Right now, we as business development professionals, have the opportunity to prove to our clients that we are steadfast in our commitment to them, regardless of the changing business climate and growing concerns for public health, safety, and the economy.
Do you have a strategy in place for delivering exception, and personalized, customer care for your clients? Do you approach every account or customer with the same communication style, cadence, and information?
Instead of repeating the same customer service behaviors over and over with customers who have their unique characteristics and preferences, every employee must learn how to adjust their customer service style from one customer to the next. If we do not do this, some customers are left disappointed, even when the customer service standards have been met. This is the reason my friend was not happy with the same attentive service he received from Mike, but I was extremely happy.
Expecting employees to adjust their customer service style with every single customer can at a first glance seem like an unreasonable expectation. However, when the employees have the right tools, it is not. When they learn a simple, four-step process, it becomes second nature for them for more successful interactions with customers – and everyone else.
Step 1: Understand that customers are different and have different preferences for HOW they want to be treated
At Sandler Training we employ the DISC theory of psychologist William Moulton Marston, which centers on four different styles that help us understand how individuals prefer to interact with others.
- Dominance (D)
- Influence (I)
- Steadiness (S)
- Correctness (C)
DISC creates a common language and self-awareness to better understand ourselves and others.
Learning and understanding these four styles is easy and fun. When employees become familiar with the different styles, they also learn that the customers even have different views on HOW excellent customer service should be delivered. For example, my friend, a D-style, wants minimal interaction. “Just take care of it!” he demands. Another client defines excellent customer service in terms of the amount of attention to detail. Understanding these important differences is vital in providing personalized and exceptional service.
Step 2: Develop confident self-awareness
Everyone interacting with customers needs to understand HOW they naturally tend to communicate, interact, and take care of them. By creating a very clear understanding of their natural, and most comfortable, customer service styles, employees discover they tend to service all of their customers in a similar way. This makes a lot of sense because this also happens to be the way they want to receive customer service. We typically treat others the way we want to be treated.
Step 3: Learn to identify customers’ styles
With some practice, this becomes second nature for employees. They will automatically start paying attention to things such as eye contact, body language, what the customers say, the type of questions they ask, etc.
Step 4: Modify customer service style based on the other customer's style
This is the most important step. Once employees have identified the customer’s style and are aware of how they naturally tend to service customers, they will be able to make conscious decisions about HOW to adjust their styles. Instead of being on “autopilot,” employees make slight adjustments to how they provide service to the customers.
The end result of this process is that every customer will be provided with service that is adjusted to his/her preferences. How is that for personalized service? You will increase your customer satisfaction index and your recurring revenue by responding to each customer’s unique needs and desires.
You might also be interested in:
