One year old!

Greatest hits!

In honor of my one-year anniversary, I’d like to share some of my favorite posts with you:

• Why you should hire "hackers" to improve your NPS
• Taking your email advisories from zero to hero
• My most popular entry ever! 5 types of reps you need on your team
• What is "service heart" and why do you need it?
• Discover BranchTrack!

7 things you should NEVER accept as a customer---and how to eliminate them.

1: Paying a fee for being broke

                This is just so evil. Late fees above $50 dollars on rent. Bounced check fees resulting from “stacking”. Minimum balance charges. Interest rates that vary depending on your credit. These are the ways unethical companies make money. You shouldn't have to stand for it.

Your move(s): Work with a credit consular or money manager to get less broke, find less predatory companies to work with, publicize the nefarious practices of the Evil Ones, use a service like Manilla to track your bills and payments.

2: Impatient service providers rushing to the solution

                Everyone’s rushed and overworked, especially front line reps at a call center. But it’s their job to hear you out (within reason!)

Your move(s):Sympathy, with an iron edge. "I know you're eager to help me, but I actually need to explain my situation a little bit more before we move to the solution, okay? Thanks."

3: The blowback from the previous rude customer landing on you

                You’re not the a$$hole who just threw your organic coffee at your barista, right? So why are you the one trying to turn her frown upside down?

Your move(s): Sympathy, with a humorous edge. "Wow, that last guy was some piece of work, eh? Well, we're not all like that, I can tell you." If this doesn't work, try yoga breaths, remembering your first job, and just letting it go. 

4: Huge mergers with the potential to significantly lower your quality of life

                Why more people aren't in a froth about banks, cable companies, and tech companies taking over the earth is a mystery to me. It’s going to make your life really, really miserable when ComCast/Time Warner has the power to throttle content from other providers, yet…somehow it’s pushed through.

Your move(s): Short of slowly weaning yourself off cable and the internet over time, I honestly don't know. This is so scary, yet so real. Any ideas? 

5: The first (unreasonable) “no”

                Refunds, rebates, replacements---sometimes you need to push a *little*. 

Your move(s): Just do it calmly and politely, and use the “threat sandwich”. Compliment the product or service, threaten to take your business elsewhere, and then assure the rep that you’re positive something can be worked out…can’t it?

6: Purveyors or service providers who fail to hold up their end of the “bargain”--after you've invested your time or money with them (i.e. 24- hour plumbers not answering the phone after 9 PM to come back and repair the drip they missed the first time)

                You paid for a service or good, not a marker at a blackjack game. Reliable, honest, and consistent service shouldn't be a gamble.

Your move(s): Ask for a recompense for the miss, and failing that, get on Yelp or Twitter and detail your disappointment. 

7: Consistently poor service, performance, or longevity of the product

                One or two incidents in the lifetime of a relationship is no big deal. Monthly or weekly screw-ups, multiple disappointments from the same company, and Houston, we've got a problem. 

Your move(s): Time to change your provider or brand. If you're stuck with a dud product or service (contracts, cable company monopoly), try to work with the company and see if you can improve the problems. If that fails...channel your righteous rage into inventing an alternative. 

Tutorial: PhraseHacking!

Many articles and tutorials offer lists of helpful phrases and magic words that can turn a call around. I say that’s only half the story. You need the recipe, not just the finished product. You need to know how to construct your own magic phrases—not just parrot the ones you found on in a listicle somewhere.

I’ve performed word-by word “autopsies” on some effective phrases I’ve used or heard used in my call center days, for your own coroner’s report!

The four phrases:

“Hi, I hope you can help me.”

“Okay, we are at $87.52 today.”

“So, I see by the notes that you’re considering closing out the account today.”

“Oh, I wish I didn’t have to say that it’s the case, but unfortunately, that’s what we’re looking at right now.”

 1.       For collections: (For requesting contact information from a third party)

“Hi, I hope you can help me.”

This phrase was extremely effective. Why?

1.       “Hi” (Informal greeting, sets a friendly tone)

2.       “I hope” (no one wants to dash your hopes)

3.       “you can help me” (a request for help is actually a more powerful psychological bonding tool than doing a favor, studies show. Use this to “bond” your listener to you.)

Overall, this phrase gives your listener a direction, and something to do, to get you off the phone graciously—i.e., give you the contact information. It also puts you in this position (see below article), ‘the powerful supplicant’.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2013/08/the_kindly_brontosaurus_the_amazing_prehistoric_posture_that_will_get_you.html

Frankenstein’s monster: making a similar sentence using the knowledge you gained from your autopsy

“Hello there¹, I’m hoping you might be able to² help me out here³.”

