Customer Support Secrets - Equal treatment/Not 1

When I finally decided to write on a subject as this, a few things were running through my mind. This topic is 2 sides of a coin but I will stick to one today.  So a friend had shared her experiences with me about how she went into a shop to make some enquiries and she was disgusted by the way the shop attendants looked at her,( literally looked at here from head to toe before addressing her)  and doubted she was capable of buying what she asked for. In her mind, she was thinking "Is it because of the way I am dressed that they think I can't afford this, or its the way I look?" She left the shop and never came back again. The lady had lost a very potential customer.

I know a lot of you can relate to this kind of  treatment from Customer Support personnel, shop attendants, waiters, etc where people give

preferential treatment to people who "look" good, rich or worthy of good customer relations. Should that be the case?

For me, all customers deserve the best treatment that they can get. You need to smile and treat all customers with the best reception. Greet them and ask if they need help even before they begin to speak especially for those you meet face-to-face. Your smile should be welcoming and exceptional. It is very bad to assume what people want or how much they can spend based on how they look. It is very bad to judge by what we see.


Serving Customer is your top priority.

Also, you need to understand that serving customers is your top priority. You need to make sure they are attended to before returning to other tasks. Another friend of mine in my office also shared an experience where she was at the bank to make a deposit, right in front of her, the teller was receiving personal calls and had a divided attention in handling her. He kept asking the same questions over and over again. My friend was wondering if it was because her money was small? lol, This can be very rude, frustrating and disrespectful. Not when you have a customer in front of you waiting to be served. Better still, you can ask the customers permission to pick a personal call if it is very important. The former shouldn't happen :-) when you have a customer, give him or her your topmost attention. It makes them feel important.

Another friend I follow on Instagram shared an experience about sitting at a restaurant for close 2 hours without anyone attending to her. She shared a story and in her own words, "..so I went to sit at xxx for almost 2 hours and nobody came to ask me if I will eat something or not...is it because I don't have dollars? let me take my small cedis away" a lot of us can relate to this too isn't it?

Keep Your Customers Well Informed

Another thing is in order to enhance customer loyalty, it is important to keep your customers well informed about updates of your products and services. In order to avoid some customers feeling left out, try as much as you can to keep customers well informed of your systems and processes. If they don't understand they will get impatient and angry. If you suggest a solution to a customer, just make sure it is a very efficient one. It saves every other person some stress.

Your feedback and comments are always welcome as usual, let's discuss and look for better ways in making customers our priority, treating each and every one of them with respect regardless. I will be coming up with some series on how customers should relate to customer service personnel or what do you think? Let me know your thoughts.

Keep being awesome!

Yours Truly,

Ese

Customer Support Associate

DreamOval Limited

Customer Support Secret - Skip the blame, Solve the problem

How would you feel if you called a customer service centre and instead of the person assisting you, he or she begins to blame another department or another colleague for causing you problem or not getting back to you? Can you picture that?

Most often, customer service personnel unconsciously tend to let you feel it was your fault for having this issue. Or they would say "if you did it this way, you wouldn't have got here"

Statement like these will put a customer in a defensive mode or will get the customer more angry. Especially when you are trying to help a customer, blaming serves no purpose. Just like try as much as you can not to blame another department or another colleague. The customer identifies you as a company. However, it is adviceable to say "I" or "we" when dealing with customers. It personalizes the conversation and this shows that you are accountable.

Little secret, Never assign a blame, when you offer a solution, do not fault the customer. It is true that in your line of business or in real life, the blame game feels satisfying for a moment but it does not actually fix the problem. Does it? Remember we discussed in 'Value Complaints' that very few customers will actually make time to complain directly to you. These customers are either angry or frustrated. I can understand that when a customer has an issue and is angry, it is very difficult to not respond immediately with a blame.

Often, the issue is genuinely not your fault and so you don't feel like you're actually "blaming" anyone by just explaining who caused the problem. Always remember, the customer does not need to know and frankly does not care that it was not your fault. The customer is only interested in what you are going to do to fix his problem.

Customer Loyalty is Key

Stay focused on what you will do to resolve the issues and keep the finger pointing out of it. It doesn't help in building customer loyalty. Staying focused on the solution, does not only make you more effective, but also shows your customer that you are confident and capable.

