by 2:00 PM with your golf clubs clearly visible in the back of the car, your message will have little, if any, effect.

Show your techs that you’re serious. Talk about how previous recommendations have helped customers. Step in quickly when there is a failure in the process or someone else in the organization doesn’t do their part. Go out and see customers and let them know what you have asked your techs to do and why. Become a super model.

Blow Your Techs’ Horn

When a technician makes a recommendation that the customer acts on, let everybody on the team know. Tell them what the tech recommended and why. Discuss how this will directly benefit the customer. Make sure that everyone knows how this recommendation directly contributed to your customer’s well-being. Blow you techs’ horn.

Have a Back Up Plan

Not everyone on your team will feel comfortable – at least at first – in engaging the customer in conversations about recommendations to help them to be better off. If you have members on your team who are uncomfortable engaging the customer in this way, have a back up plan so that they can still participate.

Ensure your process includes situations where opportunities can be identified and given to someone else in the organization to discuss with the customer. That way, a hesitant technician can still benefit their customers even if they don’t speak to the customer directly about their recommendation. Over time, you can focus on helping these reluctant techs to become more comfortable and enthusiastic about their proactive role in the strategy but in the meantime, have a back up plan.

Although time is not a luxury that service managers have, we can maintain focus and achieve the change to a more proactive business development culture by integrating our efforts into our daily routines.

Jim Baston

“One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself I could not change others.”

– Nelson Mandela

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Four Simple Steps Technicians Can Take to Uncover Opportunities

Jim — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 15:19:22 +0000

If you are encouraging your technicians to take proactive steps to recommend your products and services to your customers, you may be looking for ways to help them to explore for opportunities to help. Here are four simple steps that your technicians can take to uncover opportunities to help your customers to be better off.

1. Ask a simple question.

At the beginning or end of each maintenance service call, get your technicians in the habit of asking, “Is there anything else that we can do for you today?” This simple question will often result in new opportunities that otherwise might go to someone else or go unfilled.

Other questions you may wish your techs to ask include, “Have there been any changes in the building/process/operations since the last time I was here?” or “Have there been any issues or concerns related to the building/process/operations since last time?”

2. Take the customer on a tour of their own facilities.

This approach was shared with me by a seasoned HVAC technician who regularly took his customers on tours. He used it as an opportunity to showcase the work he was doing, point out equipment that was not under contract and suggest new ideas to make improvements. His customers appreciated the opportunity to learn more about their systems and he used the time to learn more about the customers’ goals and objectives.

3. Follow up on previously quoted work.

No doubt you have several proposals that have been sent to customers that have not had any follow up. To the best of your knowledge, no action has been taken by the customer, but you are not certain of the status. In many cases, it will be because the customer has forgotten about them.

Encourage your technicians to speak to the customer about those outstanding proposals. The customer will appreciate their interest and they will thank the technician if their follow-up prevented something from falling though the cracks.

4. Offer to demonstrate a new technology or software.

Technology is changing at a rapid pace and it is almost impossible for our customers to keep on top of what is going on. When there is a technology or software that you offer that can help customers get a competitive edge, then you will be providing a valuable service bringing it to your customer’s attention.

By taking the initiative to proactively explore for opportunities to help your customers to be better off, not only will you generate more revenues, but your technicians will actually be delivering a higher level of service. Your customers will appreciate the added attention and see great value as you help them achieve their business goals.

Jim Baston

“I learned that you don’t get anywhere by sitting comfortably in a chair.”

– Conrad Hilton

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The One Question Every Field Service Technician Should Ask

Jim — Tue, 09 Aug 2016 14:16:56 +0000

What is a simple question that delivers exceptional service and generates profitable revenue? It’s the one question that every field service technician should ask. So, why isn’t every field service technician asking it?

In our workshops, we discuss the value that field service professionals provide by bringing opportunities to our customers’ attention that can help them operate their facilities/processes more effectively. One way to uncover these opportunities is to ask this question, “Is there anything else that I can help you with today?”

Strangely, only 10% to 20% are asking this question

When I ask how many in attendance ask that question, I am amazed that typically only 10% or 20% put up their hands. And I am further amazed at how enthusiastic those who do ask the question are about the value that they are creating by asking it. To drive the point home of how valuable this question is for the customer, I simply ask those who do use the question a few questions. The discussion usually goes like this:

Jim: Tell me, when you ask the question, how does the customer respond? Do they tell you that it is none of your business?

