April 12, 2018 — Customers, coworkers, and personal demands — those are the top three sources of stress for today’s busy customer service professionals. Managing each type of stress requires different strategies, and it’s well worth the effort to fine-tune your stress management skills, says Genella MacIntyre, author of 5 Steps to Reducing Stress. In an…To read more — login/sign up
March 15, 2018 — Is your service staff maintaining a positive attitude despite the negativity that inevitably arises in the workplace? If not, then keep in mind that March is “Optimism Month,” and the perfect time to work on improving those attitudes. Reps, like everyone else, will benefit from guidance and suggestions for keeping a…To read more — login/sign up
March 2, 2018 — Online channels are playing a larger and larger role in customer service. Not only are customers buying more online, they are taking their service issues online as well, via email, text, web chat, and other online channels, including social media. And customer service reps need to be ready to handle those…To read more — login/sign up
February 16, 2018 — Customer Service Reps are often advised to treat each customer as their only customer. Shannon Butler, a customer service representative at Brenntag Southwest takes that advice literally because she has just one very large customer. But whether reps are working with one customer or one hundred, Butler’s advice in this month’s…To read more — login/sign up
February 1, 2018 — In some organizations, there may be as many as five generations interacting in the service center, and they all have different needs, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. “It is important to understand these generational differences, because everyone comes to the party with a different set of expectations,” says Meagan Johnson, “and the…To read more — login/sign up
January 18, 2018 — It’s January 18 and many of us have already abandoned our New Year’s resolutions. But never fear, it’s not too late to inspire your service team to rethink their resolutions with these suggestions from the pages of Customer Communicator newsletter. Chip R. Bell, author of Kaleidoscope: Delivering Innovative Service that Sparkles suggests a resolution that…To read more — login/sign up
January 5, 2018 — Every other week we post a brief article from Customer Communicator. Over the course of the year we’ve covered everything from building trust with customers, to maintaining positivity, to saying “no” the right way. To wrap up the year, we’re highlighting five of our favorite posts. Timely and informative, they showcase some…To read more — login/sign up
December 14, 2017 — In the December issue of Customer Communicator, Nancy Friedman reminds readers about the importance of the first and the last 10 seconds of a customer call. Friedman, a customer service consultant known as The Telephone Doctor, notes that reps should start each conversation with a positive, and end each conversation with a…To read more — login/sign up
November 30, 2017 — Customer service reps have to deal with a variety of customers — ranging from the calm and polite to the slightly overbearing to the downright irate. It’s all part of the job, and it pays to be prepared for all of the possibilities. When confronted with an angry customer, Nancy Friedman, a…To read more — login/sign up
November 16, 2017 — From effective listening to computer savvy, there are a lot of skills needed to be effective in customer service. This month Customer Communicatornewsletter asked its panel of frontline reps, “What are the most important service skills?” The responses provide practical insights for anyone working in customer service. For example, Jerrard Gates of…To read more — login/sign up
