FOCUSSeries

1Q2009

Bridging the Gap to Your Customer

Mitch Bryant

Bridging the Gap to Your Customer

by Mitch Bryant

B R I D G I N G T H E G A P T o Y o U R C U S T o M E R

Edited by: Julie Neider, HDI Art Direction by: Kurt Volkmann, HDI

Copyright 2009 HDI All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. ISBN: 1-57125-085-9 HDI 102 South Tejon Street, Suite 1200 Colorado Springs, CO 80903 USA U.S. and Canada: (800) 248-5667 www.ThinkHDI.com HDI assumes no liability for error or omission. HDI is a part of Think Services, a Division of United Business Media LLC. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the consent of HDI, with the exception of trade publications reporting on the data. In such cases, credit must be given to HDI. HDI is a registered trade mark of Think Services, www.ThinkHDI.com.

Table of Contents
About the Author ...................................................................................6 Introduction ..........................................................................................8 Bridging the Gap with Empathy .....................................................................................11 with Active Listening ...........................................................................15 by Knowing your Customers Business ...................................................17 by Speaking in Their Terms ..................................................................19 by Asking Their Opinion .....................................................................21 by Going the Extra Mile ......................................................................23 with Service Recovery ..........................................................................25 with Do and Dont Phrases ..................................................................29 in Closing ...........................................................................................31

About the Author

Mitch Bryant Mitch Bryant is the support manager for the Norton Healthcare Service Center. Norton Healthcare is Louisville, Kentuckys leading hospital and health care system and second largest private employer. The not-for-profit systemthe largest in Kentucky and rated one of the top 100 integrated health care delivery systems in the countryincludes 4 large hospitals in Louisville, 10 Norton Immediate Care Centers, 9,700 employees, 280 employed medical providers at some 50 locations, and nearly 2,000 total physicians on its medical staff. Norton Healthcare serves the Greater Louisville metro area, including Southern Indiana, and patients throughout Kentucky. Prior to Norton Healthcare Information Services, Mitch was the IT manager for a company and supported two high demand manufacturing networks for the construction of manufactured products, designers, e-mail, and telecomm services. Prior to this Mitch served as a Corporate Engineering Service Manager in which he directed and supervised the engineering support staff for local onsite support. He provided sales staff support and point of contact liaison with customers and local office staff with any projects. In his previous role he was a project manager rolling out projects throughout the region for Internet access for a major startup company. Mitch has over twenty-six years of customer service experience with an emphasis on the full support within several disciplines. He has spent years planning and managing help desk involvement in the rollout so that call center staff are prepared to meet user support needs. He has published in HDIs SupportWorld and has a multitude of articles posted on TechRepublic.com, many of which have been included in their professional series books.

Mitch is retired from the U.S. Navy serving most of his career in the Submarine Force. In his Navy career he received over ten personal and two unit awards/commendations. The foundation of his passion for customer service and teamwork was honed from his long service in the United States Submarine force where it was essential to work as a team. Mitch is ITIL certified, an HDI member, and is HDI Support Center Analyst certified.

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Introduction
In the profession of service and support there can never be down time, one call can keep or destroy a relationship. We can all remember the days of placing a call to customer service only to hear messages such as Please call back between our regular business hours of 9 A.M. and 5 P.M., Monday through Friday. While this level of service was previously acceptable, over the recent years weve witnessed a shift in customer needs and demands, drastically changing the quality of service customers expect when contacting organizations. The nature of service and support for a company as a never closed, always available demand necessitates a change in the way we respond to our customers. Its almost a given nowadays to hear companies say to current and potential customers about how they are number one in service and support. We all wish it was that simple, just have a catchy phrase and it is done. That is far from the truth. Being number one takes a lot of very hard work and constant vigilance to ensure you stay at the top. We have all heard the phrase, Actions speak louder than words and that is never more true than in the service and support business. Great public relations campaigns or loud marketing noise simply will not get and maintain customers over time if the actions behind the words fail them. The thing that truly matters the most in the customer satisfaction business is the ongoing continued actions that your organization employs to demonstrate your commitment to customers each day. Will you fail your customers occasionally? YES, but how you perform service recovery and how you provide exceptional service day-in and day-out will make or break that relationship. Instead of fancy slogans, how about letting your customers do the bragging for you about your amazing service and support? Let them be a part of your marketing campaign.

