Customer service as its affectionately known revolves around the telephone. You have to be very particular when delivering customer service over the phone. Since they can't see you, your voice and style is pretty much all you have.
Problem is, people are animals. I'm not referring in any evolutionary sense -just the behavioral. Once an animal senses you are afraid of it, it's likely to attack you. Angry people on the phone are pretty much the same:
Customer: "YOU PEOPLE ARE *&$#@@#!! I DON'T BELIEVE YOU DID THIS!"
(Here the caller's testing the water, to see whether the listener's afraid or not?)
Customer Service Rep: 'Oh, Oh, I'm sorry, oh..umm..hmm..sir...ummm, I'm sorry'
(Voice trembling with fear. Guess what? Green light - Attack me!)
"YOU'RE SORRY!? I DON'T WANT YOU TO BE SORRY! I WANT YOU TO FIX THIS &^$%^%&^ PROBLEM!" (Attack mode!)
Hmm, sound familiar?
If this has happened to you I bet you felt really insulted by the put-down. Probably so spooked that every time the phone rings now, you're haunted by the memory of that call. On the other hand, you may have argued back and thought to yourself "HA! I showed him! No way is someone going to talk to me like that!"
And it made you feel a whole lot better right? And the customer never buys from you again and tells 10 others how much you suck. So - Wrong!
Here are some handy tips on how to handle phone abuse and turn the caller into a loyal customer. Customers who have their complaints solved quickly and satisfactorily, are more likely to become loyal than ones who didn't
1. Realize the anger is not directed at you, personally. I've seen people literally in tears because customers yelled abuse. They were angry with the situation they faced and were coming to you for a solution. They didn't call to abuse you. They don't know you! They called you for a solution. Don't take it personally.
2. DON'T dispute the claim; DON'T re-direct the blame - When the customer is charged and yelling, stay silent. Or verbally "nod", by giving an "uh-huh", "OK", "right", "I see", or some such, whenever they reach the end of their sentence.
3. Don't talk over them! LISTEN. This lets them pour out all their negative thoughts and they soon realize that yelling isn't going to work. Don't say "No, I don't think so, you must have your account confused, our systems simply don't do that". You'll add fuel to the fire by doing this and they'll end up shouting "YOU'RE CALLING ME A LIAR NOW?!!?". And don't blame someone else - or another department in the company - for the mistake. "Oh gosh, I'm sorry, must be accounting again, they haven't gotten anything right all year". This makes you and your company look unprofessional and incompetent. LISTEN to the customers problem. If they continue to yell and scream, using bad language, and so forth, don't say: "LOOK IM NOT TAKING THIS!" and hang up. No. "Hmm, Mr. Taylor, I really would like to help you. I think it would be a good idea if we talked about this when we've BOTH cooled down". This takes the focus off his behavior.
4. Once you've clearly understood the problem, repeat it back to them in their own words. Write down what they say and underline what's relevant to the situation. Something like this, perhaps: "OK, Mr. Taylor, I want to make sure I've understood you correctly and please correct me if I'm wrong. OK, so what we need to work out is why your account balance is missing a $4000 payment you made last month (their own words), right?"
5. Once the customer agrees with you (you should always ask questions that get a YES response), empathize with them. Not sympathize, EMPATHIZE. I've heard some pretty pathetic examples of this! People whom you know (just from their tone of voice) don't give a damn about your problem. You can just picture them chewing on a toothpick with their feet up on the desk and surfing the Internet while you're talking! Then all of a sudden they say "Oh, that's terrible isn't it?" Its insulting. Instead, comfort them by letting them know what they're feeling is absolutely normal. "Mr. Taylor, you have every right to raise this issue with us. (avoid using 'complaint' or 'problem'). And I know very well I would feel the same way if this happened to me. That's why I insist on fixing this." (insist is powerful - you won't stop until its done). If the problem can be fixed there and then, tell them right away. And don't just hang up. Finish with a: "Thank you so much Mr. Taylor, is there anything else I may help you with?"
6. If you need time to look into the problem, tell them just that. Under promise and over deliver. If it takes 30 mins to fix, tell them you'll get back to them in an hour. Then call them in 30 minutes. Better that, than the opposite. Follow up. After a few days, either send them a letter or call them to ensure they are 100% satisfied.
FINALLY: ALWAYS hang up last. How many times did you suddenly remember a question you wanted to ask and got as far as the:
"Oh! Hello, are you there...?" just as... "Click" ...... the phone hangs up. Make sure they're finished.
Follow these quick tips and watch your complaint levels drop. You will also be surprised how many people apologize once their problem has been handled. Proof yet again the anger is directed at the problem and not you