Tech: [Chuckle] Of course not. Actually, they appreciate the question. I often get one of three responses:

Can’t think of anything.

Thanks for reminding me. We have been having …

You guys don’t happen to do [some service need], do you?

Jim: Do you think your customers appreciate the fact that you ask that question?

Tech: Sure do. It reminds them of something that they intended to speak to me about. Sometimes we get opportunities to provide services that they didn’t previously buy from us because they didn’t know we did it. It also provides clues to potential underlying problems that we can help with.

Jim: Can you think of any reason why you should not ask the question?

Tech: No. It’s a great question. It’s good for the customer and it’s good for us.

Why don’t more service managers ensure their field service teams asks?

If this question is of such value and is appreciated by customers, why don’t more of us as service managers ensure that everyone on our field service team ask it? One reason I suppose, is the one given to me by some of the attendees. They tell me that they don’t ask the question because they will not have time to respond to the customer’s request if it does arise. They have other customers to attend to and don’t have a lot of “spare time” to address additional issues. Although I can see their point, does it have to be a reason not to ask? And, if we don’t ask the question, who will the customer turn to to get any outstanding issues resolved?

Make asking the question a part of your service technician’s routine

My suggestion is to make the question part of the service discussion at the end (or the beginning) of each service call, and then teach the technicians how to address the three typical customer responses (see above). We can clarify with our field teams what our expectations are for “having a quick look” and what they can say to delay any follow up without giving the impression of putting the customer off. If time is really an issue, we can provide clear steps the field team can take to get another team member to deal with the issue.

This questions provides great customer service and may help your bottom line

By asking if there is anything else that we can do for the customer today, we provide an excellent service to the customer by reminding them of issues they wanted to talk to us about, uncovering larger issues that may be underlying the customer’s response and informing the customer of other things we do as a service organization. No doubt we have some on our team that provide this level of service for our customers. Why not all?

Jim Baston

“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.”

– Eugene Ionesco

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Disappointed with Technician Efforts in Making Recommendations to Customers? Teach Them the “5 Ps”.

Jim — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 18:56:13 +0000

In his book, Coaching for Improved Work Performance[1], Ferdinand Fournies notes that, although there are 16 reasons why employees do not do what they are supposed to do, 99% of the time it is because of only two – they either don’t know what they are supposed to do or don’t know how to do it. If you are disappointed by your technicians’ efforts in making recommendations to your customers, try teaching your technicians the 5 P’s for making recommendations.

The 5 Ps refers to the five steps technicians can use to effectively communicate their recommendations to the customer for those product and services that they feel will help their customers to be better off. This simple approach addresses why the customer should take action. It is easy to remember and it works as follows:

Permission: Every recommendation should start with asking “Permission” from the customer to proceed. It is as simple as stating the topic of conversation and then asking if they have time for that conversation now. For example, “Mrs. Customer, I just completed the maintenance service and I have a recommendation that will eliminate these unexpected failures and significantly reduce your energy usage. Would you have just a few moments to talk about this now?” Asking permission shows empathy for the customer’s situation and, if the customer is too busy, allows them to reconnect at a more suitable time.

Problem: The “Problem” is simply a statement of what has been found that would benefit from your recommendation. Ideally the problem statement can be reduced to a few simple sentences. For instance, “Mr. Customer, both of your units are over 18 years old and at the end of their useful life. As a result, you will continue to experience unexpected failures and parts will be increasingly hard to come by. It’s only a matter of time before you experience an extended and costly breakdown.”

Proposal: In this context, “Proposal” simply means a statement indicating what can be done to address the problem. In our case, our proposal might look like this, “This would be a good time to consider replacing the old units with new higher efficiency units. Because the existing units are working now, we can schedule the replacements at a time which will cause the least amount of disruption.”

Payoff: The fourth P, “Payoff”, refers to the benefits the customer can expect by taking action. Continuing our example, we might say, “The new units should give you years of trouble free operation and will significantly reduce energy consumption. Not only will the energy savings pay back your initial investment while your tenants enjoy a more comfortable workplace, but you can relax knowing that you are contributing to a greener environment.”