This results in a more positive customer experience and goes a long way to give the customer an opportunity of coming back to you whenever he or she has issues because he believes in you.

Keep Being Awesome!

Yours Truly,

Ese.

Customer Support Associate,

DreamOval Limited.

iPlus40 - Outrunning Horses

iPlus40 is a pastoral mentoring conference put together by Bishop Gideon Titi-Offei, Ghana’s most influential behavioural coach to empower and educate pastors under 40 years. This is a mentorship programme that provides current tools and strategies for pastors to be effective and relevant. We caught up with the Bishop for a brief interview with regards to the upcoming iplus40, 2017 L.E - Hello Bishop, good morning BISHOP - Good morning how are you? LE - Very well, thank you. How are you too? BISHOP - The Lord has been good to me. LE. - So I've heard about iPlus40 coming up this year, do you mind telling me about it? BISHOP - iPlus40 is an acronym for International Pastors and leaders Under 40 summit. A few years ago, the Lord told me to bridge the gap between the accomplished ministers of the gospel, Christian leaders and emerging leaders. There is a leadership vacuum and we need to fill that leadership vacuum. So what iPlus does is to create a platform where these accomplished pastoral and Christian leaders mentor through the sharing of experiences and ideas with emerging leaders and this is the 3rd year we are running this conference. L.E - What was your motivation behind this? BISHOP - You know I have always been a leadership person, my calling is to discover, develop and deploy leaders from the church to the world and win leaders from the world to the church. My motivation is my mission; my calling. This leadership thing that I want to be developed for the church. L.E - When is it coming off this year and what are we to expect during this conference? BISHOP - The conference starts from the 1st and ends on the 6th of May, at the Pleasant Place Church on the Spintex road. Everyday from 7 am to 4 pm. Starts with the ordination school, then continues with 5 sessions daily. L.E - Who are some of the Christian leaders mentoring this year? BISHOP - The array of speakers we have put together includes the Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams, Bishop Charles Agyin Asare, Rev. Sam Kurankye-Ankrah, Rev. Steve Mensah, Bishop Dominic Allotey (USA), Dr. Ralph Dartey (Canada), Pastor Walle Olulana(UK), Apostle Dr. Opoku Onyinah from the Church of Pentecost, Rev. Professor Emmanuel Asante from the Methodist Church, Bishop N. A. Tackie-Yarboi and of course myself. You can imagine the impact that these men of God are going to have. If we combine the ministry of these men who will be speaking to us, you are looking at a combined experience of over 300 years and all these will be poured upon the emerging pastors within one week. The impact is to revive the ministries of these ones, renew their mandate, encourage them as they leave, they should make the fullest impact on their congregation.

L.E - That’s indeed a number of men of God gracing the conference. How many pastors are you looking to host this year? BISHOP - This year, we are expecting to host about 3000 pastors, already I was with the leaders in Togo and they are coming in buses, as I speak with you, the 3 Northern regions are coming in buses. We are also taking care of their transportation. Others from the Brong-Ahafo Region and Eastern Region. Nigeria is not left out, in fact from our social media advertisement, there are more Nigerians registering than even Ghanaian pastors. So you can imagine. We have distributed over 10,000 letters to 10,000 churches in Ghana so you can imagine what will happen here during that week, L.E - Is this a paid for conference? BISHOP - The conference is free, nobody pays anything. In fact, we are giving to pastors who are coming from deprived communities since its inceptions take home clothes, shoes and food items. The conference is basically funded by the members of the Pleasant Place Church and my University, The Almond Institute. Basically, these are the funding sources for iPlus 40. L.E - Are there any challenges as a host, this is obviously not a small conference. Any challenges you mind sharing? BISHOP - God has been good to us. I am surrounded by very faithful and loyal people who make sure that any challenge taking up, they take full responsibility for them. What we are working on now are the hostels that will host these pastors. Construction is still ongoing and we need to finish it by the 1st of May. Meaning we have about just 2 weeks to make sure everything is finished, so you can imagine the pressure. That is the only challenge at the moment. We know we will overcome it. L.E - Amen! Any expectations as host of iPlus40?

