Jacob Ahmadzai – Page 100 – STL

5 elements of great Customer Service

Being focused on great service can raise so many positive aspects in a business. It can save you money and build an identity, and a business with an identity is pretty powerful stuff.

Just ask Apple or Nike! Each of these brands is recognised by a unique ingredient. Apple is synonymous with technology and Nike with sports and fitness. The thing is that their identity was created by a demand focused on a specific interest and with a large, financial investment.

Building a business with an identity based on great service will cost you much less and give you so much more.

customer service stl london courses — The impact of great Customer Service

The 5 Impact Points

1. Free advertising

That’s right, leading your products with great service standards is the height of free advertising. And for the best in the business who serve with real gusto and love to exceed customer expectations, their reputation is continually passed on. People will actually pay more for the product because of that service.

STL Training Courses London — Customer Experience in 2019

2. Customer Loyalty

When you get the service right, watch how quickly clients work in to support you. Consistently impressing and building on customer satisfaction means your mistakes will more likely be passed over.

Make others the centre of your attention and you’ll be amazed at how quickly they will make you the centre of theirs.

3. Reputation and identity

Comfort of a brand can have enormous impact. Trust and confidence is everything in business. When a client finds it they will hang onto it, protect it and look at every opportunity to praise it. Think of how many brands you recognise instantly and which brand you tend towards because of this comfort, reputation and familiarity.

4. The Fan-base grows

Be ready for the onslaught of CV’s and job enquiries. As your reputation expands so does the eagerness for others to be involved. The best in business will attract the best, it is unavoidable. Staff will identify the value to themselves of being employed with the top performer in the field. Identity works both ways.

5. Suppliers and partners.

Companies proud to be associated with you will bring substantial benefits to you. For instance, you will get better contractual agreements for their being your sole supplier and, as a consequence, stronger buying power. For them, your well-known brand supports their own credibility and reputation. Notice how quickly companies will openly acknowledge brands they support or are in partnership with. It is a way of doubling advertising reach at low cost and harvests a greater source of consumer leads.

Outcome is the most curious component of business. You may have a belief on how things will turn out if you do this, or connect ‘this-to-that’ – yet business is organic. Something you nurture, tend to and improve on, and you ultimately have no idea in which direction it will take you.

Consider profitability and strive to improve it. Mark a starting point at the service the client expects, and when you then move beyond their expectations, the results can be outstanding.

Just look at Nike who were almost bust before they adopted the ‘tick’. Apple started in a garage but that didn’t stop them. Imaging your brand, your style and your service, will take your business far…

Effective Communication Skills – Three tips to deal with Conflict

Wouldn’t it be great if we could choose who we wanted to work with? Yet we have differences in personality, culture and working style, or a clash of competing objectives or even disagreements over solutions. The list of reasons why conflict occurs can be as long as your arm.

Therefore the ability to deal with conflict is a critical soft skill for Managers who lead and coordinate teams.

This article will give you three practical tips to help you deal with conflict in the workplace and maximise performance, thereby increasing productivity.

1. Use the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Modes Instrument (TKI)

3 TIPS - DEALING WITH CONFLICT AT WORK - STL TRAINING LONDON — DEALING WITH CONFLICT – The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Modes Instrument

The Thomas-Kilmann or TKI Instrument is probably the most well-known conflict management tool and is made up of the following five techniques, as shown in the diagram.

Competing
Compromising
Avoiding
Accommodating
Collaborating

Depending on the situation and style of those involved you can use different levels of assertiveness and collaboration to resolve the situation. No one technique is better than the other, it depends entirely on the situation you are in and who you are dealing with. What it indicates is that your style you use should suit different people and different situations.

2. Improve your listening skills

If you work on your listening skills this will improve your ability to deal with conflict. Listening seems like a basic skill but actually it is much harder that it seems, especially in the modern age with the advent of mobile phones and social media to distract us.

Listening is one of those skills we were never taught at school to use effectively. Viral TED speaker and sound expert Julian Treasure argues that ‘we are losing our listening’ and in this video, he gives several useful ways to improve our listening skills.

3. Ask open questions

Open questions are an effective tool to understand how the other person or party is feeling and will help you avoid assumptions, a common mistake when conflict occurs.

Avoid the habit of asking closed questions: those that can only be answered yes or no. Although any excellent way of summarising information, these two words generally fail to promote conversation.

Open questions, on the other hand, promote many benefits:

You can encourage the other person to reveal more and help solve the conflict
It may allow people to ‘vent’ and help ease tension.
Open questions can help place you in the other persons shoes.
The other person will feel that you are listening with empathy.

As markets expand and pressure on competition increases, the sheer weight of demands and stresses on a business will be continually tested.

The ability of management to be able to deal with conflict in a way which replaces ill-feeling with trust, at the same time raising reputations, will not only build current relationships, it will attract new ones.

Can you really afford to slam the door on the next internal argument?