Three upselling mistakes that hurt customer service

It's natural for companies to want to upsell their customers on additional or more expensive products or services. Just be sure your company doesn't make one of these three mistakes that can hurt customer service.

Mistake #1: Being pushy
I took my car to my local car wash last Saturday. "I'll just have a regular wash today," I told the ticket writer. He responded with the obligatory upsell, trying to get me to upgrade to a more expensive package. "Not today," I replied. "I just want a regular wash."

That should have been it. He made an offer. I declined. End of transaction.

Unfortunately, this guy wasn't going to take no for an answer. He continued to push the offer even after I repeatedly said no. He didn't relent until I finally I said I'd have to take my car somewhere else if he couldn't honor my request.

Upselling is never okay if it is annoying to the customer. Employees should be trained to back off once they receive a clear signal that the customer isn't interested.

Mistake #2: Upselling on price alone
Part of what made the car wash guy's sales pitch so weak and annoying was he only talked about price. The upgraded car wash may have been an insanely cheap deal, but that didn't matter because it wasn't something I needed or wanted. 

He may have had better luck if he had explained some of the benefits offered by the upgraded package. An even smarter approach would be to ask me a few questions first and then tailor his offer based upon my responses.

Upselling based on a customer's wants and needs can actually be helpful to the customer. Upselling on price alone can often feel pushy and transactional.

Mistake #3: Making your customer feel stupid
The car wash guy tried really hard to make me feel stupid. He repeatedly asked if I was driving someone else's car since the only people who wouldn't go for his sweet deal were people who didn't care about the cars they were driving. 

The kicker was when he finally agreed to do a regular wash and I started walking towards the waiting area. While I was still within earshot, he turned to another customer and began bad mouthing me and my poor decision making. 

It's never a good tactic to talk down to your customer when upselling. Especially if they have a blog.

Epilogue
I was tempted to take my car somewhere else after hearing the ticket writer's disparaging comments, but I'd be the one who lost the most on that deal. This car wash does a great job, is reasonably priced, and is convenient to my home.

Instead of leaving I went to the cashier and politely asked to speak with the manager. When he arrived, I calmly explained what had happened. He was very apologetic and told me he would be happy to take care of my car for me. Thanks to a few tips from my recent blog post on how to get better service, I left the car wash with a clean car and confidence that I'll get better service the next time I visit.

I should also note the manager's actions are the reason I'm not mentioning the name of the car wash in my blog. My personal policy is to give businesses a chance to handle a complaint before I air my gripes in a public forum.

How to get better service this holiday season

Every year I compile a list of tips for getting better customer service during the holiday season. This year, I decided to ask for tips from some of the customer service authors and bloggers I admire most. Their wonderful suggestions form a list that is sure to result in outstanding customer service.

Treat employees with respect (Patrick Maguire)
Patrick Maguire’s terrific blog, I’m Your Server Not Your Servant, highlights customer service experiences from the employees’ point of view. He reminds us that getting better service starts with treating employees with respect.

We need to remember that human workers are not the same as self-checkout stations, and that workers should be treated with the same mutual respect that we would expect if we were doing their jobs. If you treat workers with common courtesy and make a sincere effort to have some fun and make a genuine connection with them, your chances of receiving excellent service will improve dramatically.

 

Be engaging (Steve Curtin)
Visit Steve Curtin’s customer service blog and you’ll see a picture of him holding a pineapple. Why a pineapple? The pineapple is a universal symbol of hospitality. (Seriously, who could get upset when there is a pineapple involved?) Naturally, he recommends being a more hospitable customer.

When a customer glances at an employee’s name tag and uses her name at the beginning of the interaction along with a smile and eye contact, it has a disarming effect that quickly breaks the ice. The customer may also ask, “How is your day?” or compliment the employee by saying, “You look like the one in charge...” Just as employees tend to reflect the dispositions of their supervisors (for better or worse), they can also reflect the dispositions of the customers they serve.

 

Be reasonable (Shep Hyken)
Shep Hyken, best-selling author of the Amazement Revolution, also writes a very insightful customer service blog. One of his suggestions is that a reasonable customer will almost always get better service.

