Customer Retention

The "LogicSmart" Customer – Designing Your Customer Experience With The 8 Kinds of Smart

2009-08-17T13:07:20Z

By David Lazear

This is the third of eight articles following up my original article "Is Your Customer Experience Hurting Or Helping Your Customer Retention?". As I mentioned in the first article in this series, "not everyone learns, understands, and processes information best in the traditional ways. Most people need to learn and process information several different ways for the information to really stick."

This is so important when you're working with your customers, whether they're brand new or long-time customers. Taking the time to really understand how they process information and how they learn best will make all the difference in the world to effective customer communication.

In this article I discuss the LogicSmart customer, how to identify them and a set of "CustomerSmart Strategies" to help you design the customer experience to address their learning style and their unique way of processing information. If you missed my previous article "Designing Your Customer Experience With The 8 Kinds of Smart" will provide some helpful background for what I'm discussing in this article.

Recognizing LogicSmart In Your Customers

LogicSmart is most often associated with what we call “scientific thinking.” Logical-mathematical intelligence is activated in situations requiring problem-solving or meeting a new challenge. This intelligence likewise involves the capacity to recognize patterns, to work with abstract symbols such as numbers and geometric shapes, and to discern relationships and-or see connections between separate and distinct pieces of information.

Key LogicSmart Question To Ask Yourself:

How do people feel about our products or services? What do the do with them?

Key Intelligence Characteristics

Customers who are strong in this intelligence tend to think more conceptually and abstractly. They need to know the underlying reasons and rationales for everything.

• They are often able to see patterns and relationships that others miss.

• They like to conduct experiments, solve puzzles and other problems.

• They like to investigate cosmic questions and analyze statistics, circumstances and people’s behavior.

• They enjoy working with numbers, mathematical formulas and operations, spreadsheets and “crunching numbers”

• They love the challenge of a complex problem to solve.

• They are usually systematic and organized, and they likely always have a logical rationale or argument for what they are doing or thinking at any given time.

• They’re concerned about saving money, discounts, refund policies, and return on their investment.

Tips For Designing Your Customer Experience With the LogicSmart Customer In Mind

Clues to HOW Your
Customers Are Smart

Does your customer get impatient when things don’t make sense to him or her?
Does your customer use “logical” language? “I don’t follow your reasoning.” “What’s the rationale for that?” “Tell me the steps again, in order.” “That doesn’t lead to this. It doesn’t make sense.”
How much does your customer care about processes and systems?
Does your customer like to test or experiment with new products, systems, or ideas?
Does your customer enjoy working with numbers, formulas, spreadsheets, and analysis?
Do they seem to relax and concentrate when you give them statistics, a flowchart, or graph?
Do they want to proof of your claims based on research studies or scientific testing?
Are they concerned with comparing and contrasting your products or services with others?

CustomerSmart™
Strategies

Check your web site navigation. Is it easy, intuitive, logical?
Does your sales literature invite customers to follow a logical path toward purchasing?
Make sure an presentation or conversation is organized with a clear, logical order.
Look for ways to present information in charts, graphs, tables, diagrams.
Ask your customers about their processes or systems. How will your products fit?
Present your company, products. and service story using statistics, percentages, and data.
Use “systems language”: “Does this make sense to you?” “What would be the logical conclusion to that line of reasoning?”
Have them come up with what would make sense to them for resolving with a complaint, problem, or issue.
If they seem frustrated, take them back through what they already know so they’ll be able to “pick up the thread” of logic so far?”

About the author:

David Lazear is a mentor and coach for mentors, coaches, and trainers. He is an associate of Mike Klingler and Ann Sieg at the Renegade University and Renegade Professional where he is a superguide, coach, and trainer.

David has written some 15 books and created numerous resources for small business entrepreneurs, coaches, and trainers. His expertise is training others in how to assess and address the “learning profile” of other people using the research on “multiple intelligences” (a.k.a. The 8 Kinds of Smart). Learn more about this on his blog
@ Small-Business-Mentor-Training.com

David Lazear teaches how to turbo-charge any mentoring, coaching, and training you provide so you Reach Everyone, Everytime – Guaranteed!

Contact information for David Lazear

Phone: 773-525-6650
E-mail: David@Home-Business-Smarts.net
Blog: Small-Business-Mentor-Training.com

The "BodySmart" Customer – Designing Your Customer Experience With The 8 Kinds of Smart

2009-07-23T12:39:47Z

By David Lazear

This is the second of eight articles following up my original article "Is Your Customer Experience Hurting Or Helping Your Customer Retention?". As I mentioned in the first article in this series, "not everyone learns, understands, and processes information best in the traditional ways. Most people need to learn and process information several different ways for the information to really stick."

