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Customer Care Training Rule Number One: First, Do No Harm

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You may have heard the Latin phrase, Primum non nocere, which means “first, do no harm.” Although it’s often associated with the physician’s Hippocratic Oath, the original oath does not include the precise phrase. It is, however, taught in medical schools as part of medical ethics classes and it has an important connotation for those of us who serve end-users and other customers.

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But, I Didn’t Think I Was Being Rude! (Why Your Customers Might Think You’re Rude When You’re Not)

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I recently had a conversation with a client who told me he sometimes hears complaints from his end-users that he’s being rude. He told me that he didn’t feel like he was being rude at all.

I doubt he was being rude, but I suspect he maintains a “strictly-business” demeanor around the office. I’ve noticed in our email exchanges and phone calls that his responses to me are terse and strictly-business with no trace of humanness. He’s really beyond formal, in that his emails don’t even include a greeting (“Hi Don” or “Dear Don”), a complimentary close (“Kind regards” or “Sincerely”), or even an email signature. I noticed in our phone conversations that he didn’t initiate any sort of attempt to connect with me as one person to another. Of course, I’m seen as a vendor and sometimes treated differently from, say, co-workers. Still, I wonder if a clue to his problem with end-users might be found in the way he interacted with me.

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How to be a Better Listener: Active Listening

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When our work involves serving others, it’s important for us to be good listeners. Being a good listener can be difficult at times. I’ve created a video to accompany this blog post with the ten tips to help us all become better listeners, whether at work with our customers, end-users, and colleagues or at home with our spouse, children, and friends.

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How to Be a Better Conversationalist: Are Your Conversations Cooperative?

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When we’re talking with an end-user or a customer, we want to ensure our conversations are effective, that they make good use of our time and that of our customer or end-user. One way to ensure that conversations are effective is to ensure they are cooperative, a process of give-and-take. Paul Grice was a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a philosopher of language who identified four maxims of conversation that describe the elements of successful conversation.

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Empathy Examples in Customer Service (Includes Video)

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I recently flew from Houston to Seattle on Alaska Airlines. I experienced three examples of good customer service from, gasp, an airline. Yes, I know it may seem hard to believe. There are lessons here for those of us who support end-users. Two examples were with Alaska Airlines and one was with Delta. Here they are.

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How to Deliver Great Customer Service: What’s Your Customer Empathy Quotient?

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How’s your empathy quotient? Your ability to empathize may be your most important ability as a member of the I.T. support staff. Empathy means providing caring and personal service. Dictionary.com defines empathy as “the intellectual identification with … the feelings, thoughts or attitudes of another.” Empathy is your ability to truly put yourself in your user’s position so you can understand his/her frustration. Once we truly understand our user’s frustration, fears, and aggravations, we can start the process of delivering a meaningful solution for them. Sometimes it only takes a moment to really understand where our user is coming from. Sometimes it takes several minutes of listening combined with empathetic statements such as “I understand why you feel that way.” or “I’d feel that way, too, if I were in your situation.” Regardless, until you can empathize with your user, you’re not ready to start the technical aspects of the support session. Remember, it may be your technical expertise that solves the problem, but it’s your skill in dealing with people that produces satisfied end-users.

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