As you likely know by now, I’ve been focusing on customer service for the past several weeks and interviewing my fellow Smart Customer Service conference speakers. Today, I would like to give you my personal takes on customer service. In this episode, I briefly discuss three of the most important aspects to keep in mind while building a customer support team and then I go in depth about the main component that often gets overlooked when working on these three things.
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Transcript
Hey, hey! It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast! So over the last couple of months, we have been really focusing in on customer service here at the Voice of Influence podcast. And the reason why we’ve been doing that is that I’m going to be speaking at Smart Customer Service, which is a national conference for customer service in Washington, DC on April 29th through May 1st. So, I’ve taken this opportunity to connect with other speakers at this event and invite them to participate in interviews for the Voice of Influence podcast for a couple of different reasons. First of all, to share customer service insights from some of the nation’s leading experts then also to be able to connect with them personally. I wanted to kind of get to know some of the people that I’d be speaking with and then also to promote the conference.
Well, today, I want to share with you a little bit more about what my take is on customer service. So, I think that we all know that service isn’t all about the other person. It’s about connecting with them, helping them solving their problems, making sure that they’re having a good experience with your brand, with your company or with your organization. You’re wanting to be there for the people that you’re here to serve. That’s what customer service is really all about. But there are a number of things that can get in the way of really doing it well. And some of those things have been already talked about in the last couple of months.
One of those things is branding and brand voice and making sure that customer service agents really know what to say, how to say it, and how to really communicate in a way that is in line with the company or the brand. So that the person who is calling or the person who is interacting with that customer service agent that they would always have a similar experience and that they would feel like they are really connecting with the brand when they’re connecting with that person. That’s one really important thing.
Another thing would be the idea of essential skills or the ability to communicate well, the ability to empathize, and the ability to write well utilizing those centralized documents or branding elements and bringing that into how they communicate. So communication is really another big piece of it.
And there’s always the issue of “Well, how do you keep people? How do you keep customer service agents? It’s a kinda hard job.” If you think about it, there are people who are listening to complaints almost all day long. Now, there are some benefits, I mean, one of the things that you do all day long is solve problems for people, and so in that sense, there is something that can really be satisfying about customer service. But in general, it can be a really kind of a difficult job. You’re always putting yourself out there to help out, but you might not always be able to be the one to make the difference. You might not always be able to solve the problem, and you might not always know what the next thing to do or where to send people. Or you might be dealing with somebody who’s really upset and they’re not necessarily mad at you, but you’re the one that sort of taking on the brands of all of the anger and frustrations of the person you might be speaking with. So, customer service agents also have to deal with that.
It’s a rough job; I mean it’s not easy to really do and to do it well. And so it’s difficult to keep people in those positions. So companies are always looking for ways to encourage people and to keep them. And one of those ways can be rewards and recognition, giving a raise, or keeping track of how well they’re doing on things. So, these are all really, really important aspects of doing customer service and having a customer service team and training them well to be able to handle all these situations and all these needs, and to know how to handle all of the technical things as well. But I fear that we can miss out on something if we just do those things. If we are giving them everything that they need but they’re not still staying, you know. Maybe they’re still leaving. They’re still not sticking around. The numbers aren’t as high as you want them to be or your customers are still coming back with a lot of complaints. Customer satisfaction still isn’t where you want it to be. Maybe you’re hitting the status quo and it’s working out okay for you, but you know that there’s another level. Like you know you could take it to the next level, but you’re not just sure how to do it because you’ve been working on all these different things like centralization of information and rewarding your people and doing all these things that you can to give them the skills that they need to be able to do what they need to do their jobs.
But I tell you, there’s something that is missing and that’s something gets down to the core of a person. And it hits on a human need that is so, so vital for us to connect with and that is helping your people to truly connect and genuinely connect with your company’s purpose and your customer’s need. So, when I think of customer service and all of the issues that are surrounding it, the struggles, the solutions, the main thing that I keep saying not being present, at least not to the degree that I think it could be is helping the workforce to truly connect with the company’s purpose, with the company’s values, their mission, or their vision to feel like they’re really a part of it. So that when they come to work every day, they feel like they have meaning, that their work has meaning and purpose. So they’re not just going to work but they’re going to meet a challenge, to bring the best of who they are to the challenges in front of them.
And my guess is that it if you’re listening to this episode, this podcast; you are probably the kind of person who really does want to see that happen for your people. You want them to feel purpose-driven. You want them to have a sense of passion inside of them and care about what their job is. You want them to have meaning and to feel like that their work matters in the world.
So on the podcast, I frequently ask guests “Why did you start getting interested in your specific area of expertise?” “Why do you do what you do?”
Well, let me answer that question for you. So, Voice of Influence is born out of my background in actually singing. When I was young, as a child, my family would sing together. We would go around to different churches in our small community and put on these little programs and I would sing solos and my sister and I would sing duets, and our family would sing all together. And we had this just little thing going on where we would sing a lot and I sang a lot growing up, and that was kind of what I wanted to do when I grew up.
When I was in high school, I ended up choosing a college that was a big music school, and I was really excited to be able to use my voice. And the reason why I was excited to use my voice is that I knew that when I got up in front of an audience that they would be moved by what I would sing, and I knew it because I’ve done it over and over again. I just knew how to connect to the meaning of the song and then invite other people into that experience so that they could connect to the meaning of the song as well. So that they would feel moved.