Pose: The fifth and final P is “Pose” as in “pose a question”. It is simply the call to action at the end of the conversation. Here are some examples: “Would you like us to put a proposal together for you so you can evaluate the options?” “Would you like me to arrange to have someone call you from our office to discuss this further?” “Would you like us to go ahead with this recommendation for you?”

I encourage you to introduce the 5 Ps to your team and look for opportunities for them to practice. Set aside a few minutes at each safety/service meeting for the team to role-play for example. As the field team becomes more comfortable with the approach, they will become more comfortable in using it to make recommendations to the customer that will motivate them to take action. And, by proactively making more recommendations to customers, your field team will be offering a higher level of service.

“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”

– William James

[1] F.F. Fournies, Coaching for Improved Work Performance, McGraw-Hill, 2000

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4 Questions to Ask When Evaluating Technician “Sales” Training Programs

Jim — Tue, 24 Mar 2015 13:07:54 +0000

Are you thinking of providing “sales” training for your technicians on how to promote your services? Before making a decision, consider what you want the training to achieve. Below are 4 questions that are key when evaluating training programs that can help you ensure you get a higher ROI.

Those of you who have read my book and subscribe to this blog know that I feel that the technician is in a unique position to identify opportunities that the customer can act on to help them operate their facilities and/or processes more effectively. In fact, I believe that technicians have an obligation to reach out to the customer to discuss these opportunities to help and to assist them in making informed decisions. To me, this really isn’t selling at all, but rather an important part of the service. And, this approach has a significant benefit. My experience indicates that service firms that engage their technicians in this way will create a sustainable competitive advantage and be rewarded with more business, higher customer satisfaction and unprecedented levels of retention.

Many of you may be considering training your technicians on “selling” to support them in their efforts to add more value to their service relationships. If this is the case for you, I encourage you to consider the critical components that will drive the success of the training program in attaining the results you are looking for and provide you with a higher return on your investment.

This is important because not all training programs are the same. Some training programs for technicians are sales programs originally designed for salespeople and “modified” for the field service tech. They often cover a full range of sales topics that were originally designed for people who sell for a living. As a result, programs in this category may include sales techniques and approaches that are foreign to the technician and of limited value.

These “sales programs for technicians” also may have limited impact because they have a solitary focus. They only address one aspect of success – one that is of limited value without the support of the other key success factors. Success of a workshop for technicians will be dependent upon:

The connection the technician sees between what he/she is being asked to do and their perceived role (i.e. is this part of my job?)
Their ability to conduct themselves when promoting services in a manner that continues to build the trust and confidence of the customer
The fit of what is being taught with your company’s culture
The technicians’ comfort level in applying the skills taught in the field (are the skills consistent with the technician’s “culture” and the service “environment”?)

This brings me to the 4 questions that are key to helping you evaluate a training program to enthusiastically engage your technicians in business development.

Does the training position the role of engaging the technician in business development activities as an integral part of the service that they provide?
2. Is the approach presented consistent with your business culture and strategy and the role you have defined for the technicians?
3. Does the training help technicians recognize and develop commitments to enhance their credibility with the customer?
4. Does the training provide situation relevant skills in communicating ideas to others in order to help technicians comfortably articulate their ideas and confidently deal with resistance when it occurs?

By evaluating training options by asking these questions, we ensure that the training we select will encourage our technicians to be “business partners” who bring their unique knowledge to help the customer solve problems and capitalize on opportunities – problems or opportunities that the customer may not even know they have. Your technicians will be more comfortable in engaging the customer as a “problem solver” in partnership with the customer and therefore more likely to adopt the skills that will contribute to their success. Your customers will appreciate this approach as well and be more receptive to the new ideas presented to them.

Next time I will look at the relative importance of the “selling” skills themselves in terms of the effectiveness of “sales” training for technicians. You may be surprised to find that these may not be as important as one might first surmise.

