In terms of personal development, a career in Customer service is one of the most rewarding careers in our time, this is because most skills required to effectively render Customer service are people skills, and these skills are as useful in the growth of our personal lives, as they are in excelling at work.
There are a few things you can practice daily that would put you in the right mindset & set you on the right path to render excellent Customer service every day. I’ll focus on just 5 of them today, and they are:
1.PRACTICE SMILING.
You’ve heard about it, read about it & you do it whenever you feel good about something right? Because smiling is contagious, it is easily transferable from person to person, and this makes it a handy tool when you want a Customer/prospect feel good about coming to patronize your business.
Each morning, as you brush your teeth or shave those hairs, smile at the person in the mirror (I try to charm my own reflection), if you make it a habit of flashing yourself a smile whenever you see your reflection, it becomes easy for you to manufacture magical smiles out of thin air for anyone who comes in contact with you.
2.USE YOUR IMAGINATION.
By that, I mean learn to envision scenarios, a lot of times I try to imagine all sorts of scenes that could play out at work (some of them downright absurd) but the point is that you’re better prepared for any number of scenarios’ that could play out than most, because you had rehearsed them in your mind.
It’s easier if you think along the line “What would I do, if one day…”
3.PRACTICE GRATITUDE.
Nothing to put you in a good mood like listing your blessings. Try it now, think of all the good things that have happened to you (life, health, a job, kids, even an internet connection), Every day, I try to be grateful for at least 10 things in my life & it gives me the needed confidence & drive to take on the world. Likewise extend the attitude to people you come in contact with, when someone does anything for you (Even the trivial stuff) always show your appreciation.
Always Thank the Customer for patronizing your business.
4.MASTER YOUR EMOTIONS.
It’s important for each & every one of us to be masters of our minds, knowing what emotions we feel, how often we feel them, the sources of these emotions & we react to them (Emotional Intelligence) is key in becoming a master of one’s mind.
When you understand your own emotions, you can easily understand how other people would feel about your own actions/words & how they might react to them. This makes it easy for you to empathize appropriately & appeal to emotions when need be.
As often as you can, at the end of each day, recall any range of emotions felt, try to trace their sources & see how you reacted to them, if you’re unsatisfied with your reactions, recreate the scenes in your mind & act in a manner you’d prefer to have exhibited initially.
5.LEARN HOW TO LISTEN ACTIVELY
Listening, constitutes a great portion of our interaction with Customers, Yet most of the time people confuse ‘hearing’ with ‘listening’ and fail to realize that they have completely different meanings.
Hearing is simply the ability to perceive sounds or auditory signals, whereas Listening involves hearing + correctly interpreting the intended meaning(s) of the message transferred by the sender.
Active Listening involves:
– Being quiet you’re being spoken to, “Don’t talk, Just Listen”
– Keeping your attention on the speaker &
– Paraphrasing to be sure you understood the information correctly
Communication skills equally play a great role in our lives (both work & personal), invest some time in improving your communication skills (writing, speaking & body language too) and brace yourself for an amazing career.
