COMMUNICATION SKILLS AND CUSTOMER SERVICE

 STARTING ACTIVITY

Work in pairs. SHARE a recent customer service experience either positive or negative in a shop.

CONTENT LESSON

 Work in pairs and make a CONCEPT MAP use www.mindmomo.com

1. Basic customer service principles
2. Traits of a loyal customer and the importance of customer loyalty to a business’s success
3. Methods for determining customers’ needs and wants
4. Problems associated with in person customer service
5. Tips to deal with customer complaints

1.-Basic customer service principles

The term customer service means: making sure customers are satisfied and will continue to buy products or services of a company

There are two types of customers. External customers are consumers who purchase goods and services form a business. Internal customers are the people who work for that business or who do business with that company (vendors and employees)

Which are the characteristics that we look for in the employees who are helping to serve us?

• Good product and industry knowledge- We want someone who knows what they are talking about
• Friendliness-We want someone who makes us feel comfortable and who seems to eager to assist us
• Knowledge of our needs – We want someone who understands what we need so that they can help us fill that need
• Problem-solving skills – We want someone who can help us find solutions

2.- Traits of a loyal customer and Importance of customer loyalty to a business’s

“Nearly 65% of a company’s sales are generated by repeat customers”

Who is a loyal customer?

• Purchase goods or services from the same company repeatedly
• Buy different types of goods and services from the same company
• Tell others to shop at that company
• They are not easily lured away by cost-cutting competitor

How to keep a loyal customer:

• Giving the customers more than what they expect
• Giving the customers the best possible service
• Giving the customers what they want and what they need

3.- Methods for determining the needs and wants:

Outside marketing firms- this firms can provide information about the population of an area. That’s why many stores ask for your code postal when you make a purchase.

• Using Database – and tracking the buying histories of their customers
• Surveys – A direct way to know preference of buying, trends, opinions, age, incomes, gender.
• Place a suggestion boxes
• Ask them directly and individually

You need to get an idea of what are your customers and what they want and need, because you will be able to choose the appropriate advertising mediums and messages and you can target similar people who may become new customers

4.- Problems associated with in person customer service

The first problem is that some employees don`t view customer service as part of their job, because they don`t work in that specific department (customer service representative). For example if a customer needs to be helped to get the purchase into his vehicle and no one of employees help to him, he probably won’t buy in that shop again. So employees have to realize that their jobs depend on customers’ loyalty.

Another problem is unprofessional behavior and/or a lack of attention to customers. Imagine when workers spend more time entertaining one another than helping the customers, joking around, flirting and gossiping. Most of the times these behaviors annoying to customers who are trying to focus on fulfilling their shopping.

These problems could be corrected by training procedures to provide good customer service. Learning simple techniques will help employees to perform their job more responsible than before.

5.- Tips to deal with customer complaints

• Get your emotions under control. Take a deep breath and focus on handling the situation in a positive manner
• Calm down the customer. You should first allow them to vent. Empathize with them and show them that you understand their problem.
• Apologize. say “I’m sorry you weren’t satisfied”, I’m sorry that we failed tom meet your expectations”
• Follow the problem solving steps:

• What can I do to solve this problem for you?
• Putting yourself in their shoes
• Thinking through all of your options, don’t block any possibilities
• Evaluate the ideas and try to choose the best one for both you and the costumer
• Give the customer multiple options whenever possible. So the customer will have a feeling of victory.

 

 WATCHING AND LISTENING   THE VIDEO: HOW WE DO CUSTOMER SERVICE

After watching the video make the QUIZ

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Customer service is the most important thing we do here talented. It is the biggest thing that will drive our purpose which is service quality and value. The service one is absolutely key to making us win against the other competitors. So we really want you to be able to embrace the best way to perform customer service. To do that we try to make two different simple analogies for you to be able to remember to put into play when you are at work.

SAT NAV

SAT stands for Smile, ask, thank. Every customer deserves all three of these,

Smile

Every customer deserves a smile at the begining  of every interaction, inside or outside the store.

Ask

Every customer should be asked one question to begin a conversation and really begin engaging with them.

Thank

No matter what situation we must always leave a positive comment always a thank you and something that have a great evening.

This is equally as important for all of our team. Always remember SAT NAV when you talking to your team, the more you smile, ask and thank each other the better our relationships will be the better we can make our place to work. So smile, ask, thank three easy steps for every customer and every one else ability.

UPSELLING

Upselling is about letting our customers know about some of great things we have to offer. We're not about pushing people to buy things. Some retailer have gained a really bad name for trying to push things on people. We really to make people aware the great things we may have to offer to help them. Your manager will help with any possible opportunities to try this out That's how well things were when everything's going great. But sometimes things don't quite always go so well. In retail real life things go wrong, so when they do we need to have an approach for how to deal with things when they go wrong, that's what we want our customers to last.

LAST stands for listen, apologize, solve, thank.

Listen

If something has gone wrong some one will want to tell you about it and sometimes let off steam. The only way to deal with is to keep listening until they've calmed down and got the point across. Interrupting will only ever make things worse ever in the most irate people will come down if you simply listen and try to understand for long enough problems.

Apologize

Then we need to apologize not that we have done anything wrong but this has happened and that we really want to help put it right.

Solve

Then you need to look to solve the problem. In a lot of cases this could be calling for your team leader for duty manager. This is your way of solving the problem.

Thank

Before they leave or go to talk to a manager we must thank them just as everyone still deserves a thank you especially if something's gone wrong.

We really need our customer to last. They're the people who believe in us and help us to build a great place to work. It's only by giving them the best customer service even when things go wrong that will achieve this if we do our and making them last well enough after a final thank you they would actually want to thank us back at times budgets....