I welcome your feedback. You can connect with me via telephone or email or leave a comment right here on the site. And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

– Pablo Picasso

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6 Ways to Get the Most out of Training your Team

Jim — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 12:33:59 +0000

Service managers often ask me if they should attend our Proactive Service® workshop with their technicians. My answer is always “yes” and I explain ways to get the most out of training their service tech team. Although I am enthusiastic about the manager attending, this is a somewhat qualified response because these benefits of attending can be outweighed by how the manager acts during the workshop itself. Too often, I find the manager in the back corner of the room, huddled over their laptop or frantically texting someone on their phone. Frequently they will leave the room for long periods of time. To me, this is a lost opportunity and can actually have a negative impact on the training. Here are the 6 ways to participate effectively and get the most return for your training investment:

1. Kick off the session. This allows you to put the training into perspective for the attendees. Introduce the topic and why it is critical for the business. Show them how the skills that will be learned will be of benefit to the participants. Introduce the speaker and explain why you have chosen that person to lead the group.

2. Be fully engaged in the exercises. Roll up your sleeves and work with your team as they complete the exercises and discussions. This gives you the opportunity to add key points that you want to reinforce and to get a sense of how your team is responding to the training. Be careful not to talk too much which brings us to the next point.

3. Let your team do most of the talking. In our enthusiasm, it is easy to get carried away and do most of the talking. We sometimes feel as if we should know all the answers and, as a result, we jump in too quickly to fill in the blanks. When the team looks to you for the “right” answer, turn the question back to them. For example, you might say something like: “You experience this sort of thing first hand, what do you think we should do in this situation?’

4. Have relevant examples ready that tie the learning into the everyday reality. Whenever possible, obtain a copy of the training materials in advance and review the content carefully. Identify some specific examples that correspond to some of the key learning points. Be ready to bring them up in group work and general discussions when appropriate. This will help make the learning more relevant for participants and helps them grasp some of the more complex concepts.

5. Network. Avoid ducking out at breaks and lunches to do “real” work. Although you may have to deal with telephone calls and requests from others, try to keep these to a minimum. Use your time to network with your team. Talk up the course, ask for their feedback and take a genuine interest in their success.

6. Have fun. Just because training is a serious business, you don’t have to refrain from having fun. In fact, studies have shown that people learn more in a positive atmosphere and when they are enjoying themselves. You can help your team learn more by loosening up a bit, being positive and taking steps to contribute to an enjoyable time.

Taking people out of the field for training is a major investment for any company. A few simple steps can increase the effectiveness of the training in achieving skills adoption and behaviour change and ensure a higher return on your investment. By attending, you, the manager, clearly communicate how important the initiative is. It allows you the opportunity to observe your team, how they react to the material and identify possible areas for further focus. It provides the opportunity to enhance the discussion with real-life examples that participants can readily relate to.

Jim

“Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more than be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work.”

– William Arthur Ward

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4 Components of a Better Technician Work Order Resolution Description

Jim — Wed, 17 Dec 2014 14:11:07 +0000

Frustrated by the poor quality of the information provided by your technicians on work orders? The importance of the quality of the work order resolution description is often overlooked. The fact is the quality of this information is very important! Below are 4 easily remembered components that your technicians can include to better communicate the value of the work they have performed. The four components are captured using the acronym CARE.

Whether we like it or not, what is written on the work order to describe the service that has been performed, is an important indicator to the customer of the quality of the work completed. This is because, under most circumstances, the customer cannot actually know the quality of the work itself. For example, how do they know if the hour it took the technician to troubleshoot the problem displayed brilliant detective work that would have taken any other person several hours to figure out, or if the hour demonstrated a poor grasp of the technology that another technician could have completed in only 5 minutes? The fact is the customer doesn’t know. They therefore look for evidence of the quality of the service and one of the most important factors that they rely on is how the work performed is described in the work order description.

Therefore, providing a clear and accurate account of the work completed is very important. There is also another and very practical reason for having a clear and accurate work order resolution description – productivity. Imagine the technician completes a complicated repair and describes the work completed simply as “Fixed unit” in the work order description. The invoice for the work is $1,000. The customer on site is delighted to have the problem fixed and gladly signs the work order.

Roughly 60 days later the customer on site gets a call from her Accounts Payable department. They are reviewing the invoices for payment and they want to know what the service company did to justify the $1,000 invoice. Confronted with the need to provide this information, what does the customer do? She goes to her copy of the work order to collect the needed clarification. Of course, the “fixed unit” description is not at all useful so she is forced to call the technician directly. The call unnecessarily interrupts the technician in his work and he struggles to remember exactly what he actually did on that day over two months ago. All this costs time and, of course, money and all because the work order resolution description was poorly written.