2.       For retail or other sales: (Giving tally)

“Okay, we are at $87.52 today.”

1.       “Okay” (casual usage, indicates wrap- up of job duties, sounds brisk yet friendly)

2.       “we” (magic word cubed. “We” creates a sense of teamwork, unity, and the subtle indication that you’ve been working with the customer this whole time.)

3.       “are at” (Some people don’t like roundabout ways of referring to dollar amounts- those numbers with no currency indicator you see on menus, or the like. I personally think it’s situational. When you’re the IRS, you don’t say “We’re at $15,528.53 today”. There are times to be exact, and there are times to draw the veil of subtly over what you’re doing. Shopping for pleasure is one of those times to blur the lines of harsh reality as much as possible.

4.       “today.” (You’ll be back! Or conversely “Hey, it’s just one day, tomorrow you can go on a budget! But YOLO!”)

There is something offhand, casual, and even at bit international about this phrase. Heard it at the H&M in Denver Pavilions shopping center and was so struck with it I decided to write this article.

Frankenstein’s monster: making a similar sentence using the knowledge you gained from your autopsy

“Alright¹, we’re² looking at³ 57.92 for you this time⁴.”

3.       For retention: (Upon opening up the case)

“So, I see by the notes [or “my other customer service agent told me” if you have a retention queue that is separate] that you’re considering closing out the account today.”

1.       “So” (this is the opening shot of a longer conversation, inviting explanations, which means you can give counteroffers.)

2.       “I see by the notes” (I pay attention and I care)

3.       “you’re considering” (You haven’t done it yet, but I am deferential to your wants)

4.       “closing out” (or some other delicate euphemism like “changing the status of”/ ‘discontinuing”)

5.       “today” (What happened in the recent past that dramatically changed your service so that TODAY you called us? Oh my gosh!)

I had to train my retention reps out of saying “You want to terminate your account, is that correct?” (So many things wrong with that, I don’t even know where to start!)

Frankenstein’s monster: making a similar sentence using the knowledge you gained from your autopsy:

 So¹, I can see that² you’re thinking about³ discontinuing⁴ your services with us today⁵.”

 4.       For all customer support bad-news situations:

“Oh, I wish I didn’t have to say that it’s the case, but unfortunately, that’s what we’re looking at right now.”

1.       “Oh” (universal signal for regret)

2.       “I wish” (further signaling that you care, and you regret having to give bad news)

3.       “have to say it’s the case” (firm yet polite way of setting expectations and boundaries)

4.       “unfortunately” (signally that you understand the frustrations/situation of the customer

5.       “that’s what we’re looking at” (I particularly like “what we’re looking at”- it orients the “team” to the mindset of problem solving and looking forward to solutions, rather than digging in and arguing about the policy or situation)

6.       “right now” (this signals that the situation is not ‘set in stone’, and the customer doesn’t have to contact the BBB or the Attorney General to file a complaint, things might change in the future)

Frankenstein’s monster: making a similar sentence using the knowledge you gained from your autopsy:

“Oh, gosh, what a tough situation¹. I wish I didn’t have to tell you this², but⁴ where we are5 right now⁶ is…”

I heard this phrase from a recorded call from India. I was tasked to find out why certain Indian reps were getting such high scores from our customers (answer: partly their Anglo-Indian accent, which sounded extremely high class and credible, partly their delivery—sweet and helpful.)

Well, you heard the medical examiner! Now you know why these types of phrases are so effective. Go forth and use your knowledge!

Passion Pit: must you be truly passionate about customer expereince to excel in providing it?

Source: http://weheartit.com/

Passion is what keeps you going when things are hard, unexpected challenges arise, or you get bad news.

 BUT: You don’t really need to live, breathe, and eat “customer experience” day in and out to become very successful in the field. It sounds a bit counterintuitive—how can you succeed at something that you’re not completely involved in? 

·         Competence

When working in collections, there were two types of successful collectors: naturals and grinds.

Naturals were born salesmen with lovely voices and an uncanny sense of what to say when to close a deal. They got jazzed over hitting big payments and putting up huge numbers on the board day after day. They thrilled to the roller coaster ride of it all.

Grinds usually came from academic or other white- collar backgrounds—they were educated in a wide swath of subjects, and were always finding angles to improve their game—jotting down telephone numbers that didn’t ring through on the automated dialer system and then manually calling them later, creating more detailed notes in the accounts, learning more about Accurint in their spare time.