Let’s start with a confrontational situation to illustrate the point. There is an old story that goes something like this:

A passenger approached the airline representative about his lost luggage. Obviously upset, he more than complained. He yelled and made derogatory remarks about the airline. The airline employee’s response was simple. “Sir, I can see you’re upset. Right now there are only two people who care about your lost luggage and you are starting to make one of them upset.”

The moral of the story is that as a customer, you can’t get what you want by being unreasonable. If there is a problem, a level headed approach with reasonable suggestions will always win over confrontational arguments.

 

Place your irritability on hold before complaining (Guy Winch)
Sometimes, we have customer service complaints that need to be resolved. Who better to give advice on complaint resolution than Guy Winch, a psychotherapist who literally wrote the book on how to complain the right way (check out The Squeaky Wheel)? Here are complaint tips from an article he wrote for Psychology Today on how to resolve Christmas shopping complaints.

Complaint in person: “We should arm ourselves with receipts, patience, civility, and authentic smiles.”

Complaint via toll-free hotline: “We should place our irritability on hold (even if we are placed there too), remain calm and present the facts simply.”

Complaint via Twitter: “If you do tweet a complaint about a company, be fair, especially if you have oodles of followers. Remember, frustration fades but tweets are forever.

 

Don’t take yourself too seriously (Write the Company)
Write the Company’s blog features witty customer service correspondence with real companies. Read between the lines and you’ll realize that his tip is a great reminder to not take ourselves too seriously.

Getting better customer service during the holidays requires a secret weapon. This should not be confused with producing a concealed weapon, which has also proven to be very effective in getting the full attention of service personnel. One secret weapon to consider is sympathy. Not for the service representative, for yourself. You'll be amazed by how much faster and more compassionately you'll be treated by simply taping a slightly soiled white gauze pad over an eye or applying fake blood under your nose with even more on a tissue. Holidays are a crazy time to be a customer, so go crazy!

 

Enjoy the holidays and good luck getting outstanding customer service this holiday season!

Customer service survey mistakes to avoid

It seems like such a good idea.

Send out a survey to your customers to get some feedback. Your company looks like it cares and you might actually gain some ideas for improving service.

Just beware that any good idea poorly executed can quickly become a bad idea.

Here is a case in point.

I recently took my car to the dealership to get an oil change and complimentary inspection. A day or so later I received an email from my service advisor giving me a heads up that I would soon receive a survey asking me about my experience. The service advisor referred to the survey as her “personal report card” and urged me to contact her immediately if I was unable to rate my experience as truly exceptional.

The survey arrived via email the next day. I clicked on the link to open it up and was astonished to find 36 questions crammed into one long, rambling page. That’s right – 36 questions to ask about my oil change!

The survey seemed like a hassle. I was also concerned that my responses would reflect poorly on my service advisor if I responded that I was satisfied with my oil change but didn’t view it as truly exceptional. I decided to send her an email instead to provide my feedback and also share my concerns about the survey process. She didn’t respond.

The intent may have been good, but there are at least three big problems with this survey. Make sure you don’t make these mistakes if you plan to survey your customers.

Wrong Goal
The point of doing a survey should be to find out how satisfied your customers are and learn ways to further improve. The goal of my auto dealer’s survey seemed to be getting a good score. The heads up email, telling me the survey is my advisor’s “report card”, and urging me to give her a chance to fix any issues the survey may uncover all tell me her primary goal is earning a high score. If this wasn’t the case, why not just call or email me to ask about my service without mentioning the survey at all? Why not respond to the feedback that I did email?

If you are going to survey your customers, make sure you are doing it for a good reason.

Too Long
Does it really take 36 questions to accurately assess my satisfaction with an oil change? Really?! My level of satisfaction declined significantly with each survey question after the first five.

Keep survey questions to an absolute minimum and never ask for any information that you don’t specifically plan to use. Be respectful of your customers’ time when asking them to help you improve your business.

Dumb Scale
Most of the survey questions contained a response scale from one to ten with the following points labeled:

1 = Unacceptable

4 = Average

7 = Outstanding

10 = Truly Exceptional

This scale invites problems. If I answer truthfully, I’d give my oil change a 5. Is that bad? Not at all. It’s actually slightly above average. The problem with the survey is the average experience with my dealership’s service department is pretty good. There were a few minor points on my recent visit that were slightly better than usualy, so I’d rate the experience a little better than average.

