When you have a “business” issue to solve, where do you start? With the technical aspects or the customer service implications? I suggest  we are able to  remove more “business” issues by focusing on dramatically improving our customer service. There are many ways to do this… one way is to deliver excellent customer service with a SNAP – focus on the proactive communication side of things. Get started now. Just do it.

Both technical skills and customer service skills can be learned, coached and improved. Take a look at your past five years of seminar or conference requests or attendance. Most likely you will find that the majority – if not all – are related to technical skills. (Please note, this of course is a broad generalization and is based on both my personal observation and feedback from others – of course, there are specific disciplines, such as customer service agents where this is likely not the case.)

For many human resource professionals these seminars, webinars, conferences and other related educational sessions focus on things like FMLA updates, employee documentation, compliance readiness, defining who is a supervisor, NLRB rulings, workplace violence – these are all topics that  hit my inbox in the past week. As I work with leaders on a daily basis, do I need to know these things? Daily – perhaps not. At some point, of course. What happens daily? I engage with leaders on issues that daily require significant skill with customer service.

The issues that seem to get out of hand, or issues that I find myself dropping into in order to intervene and perform a rescue can be traced back to a service failure – generally, not to lack of technical skill. For some reason, we seem to be at ease reaching out for technical assistance. Such as clarifying the details of an FLMA decision, or verifying a pay rule. While, to the contrary, we seem to very reluctant to request assistance with customer service and related communication needs. Why is this? I have no idea.

I suggest as we continue to promote the professionalism of what we do as human resource practitioners, we shift our focus to customer service. Part of that shift is related to understanding that overall customer service goes way beyond the answering of the phone or being polite. It is related to how we proactively choose to manage our relationships with our customers. We then choose to know and act on the fact that we go beyond just doing our jobs – we make a point of doing our jobs in a way that embraces our customers.

We pay particular attention to expectations; we decide to set and manage expectations. We pay particular attention to our workflows and how they help us help the customer. We pay particular attention to knowing and sharing the status of our progress, and we let customers know about next steps, how long things will take and what the planned outcome is to be. All this is done by using our customer service centric approach to how we communicate.

Use the customer service skill to drive up your credibility which allows you to coach and counsel with your technical skills.

We are frequent, proactive communicators. We know technical skills are important, and that customer service is extremely important.

Read More

Zig Ziglar, author, motivational speaker and former salesman, is quoted as saying: “Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.”

What this means to us is that we need to listen to our customers. If they are actively talking to us, great. Listen to what they have to say.

If they are not actively talking to us, we then need to find ways to talk to them. Most people will talk to us, if we talk to them. SNAP is an excellent tool for getting the conversation going.

Share the basic SNAP information, then move on to mastery — move there quickly. Use closing questions to get customer feedback. Many of your customers want to be heard. They welcome the opportunity. So, put the opportunity out there for them.

If you find some of your customers are reluctant to share helpful insights, then ramp up your SNAPs. Use repeated, meaningful SNAP messages to build and reinforce your relationship with your customer.

And, continue to listen. Continue to ask and actively solicit feedback.

Don’t avoid criticism. Look for it. Don’t avoid unhappy customers. Look for them. As Zig has stated, their messages represent a tremendous opportunity for you.

Use SNAP to look for opportunities.

Read More

As you master SNAP, you will see that it is designed to function as a key part of your customer communication strategy. The important principle is to have a consistent and predicable framework for keeping your customer informed.

However, also know, you can choose to master SNAP as a communication technique and you can choose to use it as core component of your business foundation. This is possible because SNAP represents a communication cycle, and this cycle can be hardwired into the overall framework the drives your customer relationships. Where your relationships with customers are absolutely critical, having a foundation based on customer communication is a strategy for success.

Read More