Overall, both groups had competence- they were skilled at their job. Naturals came by it more easily, but both groups were focused, prepared, and knew their market.

·         Work Ethic

Passion is the spark and the fire, but good work habits like application, patience, and perseverance—those are the things that you really need at your job. I’ve seen many a reality show in which a sniffling participant argues that they want the prize more, so they should get it, which is often a cover for their lack of competence or work ethic. Wanting something or loving something to death is not enough to bring it to fruition.

·         Curiosity

My top reps at a Philippines based outsourced call center would surf Wikipedia in their ‘avail’ times. It was one of the few sites not blocked, and it gave them an irresistible look through a window into the outside world.

 In many of my jobs, including retail, I made myself a better salesperson by reading everything I could get my hands on about the company and the products.

Was I “passionate” about denim washes? No, but as a naturally (and insatiably!) curious person, I was willing to direct my curiosity to a area where it would pay off in competence down the line.  

·         Vision

Exceptional “psychic” customer experiences come from knowing what your customers might need down the line. It’s great to be passionate about providing great service in the here and now, but what about extension brands, products, and services that they’ll need and want later down the line?

How can you take your 1-store operation from using all paper processing and tracking to a 3-store chain that’s completely digital and eco-friendly?

You need more than just “passion” to accomplish moves like this.

Passion can take you far-- but without these other traits, you'll be flapping your melting wings as you soar ever closer to the sun, oblivious to the dangers....

The Shocking Truth about high school math class: you actually DO use it later in life!

Source: http://rinielsmusings.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/funny-stuff/

What you’re about to learn is not illegal, immoral, or shady. It just seems that way. This technique makes the most of a demographic fact: most people are extremely poor at mental calculations.

For those of you that have worked in retail, you know what I’m talking about.

Ø  How many times has someone asked you “How much is this?” when standing in front of a huge “50%” or “1/2 off” sign?

Ø  How about those that have worked in the restaurant industry who were accidently stiffed by very nice customers who thought $ 5.00 was 20% of $50.00?

Ø  How about people who are shocked by their high total after handing you a huge pile of expensive clothing to ring out?

Where were these people in high school math? Can’t they do basic % off calculations? Can’t they add? Can’t they subtract? Can’t they prorate?

Answer: Let’s test that out.

Let’s do 20% off $62.89.

 It’s so easy…round up the price to the nearest whole number, then divisible- by- five number ( $62.89 becomes $63.00 becomes $65.00) then take the % off (let’s say 20% off) and break that out of 100%. (It’s 1/5—20 is 1/5 of 100). What’s 1/5 of $65.00? (Answer is $13.00). Then you simply subtract $13.00 from $65.00.

 How hard is that? Okay, it’s a little hard.

You’re about to make that work for you.

There are 3 main areas that lend themselves easily to creative math: Retention, collections, and sales.

Let’s talk retention:

When you’re making retention offers, it’s usually a discount in either a lump sum or a timed pay out over a fixed time frame—$30.00 off now, or $100.00 off your next 6 months,  $17.00 a month.

It’s not hard to sell discounts—most people can do a quickie calculation and realize that $72.89 minus $30.00 is around $40.00 Substantial savings. Retention customers aren’t most people, however. They’re upset, and ready to cancel.

We’ve got to bump it up a notch.  

Pitch your discount in 3 ways:

·         Total amount

·         % off

·         New bill amount with savings deducted

So it would sound like this “Well, we’re authorized to take a total of $30.00 off your bill, which is a savings of almost 25% off. Your new bill would be around $42.00 a month for next month. How does that sound for you?”
If the discount is for a fixed time frame, say $10.00 off for 6 months, do the calculations for them:

·         Total savings

·         Immediate discount with bill calculation

·         % off

“I can offer you $10.00 off your bill for the next six months. That’s a total of $60.00 off, a savings of 20% each month, and that will take your bill from $50.00 to $40.00. How’s that sound?”

Rounding the bases:

·         Round UP when talking about discounts or savings

·         Round DOWN when talking about the new bill

Let’s talk sales:

Have you ever seen those heart-rending commercials where “for just pennies a day” you can save little Juanita from rickets? That’s creative math.

Cosmopolitan magazine does the same thing, just with a sprinkle of glitter on it: They compare your “weekly cappuccino habit” with what you could have bought in a year with the savings instead-- “3 iPads loaded with all the True Blood eps you could watch!” It’s putting money into context.