Youll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be easily duplicated, but a strong customer service culture cant be copied. Jerry Fritz The key to success in retaining your customer base over the long haul through the low and the high times is customer service. If you dont give your customers some good reasons to stay, your competitors will give them a great reason to leave. Everyone can find alternative service or buy a widget from someone else, but how about the support they need after the sale? Will they get that from you or your competition? We have all experienced itpre-sale service and promises are amazing, but they can fall short after the fact. Even through the initial honeymoon you may be happy with your service, but as time goes by, your relationship seems to have lost that initial romance. Now you begin to wonder, Is this even the same company I worked with to initially buy my product and or service? What the heck happened?

Bridging the Gap with Empathy

To show empathy is to identify with anothers feelings. It is to emotionally put yourself in the place of another.
ne of the most essential skills for anyone providing customer service is to listen with empathy. Do you find yourself wandering off when the customer is talking? Are you listening, but only hearing blah blah blah, my service, blah blah blah? This crucial skill enables the call center agent to hear and accurately understand the customers message and then provide a proper response. This is an integral part of the listening process and can be critical to the success of the support relationship with your customers. Through listening with empathy, your customers will know that you understand their concern/problem and how they feel about it. You are saying that you are interested in what they have to say. You unmistakably convey this message through your words as well as your non-verbal behaviors, including body language while you are on the conversation even if they cannot see you. In doing the right thing for your customer you encourage them to better express themselves free of interruption, criticism, negative attitude, or being told their concern does not matter. It is not necessary while displaying empathy for one to agree with the customer, even when asked to do so. It is usually ample enough to let the caller know, I understand your concern and I am here to help you resolve your problem. You must at all times be non-judgmental and never minimize or trivialize their issue. Assure your understanding and ask clarifying questions and restate what you perceive to be callers concerns/problems. The ability to 11

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listen with empathy may be the most important attribute of support persons who succeed with building and keeping relationships with their customers. Franklin Covey coined the phrase, Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Doing this provides your customer with your undivided attention at all times throughout the call. This is absolutely the one time that multi-tasking or rapid refocus will get you in trouble. As we introduce more technology into our lives, service and support becomes even more important to the success of a business. We live in a world where technology is forcing our support to be notched up almost daily. Chances are your company cant compete with every other competitor just on price. THATS FINE! Because competing on price alone makes you a commodity and that cannot be the formula for the long term success of a company. Price battles make you too vulnerable to failure, the best profitability lies in your ability to create and sustain ongoing mutual relationships. Of all the communication skills, listening is arguably the one which makes the biggest difference in greeting customers, making sales, and more importantly to your survivalkeeping customers. Listening does not come naturally for most people, so we have to work hard at it to ensure this skill set is enabled. Truth be told, people dont really listen. They just take turns to speak, waiting out the other personwe all tend to be more interested in our part of the conversation and experiences than really listening and understanding the other persons words. Empathic listening is listening with the intent to understand the other persons position and feelingsyou have to listen with your entire person. Most support calls really have two issues, (1) the emotional state of the caller and (2) the actual problem. Both must be solved for the call to be successful.

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Listening with empathy is done by: You must have the ability to hear and accurately understand the customers message. You must have the willingness to let the other person dominate the discussion by providing a limited but encouraging response to carry the conversation one step forward. Take care not to interrupt. Using open-ended questions will allow you to obtain more true information about the issue(s). Ensure customers know you understand their concern/problem and you prove this by not being judgmental with their call. You wait to hear them before thinking they are wrong or wasting your time. You must never minimalize or trivialize their issue. Build trust and respect. This will reduce their stress and tension and you will start to gain their cooperation.

