Tag Archive for: training

The Hands-Off Customer: Who are they and how do you help them?

Every now and then someone walks into a store who does not want your attention. They’re not interested in your normal customer service tactics and skills; while they might appreciate all your efforts, they’ve no need of them. This is what we call a “Hands-Off Customer” in the sense that the customer service is not hands-on as it is with all the other stereotypes in this series.

Who is the Hands-off Customer & how to spot one…

The hands-off Customer can be a regular, but this isn’t necessarily the case. These are the people who come in knowing exactly what they’re looking for, probably where to find it in-store, and don’t want to be fussed or fluttered over. They’re on a mission and they’ve done the research; in sales-speak we might say that they are 90% of the way through the buyer journey and are now simply ready to grab what they need and pay.

It is essential for sales staff to learn to recognize a hands-off customer as soon as they’re greeted. The easiest way, of course, is to take a hint. When a customer says ‘no, thanks, I know I need’, it’s a good sign that they don’t need any staff hovering over them. As with the other types of customers that might walk into the store, learning to spot these hands-off customers becomes easier with time.

Correctly Identified a Hands-Off Customer, now what?

Having established that one of these types of customers isn’t open to the normal customer service tactics does not mean that they should not be serviced at all. After all, they’re still a customer and deserve to have the same great experience that all people who walk into the store get.

How then do we service customers who don’t want to be serviced? The trick lies in adapting your style. Just because a customer says they’re ‘fine’ and ‘don’t need help, thank you’ does not mean that staff has permission to neglect this customer. Rather than hovering, or actively up- or cross-selling items, staff might keep a vigilant – albeit distant – eye on this hands-off customer. Check to see if they do indeed find what they’re after. It’s always possible, after all, that they can’t find the exact thing they wanted even though they know that the store carries the product. The idea is to be helpful when needed; the customer is already inspired, that part of the sales trick is done but it’s important to keep them inspired.

When the customer has found the item they’re looking for and is at the cashier ready to pay, a small amount of customer servicing can be accomplished. A quick “did you find everything you were looking for?” will generate the correct experience – staff let them be, but they are always aware of the customer’s status and needs.

Don’t forget to say goodbye!

After the purchase has been made, the farewell is equally important. Don’t let the customer think that they’ve been dismissed simply because they didn’t ask for help. Make them aware of the fact that staff was aware of them. No one truly wants to be ignored – left alone? Maybe, ignored? Never.

What’s left to say…

Even though a hands-off customer doesn’t need help doesn’t mean that they should be dismissed out of hand. What’s more, the same customer coming back might not be a hands-off customer; the next time they might need some real customer service. Be ready for them.

Essentially, the rule of thumb is as follows: No customer should be ignored, all customers should be serviced to some degree.

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Window Shoppers: Turn them into Customers [Part 2]

One of the previous articles published concluded that it is possible to turn window shoppers into customers. It didn’t go into the how’s or the why’s, but it did explain the who’s. Window shoppers have a variety of reasons why they are not ready – or willing – to purchase. Determining their openness to a sales pitch – or indeed, further conversation – is the primary step to establishing whether or not they can be turned into potential customers. Once that has been determined, the question is then: how?

How to convert a window shopper into a customer

In essence, any person who walks into a store is a potential customer. It is the purpose of the customer service representative to close the deal.

This begins and ends with one term: connect.

Connect

Connect is the first stage in any customer journey. It involves greeting customers, engaging them, and building a rapport with them from the moment that they walk into the store. It is sales staff’s job to connect with potential customers. This is true for every type of customer that walks into a store, be they a regular, an unpleasable customer, or a window shopper.

As we have discovered, most people are willing to wait up to 2 minutes before they are offered assistance. Essentially, that means staff has 2 minutes to establish a conversation with customers the moment they walk in.

How to Connect

One of the first things that staff needs to learn is how to not give a prospective customer the option of shutting down the conversation straight away. This mainly means not asking the ‘Can I help you?’ question. Why? Because this is a closed question, all the window shopper has to do is say ‘No’ and that’s it. Not the best way to start a conversation.

Instead, train staff to ask open questions that enable the shopper to answer in more detail:

  • “Hi there, have you been here before?” leads to “Let me show you around!” or “Welcome back, let me show you our new arrivals!”
  • “Welcome to [insert store name here], how are you?” opens the conversation to further small talk.
  • “Hi, I noticed you looking at [insert products here]…” this sort of conversation starter allows for staff to talk about product benefits and features, opening the conversation even further and hopefully sparking interest in the window shopper.