This is so important when you're working with your customers, whether they're brand new or long-time customers. Taking the time to really understand how they process information and how they learn best will make all the difference in the world to effective customer communication.

In this article I discuss the BodySmart customer, how to identify them and a set of "CustomerSmart Strategies" to help you design the customer experience to address their learning style and their unique way of processing information. If you missed the first article in this series, "Designing Your Customer Experience With The 8 Kinds of Smart" check it out. It provides some helpful background for what I'm discussing in this article.

Recognizing BodySmart In Your Customers

BodySmart is the ability to use the body to express emotion (as in dance and body language), to play a game (as in sports), or to create a new product (as in devising an invention). Our bodies are very wise. They know things our conscious minds don't and can't know in any other way. For example, if I gave you a piece of paper and asked you to lay out the keyboard of a computer without moving your fingers, could you do it? Probably not. But your fingers know the keyboard without even pausing.

Key BodySmart Question To Ask Yourself:

How do people feel about our products or services? What do they do with them?

Key Intelligence Characteristics

Customers who are strong in this intelligence learn, process information, and think through physical movement and action.

• They like physical movement—dancing, making and inventing with their hands, and role-playing.

• They probably communicate well through body language and other physical gestures, facial expressions, and postures.

• They can often perform a task much better after seeing someone else do it first and then mimicking those actions.

• They want to experience a product or service to see for themselves how it works before they buy.

• They like to demonstrate how to do something for someone else.

• They learn best in through “hands on” activities and through performance of skills being taught.

• They may find it difficult to sit still for long periods of time and are easily bored or distracted if they are not actively involved in what is going on around you

Tips For Designing Your Customer Experience With the BodySmart Customer In Mind

Clues to HOW Your
Customers Are Smart

Is your customer athletic and physically active?
Is it hard for them to sit still
for very long?
Do they think better when they’re moving?
Do they use “kinesthetic language”? “I don’t like the feel of that,” “I can’t quite get a handle on it,” “My sense of this is . . .”
Does your customer dress more for comfort than style?
Do they need to take time to check out how they feel about things?
Do they use hand gestures often in the mid-body region and as if holding or touching a 3-dimensional object?
Do they use their body to express themselves, such as gestures, facial expressions, shrugs, postures, and other forms of “body language”?
Are they more involved and excited when you and they are moving or trying things out.

CustomerSmart™
Strategies

Whenever possible, offer a demonstration or simulation of what you’re selling.
Get them moving: “Let’s go for a walk and talk about this more so I can get a better feel for the situation.”
Put something in their hands – give them something to touch, hold, play with, use.
Make sure you meet in a large enough space where they have room to move around.
Figure out how to make any abstract concepts as concrete as possible by using movement, physical objects, space, and touch.
Use “kinesthetic language”: “You’ve got a pretty good grip on this, eh?” “What’s your sense of this so far?” “Thanks for putting your touch our conversation.”
Have them dramatize, act out, or physically show you a problem or issue they are experiencing.

About the author:

Customer Relationship Management, Considerations for Your New Customer

2009-07-21T03:43:11Z

By Pat Campbell

Each business owner brings to the table their own style and experience in managing their business and customer relationships. This discussion is solely for a springboard of thought for those who are brand new to managing their Home Based Business and are looking for some guidelines.

Action Steps for Customer Relationship Management

The following are a sample of action steps as simply a guideline for managing your relationships with your customers once they have joined your team.

1. Customer Relationships with Regular Communication

Regular communication is the first priority in building your customer relationship management action plan. Remember how you provided value and stayed connected with this individual over time until they made a decision? You had appropriate regular communication with them. Relationship marketing brought your customer to you and relationship building keeps them in your business.

Communication does not end with the sale or partnership. This is the time to establish a stronger rapport. This is the time to nurture customer loyalty and provide business training for the new partner. You are the person these people turn to for guidance in using the product well and/or growing their business.

Make a commitment to yourself that each of your new team members will know that you have an open line of communication with them. Be sure to make it clear how they can reach you and when.

2. Managing Customer Relationship with Scheduled Communication

Scheduling your communication in your daily action steps will in time make this part of your business run smoothly, you will have fun with it while keeping yourself “in front” of your customer or business partner. Certainly, you are not talking with every team member every day, but on a regularly scheduled basis.

