Google “the customer from hell” and you’ll come across some rather fascinating anecdotes of actual conversations between customer service reps and clients. You’ll get a taste of what customer service reps go through on a daily basis and, more importantly, understand why hiring employees with just the right personality profile can really make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aside from being the target of angry rants, name-calling, and some rather colorful language, customer service reps need to have both the fortitude and the patience to deal with some very\u2026 let’s say “special” characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The truth is (and there really is no way around it), the quality of customer service greatly influences the reputation your company has with its current and potential customers. And poor customer service is what prevents customers from coming back. If you manage to enrage clients, they will go scortched earth\u2014they will make it their mission to badmouth your company with everyone they know and every social media platform. And this badmouthing will<\/em> get around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what is great customer service? It’s about presenting the right attitude; it’s about focusing on getting customers to want to come back because they were treated well and their problem was resolved effectively. Of course, with every product or service there are bound to be some problems, bugs or malfunctions, but the way these issues are handled is more important to customers than the fact that they came up in the first place. That’s why people working in customer service are so important. They need to be properly trained, that’s true, but they also need to have the right psychological make-up and the right instincts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A study we conducted on over 1,400 people who took the CSP-R3 (Customer Service Profile – 3rd Revision)<\/a> reveals that good customer service reps are quite distinct from the rest of the general population:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our statistics also indicate that experienced customer service reps are also more organized, have a knack for knowing how to meander through difficult and awkward social situations, and possess the crucial ability to maintain perspective\u2014to step back from a situation (or person), and look at it objectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is why the importance of personality in the hiring process is so evident in jobs like customer service. Skills, for the most part, can be developed. It’s finding someone whose personality fits the job that is crucial. Companies whose customer service is poorly rated need to take a good look not just atthe speed at which they handle customer service calls, but also how. <\/em>Customers may be a bit more forgiving when left on hold, for example, if the voice on the other side of the line is personable and patient, and the rep shows a true desire to resolve the situation to the client’s satisfaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether you’ve received more than your fair share of customer complaints, a bad customer service rating, or simply want to revamp your current service, here are some tips:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There’s a reason why “mystery shoppers” are dreaded by retail stores. Their job is to walk into the store, act like a regular customer, and note everything that’s wrong\u2014and I mean everything<\/em>. Employee didn’t greet the fake customer with a smile? Minus one point. Didn’t hand them their bagged items? Minus one point. Too much merchandise on a rack? Minus one point. Points are also lost if the mystery shopper asks you where a certain item can be found, and you point <\/em>in the general direction rather than walking them to the exact location. You guessed it\u2026minus one point for pointing<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So if you want better customer service, step into the role. Imagine you’re the customer of your own business. What would drive you nuts? Long wait times? Being bounced around from one rep to another? Getting canned answers that don’t actually solve your problem?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, think about the complaints you hear most often from your customers. If you had to deal with those issues the way your company currently handles them, would you honestly walk away happy? Or would you leave irritated, telling yourself, “Never again”?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The quickest way to raise your game is to treat your customer service like you’re the one on the other end of the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I receive notifications on my phone whenever the gas prices are expected to go up. So when I received a message that the gas would be jumping 16 cents, I headed out to fill up my tank. My regular station had run out of gas, so I drove down the street where two competing stations sit across the street from each other; I figured if one was too busy I’d head to the other, right? <\/p>\n\n\n\n To my surprise one of the stations had a huge lineup of cars\u2026 the other was completely empty. Why? Because the second one had already bumped up their price in anticipation of the upcoming increase. It took a full half hour<\/em> (I say that because that’s how long I was waiting to gas up) for the competing gas station to realize, “Um, we’re losing business here. Maybe we should bring the price back down again, and take some of those customers across the street for ourselves.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a pretty simplistic example, but if your biggest competitor is drawing more customers than you are, you need to find out why. What do they offer that you don\u2019t? What could you offer that will make your company stand out? And here\u2019s a big one: Are you so focused on drawing in new customers that you forget to offer special treats to your existing ones? This is something a lot of internet and phone companies do\u2014and it’s such a huge mistake. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, I was paying $78 a month for internet\u2014not even high-speed. New customers were being offered a much faster speed for $60. When I called customer service and asked them for the same deal, they told me I wasn’t allowed to have it because I am not a new client. Do not <\/strong>treat your loyal customers this way!<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you haven\u2019t already done so, create a feedback system that will allow customers to tell you exactly what they like and don\u2019t like about your service. Offering an incentive for giving feedback, (a discount, for example), can increase the likelihood of responses. Training, onboarding, and regular performance feedback are an important part of developing your customer service reps\u2014but it’s a total waste if the person you’re hiring for the job isn’t suitable to begin with. Skills can be trained\u2026personality cannot. It doesn’t matter if a person has a good education from a noteworthy university, tons of awards, and lots of work experience; if their personality isn’t ideal for customer service, no amount of training will change that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re interested in using CSP-R3 (Customer Service Profile – 3rd Revision)<\/a><\/a><\/span>\u00a0 or other tests for hiring, training, or performance reviews, request a free trial<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Customer service is not fun\u2014it’s like juggling flaming torches while someone yells at you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-training-coaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":811,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions\/811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Role Play Different Scenarios<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Get to Know Your Competitors<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Get Regular Feedback<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nHire for Personality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n