RESPONDING IN KIND

Just as you respond to the attitudes of other people, you also respond to their moods. If the customer is in a friendly mood, you are more likely to be friendly. If the customer is in an angry mood, you may become cautious and defensive. If the customer is anxious or worried, your response may be vague and noncommittal. If the customer displays an impersonal attitude, you may do the same. In these situations, you have permitted the customer to set the mood for your contact. Instead of taking the initiative, you have responded in kind.

As a contact point representative, you usually behave in an impersonal, detached manner upon your first contact with a customer. You behave in this manner for fear that the person will reject your move by showing no response or by responding negatively. By first determining the customer's mood, you feel you haven't wasted friendliness or good humor on someone not worthy of it. However, the best tactic is to reverse the situation. Instead of waiting to detect the customer's mood, you speak up first. By recognizing the customer's presence in a friendly, positive manner, you may influence the customer's mood.

Showing friendliness is very much like having a secret power over the behavior of the customer. If the

customer rejects your offer of friendliness, it is the customer's loss-not yours. Friendliness is not a commodity that will experience extinction, so share it freely.

Hostility and anxiety reduce the customer's ability to see a problem fully, to express it correctly, and to accept the solution objectively. If you respond in kind, you reduce your ability to deal with the problem.

When the customer is emotionally upset, you must deal with two problems-the emotion and the need that aroused the emotion. Nothing can be gained by responding in kind to the customer's mood. In fact, such a response will probably make matters worse. Instead, try to calm the customer by being calm yourself. Show by your actions that you are ready, willing, and able to handle the problem.

GIVING THE AMIABLE RUNAROUND

The emphasis on being friendly to the customer is a means to an end; not an end in itself. Your purpose in manning the contact point is to provide a service. You do not have a choice of providing either the friendly atmosphere or the service-you must provide both.

A friendly, helpful atmosphere at the contact point puts the customer at ease. A customer that is at ease can relate the problem more accurately; that, in turn, enables you to take constructive action to correct the problem. However, some contact point representatives think their job is to keep customers smiling and get rid of them; that is, to give them the amiable runaround. True, the customer goes away happy; but at some later time, that customer returns in a not-so-happy mood because the problem was not resolved.

A considerable amount of time and effort is required to deal with some problems or needs. In such instances, some contact point representatives try to make their job easier by convincing the customer that no action is needed in their particular case. This response denies service to the customer. If a customer requests service to which he or she is entitled, you have the responsibility to provide it. "It's all taken care of," tells the customer that you have taken all necessary action. That is a good response if you have truly taken that action; if not, you have performed a disservice-not a service.

PROMISING THE CUSTOMER ANYTHING

You have probably met a contact point representative who agreed with every statement you made, sympathized with you, promised everything you wanted, but DID NOTHING. This type of service is

similar to the amiable runaround. It is a method used to "keep 'em smiling."

This type of service sometimes develops as the result of a "short-timer" attitude. In other words, some people who know they will soon transfer or retire become lax in performing their duties. They say to themselves: Sure, I'll promise you whatever you want to get rid of you; after all, I'll be long gone when you return to find out why nothing has been done. Promising anything may leave the customer temporarily satisfied, but you have only postponed, and possibly complicated, the problem.

Many times customers hear only what they want to hear. That causes them to hope or expect for results

based on rumor, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation of fact. The way a customer asks a question usually tells you what the customer wants to hear. You have three choices in the way you answer customer's questions:

1. You can give the answer the customer wants to hear, although you know it is not completely accurate. That almost certainly guarantees disappointment to the customer later.

2. You can make vague statements and let the customer interpret them as he or she likes. That lets you off the hook because you really didn't give the customer wrong information.

3. You can give the customer the CORRECT information or interpretation. That may cause some grumbling, but the customer will not be depending upon hopeless expectations.

Offering anything less than the best information is unfair to the customer. A half-truth may be just as misleading and damaging as an outright lie. Future plans may be based on your "bum dope"; the morale, as well as the finances, of the customer could suffer because of it.

The friendly attitude of a contact point representative who gives this type of service is simply a cover-up for an attitude of unconcern.

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