Unit Overview: This unit introduces you to the importance of effective communication with customers. Through learning, you will understand four steps to improve your listening skills and two factors that lead to communication failure when providing services to customers.
Lesson 1 Effective communication with customers
Learning objective: To understand the importance of effective communication with customers, four steps to improve listening skills, and two factors that lead to communication failure.
Why is customer service important?
High-quality customer service will satisfy customers. Even if only one customer service representative does not pay enough attention to the needs of customers, the company may lose 70% customers. Therefore, it is extremely important to improve customer satisfaction. If the customer is dissatisfied with your service once, you will spend 12 times as much effort to make up for the loss caused by this unpleasant experience. Usually, customers will not give you too many compensation opportunities, so you must provide good service to customers from the beginning. Clients will not look at you separately from your company. In their eyes, you represent the company. The contact between customers and you will directly affect their impression of the company.
Why is it important to communicate effectively with customers?
In every contact with customers, you are transmitting information. Whether the information is positive or not depends on your communication skills. Whether customers are willing to continue to do business with you depends largely on your ability to communicate with them clearly, actively and successfully. Therefore, effective communication has become one of the most important skills in customer service.
What communication skills are usually overlooked?
Active listening is very important for effective communication, which many people ignore. Listening carefully to the ideas and opinions conveyed by customers is the best way to determine customer needs, obtain important information, successfully solve problems and achieve quality service. Listening also helps you build a good relationship with customers.
To be an efficient listener, you must play an active role in communication with customers. The following suggestions will help improve your listening skills:
Let the customer know that you are listening. An efficient listener will concentrate on the speaker and be completely unaffected by environmental factors. Take a deep breath, keep a clear head and pay attention to customers, all of which will help to improve your attention. Once you focus on the customer, you can show that you are listening in many languages or nonverbal ways. Make eye contact with customers and observe their facial expressions and body language. In front of customers, use short sentences, such as "ah", "oh" or "I see", to show that you are listening; Nod or smile at the right time, relax, lean forward slightly, and don't cross your arms on your chest. Facial expressions can let customers know how you feel, and body movements can let customers know how enthusiastic your service is. These behaviors let customers know that you are listening carefully to what they say.
Grasp the useful information in every sentence. To be an efficient listener, you must constantly turn the customer's words into useful information. A good listener can get useful information from every sentence, even if there is no direct connection between the words of customers before and after, he will not turn a deaf ear. You can simply take some notes. Taking notes can not only highlight your attention to the conversation, but also help you keep up with the thinking rhythm of customers. If necessary, you can refer to your notes and give some tips to your customers.
Don't react in a hurry. A good listener will not interrupt the customer because what he says is contrary to his own experience, thoughts and opinions. Before you react, you must first understand what the customers mean and find out what information they want to convey to you. This will not only make customers feel that you are considerate to them, but also give them time to think about how to respond to each other. It is important not to guess what the customer will say. Just because you have heard of a similar situation before, you are likely to react too early by assuming that you know what the customer is going to say. The situation seems the same, but it varies from person to person.
Repeat what the customer said and let him know that you understand what he said. You must fully understand what the customer means to avoid communication failure. Repeat it in the customer's own words to see if he really understands the main points of the other party. If the other party disagrees with your retelling, you should make further explanation until the two sides reach an understanding. Remember not to pretend to understand. If you don't understand what the other person means, or you don't hear what the other person says clearly, be sure to ask the other person clearly. Customers will respect your frankness and honesty.
What factors lead to communication failure?
Please pay attention to the following two factors that lead to communication failure:
The expression is not clear enough. You should express your information as clearly as possible so that customers can fully understand what you mean. It is helpful to express your intention at the beginning and express your meaning clearly with concrete and vivid language and examples.
Misunderstanding. Even if you feel that you have successfully expressed your thoughts and opinions, misunderstandings will still occur and the other party may not understand you. Therefore, successful communication requires the receiver to reinterpret the sender's wishes. Avoid jargon or technical terms unfamiliar to customers to avoid misunderstanding. If you find that the customer has misinterpreted your meaning, you can ask the other party to clarify the misunderstanding.