2020 is here and almost every business is looking to do better this year than last year. But in trying to push the numbers, we sometimes forget that why we have those numbers in the first place-our customers
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A lot of businesses in Nigeria care more for profits and gain than we do for customers and that’s simply NOT right. If we care for our customers, our customers will show more love to the business
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Let this year be that year we treat our customers a little better than we did last year cos when we do that, our bottom line will feel the impact
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Start here?
Character (Emotional Strength)- This is the most basic one because all the others rest on it. Customer service is a role that can stress you and push you to your limits because you’re interfacing directly with customers from every walk of life. Cool heads. Hot heads. Calm heads. Crazy heads. Etc Customers that should understand but choose not to. Customers that intentionally want to frustrate you. Customers that woke up on the wrong side of the bed and you happen to be the outlet for their anger. Customers that are genuinely justified in their anger. And customers that are well..just being customers. All this mix means that if you do not have strength of character, you will wither quit before the time or fight your customers someday. You’ve got to be patient, extremely understanding and have the ability to overlook certain behaviours. Be tactical and diplomatic without being insincere. Effective customer service requires character and you’ve got to build it in you if you want to last in and be effective in your job. But the reward is that as you deal well with people, you build a network of people who will come to love you and the brand you represent, with an added advantage that the day you decide to leave, you might leave the job but the goodwill you’ve built stays with you . That reward is worth every stress it can put you through. That’s not to say be selfish because of what you stand to gain but if that helps you do a better job, why not? Plus good rewards for a job well done means you did the job well, in the first place.
Competence (Mental Strength)- This speaks about skill- ‘know how’. You should know your job. Not knowing your job is never an excuse to not do your work well. Whatever you need to learn to be the best, learn it. What’s more? whatever you learn stays with you and grows you. When a customer meets you as a staff, he doesn’t know about the departments in your organisation, all he sees is the brand as one and so he expects that you give him the answer to whatever information he needs, whether or not it’s your department so know as much as you can outside of your job function and be quick to get answers for those you don’t. Be good at what you do and then add some more. Be proficient, it makes you more reliable.
Capacity (Physical strength)- This talks about your ability to deliver on your job. Strength for the job. Customer service will not only require your mental strength, it will require your physical strength. Bring your energy to the job. It will help your enthusiasm. In between all the questions you’ll need to answer, the problems you’ll solve and the challenges you’ll tackle is a significant amount of strength required to follow through. Be very intentional in taking care of your energy. Avoid drama. Eat well but not the one that will make you sleep on your job. Take short mid-day naps during your lunch. Dress classy but comfortable. And leave personal issues at the door or better still, hand them over to God. In all you do, make sure that those hours are well accounted for.
Have an amazing top notch #customerservice #custserv#CX year ahead!
Cheers
