My first sales position involved me selling a hair loss product for men door to door. I would stop men in the elevator or at the mall and open with, “Excuse me sir, I noticed that you are thinning on top and I have a product that will help grow your hair back.” My boldness on a sensitive topic was effective. More often than not the prospective customer was quick to buy without caring about the price. Once the deal was done, quite honestly, I didn’t care to ever see the customer again. There were plenty of balding heads waiting for me. Many customer service and sales people fall into the

This year I found myself in the middle of a challenging situation that involved two people who were totally irrational. Their mean spirit, ruthless tactics and harsh words made me want to lash out. I began to plot their demise and calculate how I could triumph. I rehearsed clever zingers that would put them in their place and practiced my response to their eventual apologies. And then I woke up! I knew I had to be a calming influence in a tough situation even though every bone in my body wanted to react. Trying to endure verbal assaults without having your own emotions come through is as hard

Does great customer service take too long? That may depend on your point of view. For any trucking operation,time is money when it comes to drivers and it is a valuable commodity in a customer service department, too. Some managers and CSRs have convinced themselves that using a script takes too long. Others have landed on a number for an appropriate length of a call such as 3 minutes or less in order to be productive and get the phones answered. It is unclear as to where the magic number of 3 minutes has come from, but it is a good starting point for you to use as

I recently hopped in the car for what I thought would be a quick 10 minute drive, but because of new road construction it took an additional 20 minutes to get to my destination. I needed to look for an alternate route to go around the construction on my return trip in hopes of making up lost time. Guess what? That alternate route had heavy traffic because everyone had the same idea! 45 minutes was added to a 10 minute trip which meant I was going to be behind by an hour for the rest of the day. Now I had to figure out what task could be pushed back or pushed out to the following day. Apply

I have the pleasure of coaching CSRs over the phone. The ultimate goal of our time together is to raise their Tooty scores. I usually begin by asking, “How do you use your script right now? Do you have it somewhere that allows you to refer to it at a glance or do you write on a script during the call?” The majority of CSRs will confess that they have the scripts in a folder or taped to the wall, but don’t actually use them.

Would your CSRs say scripts work best when-
A) Used as a coaster for a coffee mug
B) Used as a magnet to capture flies and dust bunnies

We all have numbers that we watch intently because at some point those numbers will affect our lives. You could be focused on the score of a football game, the balance of your bank account or the winning lottery numbers. But, if I asked you what your customer interaction numbers have been for the last 3 days, would you know? There are two very important reasons why you need to know these details; they determine staffing needs and ultimately whether you are providing the type of service your customer expects.
How to determine your Customer Interaction Numbers
The

In training, we try to encourage the CSRs to think like an investigator. That means that they are actively listening to what a customer says and considering those details to contain clues on what is really going on behind the scenes. Those clues indicate what questions should be asked next to really understand the situation. Without probing further a CSR is sure to handle the customer call ineffectively and you may end up with a written letter of cancellation in tomorrow’s mail.
In a recent secret shopper campaign, we called offices around the country and asked how much notice was needed