Lori Miller, President of Tooty Inc., stated, “Customer service teams are under unbelievable pressure as Covid-19 has disrupted the workplace and personal lives. But customer service is where the heart of any organization resides, and they are wired to love on people no matter what is happening. When your employees know you care, they can show your customers that they care.”
Lynne Franklin, one of the Tooty Training ® team experts (neuroscience and business communication) provided Tooty employees and their families encouragement by sharing the following message of hope.
Lockdown
difficult customer training
Inclement Weather Challenges Logistics Customer Service Standards
The winter of 2019 has been a nightmare from coast to coast. 25 degrees below zero in Chicago and blizzards on the west coast were only a couple of Mother Nature’s cruel tricks. Customers aren’t always understanding when it comes to delays in deliveries or services such as picking up their garbage. Often-times the only tool customer service representatives have at their disposal is to wait for updates on routes from the operations team and to hesitantly suggest service will be attempted “hopefully tomorrow”. We should be better prepared. We can surprise our customers with our great attitudes and realistic solutions. Here are some suggestions that will help your team push through the rest of this winter and prepare for spring weather concerns.
Scripting:
Deciding on the right words to use is an important public relations step. We need to effectively educate our customers on how they can prepare, what they need to do and what they can expect during inclement weather. Your website, automated phone messaging and the information communicated by customer service representatives all needs to be in alignment.
1. Preparation- Remember to think like a customer and don’t assume an instruction such as “clear the area of snow and ice” will mean the same thing to them as it does to a driver. These great tips should be posted on your website with a date and be recorded as part of your initial automated message and on hold message for customers.
2. Customer to Do List- Restate your service recovery process and include a reminder to check your website for updates. With product deliveries or something such as garbage service, if your process is that you will attempt service the next business day or following week, and that you would like the customer to leave carts out or make sure bins are accessible, then include that.
3. Safety- Highlight your commitment to the safety of your drivers and your customers.
Scripting:
Deciding on the right words to use is an important public relations step. We need to effectively educate our customers on how they can prepare, what they need to do and what they can expect during inclement weather. Your website, automated phone messaging and the information communicated by customer service representatives all needs to be in alignment.
1. Preparation- Remember to think like a customer and don’t assume an instruction such as “clear the area of snow and ice” will mean the same thing to them as it does to a driver. These great tips should be posted on your website with a date and be recorded as part of your initial automated message and on hold message for customers.
2. Customer to Do List- Restate your service recovery process and include a reminder to check your website for updates. With product deliveries or something such as garbage service, if your process is that you will attempt service the next business day or following week, and that you would like the customer to leave carts out or make sure bins are accessible, then include that.
3. Safety- Highlight your commitment to the safety of your drivers and your customers.
Tips for Customer Service
1. Make sure your entire team is updated on the status of routes (hour by hour) and when it is anticipated that service will resume. Problems arise when we use a robotic response such
as, “If we don’t service you today, we will attempt service the following day.” Are you providing a Friday customer their service on Saturday? Will a truck be in that town the
following day?
2. Don’t assume all reports of a missed service or delivery are weather related. Complete your assessment.
3. When a storm is anticipated, the customer service and operations teams need to meet and talk through a plan.
4. To tactfully exit a conversation with an angry customer use something such as: I understand your frustration and appreciate that you took the time to call us today. Our first concern
is that you, your neighbors and our drivers are safe. We will be checking road conditions throughout the day.
Remember, once winter has passed, we will enter spring and summer where rains, flooding, hurricanes and tornados will create issues. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Take the time to review what has not worked for your team and your customers in the past and craft a plan for inclement weather that will allow great customer service to out weigh anything Mother Nature sends your way.
If you need help with scripting or specific difficult customer situations, please reach out to me at: lori_miller@tootyinc.com or 708-478-5772. A recent attendee to our Difficult Customer Training session shared: I had an upset (not furious, but frustrated) customer call this morning, I was able to use the tools I learned yesterday and by the end of our call she couldn’t stop thanking me. Thanks again for hosting the call, it was very informative!
Do Unhappy Customers Scare You?
What is more intimidating than an angry customer complaining about service? An angry business customer complaining about service! Customer service and sales representatives have confessed that they are nervous when they hear a harsh tone of voice or have a business manager complain that he has called multiple times for the same thing. Costly short-cuts and ineffective solutions are used to get the unhappy person off the line as quickly as possible. Your team can confidently interact with the customers and provide right solutions, but it will take training and teamwork between the departments. It also means everyone needs to take an honest look at the difficult conversations your representatives are having each day and decide upon the right processes and solutions.
Using Tooty to Test Your Team
Do you regularly have customers (internal or external) asking to speak with a manager because they feel they aren’t getting answers or that the representative had a bad attitude? Not all customers are irrational and not all of your representatives have bad attitudes. The truth and the solutions can be found through a tried and tested process of using our secret shoppers to make calls into your departments. Testing each person on the same challenging situations allows you to determine who your best people are, what additional training is needed and whether a certain process is working or not. Tooty has the expertise to evaluate and train the following departments:
• Customer service
• Inside sales
• Operations
• Collections/accounting
• IT/Help desk
• HR
If you have a call monitoring program in place, Tooty has the expertise to evaluate those calls and provide you with fresh insights and new training tools. If your team needs some extra help in handling difficult customers, take the time to role-play demanding situations. The practice is necessary to overcome nervousness.
One customer recently commented that because Tooty secret shoppers projected difficult attitudes in the calls it has helped her to flush out specific areas that her staff needs to work on. Our classroom training is fantastic and helps to overcome the fear of dealing with difficult people. We have great tips including phrases to use to calm a difficult person and point out certain things you should never say to an unhappy customer. Most people have never been trained on how to use their voice to sound confident or calm, for example. Voice training is a regular part of Tooty training. A customer service manager recently shared that, “Tooty Training is excellent and the secret to our success.”
