Want your customer service representatives to deliver great customer service? Help them become customer service superstars. Simple things you can do to bring out the superstar in your customer service delivering employees.

1. Become a
Customer Service
Superstar!
Phil Gerbyshak
Chief Connections Officer
Make It Great! Institute

2. Why are we here?

3. You
already know this stuff

4. The question is NOT “Do I
already know this stuff (you do),
the questions are…

5. How good am I at this?
And…

6. Could I use
a refresher?

7. Can I take it to the next level?

8. Agenda
• Greetings
• Expectation Setting
• Great emails
• Break for lunch
• Listening Skills
• Service Recovery

9. What is customer
service?

10. Who are you and what do
YOU believe about
customer service?
Getting to know each other

11. Customers pay your
salary!

13. Let’s begin with a few
greetings!

14. Nod Hello
Don’t smile and don’t say a
word – Just nod as you walk
past each person in the room

15. 30 second greeting
Smile and handshake
(No words)

16. Now Get Personal!
Learn a little more – Ask the
other person their favorite
pizza topping

17. Which was most
effective?
How can you use this on the
phone?

18. What are 3 parts of a
powerful greeting?
How can you use these on the
phones?

19. 3 parts to Superstar Greeting
• Greeting
• Your name
• Energy

20. Superstars Know
• First Contact builds customer confidence
• How to tune the world the world out and tune the
customer in
• To put a smile in their voice
• To find out something more about your customers

21. Now You Try It
Write down your good greeting

22. Expectation Setting
• Setting expectations with your customers
is the most important thing you can do.
– How do you set reasonable expectations?

23. Ask customers what they
expect
Do you know the magic
question?

24. “What can I do that would make
you happy?”

25. Customers Want 5 things
• Reliability
• Responsiveness
• Assurance
• Empathy
• Follow-up

26. Do what you say, say what you do
• Keep your promises
• It doesn't have to always be you
– It can be someone else
• You set the expectation

27. Skill Builder: Now You Try It
• One-on-one
– Expectation setting
• Get unreasonable expectation from partner
• Reset expectation to something more reasonable

28. Phone Etiquette –
Language matters

29. Putting People On
Hold
How can we do this without
making people mad?

30. Holding and Waiting
• People don't like to be put on hold or to be
made to wait
– ASK them for permission, and keep it short
• "May I place you on hold for 30-60 seconds? I'll
come back to you if it's going to be longer?"

31. Never transfer
someone again!

32. Think Connection, NOT Transfer
• Folks hate to be transferred to another
person. Transferring indicates they were in
the wrong place, that they're going to be
put on hold again, or worse, dumped onto
someone else who can't help them.
• Change your language
– Instead of transfer, use connect

33. Why connect?
• Connect indicates you will PLUG THEM IN to
someone or something that can help them.

34. Gives customer the choice
Always ASK if you may connect them,
explain why, and offer an alternative

35. Words you use are very important
• Avoid “hot button” words
– What is a hot button word?
• Focus on the “can can”
– What’s a can can?
• Say “I’ll find out” not “I don’t know”
– Why is this important?

36. Tone = Touch
• A gentle tone means a higher touch
experience for your customers
– Think FEELINGS, not FACTS

37. Tone = Touch
• A gentle tone means a higher touch
experience for your customers
– Think FEELINGS, not FACTS

38. Lunch time!

39. Great Emails Matter

40. Basics
• TO
• CC
• BCC
• Subject
• Body

42. GREAT Emails
• Greeting
• Respond to need or request
• Explain solution or delay
• Ask for understanding and how to contact
if questions
• Thank the customer

43. Create an email response to this
situation:
– Sally (your customer) called earlier today needing
help sharing calendars with John (a co-worker)
but didn’t have time to work on it
– The instructions are on your internal website at
http://intranet/sharedcalendar
• Greeting
• Respond to need or request
• Explain solution or delay
• Ask for understanding and how to contact if
questions
• Thank the customer

44. Review With Your Partner

45. Listening Skills Matter

46. T – Tune In
– Superstars tune in to the speaker and the
subject, mentally (and possibly physically)
calling up everything known about the subject
and shutting out all distractions.

47. Q - Question
• Superstars mentally formulate questions that will
help resolve the issue.
• What will this speaker say about this topic?
• What is the speaker's background?
• Have they called about this issue before?

48. L - Listen
• Superstars organize the information as it is
received, anticipating what the speaker will say
next and reacting mentally to everything heard.

49. R - Review
• Superstars go over what has been said,
summarize, evaluate constantly and
reformulating what they understand.

50. R – Repeat Back
• Superstars explain what was said to ensure it is
correct according to the speaker and if not, to
clarify what is missing.

51. TQLRR
• T -- Tune in
• Q -- Question
• L -- Listen
• R -- Review
• R -- Repeat back

52. Your Turn: Here’s the situation
• 1 person is panicked because they think
they just lost a 50 page Word document
they have been working on for the last 5
hours
• Use TQLRR method

53. 6 Steps to Superstar Service
Recovery

54. 6 Steps to Superstar Service
Recovery
1) Listen to the customer vent
2) Apologize that a mistake happened, even if it
isn't yours
3) Quickly find a temporary workaround (if
possible)
4) Make a promise to get the problem resolved
and set an expectation of when
5) Keep the promise
6) Follow-up to ensure continued satisfaction

55. Your Turn: Here’s the situation
• 1 person was promised a new smart
phone by Monday (it is now Wednesday).
She/he is going out of town today at 5 PM
• You have the same smart phone the
person needs at your desk for another
customer who needs it Monday

56. One Last Thing…

57. The difference between a superstar
and everyone else is…

58. Going the extra mile

59. Your Turn
One thing you will implement from
today