Five advanced customer service techniques to raise your game

Advanced techniques are one of the top requests I receive as a customer service trainer. Many people feel the basics are, well, too basic.

If that's you, I have five advanced techniques to share. But first, a word from our sponsor: basic skills.

The basic skills never go out of style. Customer service professionals who master the basics will always do well.

My top three skills:

• Rapport: make customers feel at ease.

• Listening: understand what customers need.

• Empathy: help customers feel better.

You can build these skills by taking my LinkedIn Learning course, Customer Service Foundations.

The free Customer Service Tip of the Week email is another way to build and maintain your basic skills. It’s also available as a book.

Still looking for the advanced stuff? Okay, here you go.

#1 Get customers to remember your name

Calling customers by name is a basic customer service skill. The advanced version is making sure customers remember your name.

I stumbled on this on by accident while analyzing survey results for a client. When a customer mentioned an employee by name in the survey comments, the survey was 60 percent more likely to be positive.

My friends at Zendesk helped me test this theory with a larger data set. Look at the difference when a survey mentions an employee by name in the comments, versus surveys that do not.

Why does this work?

Because customers tend to humanize employees more when they know your name. They look at you as a person and not just an employee. That means they tend to like you better, and be more forgiving of small mistakes.

Here are a few tips to help customers remember your name:

1. Introduce yourself.

2. Repeat your name at key moments.

3. Follow-up with customers to share your name again.

#2 Stop multitasking

Paying attention to customers is a basic customer service skill. The advanced version is blocking out the numerous distractions that tempt you to multitask and divide your attention among multiple things.

Multitasking is really about attention. If you are trying to pay attention to two things at once, neither is getting your full attention.

Here are some common examples that happen while serving a customer:

• Reading and responding to messages from other people.

• Allowing another customer or colleague to interrupt you.

• Refocusing on alerts and notifications on your computer or phone.

• Trying to do another task while partially listening to the customer.

• Playing with your phone.

It gets worse.

The more multitasking we do, the harder it gets to focus. Multitasking is also highly addictive, making the habit difficult to stop.

My best advice?

1. Remove distractions to set yourself up for success.

2. Be intentional about focusing on your customers.

#3 Use the partner technique when serving upset customers

Empathizing with upset customers is a basic skill. A more advanced version is the partner technique, which helps customers feel like you are on their side.

I learned this one from watching airline gate agents enforce carry-on bag size limits. Most struggle with this situation or avoid it entirely, but a few used the partner technique to keep customers happy.

Here's how it works:

Standing face-to-face with a customer can feel confrontational, so the agent positioned themselves on the passenger's side. This created a feeling of partnership, like they were approaching the issue together.

Next, the agent used partnership language, such as, "Let's see if your bag fits in the sizer."

If the bag didn't fit, the gate agent carefully avoided any language that might sound confrontational. They continued partnering with the passenger to help sort it out.

• They made suggestions for shrinking the size of a bag.

• They offered to hold the passenger's place in the boarding line.

• They used a soothing tone (rather than a commanding one).

All of these actions put passengers at ease and made them more likely to comply and less likely to argue or get upset.

Later on, I realized you can use this technique even when you aren't face-to-face.

#4 Take care of emotional needs first

Listening to a customer's problem and then solving it is a basic customer skill. Identifying and responding to a customer's emotional needs is an advanced technique.

A rational need is the specific service a customer is requesting. For example, a customer might call a software company for technical support because they can’t get their software to work properly.

An emotional need is how the customer feels about the situation. They might be frustrated that the software isn’t working. Perhaps they’re anxious because the problem is preventing them from getting important work done.

It’s the emotional needs that can make or break the customer’s experience. If the technical support rep can successfully validate the customer’s frustration by empathizing with them and then reassure the customer that they can help them, the customer will likely feel better.

Use this technique by tuning in to your customers' emotions. Make sure you empathize with them to soothe any negative feelings before moving on to their rational needs.

#5 Say "Thank you" instead of "I'm sorry"

Apologizing to customers is a basic skill. Knowing when to say "thank you" instead of "I'm sorry" is an advanced technique.

Small issues, such as a minor error or short delay, usually don't cause any real problems for customers. However, it can still hurt a customer's self-esteem to be made to "endure" a short wait.

In these cases, thanking the customer for their patience can be more effective than apologizing.

An apology is still warranted for more severe service failures that potentially cost customers time, money, and a lot of effort. In those situations, the best apologies are heartfelt and sincere.