I could also answer untruthfully if I felt compelled to rate the service as “truly exceptional” so my service advisor would get a good grade on her report card. The problem is I find it hard to imagine an oil change being truly exceptional. Maybe if they waived the charge, gave me a $100 gift card to my favorite steakhouse, and filled my car up with gas I’d rate it as truly exceptional. But they didn’t and I was just fine with their service anyway.

If you are going to ask for feedback, make sure you design a response scale that doesn’t lead to inaccurate or inconsistent responses.

Do you know the real reason your customer is angry?

Problems can and will happen in customer service. What happens next is often critical. Will the problem be resolved? Or, will more mistakes exacerbate the situation like pouring gas on a fire?

Here's a recent example that shows both.

I'm a huge fan of New Balance and buy nearly all of my running gear from their online store, Shop New Balance. Recently, I received an email offering 15% off my order plus free shipping. It was time to get some new running shoes anyway, so I carefully followed the instructions on the email and tried to place my order.

Unfortunately, my 15% discount wasn't added at check out, so I had to cancel my order. <----- Problem

I emailed their customer service department and explained the issue. A customer service rep emailed me back the next day and apologized for the error. He went on to explain that the online promotion had ended the night I tried to place my order, so I would have to call customer service to get my 15% discount. 

This was a minor bummer. I had placed my order online because it was easier to browse through their selection and most of my account information was already on file. Now, I needed to find time to call them and place the whole order all over again. <----- Problem #2

I called a few days later and spoke with a rep named Laura. I was bracing for a fight as I explained the situation, but she cheerfully told me she'd be happy to honor the discount. <----- Resolution

Now comes the hero factor. Several of the items I originally ordered were now marked down 20% off their original price. That was better than the 15% discount I had hoped for, but Laura gave me an additional 15% off anyway. Savings + savings = awesome. <----- Hero Moment

I also realized that I was leaving town for a long weekend and there was a good chance that my order might be delivered while I was gone. This would mean the shipment would sit by my front door for several days advertising the fact that I wasn't home. I explained this to Laura and asked if she could delay shipment by a few days. She assured me she would take care of it.

A couple days later I was pleasantly surprised to receive my order before I left for my trip. Laura had upgraded my shipping to express at no extra charge to ensure everything arrived before I left instead of after I returned. <----- Hero Moment #2

Unfortunately, one of my new shoes was damaged and will need to be returned. That was disappointing, but not the end of the world. <----- Problem #3

If you are keeping score, I experienced 3 Problems and 2 Hero Moments. What does that add up to? A very satisfied customer.

Laura's hero work more than made up for the other issues I experienced. Would I be disappointed if the problems happened again? Certainly. I've also done enough business with Shop New Balance over the years to understand that this was an unusual situation and my next order will probably be smooth sailing. In the meantime, Laura's outstanding problem resolution earned them plenty of goodwill.

Here are a few of my takeways from the situation.

 

  • Don't make problems any worse than they need to be. Anything less than an immediate resolution can make a mountain out of a molehill.
  • Empower your employees to give customers more than they expect. It will make it much easier to go way beyond resolution and turn a problem into an opportunity to delight. (Chris Zane's wonderful book, Reinventing the Wheel, gives many examples about this.)
  • Mixing in a few hero moments will earn you enough goodwill to keep your customers' business when you occasionally stumble.


You lost me at "Hello"

There’s something magical about a warm, friendly, and authentic greeting in customer service. As a customer, you feel immediately at ease and gain confidence in the other person’s ability to serve you well.

So why doesn’t it happen more often?

Here’s an example that can help us better understand some of the reasons why so many greetings fail.

Rep: “Thank you for calling The Bayside Grill. This is Jane. How may I help you?”

Me: “Hi Jane. My name is Jeff. I’m calling to make a reservation please.”

Rep: “It will be my pleasure to assist you. What's your name?”

Here are just a few misses in this very typical exchange:

  • I gave my name, but Jane missed it.
  • Jane sound rushed when she answered the phone.
  • Jane sounded robotic when she said, “It will be my pleasure to assist you.

I know, the fix is easy, right? Jane should just answer the phone with a bit more enthusiasm, listen carefully, and then respond with sincerity.

Unfortunately, the problem is often created by management practices that influence Jane's performance.

Here are a few other factors that may contribute to poor customer service greetings.

