Customer Service: Personal Skills for Professional Success

In a traditional sense, customer service is front line— ringing up a sale, waiting tables, answering phones in a call center. In a broader sense, customer service lies in the hands of the support staff, the administrators, people like you who pave the way to customer satisfaction. While systems and rational strategies are essential, personal interaction is equally important. “People” skills— policies and procedures mixed with old-fashioned etiquette— account for as much as 70 percent of an organization’s success factor, the Canadian Marketing Association claims. Remember this: options are abundant in today’s global marketplace, competition is seductive, and loyalty can be easily lost or misplaced. Customers and colleagues are, after all, real people. What we want, what they want, what we all want, is a satisfying and respectful exchange.

Here, simply stated, is what others want from us:

Say My Name. In the big scheme of things, I may be the little fish in a big pond, the smallest depositor, the lowest ranking on the organizational chart, but I like it when you say my name.

Talk To Me: Make me feel that I belong. If not in person, send a newsletter, a survey, an opinion card, an e-mail response option. Ask questions. Listen, learn, understand. React accordingly.

Earn My Trust: Follow up and follow through.Show integrity, respect, and attention to detail. Tell me what you will do. Then do it.

Guide Me: Provide sound advice, data, ideas and accurate information. Offer positive options and explain the benefits. Invite me to meetings and socials, anything that results in special insight, services, or education. Give me a chance to play a role in my own customer/job satisfaction.

Be There: Answer the phone. Return calls and e-mails. You are busy; I am, too. A smile, a hello, an acknowledgment, even if it’s “I’ll get back with you tomorrow.” Notice me.

Surprise Me: A bonus or other perk is always appreciated.  A personal thank you or handwritten note is a nice gesture, too. In the words of one savvy leader, “There’s never a traffic jam along the extra mile.”