BISHOP - This year’s conference is going to be bigger that all the other years. My expectation, the theme for this year is “Outrunning horses!” My expectation is that there will be divine acceleration for the ministers who will be here. What they did in the last 10 years, they will do in one year when they leave this conference.

L.E - This is amazing! Bishop, your final words especially for those yet to register and those who are coming from Nigeria, Togo and all over Ghana for iPlus40? BISHOP - They should come with huge expectations. They will outrun horses.The hand of God will come upon them. I am expecting the manifest presence of God to come upon us and that is what I am expecting for them. L.E - Thank you so much for your time, Bishop. God bless you. BISHOP - Thank you very much for having me. This was a little interaction I had with the host of iPlus40 2017, Bishop Gideon Titi-Offei. You can register to be part of iPlus40 conference. God bless you as you participate.

Customer Support Secrets - (5 C's) Know How To Apologize

How will you feel if someone just said "I'm sorry" and you can really feel it in their tone of voice that they do not mean it? In our various relationships, we get hurt in one way or the other from friends and loved ones. It is not just about what you say to apologize. IT IS HOW YOU SAY IT! :-)

Same with handling your customers on a daily basis. People will always reach out because they are frustrated and need urgent assistance. The most important key to providing an outstanding customer support is empathy. What best way to empathize than to acknowledge and accept responsibility when your customer has been left down? Apologizing! Isn't it?

The following are a few nuggets to how to apologize.

1. Concede

It is necessary that you apply empathy during the act of apologizing and by showing that you really understand how the customer is feeling at that particular moment. Acknowledging and validating that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Don't just say "I'm sorry" because that is what the customer needs to hear, say it like you mean it. You could say "I am very sorry that we caused this, and I understand your frustration, I am motivated to assist you and once we are through you will be smiling again." (What i did mostly say)

2. Clarify.

After you have acknowledged how frustrated the customer is and tried to calm him, It is important to explain what happened. A number of people will be willing to understand why this happened to them. At this point, the customer will understand how something is a problem but clarify or justifying the situation helps to build trust and transparency. One of the things that has helped me in my line of work is because I will always acknowledge the problem and then try to explain why the customer had a bad experience. Some will make time to listen so that they do not face the same issue again, others will not need the explanation but will only be fine with a solution. You should always be in the position to look out for what the customer really wants then find a way to chip in the reason for the issue.

3. Cherish

Mostly this could be done in the first stage. It is just cool that you appreciate the customer in using your service. It demystifies the perception of not having a warm customer interaction. Showing appreciation not for only the customer's problem but also for the person himself, this will always diffuse the negative feelings by mixing it with positive ones. You see that thing?

4. Compensate

Another important part of an apology is making amends. In our relationships, once we apologize to our friends or family we try to make amends by getting a gift, a card, go on a date and so on. Throwing money at the problem can at times be appropriate, but can also cheapen the gesture. This might be an offer for some personalised attention or simply asking an assuring "Let me know if there is ever anything I can do to help"

5. Confirm

Finally, your apology should invite a response, such as asking the customer if his complaint was resolved to his satisfaction, and if not, what more can you do?. This makes the customer feel involved and respected and possibly a part of the solution. This also assures him that you will be here for him even when the issue has been resolved.

Lastly, a word of style. Just so you don't sound like a robot :-)  a cliche sentence like "sorry for the inconvenience". Personalizing your style goes a long way to establish a connection. I will sometimes say "keep being awesome" But avoid being too cute - you want to empathize not trivialize.

I hope these steps will go a long way to find that your relationship with your customers has actually strengthened as a result. Don't we all make mistakes? we do :-) - your style of assistance could make the customer look forward to the next problem just to know it is an opportunity he can rely on your support.

Keep Being Awesome!

Yours Truly,

Ese😘

Customer Support Associate,

DreamOval Limited

"Ama Ghana" launched - KobbinaAnnanMusic

Ghana our motherland, celebrated her 60th birthday on the 6th of March, 2017. I guess we are still in a celebratory mode since this is a whole year event.

Its is in line with this that Kobina Annan has launched his latest single titled 'Ama Ghana!'