In this case, let’s say you’re selling an internet upgrade package for an extra $20.00 a month. Now let’s get creative:

Divide the extra cost by 30 days and then round DOWN: If it’s 98 cents a day, it’s “pennies” (anything less than $1.00 is pennies). If it’s $1.00-4.00 it’s “the cost of a cup of coffee”.

If you’re selling a package that is a lump sum-- say a year- long warranty for $120.00-- divide that by 12 months, and put that in context: “For $10.00 a month, you can have the security of knowing that….”

Let’s say you’re selling a co-pay repair service protection plan (which many companies offer). You’ll want to compare the in-context cost to the highest possible costs of a no-coverage repair.

“Well, for just $3.00 a month, you could stand to save up to $150.00 on future repairs.”

You can also take advantage of most people’s absolute terror of doing math involving %, and say things like “Well, for only 8% more a month, you can save yourself about $300.00 of possible repair costs.” Do this for low %, those less than 10%.

Let’s talk Collections:

This is the best place to use creative math. It takes nerves of steel and a genuine liking for bargaining, but if you’re in collections, you’ve got both. Here are some creative math tricks to use:

Breaking up payments:

You want $500.00 from your debtor. Sure, it would be great to have $500.00 now, green money. But let’s face it, if they had $500.00, they probably wouldn’t be on the receiving end of your call. So use the start high, go low method to break up the payments.

Start high, go low:

Start with your highest bid: “Do you have$500.00 today so we can make this go away?” No, they don’t. Then go to a lower one or a settlement or buy-out: “Well, I can shave off $200.00 if we have $300.00 to make this disappear.” Nope. They’re on WIC and SNAP. Okay, fine. It’s payment plan time.

How’s$100.00 a month for 5 months? That’s $25.00 a week (context!) It’s about a tank of gas or so.

No? How about $50.00 a month for the next 6 months, and we see where we are in 3?

Cool. All along you wanted that $50.00. Welcome to creative math.

General tips:

·         When dealing with contracts, don’t use “years”, use “months”. Reverse when dealing with discounts, down to six months: “Half a year!”

·         Jot down a list of “contexts” in which to put money—a cup of coffee, the morning paper, a tank of gas, a magazine… thing that people buy almost every day or week and don’t think twice about.

·         It’s okay for YOU to use a calculator when you’re on the phone, and even in person--show the customer with your use of a calculator that a) you’re just like them and b) you’re willing to “work” for them. (Evil mustache twirls here).

·         Use terms like “double” or “half” for 50% off. You can also use “savings context”—“that’s a savings of almost 50%, just about half off!” for 40-49% off.

·         Use action words like “cut” or “slash” to indicate the dramatic lengths you’re going to with your 8% off savings. (Slight sarcasm here.)

Remember, with great power, comes great responsibility. Don’t use creative math to bamboozle or cheat your customers- only to sell them items that they will use, or to explain the benefits of your offers in a way that will be appealing to them. Now go forth and dazzle!

Falling off the gerbil wheel: what Collections can teach you about customer service

Inside the world no one wants to talk about in public but everyone's morbidly curious about....Collections.

I worked collections for 6 months, and learned an incredible amount about customer service. I can just hear the groans and see the rolled eyes, but it's true. I was the only woman in the top five performers every month, and I was so valuable to the company that when I left, my boss asked me if I would consider working from home, making my own hours, part time, anything to keep me in the business. And I did it with customer service-- really!

Collections has a bad reputation- most of us have either experienced the horror stories (threats to call the local police or publish newspaper lists of deadbeats) or heard about them through "exposed!" news stories that highlight the worst, most fly -by- night of the shops. But it was in collections that I learned many of the skills that I use today as a customer service expert in call centers.

Number 1: Listen about twice as much as you talk. 

Irate customers (and all collections customers-- we called them "debtors" or "payers", for a rather queasy making window into the super alpha world of collectors-- are irate) have a story they feel has not been heard and acknowledged. Sometimes it's legit, most of the time it's misunderstanding layered with personal delusions, but....see Number 2.

Number 2: You live in a place called 'Customer World'. And it's kind of scary.

The customers don't have any idea what happened, how it got this way, what a payment schedule is, what the actual law is, or what penalties can be charged. But by God, they certainly think they do! Generally speaking, the customer is....how to say this nicely...not the best source of information about their own case. Take what they say with a grain of salt. Usually, if they were on top of things, they wouldn't be getting calls from a collection agency.

