Here are some useful principles for handling complaints and the customer service role itself. These suggestions are primarily for customer service staff and those concerned with customer service training and customer service staff motivation and development.
Of course it's easier to describe these suggestions than to put them into practice in the heat of the moment. Customer service can be an extremely demanding and stressful role - especially for those involved in high pressure sectors such as communications, finance, distribution and logistics, public services and utilities, education and healthcare, computers and IT support, when customers' emotions can run very high indeed - especially if at the same time management and executives appear to be blind to the needs of staff and customers alike.
Like any skill, real expertise comes with practising techniques under pressure. Expertise is the key word here, because customer service is an expert role which should be treated and acknowledged as such.
This is the first step towards developing and improving performance and enjoyment in the customer service role - to regard customer service as a real expertise in its own right, rather than a stop-gap job, or a stepping-stone into sales.
Shamefully many large organizations do little to raise the profile and reputation of the customer service profession itself, and if you are working for one of these ridiculous organizations please keep reminding yourself that regardless of how customers and your employer treat you, you are doing a highly demanding and sophisticated job. Your experiences and the skills you are learning are extremely transferable and will be of enormous value to you in whatever you do later in life.
Self-sufficiency and inner-resolve are therefore useful attributes to foster in the customer service role, that is to say: if your employer isn't valuing you or helping you, then you must do it for yourself.
Remember that the customer service role contains the essential elements of some very specialised and highly regarded professions, such as counselling, coaching, teaching, training, consulting and project management, such are the skills and behaviours required to perform the customer service role well.
Also interestingly, if performed well, the customer service role is far more sophisticated than a basic selling role, which is ironic considering how both roles are positioned in many organizations.
The customer service role by its nature requires a greater ability in problem-solving and (albeit not always on a grand scale) project management than many sales roles. Customer service also tends to connect to - and requires cooperation with - far more internal functions than a basic selling role. In fact customer service has much in common with a major accounts sales role, given the emphasis on mediating, problem-solving and the need to react positively and creatively to diverse and unpredictable customer situations. And while this explains why so many of the best sales people started their careers in customer service, it certainly does not follow that the sales role is more important or more demanding than customer service. Usually the opposite is true - ask most customers. Many organizations could do well to think more creatively about where they put their emphasis in respect of customer service and selling.
Central also to the value and expertise of the customer service role is the strong emphasis on emotional skills demanded in modern customer service. Dealing with emotional people, and solving problems with significant emotional implications, require the same capabilities and attitudes found in many specialised professions involved with helping, healing and developing people.
So look upon the stresses and pressures of customer service as your own personal free training for one day becoming, if you want to, a professional expert in whatever specialised field interests you. A couple of years in high-pressure customer service is super and relevant experience for moving into any people-related profession, especially if you can augment your experience with a little background psychology or other relevant technical theory along the way.
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