Ama Ghana,  is a metaphorical song of how Nkrumah weeps over Ghana today...

Being in the “prison” of death, he looks back at his beloved Ama (Ghana) whose independence he struggled for, and his heart is broken.

Ama is the beautiful Woman(nation of Ghana) whom Nkrumah dedicated his life, blood and sweat to, 60 years ago. No price was too great; He dedicated his honour, wealth and allegiance to Ama,  just like a groom in love with his beautiful wife. On the 60th anniversary of her independence, Nkrumah remembers his vows to Ama

"I promise on my honor

to be faithful and loyal to (Ama)Ghana my motherland.

I pledge myself to the service of (Ama) Ghana

With all my strength and with all my heart.

I promise to hold in high esteem our heritage,

Won for us through the blood and toil of our fathers;

and I pledge myself in all things

to uphold and defend the good name of (Ama) Ghana.

So help me God.".....To be continued.....

Ama Ghana was launched on 1st April, 2017. I bet this wasn’t an “April fools” message to Ghana . It was one from the bottom of his heart. The lyrics are discerning and they tend to revive the spirit of Nkrumah in the lives of every Ghanaian. A wake up call that though we've been independent for 60 years  we still have problems as a nation; we still need to sit up, put in more effort and work together to build up our nation and make it's name great and strong.

Composed and written by KobinaAnnanMusic Feat O'minor

Listen to Ama Ghana  

You can also visit

https://www.reverbnation.com/kobinaannan/song/27750579-ama-ghana  for all of Kobby's music

You can like Kobinna Annan on Facebook  for updates

#AmA GHANA

#Nkrumah Cries

#KobinaAnnanMusic

#Ominor

Customer Support Secrets - Turn "No" into "Yes"

Thank you guys for all the feedback in the last few weeks. I appreciate every single one of them.

Imagine going to a grocery shop on 2 occasions to get a tin of milk, only to be told that they have run out of stock. the third time you make up your mind to go to the same shop I am very sure you will be contemplating about whether to go or not. Well, that is it also with rendering service for your customers. If they are not getting what they want, at some point, they will leave and might not come back.

That is why it is very important to learn the skill of turning a 'No' into 'Yes'

Avoid saying 'it cannot be done' or 'We do not have it'; rather be positive about being able to make the request come true. Figure out how afterwards. Make the request a top priority and handle it quickly. If you can't make it happen, get someone who can. You will need to find creative ways to help your customers. For instance, an extra time over the phone to understand the request.

In the case of the grocery shop, the owner could say "We are currently out of stock but we will restock in 3 days and we will give you a call" that sounds better isn't it?

As a customer support person or customer service personnel, you have to be willing to go the 'extra mile' to satisfy the customer. Don't forget that the ultimate goal remains total customer satisfaction, great experience and quality service.

This will be much easier for you because you trust you are in charge. Always ask if there is anything you can do for the customer, remember it's the little things that count! Going out of your way to accommodate a customer's need makes them feel important and respected. Whenever possible, try to give your customer even more than they asked for. If you run an eatery and you do not seem to have what the customer needs, you can suggest the other menus, you can ask in a way that can make them change their mind to get what you suggested and they will try it out. Why do I always use the food bit? lol. So you see,  by delivering the smallest amount above their expectations, you can make them feel like they are your most valued customer. It is all in the delivery :-)

As a matter of fact, I picked up my human interaction abilities from my mum. Growing up, I learnt a lot from her especially with how she related to her customers. I didn't understand it until I grew up to really understand her. I thought she was doing so much but she was so passionate about what she was doing and she has been doing it all her life. If they didn't get something they wanted, there was always something she will recommend just so the customer doesn't go away.

If she didn't have something the customer wanted, she will take their contact and promise them she will get them in due time. As soon as the products arrive, she will call all those who left their contacts. Some will actually come to pick up the products and make payment others will pick them on credit. At the end of the day, she tries to make everyone happy.

This week try as much as you can to turn a 'No' into a 'Yes' be positive and continue to win the heart of your customer be willing to go the extra mile and give them more than what they asked for.

Keep being AWESOME!

Your Truly,

Ese

Customer Support Associate,

DreamOval Limited