Does your team smile enough?! The benefits of smiling cannot be underestimated. Whenever you’re dealing with customers natural smiling is important to the perception they have of you and your company. As customers we are easily put off by telephone agents or shop workers who don’t smile enough. We will describe them as miserable or dreary or giving us ‘attitude.’ Sometimes we imagine that this is a temporary thing – they’re having a bad day. Other times we may just write them off as offering bad customer service. Someone who doesn’t care, or can’t be bothered. Or someone who doesn’t give a sh**. Smiling is a key part of good telephone etiquette. It’s plain good manners isn’t it? If I was working with a list of just 10 tips I could offer customer service people when interacting with their customers, smiling and the related topic of positive attitude would be somewhere near the top.
How far does a smile go?
How far does a smile go ?! A long, long way I think ! I much prefer dealing with people who smile at you, and seem genuinely keen to help. You just know instinctively that they’re more likely to help, and nothing will be too much trouble. Also of course the more positive they are about their job, the more likely they will be to do that little bit more and ensure that you get the right result.
The dividend for THEM is that as a result you’ll be inclined to spend more time with them. Like me, you’re attracted to positive, smiley people. And after all what does it cost – nothing, it’s free? It gives an insight to their motivation and general attitude.
Customer Service courses
On our 2 day customer service training courses, this is a hot topic. We run a segment of the course where I ask the delegates on the course what they like and don’t like about customer service. Given that they are professionals who offer customer service for a living I find their responses interesting. And actually not that different I think to other members of the public. Sure customer service agents may think about what is good and bad about customer service more often. But their responses aren’t surprising. One of the top tips and one of the first things people tell me about when I ask them what they like and dislike about customer service is to do with smiling, attitude and positivity.
We have a series of 3 audio CDs covering the key elements of customer service. Buy them here. These audio products can support a training programme To Market runs for you or you can use them as a stand alone training resource of course.
To Market carries out customer service training across the East and West Midlands including Birmingham, Coventry, Daventry, Solihull, Lichfield, Worcester, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, Leamington Spa, Kenilworth, Nuneaton, Hinckley, Redditch, Northampton, Peterborough, Newmarket, Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough and Rugby.
If you are reading this considering some training or development work for your customer service team then send us some details on our contact page. And maybe, just maybe we can put a smile on your face. And if we end up working together, you will also put a smile on our face!