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Bridging the Gap with Active Listening

Active listening involves listening not only to what is said, but how it is said.

iven all the listening we do, you would think wed be pretty good at it! In reality, we are really not that good at it. The way to become better listeners is to practice active listening. This is where we make a conscious effort to hear not only the words that another person is saying, but more importantly, try and understand the full message behind the words. When we actively listen, this leads to a better understanding of the facts as well as the customers emotional state. In many ways, the emotional state of the caller is more important to the overall success than the actual issue. The goal is to understand and remember what you are hearing and to be able to repeat back the main points. Attentive listeners have goals to build relationships by giving a positive impression, advancing the relationship, and demonstrating serious caring. The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary. Sam Walton

Active listening intentionally focuses on the person who is speaking. It is a habit that is not something you do all the time and must be learned. As the listener, you should be able to repeat back in your own words what your customer has said to their satisfaction every time. Active listening has many benefits. First, it forces you to listen attentively to your callers. Second, it avoids misunderstandings as you have to confirm that you do understand what your caller has said. Third, it tends 15

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to open your caller up to get them to say more. The worst kind of caller is the one that does not express him or herself. They will eventually find another company to fulfill their needs and you will never even know they have left. We listen to not only obtain information and understanding but to continuously build and maintain relationships as this is the key to long-term relationships. Wikipedia describes active listening as an intent to listen for meaning, in which the listener checks with the speaker to see that a statement has been correctly heard and understood. The goal of active listening is to improve mutual understanding. Active listening is designed to overcome poor listening practices by having you restate the information and emphasize the feelings expressed, as well as the substance. The purpose is to confirm that you accurately understand the information given to you and acknowledge the problem and the emotion behind the call. You, the listener, are not required to agree, just understand.

Active listening: Act like a mirrorrestate back what you think the caller is saying and feeling. Dont change the subject or move in a new direction, this will only serve to anger the caller. Never interrogate the caller, you are here to help. Dont teachyou must learn first before you can help them. Dont give advice; you need to understand their concern first.

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Bridging the Gap by Knowing your Customers Business

Know their business!
our customers world may require them to use technology but their world does not revolve around that technologyit revolves around their customers and the service they provide. A nurse is concerned with patient care and uses a computer to assist in providing that care. A financial person uses spreadsheets to extract and manipulate numbers to provide financial direction for the company. Technology needs to enable, not hamper business. Our customers care about how the technology we support will help them do their job. When they call for support they want us to understand how their business works and the relationship between what they do and how they use their technology. In todays world, our customers need to know we realize just how much they rely on the technology we support to run their business successfully. They want to know they are dealing with experts who can solve problems quickly, communicate in sensible plain terms, and get them up and running again. Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it. Peter Drucker

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Projecting confidence while talking to your customer gives them the confidence to open up and trust you. Building trust and rapport are the key elements in building relationships and form the foundation of sustainable business. You should know your customers well if you are to serve them well. Doing so is essential to surviving in todays challenging times for them and you. The future will present even more challenges as new technology is introduced for support centers to support, are you ready to fully support things like employees working from home? Get to know your customers, develop a relationship. Once you know your customer, youre able to anticipate what will appeal to them and make relevant recommendations.

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Bridging the Gap by Speaking in Their Terms

Speak to them in their own language so they can understand you!

ew customers understand the phrases the exchange server is down or the subsystems queues are overflowing with keystone errors. They just want to know when they can expect to send and receive e-mail messages again or when their application will be back up and running. They do not care what it takes to keep e-mail routing; they just want it to work. Dont over-complicate the communication, keep it simple and use terms your customers will understand. If you talk down to them or speak to them in techie terms your conversation will be lost and the frustration levels that are already high will go even higher. Get to know what your customer understands and terminology that is common in their everyday conversation. You need to understand the language that your customer uses, not the other way around. The terms in which your customers speak are important to the success of the support experience. You may need to learn terms like assessment, STAT, or Deductible. You need to understand their terms and how to apply them during your support calls. Have you ever felt this way after a support call? I didnt have a clue what they told me. They made me feel stupid. I dont think they even cared about my issue. Theres no way they can help me or fix my problem. They are the Helpless Desk! They used words that sounded like a foreign language to me. 19

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Your customers world may require them to use a computer, but their world does not revolve around the technology behind the devices. Technology is a tool they use to better their jobs. A nurse is concerned with patient care and uses a computer to assist in providing that care. Finance uses spreadsheets to extract and manipulate numbers to provide direction for the company. Our customers care only that the systems can help them do their job and when they call for support. They want us to understand how their business works and the relationship between what they do and how they use the systems and applications.

