Hello, this is an article that I have written to promote some theory that I have written, I know it is quite long, but if anyone could check my grammar and punctuation then I would be very grateful. I am most concerned about the second paragraph. Thank you.
..
When a smile is not a smile …
… A customer that seems to be cared about is not the same as a customer that is cared about.
Herein lies your biggest problem. You want the customer service consultant that really does care about your customers. You want the customer service consultant that will sprint the extra mile, preferably shoe laces tied up, but more than willing to trip up in making the effort. You want the customer service consultant that, when the customer is satisfied, is plucking the cherry that makes them delighted.
This is the customer service consultant that sees a human being, and not just a cardboard cut-out customer… that sees a human being who craves peace of mind, and not just someone to make money from… that sees that delivering them peace of mind is the best way to make money from them, and with the customers abiding blessings. These are the customer service consultants that you want. And these are the customer service consultants that you rarely get.
Except …
… you do already have them.
Climb atop of your desk (it looks grand and health and safety is overrated anyway) and cast your gaze across the room. You don’t see it, and for some reason they don’t either. But your workforce - every last one of them - actually really does care about your customers. They care a lot. But they have forgotten, so now they must be reminded. For their good, for your good and for the customers good.
This should be music to your ears. It is vital, vital, vital for your business that your customers are cared about. But how to make your consultants care? You could cc them into a warm fuzzy, but this will work against you as much as for you. You can tie a bulging bonus to a piece of string and hope that they play chase, but on a cold Monday morning with three months until that quarterly bonus and a screaming customer on the line this probably isn’t the incentive to transform the moment into a customer care heaven scene. You could even Go Totalitarian© and attach electrodes to their nipples, but then you’d have to relocate east, and we all know how customers feel about foreign contact centres.
The thing is, none of this can make them care about the customer. Instead they push, shove and drag themselves into as much pleasantry as they can summon to try to seem like they care, then get stressed under the pressure of pretending to be what they do not feel for nine hours and leave their job mid-shift on a ‘toilet break’… Not good for business. Your consultants need to care, so how?
Well …
… Human beings are naturally altruistic.
Most of us do what we can when we can for other people. Many endeavour to do volunteer work with the most vulnerable in our society. Why? Because it makes us feel good. Altruism is enjoyable. Serving other human beings is enjoyable. Now, if serving other people makes us feel so good about ourselves then why on God’s concrete Earth is the customer SERVICE sector not populated by the shiniest happiest people in all the land? I mean, these are people who get to serve other people ALL DAY LONG… and get paid! Those early morning birds / cars that wake us from our slumber should be greeted with a fairytale smile and twinkle in the eye at the prospect of nine whole hours at the call centre! ‘Call centre work rules!’ should be graffiti scrawled across red-brick campus walls… But it isn’t. Why not? No, seriously, why not? A bit of help here… Please?
Okay, so I am not quite sure why it is that temples aren’t erected in honour of customer service, but I do know that, at least metaphorically, it is a very real possibility. We have the ingredients cut neatly on the faux marble work surface, and now we have our super-food in altruism that is going to bind and nourish this recipe.
Because …
… Your staff do care about your customers.
They care because they are human beings who care about other human beings and enjoy caring about other human beings. And to be quite frank (but still Richard), very few of us do justice to how much we care when interacting with others. What is needed most of the time is just that little dash of awareness to bring out our altruistic flavours. You see, awareness leads us to empathy, and empathy finds a nature within us that is worlds apart from ourselves sans awareness.
For a heavy but clarifying example, if we knew that a loved one were to die tomorrow then there would be very little that they could do to upset or anger us… and yet, we do not know that a loved one will not die tomorrow. So, what gives? Simply put, what gives is that we just do not think about that. If we did then our compassionate nature would flourish and accord instinctively, but we don’t and so we don’t.