In some way, on no less than a monthly basis, your customer will appreciate hearing from you. Your phone call will especially be helpful to ensure their product needs are met. At the end of the month, ask yourself, " Did I go the extra mile to keep my customers happy and loyal?" If not, think about how to change that for the next month. Your business partners will require closer contact for purposes of training.

In Romancing the Sale, Barbara Silva has a suggested schedule of communication for one of her businesses.

(a) Each new customer receives an immediate welcome/thank you letter from the autoresponder service you use. Include your contact information for their convenience.

(b)Within the first week of your new team member being on board, Email a value based newsletter teaching your customer about product use, your company, inside information on services they have access to.

(c)Be sure that in the first month your customers are reminded that they may contact you for any question. Appointments for conversation can be nicely managed with free Genbook software.

You can invite you customers/business partners to join you on your social networking site. This enables them to view current updates on your status. They can contact you directly and you can make them aware quickly of events they can attend with you.

(d)Plan to call your customer base on a regular basis. The purpose of the call is simply a reconnect for updates on customer satisfaction; customer service needs that change that you can address.

3. Training Your Leaders in Customer Relationship Management

As your team numbers grow beyond personal telephone contact, have a plan to train your business partners to assist with this kind of customer relationship management. Your daily action steps model for your business partners how you conduct business. Early in your working relationship with partners, delegate some of the team contact support tasks to them. Mentoring in this systematic way will ensure that your customer base will continually receive personal contact and support no matter how large your business grows.

There are many variations to how this can be done to fit your business, your personality. Have fun with the process and network with others on what works and does not work for you.

If this is all new for you, have a look at Renegade University. This is a free internet training site with click by click, 24/7 to learn at your own pace.

Pat Campbell is a Renegade Professional and Super Guide. She has learned Attraction Marketing with Mike Klingler since 2002. Online Attraction Marketing has been a breath of fresh air after years of cold calling, return calling with poor results. Pat is an RN and knows the effort it takes to juggle your passion around fulltime day job commitments and life. It is exhilarating to develop strength and skill set within you that is brand new with Attraction Marketing.

Designing Your "Customer Experience" With The 8 Kinds of Smart (a.k.a. "multiple intelligences")

2009-07-11T11:50:30Z

By David Lazear

This is the first of eight articles following up my article on "Is Your Customer Experience Hurting Or Helping Your Customer Retention?". Not everyone learns, understands, and processes information best in the traditional ways. Most people need to learn and process information several different ways for the information to really stick. Respecting this difference in your customers is key to relationship marketing startegies.

• Some people are more visual in how they learn. • Some need to discuss things with other people.

• Some need a very logical presentation of the material to be learned.

• Some need lots of written material to read.

• Some love lectures and learning via the spoken word.

• Others just need time to “go inside” and think about it, or meditate on it.

• Others need some kind of physical activity – acting something out, or something that gets them up out of their chair.

• For some, music helps them learn – put what you're teaching into a song and they'll get it instantly (remember how you learned the alphabet years ago?).

I know you've experienced this in your business when you're mentoring, coaching, or training your customers and business partners. However, it's not just true in a training situation. It's also important for your customer experience – even the customer experience on your website!

If we're concerned to really reach everyone with the mentoring, coaching and training we’re providing, it's got to be “multi-modal”. Multi-modal simply means that any information you're trying to get across to your customers (or potential customers!) must be delivered in a variety of ways, because not everyone learns, understands, and procresses information the same way.

Let’s look at a simple, yet profound system that will help you incorporate multi-modal teaching and learning into your customer experience!

Designing Your "Customer Experience"
with The 8 Kinds of Smart!
(a.k.a. “multiple intelligences”)

WordSmart leads to the production of language and all the complex possibilities that follow, including poetry, humor, grammar, metaphors, similes, abstract reasoning, symbolic thinking, and of course, the written word.

LogicSmart is most often associated with what we call “scientific thinking”, problem-solving, working with numbers, calculation, and discerning logical connections between different kinds and pieces of information.

ImageSmart involves such activities as painting, drawing, and sculpture; navigation, mapmaking and architecture; and the ability to create images and pictures in the mind.

BodySmart is the ability to use the body to express emotion, to play a game, to mime, to dance, to box, to communicate with others using "body language", or to create a new product.

SoundSmart includes such capacities as the recognition and use of rhythmic and tonal patterns, and sensitivity to sounds from the environment, the human voice, and musical instruments.