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Bridging the Gap by Asking Their Opinion

f your customers enjoy dealing with you, theyre more likely to stay with you. You stand a much better chance of staying ahead of your rivals if you ask for their feedback. Most of us are afraid of the answer to the questionHow was our service? When is the last time you called one of your customers and asked, How was the service we provided to you recently? We must earn loyalty from our customers every day. While you are asking for their opinion, do not forget to show them that their concerns are your concerns. Are you empathetic to the wants, needs, desires, and concerns of you customer? Do you truly know what they are feeling? No one wants to hear bad news or negative information from a customer. But through the process of feedback you can grow to meet the needs of your most valuable assetyour customer! Many customers have turned away from their current service and support provider because they have experienced unreliability and poor customer service, excessive charging structures, too much confusing technical jargon, or simply a failure to fix their problems. Many times we never knew there was an issue or we simply were not listening until they were gone. Customers buy your product or service for their reasons, not yours. If you are not sure why they would buy, ask them. It is not just the cost of losing customers, it is also the frustration of losing them with no grasp of the reasons for their decisionat least until it is too late to take steps to counter the loss.

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Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game. Tony Alessandra The right thing to do is to find a way to identify problems as they arise and respond to them in real time. Then turn those problems into opportunities to strengthen relationships rather than dissolve them. The secret is to head off situations before you have lost control and offer alternative services or provide a fast response to an immediate opportunity. Your response, whatever form it takes, can surprise and impress customers who have come to expect after the event reactions. This is how you can build and keep relationships. The increasing challenge is the aim to deliver added value through customer service because THIS is the new commodity. The decision about the level of service provided must reflect the nature of the overall product and the way the organization is positioned. With increasing pressures to lower costs and increase quality simultaneously, developments in technology systems, most notably service and support centers, have been seen as having the potential to support as well as grow the business.

According to John Tschohl, president of the Service Quality Institute, Ninetyfive percent of all business owners believe that their companies are exceeding customer expectations in terms of service. That, Tschohl says, is far from the truth. Indeed, lousy service and poor communication ranks as one of the top consumer complaints, he adds. In a competitive economy, becoming a customer service leader is one of the least expensive ways of improving performance. In fact, in todays highly competitive business environment, Tschohl calls good customer service a matter of survival.

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Bridging the Gap by Going the Extra Mile

work at a company that has several hospitals and one of those has a McDonalds located inside the childrens hospital. We certainly provide no support for this business. But from time-to-time we get a call from someone that wants their phone number or simply wants to know what their hours of operation are. That caller could be one of our direct customers, like a caregiver, or it could be the hospitals customer, a patients family member. So, once we identified we were going to get a few of these calls we documented for the entire team a support information page on McDonalds. We still were going to receive the call, so we decided that was an extra thing we could do. It costs us the same amount of time to say We do not support that or have any information, sorry as it does to say, Yes, I have some information on that, have a great day. The team also goes the extra step to maintain other tidbits on common calls so that we can attempt to point them in the right direction. Not only are we providing that extra value, but we can truly document it, record it, and show our value by creating another happy supported customer with another First Call Resolution (FCR) incident. If we dont take care of our customers, someone else will. Unknown We send thank you notes when we make a sale, we send I am sorry notes when we fail. Have you thought about sending a note saying, Thank you for your continued patronage? This gesture could be even better if it was signed by the entire support team. 23