Developing these types of conversational tactics will also impact the sales pitch. Pitching becomes easier when staff has established a conversation with a customer. Things can go wrong at any stage in a conversation, however, and it’s important for staff to realize how to make their pitches. If the conversation has been about purple socks, for example, it makes little sense to suddenly start talking about the specials on tennis rackets. Common sense rules supreme: it’s vital to adjust the sales script to the customer.

Another thing that shouldn’t be forgotten is your unique selling point (USP). Giving customers, window shoppers or otherwise, a reason why they should make their purchase with your business and not the competition is the best way to convert them. It’s not always easy to put your USP into words, but it’s important to do so.

So, what makes window shoppers different from other conversions?

Nothing. The big secret to converting window shoppers into customers is to treat them like any other customer that walks in. All the tricks of the trade that staff learn when talking with customers, closing deals with regulars, can and should be applied to window shoppers – after all, you won’t know if they’ll become customers unless you try it out, and at the end of the day, isn’t that they point?

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Please the Unpleasable Customer: Can it be done?

There’s just no pleasing some people. This is a fact of life, and it’s certainly a customer service fact. One of the types of customer that every customer service representative has to deal with is the unpleasable customer. The stereotypical name says it all: ‘unpleasable customer’. The question is: are they truly unpleasable? Or is there a way to please the unpleasable customer?

What defines an Unpleasable Customer?

First, it’s important to understand the unpleasable customer. In a previous article I called them the ‘eternal complainers…who are simply impossible to please.’ It does not matter how far a customer service representative is willing to go, this person will never be happy with the product or the level of service. Essentially, they are the product of their own temperament and there is little to be done to improve it. However, it’s important to note here that an unpleasable customer is not necessarily an unpleasant person.

I had a customer once, in a cafe, who ordered a regular latte and a slice of walnut-carrot cake. Everything was brought to her table in the standard condition – that is to say, with the best service that we provided for all our other customers. The customer touched her coffee and summoned me back; it wasn’t warm enough. I made her another. This one was too hot, she asked for cold milk on the side. I brought this to her, with apologies and an explanation – our coffee machine was analogue and did not deliver the precise temperatures (that machine was one of the reasons why people kept coming back, it added romance to the place). She told me that if that was the case we should buy a new coffee machine. I told her I would suggest it. I didn’t tell her that she was the only one who had complained. By this time the cake was cold. It needed reheating. Then the walnuts were too hard, and didn’t we know how to properly prepare nuts before we baked them into cake?

You get the picture. You probably read that in such a tone that painted the woman’s voice in a judgemental and harsh manner. She wasn’t. Nothing we did that day could make her happy, but she was never unkind about it. She could have been nicer, but she was never cruel or mean.

Everything she asked for fell within her expectations.

That is the crux of the matter: customer expectations. Unpleasable customers have impossible expectations. They are customers that ask for above and beyond because that’s what they want. They’re not necessarily doing it to make life difficult – although, that might be the case in some instances.

Can we please the Unpleasable Customer?

The point of customer service, is that it doesn’t matter what the customer asks for or acts like: every customer should be serviced. It goes against the grain of customer service to say that some customers are just unserviceable; a good customer service representative should know how to make every person who walks into their store walk out feeling valued, validated, and more loyal than before. The idea that you cannot please the unpleasable customer goes against customer service doctrine! It just doesn’t seem possible.

The easiest thing to do would be to give up, of course; so much energy is required to get any satisfaction out of helping someone who won’t be helped. It’s like pulling teeth. Surrender doesn’t help in the long run. Ignoring, or mistreating an unpleasable customer will lead to intense negative feedback and advocacy – perhaps far more so than with simply an unhappy customer.

The bottom line is: no, we cannot please the unpleasable customer.

We can, however, make sure that they are treated correctly, if only to avoid the deeper impact of negative advocacy.

How do we Please the Unpleasable Customer?

If servicing an unpleasable customer is all about managing their expectations – however outlandish those might seem – then it goes without saying that the only way to please them is to do the utmost best you can. Unpleasable customers often require extra attention – sometimes even exclusive attention. They might even be better served by a manager or supervisor, depending on how difficult they are being.

To answer the question then: We please the unpleasable customer by being extra courteous, doing our best, offering our best, and by being exceptionally patient.

Don’t think of them as an obstacle. Think of them as a challenge. Difficult as they may be, the unpleasable customer can still become a loyal one.