PeopleSmart involves the ability to work cooperatively in a group as well as the ability to communicate, verbally and non-verbally, with other people, including recognizing contrasts in moods, temperament, motivations, and feelings.

SelfSmart involves knowledge of the internal aspects of the self such as one's own feelings, the range of emotional responses, thinking processes, self-reflection, self-identity, and the ability to transcend the self.

NatureSmart is related to our recognition, appreciation, and understanding of the natural world around us, including species discernment, the ability to recognize and classify various flora and fauna, and our knowledge of and communion with the natural world.

In this article, and the seven to follow, I will take each of The 8 Kinds of Smart and show you how to recognize them in your customers and then provide a set of "CustomerSmart Strategies" to help you design the customer experience to address their learning style and their unique way of processing information.

Recognizing ImageSmart In Your Customers

ImageSmart involves such activities as painting, drawing, and sculpture; navigation, map-making and architecture, and games such as chess (which requires the ability to visualize objects from different perspectives and angles). The key sensory base of this intelligence, obviously, is the sense of sight, but also the ability to form images and pictures in the mind. Our childhood daydreaming, when we pretended we could fly or that we were magical beings, or maybe that we were heroes-heroines in fabulous adventure stories used this intelligence to the hilt!

Key ImageSmart Question To Ask Yourself:

What do my customers SEE, actually, or in their "mind’s eyes"?

Key Intelligence Characteristics

Customers who are strong in this intelligence learn, process information, and think in images, pictures, patterns, textures, designs, and colors.

• They are likely very aware of objects, shapes, colors, textures, and patterns in the environment around them.

• They may like to draw, paint, make interesting designs and patterns, and work with clay, colored markers, construction paper, and fabric.

• Many who are strong in ImageSmart love to work jigsaw puzzles, read maps, and find their way around new places.

• They have definite opinions about colors that go together well, textures that are appropriate and pleasing, and how a room should be decorated.

• They excellent at performing tasks that require seeing with the mind’s eyes, such as visualizing, pretending, imagining, and forming mental images.

Tips For Designing Your Customer Experience With the ImageSmart Customer In Mind

Clues to HOW Your
Customers Are Smart

Notice your customer’s environment: Are things carefully placed? Are there decorative objects?
Does your customer use “visual” language? For example: “Look at it this way,” “I see what you mean,” “Let’s focus on this” “I’m having difficulty picturing what you’re saying.”
How does your customer dress? Often they’ll wear exciting patterns and combine interesting colors.
Do they seem to understand better when you show them something to look at?
Do they often look up or off into the distance as if trying to glimpse something before speaking?
Do they gesture at things they’re talking about, even when the actual “thing” isn’t there?
Do they express themselves by drawing images, diagrams, or pictures? Do they doodle while you’re talking with them?
Do they close their eyes when trying to remember something?

CustomerSmart™
Strategies

• Look at your physical space through the eyes of your most visual customer, what needs to change?

How pleasing is your product literature to the eye?
Is your web site visually stimulating and interesting?
Always have something to show, even though it might not seem necessary to you.
Look at everything that is sent or given to customers: how visually appealing is it? (Even if it’s just words – layout counts!)
Ask your customers to visualize themselves using your products or solving a problem?
Use visual language when you try to assist them, for example “Let me show you what I mean.” “Let me know when you have a clear picture of it.” “Can you see what I’m talking about?”
If they’re having difficulty expressing something, ask them to get a picture in their head first then describe what they’re seeing.

About the author:

Managing your Customer Relationships, A Win/Win

2009-07-11T03:36:01Z

Why Customer Relationship Management Is Important.

When you are in business for yourself, you quickly learn the importance of customer relationships. Over the course of your marketing and attracting your prospect, who is now your customer, one thing becomes clear. Your new customer has a business relationship with you primarily because they have come to know you. They like you and in turn trust you enough to commit to a sale or business partnership.

Is Your "Customer Experience" Hurting or Helping Your Customer Retention?

2009-06-26T13:58:52Z

By David Lazear

At the core of great customer service is the “customer experience”. When it's positive, it leads a dramatic increase in customer retention. Allow me to introduce this concept of customer experience by way of a story about when I purchased my first car.

I was in college. My parents finally agreed that I could get a car but I had to do it on my own; although they agreed to give me their advice along the way. It was the end of my sophomore year; however, I looked like I was a freshman in high school! I basically knew nothing about buying a car but I jumped into the process to learn by doing it.