So, how does a busy service manager encourage and ensure that his/her team communicates the value of the actual work through the work order resolution description? They could coach their team to use CARE on every work order.

CARE is an easy to remember acronym that can be used as a reminder for the technician to include the critical information that best describes the repair or service in a professional manager and that reassures the customer of the value of the action taken.

C is for Condition: Record the condition on site prior to taking action.
A is for Action: Summarize the actions taken to resolve the issue.
R is for Results: Record the resulting condition on site after the action has been taken.
E is for Expected Next Steps: Identify expected next steps, if any, that need to be taken, including any recommended repairs.

In addition to describing the work performed using the CARE approach you may also wish to include other information such as identifying the equipment and its location, recording all the materials and consumables used in the repair and, of course, identifying other observations or recommendations that will help the customer. All of this can be reviewed with the customer at the completion of the call.

All of this information and much more can be found in our Pocketbook of Proactive Service®. I would be happy to provide you with a free copy of the Pocketbook. If you would like your complimentary copy, simply send me an email with “Pocketbook” in the subject line along with your company name and address and I will get one out to you right away.

I’d love your feedback! And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim

“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.”

Isaac Asimov

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Spontaneous Empathy – Addressing Concerns Before the Customer Raises Them

Jim — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 13:24:37 +0000

Spontaneous Empathy – anticipating concerns and addressing them before the customer raises them. I recently observed a server at a national (and very popular) coffee shop chain use this technique to great effect. It was a few weeks ago and I still reflect on the value of the gesture.

A friend and I were heading to northern Ontario for a few days of fishing. We started driving at 6:00 am and by the time we took our first break at 10:30 we were more than ready for a coffee. We were delighted to see the unmistakable sign of our favourite coffee chain ahead, conveniently located near some gas pumps. I dropped my friend off at the coffee shop to get our order to go and headed next door to fill up. The plan was for him to pick up the coffees and meet me at the gas pumps. When I finished filling up, my friend was still nowhere to be seen so I pulled up to the coffee shop and went inside.

I was surprised to see him still in line. “Haven’t you ordered yet?” I asked? “No, it’s pretty slow”, he observed. We waited for another couple of minutes. Now I must tell you that my friend is one of the easiest going people I know. Nothing seems to rile him and, although we were anxious to get on our way, he seemed to be taking it in stride. Me? I was getting irritated but held myself in check. I started thinking about what I would say to express my frustration. Finally the server shouted “Next!” Before I could say a word, the server said, “Thanks for your patience! I am so sorry about the wait. It seems like everything that could happen to delay things this morning has.” Her words and her tone were disarming and my frustration began to dissipate. I decided not to say anything. Besides, what could I say? She clearly understood our position.

She took our order and poured the coffee in the cups. Then, with the change she handed over a small certificate. “Thanks again for your patience. Here is a coupon for a free coffee on your next visit.” It was a small gesture to be sure, but one that had a big impact – at least on me. We had not complained or even indicated our frustration for the wait. She anticipated our concern and demonstrated her empathy in both her words and her actions. Through her “spontaneous” empathy, she took a potentially negative situation and turned it into a positive.

She did not cause the delay. It was due to a series of consequences outside of her control. Many would have mumbled an apology and become defensive to any criticism, blaming the circumstances beyond their control. Yet, although this server was not personally responsible for the delay, she took responsibility for our experience.

It got me to thinking that in the technical service business, circumstances beyond our control often occur to cause us to deliver less than ideal service. A serious traffic delay on a major road or a severe winter storm preventing the delivery of the needed part are just two examples. When those things occur, are our field service teams, dispatchers and other front line staff trained and ready to demonstrate “spontaneous” empathy? Are they aware that, although they may not be responsible for the circumstances that have caused the problem, they are responsible for the ongoing customer experience? Do they know how to communicate this through their words and actions? As our example illustrates, even the smallest of gestures can have a significant impact.

For more suggestions and ideas on successfully dealing with difficult customer service situations, check out my book or some of the articles on my website.

Jim

“Customers don’t expect you to be perfect.
They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.”

– Donald Porter

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