Well, one of my college professors, she taught me something about my voice. You see, voice is something that is really kind of personal. It’s different than playing the piano or playing a different instrument, because a different instrument, it could go out of tune on its own. You know a key could break or something could need oiled and that’s something that’s apart from the person who is performing. But a voice, on the other hand, this comes from your own body. It’s something that arises out of you. There is a certain natural ability that people have with their voice. They are able to sing high or low. They are able to have a certain kind of tone or hear the pitch so that they can make sure that they’re on key. All of these things are very, very personal because they come out of the person themselves.
And so when I was in college, I had a voice teacher who was sort of different than the ones I’d had before. Instead of just welcoming me into her room and starting our scales and then working on our technical details that came up within songs that I was practicing, she would start off by asking me how I was doing.
Now, why would she waste time at the beginning of every lesson to say, “How are you doing?” I asked her this one time and her response was something to the effect that “If people come into my office and they’re all worried about something else that’s going on, they’re not going to be able to use their voice freely.” And I thought that was so profound.
I see that and I see how people use their figurative voice, their voice of influence, the one that comes out of themselves in order to be able to have an impact on others. And this voice that wants to make a difference, this voice that wants to help, that wants to serve well, this voice is just as personal as the one that I was using to sing. It’s personal. There’s a vulnerability to using it and to practicing it. It can make a huge difference in somebody’s confidence level and their ability to really use it well.
So at Voice of Influence, we believe that everyone has the ability to have a voice of influence, that every voice is unique. That we’re born with the ability to do certain things and we’re born with the passion to do certain things but then we can also gain skills. We can get better in other areas as well.
We believe that every voice matters on a human level that every voice in your company matters and every voice that calls into your call center or works with your customer service team, that every one of those voices matters. But at the same time, we can do things to make them matter more. We can grow. We can become more of a voice of influence, not by forcing technique, not by saying, “We have to push it out.” “We’re trying to get people to do things.” “We’re trying to force our customer service team to say it this certain way or to drop people in and not to be forceful but to be influential, because it’s not only our voice that matter, it’s also the voice of the customer that matters as well.”
So if you’re wanting your customer service team to be an influence, to build their influence with your customers, then they need to know what it means to have a voice of influence. They need to be able to have a sense of their own personal identity and connect to the purpose of your company and really know what it means to be a voice of influence.
Do they need that knowledge? Do they need to be able to know what it is that your company does and how to help your customers and what their job is? Of course, they need that.
Do they need skills to learn how to communicate and to be able to handle the processes and the people well? Of course they do, but they also need to be able to connect to the purpose of your company.
They need to be able to awaken their passion and feel like they can be a genuine ambassador of sorts for your company. You don’t want your people to pretend that they care. You want them to actually care and that’s what your customers want as well. And if your people, if your workforce actually cares and they really do feel connected to the company, then they are going to be able to connect more naturally, more freely with your customers. And then soon your brand promise and your scripts, your centralized documents; those are going to become part of your customer service agents. Instead of having them be an external tool that they use, that they’re trying to put on for your customers, they’re going to become those things so that they truly embody the brand promise. The things that you really care about as a company, they’ll embody that and be able to be a true ambassador for your customers.
Now, one of the questions that always comes up is, well, if we know that this is what we need to do, if we know that it’s important to build culture, to do a good job of communicating our purpose and our values to our workforce, then why aren’t we doing it? Or why aren’t we studying the companies that do it really well that they’ve had success?
One of the answers that I’ve heard and I’ve heard it a number of times is that the executives feel like that’s beneath them. It’s beneath them intellectually to go down to that personal level and help their people to really connect with their company. But I don’t think that’s the only thing.
I think it might be to serve this level thing that you might see in some companies, but I think that more often than not leaders wanted to help their people do this. They see it. They see that it’s a good thing. They can acknowledge that at least in their heads. But deep down, they really don’t think that they have what it takes to pull it off.
Leaders struggle to think that they can actually help their people and really turn around the culture this idea of connecting. It may not be something that they’re good at, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t willing to go there. It’s just that it’s so scary because it’s not familiar.
But let me tell you something. If you have any desire, whatsoever, to really almost empower your workforce, to help them to embody your brand, your brand promise, to help them really become ambassadors for your company; if you long for that, if you want them to feel purpose and meaning in their work, that is all it takes to start the process. If you start out with that longing then I’m here to tell you that you can do it.
You do have what it takes. You may also need to develop skills. You may need to gain a sense of your own personal identity and your own personal sense of purpose. But if this isn’t purposeful, if it isn’t meaningful to help your people find meaning in their work to connect with your company in a deep meaningful way, then what it is? It starts with the longing and then if you really don’t feel like you have what it takes, if you’re not sure what next steps to take, then that’s something that we can help you with.
As I mentioned, I will be speaking at the Smart Customer Service Conference here in Washington, DC in about a week. And in that talk, I’m going to be talking specifically about what your people need in their training in order to be able to truly connect with your company and your company’s purpose. I’m also going to be talking about how to get buy-in, executive buy-in, as well as buy-in from managers and frontline service agents in order to make this kind of transformation.
If you’re able to be at my session, I would love to have you there. Please tell me that you listened to this podcast, I’ll have a special gift for you. If you’re not able to be there, then email me at andrea@voiceofinfluence.net. That’s andrea@voiceofinfluence.net. We will find a way to share that information with you because just like the people who work for you, your voice matters, and you can make it matter more.