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[Intern Insight] Learning through Experience: The Hard Way

Learning, one way or the other…

“I learned it the hard way.” I think everybody had an experience with this phrase. I mean it happens, like when you forget to lock your car and you come back and your personal belongings are stolen. Or you cheat during a test and the teacher catches you out and you score a 1, which really decreases your previously good average. Learning things the hard way. Haven’t we all been there in some shape or form? I know I have…

Then the phrase “Learned it hard way” really applies. It means that you learn from unpleasant experiences rather than being taught. Like, if you tried to warn somebody several times, but they won’t listen, then you’re like: “Well, I guess they’ll find out the hard way then.”

Graydon Carter once stated: “Most of us have learned the hard way that there are very few things can you absolutely count on in life”.

That said, there are several things we can always count on in life like toast with jam will fall jam-side down, or that the postman will come just as you step into the bath, that no bus shows for 30 minutes and then 3 arrive at the same time, or that you click on ‘send’ and then immediately spot a typo. Be honest here, you recognised some of these things.

What we can conclude is that learning ‘the hard way’ is an effective method of learning. The bad experience you achieved is still an experience and should prevent you from doing it again right?

We learn from experience. Like we know that after lightning you hear thunder and that we are not going to stand close to a high point, as there’s a change you get electrocuted. According to General Psychology: “learning is acquiring a relatively permanent change in behaviour through experience.” This means that we adapt our behaviour based on what we learn through experience.

There are two types of learning: observational learning and associative learning.

I could seriously elaborate on those types of learning, but the short story is that observational learning is about learning through observing others engage in different types of behaviours. Associative learning, on the other hand, is the process by which someone learns a connection between two stimuli. You have two forms of associative learning: classical and operant, but we’ll skip those two for the moment as I’ve probably already bored you enough with psychology.

Factors and Variable

What I find interesting is that the process of learning is influenced by a variety of factors. Teachers and/or parents might find these factors handy to know to guide kids through the learning process. There are many, let me tell you that, but some are worth highlighting:

The Personal Factors

First, you have personal factors such as ‘fatigue’ and ‘boredom’. The difference is that fatigue refers to mental or physical tiredness, which (shocker) decreases efficiency and capability to work. Boredom, on the contrary, is a lack of motivation or desire to work.

This links with the factor ‘interest’. Learning should always be stimulated with different types of tools, like videos, for example, to keep it interesting.

The most important personal factor of the learning process, also known as actually the heart of learning, is ‘motivation’. It really takes a person’s internal willpower to accomplish something. We can divide motivation into two elements: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to behaviour that is driven by internal rewards. Extrinsic motivation refers to behaviour that is driven by external rewards. For example, someone who writes music for his own listening pleasure relies on intrinsic motivation, and a person who writes his songs for money is driven by extrinsic motivation.

The Environmental Factors

Enough about the personal factors, let’s go to the environmental factors. Environmental influences on learning already begin when the child is in the womb. Studies show that the physical, emotional, and mental condition of the mother influences the development of the foetus in the womb. Crazy, right? Apparently, it has something to do with stress levels. So, if a mum wasn’t in a good place when she was pregnant, it already has an impact on you’re the child’s level of intelligence and development.

Other environmental factors that influence learning capacity include things in your immediate surroundings: cultural, social and natural. Factors of nature seem quite logical to me, it has been found that humidity and high temperature can reduce mental efficiency. I could relate to that, always when I tried to work outside with sunny weather in The Netherlands (this happens very rarely) my concentration is really bad. You simply can’t concentrate since you just want to enjoy the good weather.

Your social surroundings include your school, home, favourite bar, basically anywhere where you have your family and friends around you. You can be sure that they can both positively and stupidly – thinking about some ‘interesting’ things my friends have done in the past – influence learning.

Lastly, cultural pressures and social expectations play a role, as the essence of culture is mirrored in its social and educational institutions. Therefore, the learning is greatly determined by the prospects and demands of your culture.

Social Media

A sort of ‘post-script’ environmental factor is the quite big influence is social media. Social media is seen as an important component in transmitting information. Does it have a place as a learning and teaching tool or it is simply a distraction? Again, it has its pro’s and con’s, but I’ll come back to that in another article. For now, let’s just say that social media does play a role in “learning the hard way”.
Nowadays, when something happens people have their smartphone. They film it, post it, share it, you name it and suddenly, the event is everywhere, good or bad. This is a positive thing if you filmed a theft or something, but a negative thing when you accidentally stumble over a doorstep for example, then your fall will become the laugh of the day.

Life goes on

At the end of the day, if we are going to learn things the hard way, hopefully, we learn quickly.

This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Paula van Staalduinen. As part of our internship programs undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Paula’s primary project focuses on training programs and eLearning and how best to adapt this to industries under pressure.

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