Employees are distracted. In many customer service situations, the person greeting you is expected to simultaneously perform other tasks, depriving you of their full attention. For example, Jane may have be staring at a line of guests waiting to be seated when she took my call. (Check out my recent post on how multitasking hurts customer service.)

Scripts are for robots. Many customer service greetings are scripted, presumably because employees like Jane can’t be trusted to create an acceptable greeting on their own. The problem is that employees start focusing on nailing the script instead of nailing the greeting. (I wrote a post in 2009 on getting more consistency by ditching the script.)

Employees aren’t monitored for friendliness. When I worked in a large call center I remember having endless debates over what friendly sounds like. It’s easy to observe whether or not Jane used the correct, scripted greeting. Unfortunately, friendliness is inherently subjective. It might be very difficult for Jane and her supervisor to come up with a shared definition of what “friendly” looks or sounds like.

What’ the solution? Here are three simple things customer service leaders can do to improve their employees’ greetings:

  1. Eliminate distractions. Give employees the tools, training, and coaching to help them focus on one customer at a time.
  2. Ditch the script. Replace cumbersome scripts with more general guidelines. Employees like Jane can use their own personality to come up with something that works or them and still achieves the desired result.
  3. Hire naturally friendly people. Obvious, I know, but this practice isn't as common as you would think.

What else can we do to make greetings more friendly, warm, and authentic?

Outstanding customer service you'll never notice

Our regular UPS driver came to the door yesterday afternoon. I had to sign for the package because he was delivering a shipment of wine. As I was signing, he remarked that the package had the wrong address on it. "I'm glad you knew where to bring it!" I said.

He replied that it was easy for him to track down the correct address because of my unusual last name and the shipment contained wine. (Yes, I am a huge wine enthusiast: www.sharethebottle.com.) 

I paused for a moment to think about what had just happened as I brought the wine in the house. The wine shipment had arrived just as expected. That by itself wasn't amazing, but the fact that it arrived on time was due to the actions of a very alert UPS driver who knew the regular customers on his route. He took extra initiative to ensure my expectations were met.

Could it be that some of the very best customer service happens behind the scenes? 

Customers tend to notice service service that is either exceptionally good or exceptionally poor. We are unlikely to notice when things go exactly the way we expect them to. 

What would have happened if the UPS driver had not taken the initiative to deliver my wine to the correct address? The shipment could have been delayed a day or two while a customer service representative tried to track me down. I might have been inconvenienced if I had to go to the UPS station to pick up the package instead of it being delivered to me. The wine might not have been delivered on time for an upcoming party if it took too long to resolve the problem.

All of those situations would have landed squarely below my expectations. I would have likely been upset at the winery, UPS, or even both. 

Instead, I'm happy.

How many times do unsung customer service heroes spot a problem before it occurs and just fix it? When it does happen, the experience will likely register as "average" on the customer's radar, but we should all agree that the effort was outstanding.

Open letter to CFOs in charge of customer service

Dear Chief Financial Officers,

It has recently come to my attention that your cash flow is a little lean.

I was reminded of this when I went to check my bag for a flight and was charged $20. You got me again when I received notice that I’ll now be charged a $5 monthly fee for using my debit card. My local movie theatre was no refuge either – I’m now being charged $12.00 to be a part of their rewards program. I needed a vacation after all these fees so I booked a few nights at a resort hotel. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn about the $30 resort fee until after I arrived.

You need more money. I get it. I look at my own bank account and I really, really get it.

But here’s the problem, CFOs. Customers are emotional. Why else would we rant and rave when Facebook makes a minor change? Facebook is FREE and we still get all worked up if they do something we don’t like.

I realize there isn't a "Customer Rage Quotient" column on your "Fee Increase Cost Benefit Analysis" spreadsheet, but maybe there should be. It starts to feel like you don't respect us very much when you suddenly charge a fee for something you used to include with the price of your product or service. 

You want more money, but I want to spend less money. So, how can we make this work?

I have one simple suggestion. Treat me and my fellow customers a little better. Think about that $300 I spent on air fare before you charge me another $20 for my bag. That might be the difference between you getting another $300 for my next flight or me taking my business elsewhere. 

For my part, I promise to tell the truth to everyone I know. If you treat me well, I'll sing your praises. If you treat me poorly, I'll be happy to suggest several of your less annoying competitors.

