Table of Contents/ Introduction   

Part A. Service Attitude    

    Your attitude permeates absolutely everything you do. You own your attitude and it establishes and reflects your professionalism, caring, focus, and passion to deliver excellent customer service. This is demonstrated every day and with each customer contact.
This activity area of concentration was intentionally placed ahead of the others in this manual. If you do not have the proper attitude to propel you forward, the other components to achieve excellent customer service simply will not happen. You may possess an incredible knowledge of your company and services provided.
You may have the skills to make that knowledge come alive; however, without the attitude or caring to take action, the proper service will not happen.

1. Attitude Check
2. Whose Attitude
3. Both Sides of Change

Part B. Customer Service Icebreakers    

Whether your attendees are seasoned veterans, those with middle of the road experience, or rookies, those who are very new to the whole customer service arena and possibly even the organization they are employed with, it's very important to put people at ease and encourage their involvement and sharing of ideas. You also want
to avoid divisions within your program.
This activity area does just what it states: it breaks the ice to open the door to communication, involvement, and sharing. It taps the wisdom, talents, and gifts each individual brings to the workplace. This area also allows individuals to realize that they do not stand alone but are a critical component of the entire team representing
excellent customer service. These activities will get your program underway and heading in the right direction.

4. Team Task
5. Promoting Communications and Teamwork
6. Who Are You?
7. You've Got the Power

Part C. Call Centers and the Telephone   

When a representative of your organization is on the phone with a customer, that individual represents all that your company stands for. For that particular customer that customer service and/or sales representative is the company. The way the customer is treated at that moment can make all the difference in the world as to whether
the business relationship continues or comes to a grinding halt. Even with a long-term customer where the relationship has taken perhaps years to develop, it can be destroyed in literally seconds should the customer not be treated properly. Important? To say the least, the telephone represents a critical vital link between the customer and your company. These activities reflect and support that vital link that must exist with each and every customer service occurrence.

8. Have You Ever Called You?
9. The Power of Repetition
10. Calling Your Own Company
11. Evaluating Self

Part D. Professionalism with No Excuses    

Our customers want service, expect it, and demand it. Any other response, action, or behavior is usually summed up in the mind of the customer by one word, excuse.
In the world of survivors, for those who will persevere and achieve the next level of success, the word excuse does not exist. Only results, actions, and solutions need fulfillment. A true professional is constantly adjusting, learning, accepting challenges, and creatively building a customer-responsive relationship. These activities reflect that challenge of remaining a professional under often adverse conditions with no excuses, just service.

12. Excuses, Excuses, Excuses
13. Make It a Miracle
14. Overcoming Obstacles
15. The Rules Have Changed Game
16. Defining Spectacular Service: How We Impact Our Customers Everyday

Part E. Communication-Listening To Your Customers  

Communication is the magic of transforming thought into vivid experience that humans can both express and understand, not just in language, but in signs and symbols and gestures-in facial expressions that color the message with humanness and warmth, with stimulation, with understanding, with quality, with vitality, with friendship, and with sharing. It is said that the greatest courtesy you can give to another human being is to listen to them. How can we possibly even begin to resolve our customers' problems or fulfill their needs if we do not begin by listening? And, even
that is not enough; for often getting the customer to talk so that we can listen is like pulling teeth. So, in addition to listening, we must be able to probe the mind of the customer and get them to talk even more by asking the right questions so that, in turn, we can listen even more. Only then can we truly arrive at the proper understanding of
what the customer actually desires and act accordingly.
These activities demonstrate the power of active listening techniques and the importance of utilizing every tool we have available to us for the best results.

17. Active vs. Passive Communication
18. Say What You Mean-Mean What You Say!
19. Name That Tune! How Moods Influence Customer Communication

Part F. Customer Treatment (Internal and External)   

There's an old saying that goes, "If it isn't happening internally, it probably won't happen externally." We must remember that the true definition of customer does not only include the external customer, who must become the very center of our organization, but also the internal customer.
People who work for the same organization must realize that they truly are customers unto each other. Everyday in the work place there are those associates or co-workers who have an impact on us either directly or indirectly and our ability to be the best professional we can possibly be. In turn, everyday in the work place there are those
who we have an impact upon either directly or indirectly and their ability to be the best professional they can be. Our treatment and support of each other is critical to our success. These activities will demonstrate that importance for both the internal and the external customer.

20. The Grab Bag
21. When You Were a Customer

22. WACTEO

23. The People in Your Office
24. The Internal Customer
25. The Golden Rule
26. A Visit to the Zoo
27. Team Circle-Together We Are One

Part G. Essential Tools for Success    

What does it take for those with the responsibility to provide excellent customer service to have the means to get the job done? What combination of knowledge, skills, and attitude must exist to obtain the best results? What items must each customer service person have available to them in their work arena to fulfill the needs of their
customers and provide solutions? These activities concentrate on those tools that must be available to succeed. No matter how small or grandiose the tool, if it assists in accomplishing the task of servicing the customer, it is important.
These activities will heighten that awareness of our surroundings, skills, knowledge, and attitude and how together they impact our ability to achieve excellent customer service.