Getting the customer to manage their expectations and get on the same page as you, the rep, is about 95% of the battle. "Okay, so you were under the impression that there was no interest on this note. Alright, I can see how that happened. Well, bad news is that actually there was. [Pause to let this sink in]. So given that situation, what can we work out?"

Number 3: Argue by asking questions, like a lawyer.

If you must point things out to the customer, it's best to come at them sideways, leaning over, like Vincent D'nofrio questioning a "person of interest" in Law & Order Criminal Intent. "So, if your son took out the loan, Mrs. Samuel, how did he get your SSI number again-- I just want to make sure I get all the facts here."

Number 4: It's ALL about how you say it. 

This means the words you choose and your tone, emphasis, enunciation, phrasing, and intonation. The ability to make snap decisions about what tone to use with which customer is a skill that's built up over time, but one of the most powerful tools in your toolkit is the ability to "play with your voice" as masterfully as a Royal Shakespeare Company actor.

A few key points:

Use collaborative language and qualifiers as much as possible:

• "We want to see this get worked out"
• "Just a quick call to see if that payment pushed through."
• "Let's see what we can work out for ya, real quick, okay?"

Gain agreement by asking permission and setting expectations:

• "Okay, so I'm going to get you over to verification and they'll run you through a quick statement about your payments and then you'll be done, cool?"
• "Alright, so what I'm going to do is give you a reminder call a few days before this payment goes through every month so that you have time to go to the bank and put some money on the WalMart card, okay hon?" 

Your vocabulary and usage should match or be *below* the level of the person you're speaking to.

• No one, I repeat NO ONE, likes feeling talked down to. You won't bedazzle them with words. I actually won a few hearts over by explaining jargon and processes in layman's terms, making the scary world of post dated checks, legal disclaimers, and "pending civil cases" more accessible and less threatening (after I had scared the poo out of them by using carefully selected big words on my initial message. See Number 4 headliner).

• Talking to a lawyer? You're a nanny. Talking to a construction worker? You're a high school drop out. Talking to a sometimes- employed scatterbrain? You're a caseworker who cares. 

Number 5: Play with your scripts, your tone, everything, until you find things that fit, and then use them until you're sick to death of them. Rinse and repeat. 

Once you reach a certain level of collections performance you're given better "paper" (i.e. debts) to collect. The most desirable paper is called "bouncers"-- people who had been paying up until the most recent payment and then their payment didn't push through or didn't come in. These were actually easy to collect on, because they were proven payers. I loved NSF's.(Insufficient Funds).

In order to get these guys to pay, you had to use a certain tone and certain words, and I found one that worked like magic: "Let's find out what happened and where the gerbil fell off the wheel here, okay?"

Something about the collaborative, easy going, slightly goofy language made people's defenses come down and I almost always got paid on NSF's.

Number 6: Once you get paid, it seems to work like a magnet to attract more payments throughout the day. 

You can use this law of inertia with your reps (if you're a trainer) or with your customers (if you're a sales person or sales coach). When your rep makes that first sale, jump on it, make a little bit of a fuss, and get that dopamine flowing. The high energy, confidence, and excitement will show on the next few calls and will most likely result in another sale or "maybe", keeping the energy up and self perpetuating. Soon your reps will be addicted to this feeling (insert evil mustache twirling here) and you'll have very effective reps.


Number 7: Red money is not green money. 

Red money is money that hasn't cleared yet-- payments scheduled but not processed. Green money is money in hand / in the bank. Guess which kind you want?

When dealing with customers in sales, retention, or collections, drill your reps into:

A) Managing their expectations and excitement when it comes to promises, maybes and possibles.

 It's so hard to gently pop the balloon of excitement when your newbie comes rushing up to you with a Promise to Pay, but after you make a fuss, nicely remind them "Let's save the real celebration for the green money, okay? But great work."

B) Taking the bird in the hand vs. the two in the bush. 

Sure, selling a Mega Blow Out Super Stud package on your first day to a confused Little Old Lady is a ego boost....until her son sees the charges and screams bloody murder and processes a chargeback! Go for the 12$ a month insurance, the 5$ a month extra channel upgrade....until the training wheels are off and you know what big game smells like and acts like.

I was the rare person who liked collections and would happily spend a Saturday night drinking Jack and Coke's and talking shop with other "collectors" (I lived in an area so heavily dominated by the industry we had our own bank that exclusively served collectors!), but I know it's not for everyone.

That doesn't mean you can't take some lessons from collections back to your own sales, retention, and up selling customer service and tech teams! So do we have a deal?