Sammer Hakim is a Dallas-based copywriter serving clients worldwide and helping them with their sales materials. He can be reached at www.marketing-commando.com


Blog Design
It is great that the phrase blog floats around the net day in and day out, but what if you have no idea what a blog really is? Is this going to be helpful to your web site? No, not really. Here we will offer the skinny on the phrase blog, and you can decide for yourself if it may or may not be useful in your web pages. This way you will not be wasting your time on something you may not need, and the energy can be put to something you find more useful for yourself.
The term blog refers to weblog and it is in every fashion not a commercial or professional site. It is more of the personal nature, for comment or web site material. Generally the most recent information on a blog is kept at the top of the page, as blog's are dated log formats. Often they will have commentary of other sites or links directing you to them. Many times the site is dictated by group links and the log is updated frequently. The opinion is this is the very first weblog was back in 1993 it was the Mosaic. This was generally a compiling of links that where kind of disregarded. It took until 1998 for they're to be a mere handful of these so called blog's in existence. The blogger all knew each other and were swapping the links between each other.
By the year 1999 this term blog was starting to pick up pace, and as a result became a phenomenon. Once it became free to the public, it really took off and was a pastime that was enjoyed by many. Web logs were hand coded by developers on the web before the software became available. The use of html was the main coding for this program, and the web designers at the time were pretty much the only ones that knew it. Now that this new software is available to the general public, anyone is capable of making a blog. The moment blogger was released in 1999 it became a huge success with the public. Now people are not restricted on what kind of weblog they make, fast-forward to the year 2000 and people are making as many as 300-350 new blogs daily. There is actually a directory for all these blogs, and it contains as many as 5,500 entries. This is now a craze with over 750,000 blog users; this was not merely a passing trend obviously.
There are multiple tools these days for the people that are truly interested in blogging, this software can be found online and has become extremely popular. Check out the craze for yourself, and see what you think of it you may just enjoy it yourself.
*****


I am internet entrepreneur, who is thriving to make it out there in the world just like everyone else.


Know the 4 Major Principles in Selling to be Successful
The total world economy is based on the quality of sales people out there doing their job and the better they do it, the more it benefits every other worker on the globe. Just imagine what it would be like if we sales people were to stop selling, everything would grind to a halt. In acknowledging that, we as sales people need to know some of the things we do that lead to failure:
1. Not talking to people: This is the oldest and most common problem in the sales world, not talking to (enough) people. Sort out your market place and customer profile, and then start talking to you potential customers.
2. Talking to the wrong people: How many times have you been told at the end of your presentation that they have to discuss it with someone else? So make sure that anyone and everyone involved in making a buying decision is present at your meeting, if not, don't start it until they are. As well as talking to the decision maker, we also have to make sure that we are in the right market. You could be the best sales person in your company selling the best lawn mowers but it would be unlikely that you would sell many canvassing a multi-story apartment block. So match your clients to the products or services you are selling.
3. Talk to the right people- but say the wrong things: They all have the same problem. The sales people all tell me how wonderful they are, their company, their product or service is. They are always number one in their particular field. This may or may not be true, but "So what if I don't need their product or service? It would have been so much easier if they would have asked me first instead of telling me. They are all "product bashing" as hard as they can because that is what they were trained to do. So say the right thing, just ask the customer what they want- and give it to them.
4. Talk to the right people-say the right things - wrongly: It's not what you say but how you say it is the difference between earning twenty five grand a year or one hundred and twenty five grand a year. Imagine that you are at a business function and your boss introduces you to his wife. The five little words that you have to say differently are: -
So This Is Your Wife! You may have had some good fun when you were saying "so this is your wife", in a lot of different ways in order to give it different meanings. It's not what you say, but how you say it that is the most important.
Basically the key to failure is the lack of the proper communication; we need to first make sure we are targeting the correct market, speaking to the decision maker, and that we are then saying the right things and in the correct manner then we are on the path to success in Sales.
To get your copy of my 5 part training course on this absolutely Free click on
www.thehandsontrainingsystem.com right Now.
Yours in Success
Leslie Johnston