That’s a lot to ask.

Some customer service reps are up to the task, while others are woefully under qualified. Yet, regardless of which type answers the call, on the other side of the line sits a valuable customer.

Some reps make it obvious they are just collecting a paycheck, while others make it obvious they are giving their all to solving problems and keeping customers. Only one of these is valuable to business, yet they both are paid the same and both get to keep their jobs.

This is an unhealthy balance for everyone.

It’s bad for the slacker who gets to keep their dead-end job (it’s dead-end because they don’t want it), bad for the company because customers are left unhappy and looking for an alternative, and worse for the customer because they are unhappy and they know the company already has their hard-earned money.

Customer service reps who show empathy, take initiative to help, and make all parties as pleased as possible are worth their weight in gold. Why are they so very rare?

As consumer numbers climb to commodity levels, so too will good customer service representatives. Not at the same rate unfortunately.

There is an opportunity right now for companies to hire local help (people need jobs) who actually care about doing an exceptional job in caring for customers. There’s also a problem.

Many companies do not recognize the differences between qualified customer service reps and bodies filling desks. The reps know the difference, and the customers experience the difference. The controlling interest in the equation (the company) is paying the least attention.

When a customer service rep says, “I wish there was something I could do, but I’m not allowed to…” that’s showing empathy (even if the company has forbidden post-sale customer satisfaction, a common process design problem). Their inflection and tone make a difference. On the other hand, most customer service agents just boldly state policy while defying any form of customer satisfaction. Stating policy can have only one effect: get rid of the customer (often permanently).

Companies who empower customer service reps to solve problems for people are remembered. People are loyal to their brands. Employing caring people who emit empathy and humanity while solving problems is good marketing.

The opportunity is three-fold: Good customer service agents show how it should be done, what type of personalities to hire, and how to set policies that keep customers.

It’s not about how I feel, and it’s not about how you feel. Customer service is about grasping a golden opportunity to help your customer in a way few people can. It’s your customer giving you an opportunity to make them happy by forging a unique connection.

If you decide to lose their business, ‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ is the wimpy, unsatisfying way to tell people you don’t want their business. Customer service is better equipped to satisfy when they have a short list of companies or products to refer unsatisfied people to. ‘I’m sorry you feel that way’ just upsets people. It’s all about the service rep, not the customer. ‘Here’s another company who may be able to help you,’ is all about satisfying the customer. It’s positive, helpful, and straightforward.

Training teaches customer service representatives to say ‘I’m sorry you feel that way’ to put the onus for the solution back on the person calling them for help. When the customer cannot respond, the rep ends the call. It’s indirect, rude, serves no practical purpose (other than manifesting anger and wasting time), and is totally unnecessary.

Customer service could take a tip from restauranteurs, who go out of their way, making accommodations however they can in pursuit of one sole result: customer satisfaction.

Customer service isn’t customer service when they aren’t listening. They are agitators. If I want to be agitated, I’ll jump in a washing machine.

What happened to the customer is always right? Or even, the customer knows what they want and need?

If everyone is an expert, and the experts aren’t listening, is any learning occurring? Isn’t that really the point of customer service? To listen, learn and help. I’d like to see every customer service department train their people in the concept of active listening.

One problem with learning about active listening is that in order to accept it, you have to know what it is. Which means you have to actively listen. You have to accept before you assert (even if you are an expert). It’s kind of like learning what the customer needs before telling them what want.

‘I’m just doing what they tell me,’ we hear customer service reps say. I frequently tell the pleasant ones, “You sound like a nice person. I hope you one day find an employer who will allow you to do a great job.” (Most reps actually tell me they appreciate hearing that, and the conversation always gets better afterward.)

If management isn’t designing humanity-based customer service processes, we need a revolt.

Customer service can be an overall positive experience which helps companies keep existing customers happy. In fact, that’s how it used to be, and for good reason. It’s always cheaper to keep your existing customers happy than to attract new ones. (It also helps people speak of you in a good tone.)

If your customer service team is treating people poorly, you lose revenue as you hemorrhage customers, and you have to spend more on marketing. If, on the other hand, your team is working with human nature in mind to make sure people have positive experiences, you keep customers happy and can budget your marketing more frugally (or grow more).

Somewhere along the way, someone who was treated poorly decided they didn’t like their customers, and they wanted new ones, no matter the cost. How this attitude caught on like wildfire is something of a mystery. Barnes & Noble comes to mind. When their stores were packed with book-buying public, they brought in creature comforts and chocolate because people buy those things when they are comfortable. Customers bought less of these items when BN changed to aggressive sales tactics that made people uncomfortable. They could have taken the hint, it seems.

The companies who buck the trend, like Zappos and CDBaby, stand out for it. Both of these stellar examples embrace human nature in everything they do, and their reputations (and profits) rock because of it.

Poor customer service is the rule that should never have gained prominence because it lacks a fundamental level of humanity, and can lead only to failure. It’s refreshing to see smart companies challenge it. Good customer service is good marketing and a business fundamental.