Bridging the Gap with Service Recovery

The ultimate goal of service recovery is to identify issues, problems, or difficulties with your companys service and then to address those issues to the customers satisfaction to promote retention.
ow many people do you think your customer will tell about their bad experience? EVERYONE! Through an effective customer service recovery intervention program, problems turn into wonderful, very positive, and unexpected wow experiences! Every mistake, every problem, every dissatisfied customer provides a great opportunity for you to intervene and make the issue right and stand out above the rest, period. Service recovery doesnt just happen; you have to work at it. There is profit in service recovery; it costs much more to attract a new customer than it does to keep a current one. Each one of your customers has a large circle of influence over people or potential customers who could hear bad things about you! According to SCORE (Counselors to American Small Businesses) 91 percent of unhappy customers will never purchase goods or services from you again. But if you make an effort to remedy your customers complaints, 82 to 95 percent of them will stay with you. Estimates are that a very small percent of customers who might be trying to get something they dont deserve should not worry you. Your company still benefits because you recover the largest percentage of your customers with legitimate complaints and retain their ongoing business. You must empower every employee to immediately solve a problem and give something of value to a disgruntled customer. It is more cost-effective 25

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to regain the trust of a dissatisfied customer than to spend advertising dollars looking for new ones.

FOUR STEPS TO SERVICE RECOVERY 1st Step The Apology (even if you are not to blame) I am very sorry that our service didnt meet your expectations. I am sorry our product did not arrive as expected. I am sorry our equipment got to you and was not working. This is the very first step to ensure a successful service recovery process. Do not take giving an apology personally but do give that apology with sincerity, this is a key essential step. 2nd Step Take Accountability Every customer service agent, and every employee, must have the ability and be empowered to provide service recovery by owning the problem. Please allow me a few minutes to help you get this resolved. I can help you with that problem. 3rd Step Make it Right Period Explore with the customer what making it right means for them. This has to be based on the unique circumstances surrounding the problem and requires a decision of your frontline employees based on their values for their customers. Do we need to exchange this for you? I can do that right now. Can we get this repaired at our expense? Give me a moment to arrange for the pick-up and repair of this for you. I understand you want a refund? I will be happy to expedite that for you with no problem! Simply put, whatever it takes, make it rightwith no problems! 26

4th Step the Final Closing The WOW Factor This is a key step in successful service recovery from a fundamental position of the customer. You have apologized. You have taken full accountability for your problem. It is not their problem but yours. You have explored a solution and the customer agrees on how you are going to make it right to their satisfaction. There is only one final thing left to do. It is called Wow the customer and go beyond the expected! Set yourself apart from all the others. I am very happy that I was able to fix the problem for you. I would like to send you a gift card as a token of our appreciation for you calling us and allowing us to resolve this. I am sorry you had to pay those costs for this issue. If you allow me to send you a refund we would like for you to keep the item as our apology for your time, efforts, and trouble. Customers dont expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong. Donald Porter Its not about money; its never about the money. Its about whatever it takes to win your customers ongoing continued business. In these unique situations that requires service recovery. It is extremely important to demonstrate to your customer that you are fully accountable for their complete satisfaction. You value them as your customer, you want their continued business, you have pride in the services you provide, you regret the problem and inconvenience you have caused them, and you care. Service recovery has a secondary value that is just as important to the overall success of the big picture. It creates positive word-of-mouth advertisement about your company and minimizes the bad spin that no service recovery practices can create. The value to effective service recovery and complaint handling is ultimately customer retention; the effect on the bottom line is measured in customer loyalty. 27

Bridging the Gap with Do and Dont Phrases

hat things can you do for your customers to make it clear that you value their business and the relationship? We all have policies and rules that we need to follow, but at some point do we bend those to accommodate our customers? One of the quickest ways to raise the frustration level of a customer is to say the wrong thing. Long-term relationships are the key to growing any business and simple phrases can change the entire course of the conversation. A few words can keep your customers or drive them to your competition. When your customers call with an issue, they are looking for a company to right a wrong done to them. I do not know We may think our customers want us to have all the answers but that is impossible. When we do not, we need to say, I will find out for you. Please calm down Nothing makes the situation worse than this phrase. Simply allow them to vent away for a minute and after they have had a chance to do that simply say I am sorry or I apologize for . Remember, most support calls really have two issues, (1) the emotional state of the caller and (2) the actual problem. Both must be solved for the call to be successful. We/I cannot do that This simply makes them want to challenge you and fight back. Ensure that you have empowered customer service agents to take the negative issue and resolve it for the customer. If the agent is not sure, a simple Let me check on this, can you please hold for a few minutes will do and then help them resolve the issue. 29

