The document discusses best practices for customer service and communication. It provides tips for how to positively interact with customers, including listening actively, maintaining eye contact, avoiding distractions, and following up on commitments. It also covers how to handle confrontational situations, working as a team, embracing diversity, and resolving conflicts. The overall message is that strong communication skills are key to providing excellent customer service.

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Customer Care Best Practices

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The Chazin Group
Customer Service
• Not Just For Retail Any company, non-profit
or city agency that serves people deals with
customer service,
• Where Companies Gain a Competitive
Advantage
• A CORE Skill Required for Success
• Affects Conference Center Profitability
• Major Area for Jobs Growth
• Call Centers
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The Chazin Group
Think about how bad customer
service makes YOU feel…
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The Chazin Group
Think about the times you’ve gone into a store for
service, or had to go to the hospital, or a fast food
restaurant, or had to order something online or call a
customer service 800#...all those times you needed
the help of a customer care professional...
Were those positive experiences? DMV…the post office?
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The Chazin Group
• Communication Best Practices
– DON’T Respond to Aggressive Behavior:
• Attempt to Pacify
• Seek out Management
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The Chazin Group
A customer comes into your place of business, and
begins speaking to you in a confrontational, tone.
Their voice raises, they get more inappropriate
and then dismiss you for some other more senior
employee.
How should you react?
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The Chazin Group
Communication
best practices
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The Chazin Group
• Communication Best Practices
– LISTEN! Do not assume you know what someone is
going to say. Even if you DO, let them finish what
they are trying to say to you.
– Always maintain eye contact with the customer. If
someone interrupts you, you ask them to please wait
until you have finished working with the customer
you are speaking with.
– Do NOT talk to your fellow employees while you are
serving a customer.
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The Chazin Group
The right way to act at work
Do NOT talk with co-workers about your personal life
while you are serving a customer. It’s RUDE.
– Do NOT bad mouth your
employer, boss, manager, or the place you work for
in front of your customers.
– Do NOT argue with a fellow employee while you are
serving a customer.
– Do not EAT or SMOKE in front of the place of
business you work at.
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10. The Chazin Group
The Chazin Group
• Communication Best Practices
– Treat EVERYONE with respect and civility
– Ask Clarifying Questions
• Can you please repeat that?
• “Just to make sure I understood you correctly”
– Watch Your Tonality
• You may not even be aware you are raising your voice esp.
if you tend to speak loudly.
• Avoid phrases that are naturally confrontational:
– Like I told you already…
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The Chazin Group
• The right way to treat your customers
– Don’t blame customers and definitely do not insult
them.
– Ask a customer if they are being helped, and if they
aren’t ask if you can provide them with assistance.
– If they say they need some time then give them
time to come find you if they need help.
– Always welcome a customer when they enter your
place of business and thank them when they
leave, even if they didn’t buy anything.
– If they need additional information be prepared to
provide an 800-#, website or physical address for
them to follow up with.
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The Chazin Group
• Control your body
– Control all of your non-verbal cues (BODY LANGUAGE) so
you don’t send out the wrong messages:
• Posture: hands on hips
• Hand gestures: waving your hand like you are literally
shoeing away a fly
• Rolling your finger in a circle like you are telling someone to
hurry up and finish what they are saying to you
• Facial Expressions: rolling your eyes, shaking your head in
the negative as someone is speaking to you
• Folded Arms: defensive posture like you don’t believe what
they are saying or are getting insulted.
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The Chazin Group
Be knowledgeable about your employer’s
products, services, special
promotions, discounts, policies, procedures.
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The Chazin Group
• Make your word matter
– Follow Through: If You Make A Commitment, Honor
It. If you say you are going to look for something or
look into something for a customer then you do that
before you move onto do anything else.
– If it is going to take some time to get an answer let
the customer know that.
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The Chazin Group
• Teamwork
– Support Each Other. Volunteer to help your fellow
employees.
– Your Success is Contingent on Others
– It Goes BOTH Ways. People won’t help you if you
don’t offer to help them
• Punctuality
– Set A Standard for Leadership
– A Good Practice: Proves Reliability
– Be 15 minutes early ALL the time every time
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• Pursue Mentor Opportunities
– Formal & Informal: try and seek out those
employees that seem to know a lot and are
respected. See what you can learn from them.
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• Be a learning sponge:
– Continuous Learning: always try and learn as much
as you can about the business, customers, the
products, services, competitors, pricing, marketing
and in-store promotions, etc.
– Approach every opportunity as a chance to learn
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Top Qualities/Skills Employers
Want
• Communications
• Strong work ethic
• Teamwork Skills (works well with others)
• Initiative
• Interpersonal Skills (relates well to others)
• Problem solving Skills
• Analytical Skills
• Flexibility/Adaptability
• Computer Skills
• Technical Skills
NACE Job Outlook 2008 survey of college recruiters 18

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Social Diversity
• Understand and embrace the differences that
make us all unique:
– Culture, Ethnicity, Gender, Age, Physical, Alternate
Lifestyles, Religion, Language, Dietary Laws, and
dress.
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Social Diversity
• Today’s Global Workplace
– More Ethnic Diversity
– Introduction to Foreign Cultures
– EMBRACE Our Differences
– What’s a Stereotype?
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The Chazin Group
Social Diversity
• Team-Based Work Best Practices
– The Real World/Workplace DEMANDS It
– Practice Applying to Your Social Network
– Fill Each Other’s Shortfalls With Your Strengths
– Coach / Be Coached
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The Chazin Group
Resolving conflict
– Interpersonal, Manager-Direct Report
– Physical Contact/Aggression is NEVER Tolerated
– Seek Out Management at the Onset
– Explain Feelings in Non-threatening Manner
– LISTEN
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