Web Extras – Skill Sharpener

How successful are your reps at managing their time? — Here are some additional resources for time management:

• An excerpt from Jackie Gaines’s book, Wait a Hot Minute!.
• An article from the Customer Service Group archives on how reps can manage time by improving their listening skills.

Reinforce reps’ efforts to use positive language with customers — The following resources will help your reps keep things positive with customers.

• A blog post by JoAnna Brandi on “The Problem with ‘No Problem.’”
• An article from the Customer Service Group archives with further advice from JoAnna Brandi on “thinking — and acting — positively.”

Help your reps deal effectively with workplace change — The following resources will help your staff through periods of change:

• A Barbara Burke blog post on dealing with toxic talk.
• An article featuring Barbara Burke’s advice on how to deal with workplace change. Share it with your staff.

Ongoing training and reinforcement keep listening skills sharp — Use the following resources to help reps hone their listening skills.

• A table of phrases that reps can use when paraphrasing.
• An article from the Customer Service Group archives that provides an active listening self-test.

Making teamwork work in the service center — For additional ideas and insights on improving teamwork in the service center, read and share these articles:

• Mario Moussa discusses the STAR model for team building in this Wharton@Work article.
• Renee Evenson talks to frontline reps about contributing to the success of the team. Share it with your staff.

A car-maker’s hard-won lessons apply to all service professionals — Joseph A. Michelli, author of Driven to Delight, reports on Mercedes-Benz USA’s efforts to improve its customer experience and what customer service reps in general can learn from that experience. Michelli offers additional advice in the links below:

• In this blog post Michelli suggests how managers can leave a “leadership legacy” in their organizations.
• Michelli has also worked with and reported on the Starbucks service mission in his book Leading the Starbucks Way. Here’s a summary article from the Customer Service Group archives.

Help reps to make a more positive impression with customers — A group of well-known customer service experts bring their expertise to bear in this issue of The Customer Communicator to answer the question, “What can reps do to make a more positive impression on customers?” The links below offer additional help from some of those experts.

• Read Jeff Toister’s blog post on the “2015 National Rage Study” that looks at what customers don’t like about the customer experience.
• Share an article from the Customer Service Group archives. It will help your staff keep a positive attitude.

Help your reps to “lean in” to criticism — In this month’s issue of The Customer Communicator newsletter, Richard S. Gallagher, author of The Customer Service Survival Kit, offers reps a strategy for “leaning in” to criticism as a way to gain agreement. The links below offer additional tools:

• In the video below, Dr. Gallagher discusses techniques for dealing with difficult customers.
• In this article from the Customer Service Group archives, Gallagher gives managers advice on preparing reps for “worst-case scenarios.”

Don’t subject your reps to a toxic work environment — Paul White, coauthor of Rising Above a Toxic Workplace, describes the dangers of a toxic workplace and suggests ways that reps can cope in this month’s issue of The Customer Communicator. The links below offer additional tools for dealing with a toxic workplace.

• See Dr. Paul White’s blog post, “5 Ways to Tell If Your Workplace Is Toxic.”
• An article from our archives that can help your reps avoid toxic talk.

Teach your reps the importance of asking customers the right questions — The January issue of The Customer Communicator provides advice from writer and speaker Shep Hyken on building rapport and solving problems by asking the right questions. The links below offer even more for managers to work with:

• A C-Suite TV video of Shep Hyken discussing his most recent book, Amaze Every Customer Every Time.
• An archive article on making a habit of asking questions.