Let’s think about the customer. It is well documented that there is a certain breed of customer out there in the capitalist wilds that have been observed and classified (even tagged) as ‘difficult’. They are the ones that do not grasp that, maybe just maybe, the problem that they have most likely did not originate with yourselves, and that you are just the unfortunates with a target white tacked to your forehead. But this does not matter! This flight is under your control! Because, with that liberal sprinkle of awareness, you will see beyond your prevailing perception that, actually, this customer, like all human beings, probably has a very good reason for sharing their complete and utter disregard with you, and if you knew that reason (money problems, depression, abuse, tight trousers etc. etc.) then you would most likely feel compassion for the customer and really want to help them out… because you are human and you know what it is to hurt and you do care when other human beings hurt too.
Customer service …
… is just human interaction.
And like any human interaction it can a be stimulating, meaningful, rewarding and educating experience. It is ludicrous like a hamster tasting tomato or a square shaped circle or tomorrow being yesterday and today for contact centre work to be considered mundane, repetitive and unsatisfying work… Ludicrous, I say! This work is river-bed rich in opportunity for growth through a constant and varied interaction with other people… a variety of interaction that is unique to customer care. An obnoxious customer may test your patience, or your tolerance may be spread nano thin by a customers heavy regional accent, but each is a challenge that can be embraced as a remarkable opportunity to learn and grow and express yourselves as human beings who really do care… Not just to become an ace hot-shot customer service consultant, and not even just because you will enjoy more harmonious and supportive relationships, but most of all because …
… You Will Be Happy.
Lest I forget that this here article has been written to promote my training program, it goes without saying - even though I am going to say it - that this will be FANTASTIC for business. Perhaps even more so than I dare to believe at the moment, what with me being such a young upstart armed with a hat rack full of paradigm busting, evolutionary catalysing ideas, and all.
What I do is simple… I gently wake people up. A little nudge here and a metaphorical Clockwork Orange eye opener there, until that natural vein of empathy is tapped and an expanded awareness is buckled in, and all of a sudden your consultants are charmed and honoured to be talking to even the most profound hell raising customer… I mean, we are talking about another human being here, devil horns or polished halo, this is an incomprehensibly unique individual who deserves the happiness that we too pursue, and you know what, maybe our happiness is invested in our desire to deliver them their happiness? I wouldn’t be the first crazy to propose that maybe, just maybe, happiness has something to do with love, and not 6 digits in the fools gold account.
I am the perspective engineer that turns your thinking inside out until your customer nightmares are embraced as divine opportunities to practice and develop qualities like patience and tolerance which in turn make your customer service even better… Genius! You get the consultants that your dreams dare not allocate space for, with customers who stall in their rant tracks in case this is actually the Dalai Lama answering their complaint, in a working environment that will have your staff wondering whether the golden age of peace and love is to begin in the humble call centre.
However, my motivation is not, and never will be, to make you more money… conversely, it is exactly that which will make you more successful than maybe even your calculator allows for.
The truth is that the insightful company who recognises that compassion and altruism and all other such nice, heart warming, picnic scene feelings are the key to customer care is the company that is going to be heralded as a visionary. If that company is yours, and you see the potential wonderfulness in what I have to offer, with the chance to cast yourselves in the non-fluorescent light of a pioneering and compassionate company; explorers in new directions and methods to attain excellence for the hallowed customer, whilst shattering the Made in Another Era© mould and reassembling the pieces to form a new and vibrant era in mature and humanist customer care and employee regard, then… HIRE ME! Or you could just ask for more information…
Here I am… Contact me!
Email: <removed by mod. Please include your contact details in your profile, if you want other members to contact you.>
Phone: <removed.>
Thank you for reading, it has been a pleasure having you read these words. And remember that, with thinking…. there is no box.
About the author….
I am Richard Horrocks. I am a pioneering spirit with a passion for serving all human beings. I am here to deliver progressive and multi-dimensional ideas to those corners and shadows where they are most needed…. The freshest ideas since ‘Milk-from-the-udder-Shakes’.