Kate Arneil – Customer Service Training
Customer Service Expert
It should be so easy. We all know what constitutes good customer service, so what is it that throws us off track?Some years ago I was managing a very popular restaurant. The evening would begin like this - every table booked twice, restaurant looking great, staff raring to go, kitchen poised hey, we were on top of it all! What could possibly upset this vision of smooth efficiency?
Customers, that's what! They arrive late, they want to order off menu, they don't like the position of the table, they well they just WANT things! Don't they realise there is a restaurant to be run? Never was it more important to make the right impression, and never was it harder not to let the pressures of the job leak out in your manner and voice! It's hard work being 'on' all the time, and even the best of us can let our frustrations show in the heat of the moment - especially when wrong footed, or taken by surprise. And very often customers will not do what we expect them to do, and want what we expect them to want.
What I have learned from years on the customer service frontline and I've done a lot, from running a direct sales company to being landlord of numerous flats (and never an empty month!) - is the importance of listening, and trying to put your own agenda to the side while you're doing it! It doesn't mean you give in, it just means you create an infinitely better impression, and the customer will feel heard. Often that is enough.
This country doesn't have a great reputation for customer service. What a trick we're missing! It's FREE! All too often we cut to the expensive option the freebies, or the 'two for ones' instead of focussing on, and reminding ourselves of, the basics - the grass roots interaction with our customers that can define their experience of us.
At Impact factory I've worked with a diverse range of clients, including Martha Lane Fox's 'Lucky Voice' Karaoke chain, Somerfield and Aviva. I'm also very involved in the running of our Customer Service Open Course, and our very popular Breakfast Seminars.
I think our Impact Factory Customer Service Training puts delegates firmly in touch with all the skills they already have at their disposal, and raises their awareness of their importance. We look at boundary setting, and how to feel comfortable saying no a fantastic foil for potentially defensive behaviour. We examine all the options we have in any of those sticky moments I'm not short of examples in this department - and also how to go that all important, classy extra mile! With the London 2012 Olympics round the corner, we're all going to be on show, and now's the time to get in training!
Call us on +44 (0)20 7226 1877 for further information.
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