Roleplaying.
If it doesn’t make you think of Dungeons & Dragons … it possibly gives you work jitters. Roleplaying is one of the best ways to “wrestle and grow” your communication skills. But it is certainly a wrestle, especially if you have an audience.
I recently assessed employees who role-played some customer service scenarios with professional actors. It was a hoot.
The tension in a role-played scenario is akin to stage fright. But it reminded me of a tension folks in service industries really do have to manage on a daily basis. Let me explain by stating the middle ground:
Great customer service involves actual service. And service is a kind of love.
If you love your customer, you put them before you.
Methods, not tricks
Sometimes, it means recommending a customer pay you less money. Last month, the owner of a health food store suggested I buy the cheaper vitamins because they would be better suited for me. (I bought two bottles.)
Sometimes, it means keeping a file on a customer. I knew a bank manager with a bad memory who genuinely cared about how his customers were doing personally. He would write things like “son plays little league” on their files so he could ask about customers’ lives when they visited. (His customer service survey scores were phenomenal.)
Sometimes, it means figuring out a customer’s communication style and adapting to it. I spend a lot of time with clients helping them learn the DiSC model, a way of looking at the differences in how people get energized by change vs. stability and truth vs. people. Depending on a customer’s preferences, you tailor your communication with more or less facts, more or less options, more or less small talk. (They feel truly heard, and their walls come down.)
Great customer service involves actual service. And service is a kind of love.
Sometimes, it means walking a customer through a process that you know will benefit them. One of my clients, an independent shoe and clothing retailer, has an amazing foot scanner. They have learned it helps customers more quickly figure out what they need–in many cases, things they didn’t know they needed. (More than one success story there has a customer leaving in tears, realizing they are finally walking without pain, etc.)
What’s on the inside
Could suggesting a lower-priced product be a gimmick?
Could keeping notes be faking a connection?
Could using DiSC be some kind of cheap insider-knowledge manipulation technique?
Could a process railroad a customer into something they don’t want?
Sure.
But that has more to do with intentions than the method.
I have seen employees fall prey to both extremes here.
If you don’t care … you use notes and communication techniques and processes to appear like you care. Customers might even feel manipulated. You make a sale, but you don’t earn a relationship and that relationship’s repeat business. It’s a short-term gain.
If you are scared the customer will think you don’t care … you shy away from tools that would genuinely serve the customer, all in an effort to ensure you don’t come across as fake. It is, ironically, an unloving thing to do.
If I were a just-the-facts customer, wouldn’t you do me a disservice to avoid giving me data? If I were a relationship-oriented customer, wouldn’t you make me feel uncomfortable to avoid small talk?
Check your heart. Make sure your intentions are truly to serve. Then use every technique you can. If your goal is to serve, you’ll rarely miss.