1. 10 steps to help an angry customer
1. Listen attentively, without interrupting
2. Express empathy
3. Probe confidently and with sensitivity.
4. Identify and verify customer’s issue and
expectations.
5. Ask what the customer would like to see
happen.
6. Take ownership and avoid offering excuses.
7. Tell the customer what you are going to do.
8. Keep customer apprised.
9. Follow through on the agreed upon solution.
10. Do something extra
2. Loyality - Building Model (The Emotional Relationship)
1. Open with Enthusiasm
a. Welcome
b. Introduce
c. Delight with sincerity
2. Explore
a. Listen
b. Express Empathy
c. Proble for clarity
3. Confirm Understanding
a. Restate and verify
b. Express empathy, again
c. Demonstrate ownership
4. Solve Creativity
a. Identify real technical issue
b. Provide options with guidance
c. Agree to mutual action,fulfill commitment
5. Close with Grace
a. Verify issue solved, surprise with appreciation
b. Code call, decrement issue
c. Self- assess, reward success, commit to
improve
6. Follow-up with Gusto
a. Demonstrate perseverance and care
b. Empower by educating
c. Exceed expectations
3. The Support Engineer’s Treasure Chest Of Gems
1. Satisfied customers feel okay. Loyal customers feel great. Greatness
comes from addressing The Technical issue and The Emotional
Relationship.
2. It’s not just what you say, it’s also how you say it.
3. Place a mirror in your cube, so if you can’t hear how you sound to the
customer, you can see how your voice “sounds.”
4. Demonstrate confidence, lose any arrogance, and seek a little comic
relief (as appropriate).
5. Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we can could hear twice as
much as we speak. – Epiticus
6. If you are struggling to find an oppurtunity to be empathetic, put
yourself in the customer’s shoes.
7. The customer doesn’t care who owns the problem. If you take the call,
you are it.
8. Being authentic involves putting into words what you are experiencing
with the customer as you work. This is the most powerful thing you can
do to have leverage to build customer loyality – Adapted from Peter
Block, Flawless Consulting
9. Own your decisions and actions. Successful developers take
responsibility for everything they do and everything that happens to
them.
-Adapted from Jeffrey Gitomer, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless,
Customer Loyality is Priceless
10. Don’t be ordinary, be extraordinary. What Customer wouldn’t dig
that?
11. No one who desires to become good will become good unless he does
good things. – Aristotle.
12. Give praise for what the customer has done well technically and thank
the customer for collaborating with you. – Timothy Weber, PhD.
13. It’s not about right or wrong – it’s how you react to and handle the
problem.
– Jeffrey Gitomer Customer Satisfaction is Worthless,
Customer Loyality is Priceless
14. Tell the customer what you can do, not what you can’t do
15. I think self –awareness is probably the most important thing towards
being a champion. – Billie Jean King
16. Character is higher than intellect – Ralph Waldo Emerson
17. Character is Destiny - Heraclitus
