Are Your Customers Being Served?

About the author Introduction What you will learn 1 Why do we need to provide good customer service? What goes wrong? Getting more business from your existing customers Twelve benefits of providing good customer service In summary 2 Who are your customers? What do your customers want? Why do your customers buy? Objective reasons Subjective reasons In summary 3 Building a competitive edge Image Assess your organization Front line staff Answering the telephone Staff behaviour and attitude The workplace environment Know your products/services Making sure the messages don't get mixed In summary 4 Developing a customer service policy Eight steps to a customer service policy Developing a customer orientated mission Set standards Communicate standards Train your staff Measure and monitor performance Reward staff Plan for continuing customer service Recruit the right people The staff handbook In summary 5 People skills Appearance Body language Greeting the customer The handshake Personal space Positive body language signals Negative body language signals Posture In summary 6 Listening A quick questionnaire Casual listening Critical listening What stops us listening? How can we improve our listening skills? In summary 7 Assertiveness What does assertiveness mean? What does submissive behaviour mean? What makes us become submissive? What does aggressive behaviour mean? What makes us become aggressive? Having an open mind In summary 8 Dealing with angry or difficult people Three stages of anger Handling the angry customer Checklist for handling angry customers Handling the unreasonable or aggressive customer In summary 9 Professional telephone behaviour How to establish and build rapport Words and phrases to avoid Speaking to improve communication In summary 10 Going the extra mile