The question of optimist or pessimist has an easy answer every time. Like many questions, the answer can go only one way if honesty is employed. Optimism represents life, and pessimism represents death. That’s reality, not a metaphor.

Like most life forms, we involuntarily fight for life. It’s in our nature. And it stays firmly planted there all the way up until the end of our lives here.

The idea of pessimism gets validation only when people are treated poorly, often in repeated fashion, until their spirit is broken. Even after a person’s spirit is broken, their inner optimism usually still grasps a glimmer of hope for something better such as escape, redemption or success.

The only possible honest answer to the question of optimist or pessimist is: optimist.

1. Know your stuff inside out, and keep updating your knowledge.

2. Listen to your customers. They will tell you what they need. If you don’t know how to listen, read up on ‘active listening.’

3. Deliver on your promises for service, budget and deadlines. If you know your stuff and listen to your customers, it’s easy to do great work.

4. Provide what the customer needs, and if you can’t do that, refer them to someone who can.

Some years ago, companies began trying to push the products and services they had instead of providing what the customer needed. It is always better to refer the customer to a better source if you are unable to provide what they want yourself. They will remember and appreciate your helpful nature.

If you’re not already doing these things, try them out. I’ll bet you my favorite customer service book they’ll work.

If you are satisfying customers, you are keeping your brand reputation healthy. If you are fighting with customers because of something you did (like over-billing), you are damaging your brand, and very likely losing business.

Keeping a healthy brand reputation intact costs far less than attempting to repair a damaged brand. One involves maintaining good practices, while the other goes much deeper, usually involving rooting out an infected company policy, followed by employee training, apologizing to customers, a PR campaign, a website overhaul, and a new advertising campaign. See how that adds up?

The scenario: A customer calls to complain they have been overbilled by $10 every month for two years, and they have the paperwork to prove it. Your company can easily see he is correct, but you have a policy of crediting bills for only up to six months. Your company would have to refund $240. In a monotone voice, your customer service representative tells the customer they will not do the refund, and to pay their bill, or service will be interrupted… In essence to go pound sand.

The common solution: Do everything you can to beat down the customer’s will and keep their money, without regard for retaining their business.

The better solution: Give them their money back without any fight whatsoever. If you know you are wrong, don’t fight about it, and you will keep a happy customer. If you have documentation which clearly shows the customer is wrong, prove it by sending it to them, with no disrespect or fighting.

For anyone thinking your company would not treat customers to the above scenario, you would be surprised at how common this policy is for large corporations. Telecoms and cable companies in particular are famous for it (what a terrible thing to be famous for!), as well as banks and mortgage companies.

Good customer service is good marketing. It’s a rule to thrive by.

Lately, it seems that every phone call I make to a customer service department at nearly any company, from those known for their stellar customer service, to those not so known for it, is answered by someone whose number one priority it is to assert just how right they are.

It doesn’t matter what I have called about because 99% of the time, they aren’t listening. All they seem to want to do upon answering the call is let me know that they are right. Their opinion is the only one that matters. Have a question? We don’t care. We’re not here to answer your questions. We’re here to be right. Is our product defective? Don’t care about that either as long as we’re right. 

If everyone was perfect, it would be a pretty boring world. We learn from our mistakes. A mistake is a small form of failure. Failure rocks because it teaches us how to succeed. “Why do we fall down? So we can learn how to pick ourselves back up.” (- Batman Begins, 2005)

All of this rightness begs the question: If every company is always right, who does that leave to be wrong?

It leaves only the customer to be wrong. How do you think that makes customers feel?

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes
Think about it for a second. You’ve just given your hard-earned money to a company. You’ve got a question or a problem, so you call customer service, and the first thing they tell you is that you’re wrong or your question is irrelevant. How does that make you feel?

This kind of rightness can only lead to resentment and a damaged brand. The good news is that always being right presents opportunities for competitive companies to steal away business. People do business with people they relate to. People make mistakes. Companies make mistakes. When they can admit it, they go well together. When companies claim to be perfect, humans can no longer relate to them, and they move on to someone else.

When companies claim to always be right as a flawed tactic for eliminating liability or due to an over-inflated ego, they are really losing customer loyalty by alienating people and creating a disconnect that damages their brand reputation.

Whether you are building a personal brand or protecting a corporate brand, you must learn to relate to your customers, admit your shortcomings, and embrace your failures. Only after doing these can you realize your greatest possible success.

My call to businesses great and small: Go out and fail today!

How do you make your customers feel after they tell you what they want? Your reaction has a huge impact on their perception of you, and on how they remember you and your brand.

Customer service is one of the most important aspects of your brand. That’s right, your brand. The way we treat people is a monumental core component of how people perceive us. As we all know, perception becomes reality. Our job as business owners and brand lovers is to guide perception in every genuine way possible.