28. Check Out Your Work Environment
29. Learn/Teach/Apply
30. Unification
31. Best Practices in Customer Service

Part H. Customers and the World Wide Web   

Technology cannot be ignored-to do so is to ignore change itself and change equates with survival. As the Internet explodes into our lives, we often find ourselves doing battle for the hearts and minds of Web-surfing customers. How to capture their attention, give them the proper choices and feelings of control so that in turn we
not only capture their imagination but their trust and desire to purchase and build a responsive relationship is the challenge before us.
These activities reflect that challenge to capture attention, maintain focus, and build confidence with each customer that enters our company's domain and to have them leave with the desire to return again.

32. Think Before Clicking the Send Key
33. Putting Your Company to the Test: Being Your Own Customer

Part I. Asking for the Order    

Nothing happens until somebody sells something. And, we always like to add, for a profit. Profit is not a dirty word. How long would a company be in existence without a profit? It is absolutely essential that in delivering excellent customer service closure is achieved by asking for the order. All the hard work, experience, knowledge,
and skills one uses with a customer is often for naught when we fail to bring it to a decisive, effective, profitable conclusion.
This section brings the importance of asking for the order into perspective. It holds such a vital role in the overall process of customer service, yet it is often ignored, forgotten, or waylaid until all is lost.
When you utilize your talents and the gifts you bring to the workplace, professionally working with the customer to build a responsive relationship, fulfilling your customer's needs and delivering solutions, you have earned the right to ask for the order.

34. Interdependence and Selling Up
35. Achieving Closure

Part J. Fulfilling Needs/Providing Solutions   

The days of just providing services for our customers are over. Today our customers want, expect, and demand so much more. We must realize that besides providing services, we are in the needs fulfillment business. Our customers are looking to us to provide solutions to their problems and concerns.
They want to know how we will impact their organization as a result of the relationship we intend to build with them-their needs, their market share, their bottom line, and even their future survival. In order to accomplish this, we must get to know our customers almost as well as they know themselves. Only then can we begin to
anticipate change and build a customer-responsive relationship as we fulfill their needs and become a solutions provider for them.

36. Reacting vs. Responding
37. Transformations and Their Impact: A Reality Check
38. Probing the Mind of the Customer
39. Holding On
40. Candid Customer
41. Customer's Perceptions: How Their Expectations Are Created

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Part K. Customer Service Assessments  

Assessments provide a comprehensive view of the skills or situations that customer service representatives must face. None of us are perfect beings. We are human beings with both positive strengths and negatives or opportunities for improvement. Once an assessment takes place, a new awareness exists. When responded to
and acted on, the awareness can lead to greater effectiveness in the customer service arena. The assessments identified here are activities in and of themselves to complement and support your customer service learning experiences.
HRD Press offers an Online Assessment and Learning Center that includes areas related to customer service either directly or indirectly. These include such areas as measuring communication effectiveness; measuring stress management effectiveness; measuring listening effectiveness; measuring customer effectiveness; measuring influencing style; and surveying climate and opinions.
The profiles are available either online or in the traditional paper-and-pencil instrument format.
Each online instrument produces a comprehensive report that includes:
. Item-by-item analysis, summary, and improvement actions within the context of each competency
. A "10/10" report based on the 10 highest development needs and the 10 greatest strengths
. Complete coaching tips
. Reading suggestions
. A development plan
. And a downloadable skills-development booklet

42. HRD Press
43. What Do You Do? The Gifts You Bring to the Workplace

Part L. Uncomfortable Situations    

Customer service at times can be very challenging. Irate or angry customers can often put our professionalism to the test. However, it is absolutely critical to get over, under, or around the obstacles presented by uncomfortable situations in order to get to the heart of the real concern and begin to address our customers' problems and fulfill
their needs. How does one remain cool, calm, and collected during these trying times and reduce anger and defuse situations to the point at which one can start to respond to the customer's real concerns? These activities will reflect those uncomfortable situations we all encounter at times.

44. Real World Customer Encounters
45. Training Activity for Customer Treatment
46. Losing Control
47. Most Embarrassing Moment
48. Your Customer's Perception of Reality

Part M. Customer Service Stories   

Real stories, actual experiences that reflect the good, the bad, and the ugly of customer service, can really bring home a message that will have a long-lasting impact on those participating in your program. Relaying these at the appropriate time can reinforce critical concepts, beliefs, and core values.

49. Service in the News-Do Customers Have to Look the Part?
50. Eureka!

Bonus Section : Being in the Real World-Collected Bits of "Sage" Advice    

This section demonstrates the value of humor in the workplace, which, when properly used, can be a powerful bonding force and allows us to laugh in the face of adversity. So much of quality customer service is common sense, that blinding flash of the obvious to treat others as you yourself would appreciate being treated when you are a customer.
The comments collected here lightheartedly reflect those common courtesies and items we should carry with us on our journey of delivering excellent customer service-enjoy!
 

Appendix A: CD Documenter Learning Tool    
Customer Service Documenter
Appendix B: Customer Service Reminders
Author/Editor Biographies