Conclusion

Professional athletes can sometimes make their sport look easy. They appear so effortless and graceful that we forget that what they're doing is very, very hard.

Customer service is the same way. Many advanced techniques seem easy, but they take a lot of careful practice to master.

You can learn more advanced skills from the book, Getting Service Right, which uncovers hidden and counterintuitive customer service obstacles. A few might surprise you.

Discover even more advanced concepts from my LinkedIn Learning course, Innovative Customer Service Techniques. Here's a short preview.

Help your team unlock their potential from Innovative Customer Service Techniques by Jeff Toister

A Fun and Simple Way to Build Elite Customer Service Skills

There are a lot of flight attendants who make air travel more pleasant.

I was relaxing on a recent Alaska Airlines flight, traveling home from Fort Lauderdale where I had just spoken at ICMI's Contact Center Expo. A flight attendant slipped me a bar of chocolate when she came by with the drink cart. 

It was the good stuff. A fabulously delicious jcoco chocolate bar. 

Later on, I took a walk to the back of the plane. The flight attendant and her colleague were in the rear galley, so I said "Hi" to my new friend. She smiled and told me she appreciated me. "You've been so sweet and patient."

What did I do that was so special?

There's a special customer service skill-building workout that I like to do. The best part is you can do the workout while you are the customer.

It's convenient and it often leads to better service, like my experience on the flight. Here's how it works.

My Customer Service Workout

The workout starts with the intention to be a good customer. 

If you've read this blog before, you know I've often written about the importance of having a customer service vision. This is a shared definition of outstanding customer service that gets everyone on the same page and gives each employee a clear purpose in their daily customer interactions.

So my intention to be a good customer is a way to practice having a vision.

I know from personal experience how hard customer service can be. You work long hours, you're tired, and attending to other people's needs can drain you emotionally. I also know that it takes just one great customer to give you a huge lift and make it all worth it.

So I try to be that customer. Someone who is pleasant, friendly, and easy to serve. Considering the encounter from the service provider's perspective is also a great way to work on my empathy skills.

From there, I like to practice the fundamentals:

• Building Rapport

• Exceeding Expectations

• Solving Problems

I look for opportunities to build rapport and break the ice with service providers. I try to be an easy customer to serve, thereby exceeding their expectations for me. And I collaborate with them to solve problems or even prevent them from occurring.

Working on all these skills while I'm a customer helps drill them into my unconscious memory, so they become habits I can easily turn to when I'm serving customers myself.

What I Did on the Plane

There wasn't anything special I did on the plane to earn a little extra attention from a flight attendant who was already friendly and helpful. But I know the small things add up.

I took my head phones out and paused the movie I was watching when she came by with the drink cart. It's amazing how many passengers don't do this, but those same people would throw a fit if the flight attendant was preoccupied with her phone while trying to serve us. 

Giving people your full attention is simply polite. I did a few other small things that are basic demonstrations of courtesy:

• Smiling

• Saying "Please" and "Thank you"

• Preparation—my credit card was out and ready for the snack I purchased

• Waiting patiently for my turn to order a beverage

None of these would be special in a social situation. It's exactly how you would behave if you were a guest at a friend's house. Yet something magically changes when people become customers, and I can tell you from observation that what I was doing was rare.

There were a lot of passengers whose actions unconsciously demonstrated they felt the flight attendant was beneath them.

• Headphones stayed in and the movie stayed on, versus pausing and paying attention.

• “I’ll have an orange juice” versus “I’d like an orange juice, please.”

• A head nod as they went back to their movie versus “Thank you.”

So my small acts of courtesy stood out in a positive way. Practicing them in this situation helps these skills come more naturally when I'm serving my own customers.

Create Your Own Workout

The workout is called "practice while you shop." You can do it almost anyplace you are a customer.

When you call a contact center, try to start the interaction by learning the agent's name and developing some rapport, even if you're annoyed by having to wade through the endless phone menu. It often helps the call go better.

When you're dining in a restaurant, introduce yourself when the server share's their name. Give them your full attention, and ask for their recommendations (everyone likes to be an expert). You'll often receive more attentive service.

And each time you think of complaining about a company on social media, try complimenting five other companies or individuals for a job well done. Sharing more compliments than complaints helps you appreciate the positive.

You can get more practice while you shop ideas from this LinkedIn Learning course.

Get great customer service from How to Get Great Customer Service by Jeff Toister