I know you are busy with your latest complex financial modeling project, so I'll close by thanking you for your time and reminding you that I have a few purchasing decisions to make in the near future. I hope you make my decisions easy!

Sincerely,

Jeff Toister, Customer

PS. You may be wondering why I addressed this letter to you and not to the Vice President of Marketing or the Vice President of Customer Service. C'mon - these fees have "CFO" written all over them. Nobody who had actually spoken to a customer would think those fees were a good idea.

Self-service or customer service?

I read an article today that said many supermarkets were re-thinking the strategy of installing self-service checkout stands. Some customers seemed to like them while many customers found it easier or more pleasant to have a cashier ring up their purchases. (Read the article here.)

The article reminded me of an oft-asked question: Should we offer self-service or customer service?

My response is that’s the wrong question.

When self-service is great, it’s really great. Printing out my boarding pass at an airport kiosk or downloading it to my smart phone is a terrific time saver compared to waiting in line for a ticket agent. Looking up nearby coffee houses on a website or mobile app is much easier than spending 10 minutes calling a 1-800 number to get directions. Visiting a software company’s online learning center is much faster for me than signing up to take a class.

On the other hand, self-service can waste of time, cost money, and be extremely aggravating. Automated phone menus at the other end of 1-800 numbers often needlessly waste five minutes or more of my time before I can get to a person who can actually help. I don’t appreciate being charged a $7.50 “convenience fee” if I want to buy tickets to a play or sporting event online when I can buy them in person from a box office agent without paying a self-service surcharge. And, I really don’t like feeling like an idiot while I’m trying in vain to scan, bag, and pay for my groceries faster than the cashier in the checkout line.

Companies considering a self-service or automated option should start by asking themselves, “How can I offer the best possible service at the lowest possible cost?” These aren’t mutually exclusive options. Rather, they are counterpoints to a balancing act between a genuine desire to make every customer ecstatic about your business and the need to maintain fiscal responsibility.

Perhaps the best quote in the article was from Suzi Robinson, a spokesperson for Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. who explained why the company has self-serve lanes in about 85% of their stores. “Our philosophy is giving customers options. People shop in different ways and we want to accommodate their preferences.”

Listening to customers is harder than you think

I was halfway through my question when the customer service representative interrupted me. “That’s actually a separate password than the one I’m resetting for you. That one is just for billing.”

Great, except that wasn’t the question I was about to ask. “I know, but I was going to ask if I can reset the billing password myself so that I…”

He interrupted again, “But you don’t need the billing password to access your online account.” 

Sigh… Still not the question I was trying to ask. Why do so many knowledgeable customer service representatives find it difficult to truly listen to their customers?

Believe it or not, one explanation is poor listening skills are a product of our brain’s natural wiring.

Our brains have a unique design feature that allows us to take a small amount of information and compare it to familiar patterns. This enables us to make quick sense of large amounts of data without getting bogged down in the details. It’s an ability that comes in handy in many ways, such as determining if something is safe or dangerous, recognizing people we know, or even reading.

Here’s a simple example. Try reading the sentence below:

People can easliy raed misspleled wrods as long as all the lettres are there and the fisrt and lsat letters are in the corerct position.

You can read sentences like the one above thanks to this handy pattern recognition ability. Your brain recognizes the pattern presented by the arrangement of the letters and the context of the sentence. It doesn't matter that the letters aren't perfectly placed. They are close enough for your brain to quickly interpret their meaning.

Unfortunately, this same ability gets customer service representatives into trouble when it comes to listening. The customer service representative I mentioned at the beginning of this post had likely heard questions similar to mine many times. The start of my sentence fit a familiar pattern so his brain naturally stopped listening and presented an answer to the question he thought I was going to ask. The problem occurred because my question was a new variation this pattern, so the answer that leapt into his mind was incorrect.

In other words, it was a natural behavior that caused the customer service representative to keep interrupting me.

We can learn to short circuit our natural wiring and become more adept at listening, but it takes training, effort, and practice. Here are a few things you can try the next time you are listening to a customer:

 

  1. Eliminate distractions and concentrate on what the customer is saying.
  2. Don't interrupt customers while they are speaking.
  3. Ask clarifying questions to confirm you understand their needs.