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That is not my issue, that is not my job, we do not support that part, or that is another team It is never someone elses concern, it is your customer. You own the problem and you must take ownership and help them resolve the issue. You may not support anything and everything, but helping them out as far as you can will go a long way with your long-term relationship. Refer them to a business partner that can help them with their issue. You own the issue with your customer and your job is to help them resolve the issue. You are their champion. Do not evade your responsibility; this is the best time to shine as someone willing to help them through the process. Instead tell them, This is not my area of expertise, but please allow me to stay on the line with you and get XYZ on the line so that we can get your problem resolved. I cant do that or there is nothing further I can do Focus instead on what you can do for them. Help them find someone who can help them. Let me find someone who can help us with your issues. Never evade or put them off on someone else. This is your customer. Connecting them to someone else does not release you from your responsibility. You need to stay on the line while you are connecting them to the appropriate support party. You always want to make sure that person can actually help them, if not their issue still belongs to you.

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Bridging the Gap

in Closing

Many customers have turned away from their current service and support providers. The basic reasons are all the same; they have experienced unreliability, poor customer service, excuses upon excuses, no concern for their problem, too much confusing technical jargon, or simply a failure to fix their problems.
The power that the service and support team has over the bottom line is measureable in customer loyalty. When your product fails your customer, and it will, how you react and provide service recovery will make all the difference in the world. Having a good quality product is not enough if the customer doesnt get great customer service to go along with your product. This is the only way to make your customers raving fans. On the opposite end of the spectrum, bad service will cause them to campaign against your product and or businessusually more passionately than if they were happy customers. Great customer service has to be the focus of everyone within your company, not just the frontline agents. Simply putgreat customer service will retain customers and poor customer service drives them away! One of the most critical things we do with our customers is communicate. As a support professional, you must speak and understand the customers language in addition to using terms they can understand. They do not expect you to know it all but they do expect you to display the confidence and knowledge necessary to resolve their issue. We have all called for support where it appears they are just reading from a scriptthat they are not listening to what you are saying. You want to scream, Stop, listen to me, understand my problem. To understand what 31

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your customer needs, you must listen for the unspoken words. Repeat the issue to ensure you understood it correctly. Give them reassurance that you will fix the issue or escalate it to someone who can address the issue. Customer service is your companys best commodity. You must wow them with unexpected customer service whether you listen actively or display empathy. If every employee understands the companys values, its mission, its reason for existence, and integrates it consistently throughout everything it does, then fantastic customer service will flow throughout your entire organization. The customer is the number one reason your company exists.

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About HDI HDI is the worlds largest industry association for IT service and support professionals. HDIs mission is to lead and promote support professionals by empowering members through access to timely and valuable industry information, encouraging member collaboration, and establishing open standards and globally recognized certification and training programs. Membership HDIs membership consists of more than 7,500 IT service and support professionals. Members benefit from valuable online resources, such as white papers and focus books as well as industry best practices, tools, and trends. HDI has more than sixty local chapters throughout the United States where members network with other industry professionals. Training HDI conducts help desk and support center training throughout the world. HDIs courses encompass all career phases from entry level support to the experienced director. Corporate Headquarters HDI 102 South Tejon Street, Suite 1200 Colorado Springs, CO 80903 Ph: 719-268-0184 Toll Free: 800-248-5667 Fax: 719-268-0184 www.ThinkHDI.com
HDI, the HDI logo, and all other HDI product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of HDI. All other company names and products are trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective companies. HDI is a part of Think Services, a Division of United Business Media LLC.

102 South Tejon Street, Suite 1200 z Colorado Springs, CO 80903 USA U.S. and Canada: (800) 248-5667 www.ThinkHDI.com