Clients often have great ideas, but sometimes, their ideas are out of touch with their target market, or just plain wrong. The ability to smile in the face of a weak concept is paramount to successful client relationships. I always try to make my customers feel like they are right, even when they are wrong, sometimes horribly wrong. Here is my approach:

1. Do what the client asks. Even if it is detrimental to their business – even if it makes me pull my armpit hairs (I have no hair on my head) out by the roots – I always do what the client asks. If budget and time allow for it, I provide an excellent execution of what the client asked for, along with a stronger alternative. Upon seeing the results of their request, business-savvy clients will usually choose the best approach, even if it is ultimately not the concept or end-product they originally asked for. When a client sees that their concept is not really what they were after, and I present a stronger alternative, they are happy to pay for some additional work because they know that I did exactly what they requested, then I went the extra mile to deliver a great solution.

2. Do your best. Whether we are working on our own idea or a client’s idea, putting forth our best effort will always reap rewards in one way or another. Holding back does nothing for anyone. Showing the client our best work and hard efforts will usually pay dividends. Don’t try to save the best concept for the next project, or you may not ever get the chance to show it.

3. Give the client the credit. Do your clients ever try to take credit for your ideas? Mine do, all the time. Give clients the credit when they have a great idea. Make them feel like they came up with a great idea. After all, we would not have their business if they had not had a great idea in the first place. If a client tries to take credit for your great idea, sock them in the ear. Ha! Just seeing if you are paying attention. (Don’t ever punch clients.) When clients try to take the credit, gently remind them of your value or your idea, but ultimately, let them steal the five second spotlight if they insist. What would you rather have, the credit or the business? I’m not saying you should let your clients walk all over you, but it’s not hard to strike a balance that will keep you both happy.

4. Ask questions. Listen to your clients when they are talking. If a client says something that is just plain wrong, what do you do? Tell them they’re wrong? Hell no! Did you correct your grandma when she mispronounced a word? If you did, she probably hit you over the head with a rolled up TV Guide or National Enquirer. The customer is always right. (As is the grandma.) When a customer says something that without a doubt is wrong as wrong can be, I ask questions. We know our stuff, but hey! Our clients know their businesses better than anyone. Why risk pissing off a client by telling them that they are wrong? When we ask questions and give them their due attention, we learn important little clues about what makes them tick. That gives us fuel for promoting their company and for providing better value.

5. Involve the client in the process. The more involved a client is in the work, the more invested they will be. They will understand why we chose certain paths or made particular decisions. They will have less questions and more confidence in what we are doing. When they see the results of our work, our clients have a greater understanding of how and why our work is so effective. Involving the client in the process builds trust. Their is no greater gift to be granted than that. Well, a fat check is always nice too.

6. Pay attention! This is so important that it bears repeating. Listen to your clients when they are speaking. Have you ever had a client who had the attention span of a peanut? I have. These are the ones who can’t go five minutes without taking a call on their cell. You have to imagine that these folks were about to spontaneously combust before cell phones existed. Here again though, they can interrupt our meetings any time they want. If they choose to use meeting time on the cell, that’s their choice. Where am I going with this? Clients endowed with a short attention span tend to pack the really meaningful parts of their conversation into short snippets that can only be caught if you are paying close attention at all times. It doesn’t kill me to rivet my attention on a client for two hours. What kills my business is if I don’t pay attention during the critical moments where I need to learn about the client and their business.

7. Wrong can be right. Always look for the genius in your clients’ ideas. Sometimes I find myself kicking and screaming and cursing and moaning (silently of course) when a client forces me to pursue a concept that I know at the very core of my branding being is just wrong wrong wrong! But walk the path I must because my client is devoted to their idea and its birth into the light of day. I explore, I curse some more, and then something magical occurs as I relax and let my stubborn branding ego fall off the corner of the table. Their bad, wrong idea gives birth to a new concept, something strong and true and right that gives meaning to life and shines like a smile on the sun. In reality, client ideas are all born with the best of intentions. Sometimes a client’s concept might seem too simple or just plain boring, but there is a reason their mind went there. They want to say something, but their creative expression may not be getting at the underlying concept. That’s why they have us. When a client clings to a concept that appears to have no deep creative value, rather than rejecting it, look for the genius in it. Often times a client just needs to see a great execution of their bad idea to see that it was really not what they wanted at all. But even there, your great work will lead to the next round and can serve as a springboard for opening the client’s mind.

8. Buy yourself a shoulder to cry on.

9. Throw a private temper tantrum. Another tact to consider when a client presses you to explore a poor concept is to go ahead and stamp your feet, wave your arms, and yell obscenities. Do it all you want, but make sure you do it solo, in the privacy of your own sound-proof office. When you’re done, give the customer what they want.

10. Know when to say when. If every idea your client has makes you grit your teeth so hard they shatter, it’s probably time to refer your client to someone else. Teeth are hard to come by. Remember, though, that good clients are just as hard to come by. Sometimes letting go of a client is the best move for both of you.

Ultimately, every client comes equipped with their own set of rules. You need only decide if you want to play by those rules. I find that by always keeping this in mind, my average client relationships last over 10 years. Maybe it will help you too.

How do you keep customers happy? Have something to add to the list? Please post a comment!