Customer Service Archives

13 06, 2014

The Happiness Effect

By RicHayden|2021-10-11T12:26:33+01:00June 13th, 2014|Belief, Customer Service, Emotional Intelligence, Engagement, Happiness, High Performance Culture, Leadership, Management, Organisational Culture, Organisational Happiness, Organisational Performance, Passion, Sales Performance, Success, The Happiness Effect|Comments Off on The Happiness Effect

The Happiness Effect The sun comes out and a wonderful thing happens across the country, everyones state of happiness is elevated. Even more so on a Friday as everyone leaves work for the weekend full of wonder at what the days of rest may bring. Bear gardens fill up with the chitter chatter of happy engaging in happy times. I was in a business today that I had been doing some work with and realised that all this was happening without the aid of a beer garden. Everyone was going about their daily work with big smiles on [...]

17 03, 2014

Features and Benefits, what’s the difference?

By RicHayden|2021-10-11T12:26:33+01:00March 17th, 2014|Consultative Selling, Customer Service, Engagement, Passion, Sales, Sales Performance, Success|Comments Off on Features and Benefits, what’s the difference?

Nobody who bought an alarm clock wanted an alarm clock… Last week I was running a sales training workshop with a group of experienced sales people. Some had been on previous training programmes over the years and all of them thought they could explain the difference between a Feature and a Benefit, in a sales situation. None of them got it right. It even got a bit heated when someone continued to try and benefit sell to me using only the features of the product. So here goes: FEATURE = a characteristic of your product or promotion. [...]

7 08, 2013

Matchmaker

By RicHayden|2021-10-11T12:28:52+01:00August 7th, 2013|Consultative Selling, Customer Service, Sales, Sales Performance|Comments Off on Matchmaker

Now if you have read any of our previous blogs then you will have probably heard us going on about something called Rapport. Well of course that's because it is really important when it comes to selling.Here is another technique that can help to build good rapport between you and your customers. Rapport is the foundation for effective communication and positive relationship-building. It stems from finding and/or creating common ground. In general, customers like people like themselves. So one of the easiest ways to build rapport and ensure store contacts feel comfortable with you is to be as much like [...]

26 07, 2013

Face-To-Face Communication

By RicHayden|2021-10-11T12:28:52+01:00July 26th, 2013|Customer Service, Engagement, Sales|Comments Off on Face-To-Face Communication

Body language is 48% more powerful than words according to Robert Birdwhistle's research in 1970. Face-to-Face communication is based on 3 factors: our body language, our voice qualities and the words that we use. In fact, most of our communication happens non-verbally. Contrary to popular belief, what we say is actually less important than the way in which we say it and this is true even when communicating over the telephone. Body Language is all the non-verbal communication we make – both conscious and unconscious. The reason why it is so important? Well firstly it determines [...]

11 07, 2013

Fulfilling Requirements – Positive Language

By RicHayden|2021-10-11T12:28:52+01:00July 11th, 2013|Customer Service, Sales, Sales Performance|Comments Off on Fulfilling Requirements – Positive Language

Language is a very powerful tool and the way you express yourself will affect whether your proposals are received positively or negatively. Even when you are conveying unpleasant news, the impact can be softened byt the use of what we call positive language. Everything you say to your customers affects their thoughts and emotions. If your customers are in a cheerful mood they are more likely to agree with your proposals. Therefore your choice of words and phrases can create a positive emotional reaction within your customers.

2 04, 2013

Rapport Skills, building blocks for business growth

By RicHayden|2021-10-11T12:28:52+01:00April 2nd, 2013|Consultative Selling, Customer Service, Engagement, High Performance Culture, Sales, Sales Performance, Success|Comments Off on Rapport Skills, building blocks for business growth

Rapport is the foundation for effective communication and positive relationship-building. It stems from finding and/or creating common ground. The ability to build rapport with customers is vitally important. Why? Because, if you have rapport with your customers they are more likely to trust you, listen to you and communicate openly with you. This in turn enables you to interact more comfortably and work more effectively together. Rapport dramatically increases your chances of being able to take action and win business. There are 4 main indicators that tell you when you are in rapport with a someone: you feel an openness/warmth [...]

20 03, 2013

Creating Legends

By RicHayden|2021-10-11T12:28:52+01:00March 20th, 2013|Customer Service, Emotional Intelligence, Engagement, High Performance Culture, Leadership, Organisational Culture, Organisational Happiness, Organisational Performance, Sales, Sales Performance, Success|Comments Off on Creating Legends

Murray Spangler worked as a janitor in Canton, a small town in Ohio, America. Murray suffered from asthma and the dust stirred up while he cleaned staircases and rugs made his health problems worse. Having given this matter some thought he came up with an ingenious solution. He took a soapbox, a fan, a silk pillowcase and a broomstick and he assembled everything into the first domestic vacuum cleaner ever seen. He tried out his new device and was very encouraged by the results. Now, Murray was astute enough to recognise the potential of the new product and he wanted [...]

14 03, 2013

Drains and Radiators – Happiness at work

By RicHayden|2021-10-11T12:28:53+01:00March 14th, 2013|Customer Service, Engagement, Happiness, High Performance Culture, Leadership, Organisational Happiness, Organisational Performance, Sales, Sales Performance, Success, The Happiness Effect|Comments Off on Drains and Radiators – Happiness at work

Several years ago I read a book called How to be Brilliant by Michael Heppel, it was fantastic. I was working on quite a big customer service change project at the time and it totally changed my view on what we needed to do. Well not totally changed my view but we did take on board a lot of the learning from the book, we designed a “brilliant” change programme from this and went out to be really successful with what we were trying to achieve. This week I was working with a group of new sales people and we [...]