This all took place before the days of the internet so I had to do my research via newspaper ads and just dropping in to used cars lots. One ad which caught my attention talked about used cars at great prices for the first time car owner. I decided that this was where I would begin.

I remember walking on the lot of the company which ran this ad. The first thing I noticed is that no one noticed! No one noticed that I was there; or rather, apparently no one thought that this young kid was a serious buyer. I wandered around by myself and eventually found a light yellow Corvair (a compact car made by Chevrolet back in the 1960s) which was in the price range I thought I could afford.

I had to go find a sale representative to assist me. In fact to get someone to help me, I had to interrupt a coffee break where several reps where sitting around talking with each other. I really felt like I was an intruder on some private club meeting.

Eventually a salesman joined me on the lot to talk about my desired Corvair. I had a number of questions about the car. The whole time he talked down to me as if to say, “Sonny, why don’t you come back when you’re older and know what you’re doing?”

I don’t know why I preserved. Today I wouldn’t. But I desperately wanted a car. I told him I wanted to take it for a drive. He said “Fine, but I’ll go with you. And I need to see your license first.” He had apparently missed the fact that I had driven my father’s new Pontiac Bonneville to the lot!

During the whole driving experience I felt like I was back in driver’s education just learning to drive. It was pretty humiliating. But somehow, I got us both back to the lot alive.

I told him I was interested in the car but wanted it for a lower price. (My father had told me to negotiate with them if I found something I wanted.) Finally we agreed on the price and we moved to the financing. From my experience thus far I’m sure you can guess what this experience was like. I had a job, a good chunk of money I had been saving for my first car, and I had established my credit-worthiness through a couple of credit cards.

Of course none of this mattered. Eventually my father had to come in a cosign with me on the loan. I got my car, but my customer experience was dismal. As I said earlier, being older (and hopefully wiser!) this company would never get my business today.

My guess is that no one in business today would treat a potential customer with such disdain. However, as you think back over my story, were you reminded of any areas where the “customer experience” in your organization needs some work?

Designing the “Customer Experience”

The customer experience involves every single moment of contact a customer has with your company or organization from the very beginning, through the actual sale, to the contact with the company after the sale into the future. In my car-buying episode my customer experience began with the newspaper ad that led me to the used car company in the first place.

Customer experience involves both the direct and indirect contacts and dealing with your company whether it be customer experience through your website, a print ad, FAQs you may have posted, forms which they fill out requesting further information, the experience of calling your 800 number, the “on hold” experience when this is necessary, the sound of the voice at the other end of the line, the first impressions they form in face-to-face customer service situations, what your body language communicates, and how your dress impact them.

Literally every single, minute part of a customer’s contact with your organization, regardless of how subtle, consciously and unconsciously creates the customer experience. This is why carefully considering your relationship marketing is so important.

The number one key to designing a great customer experience is to understand that each customer is unique. Each customer has different needs. They have different goals and dreams. They have different problems they're trying to solve or challenges they're trying to deal with.

The quickest way to connect deeply with your customers is to also understand that each customer processes information in slightly different ways. They’ll express their goals, needs, concerns, issues, problems, and challenges in ways that are unique to their “learning profile”.

When you can recognize how they learn best, how they process information, how they remember things, how they know what they know in their lives AND you tap into their uniqueness in your dealings with them, the customer experience suddenly becomes an experience of building long-term customer relationships, which goes way beyond the present moment with a given customer.

I'm going to follow up this article with several additional articles on how to assess and recognize a customer's learning profile AND how you can adjust your communication with them to address their learning profile. So return to this space over the next several weeks to get your copy of what I call "CustomerSmart Strategies".

About the author:

David Lazear is a mentor and coach for mentors, coaches, and trainers. He is an associate of Mike Klingler and Ann Sieg at the Renegade University and Renegade Professional.

David has written some 15 books and created numerous resources for home business entrepreneurs, coaches, and trainers. His expertise is training others in how to assess and address other’s “learning profile” using the research on “multiple intelligences” (a.k.a. The 8 Kinds of Smart).

David Lazear teaches how to turbo-charge any mentoring, coaching, and training you provide so you Reach Everyone, Everytime – Guaranteed!

Contact information for David Lazear

Phone: 773-525-6650
E-mail: David@Home-Business-Smarts.net

Customer Service: HOW You Say WHAT You Say . . .

2009-06-19T15:01:40Z

By David Lazear

Imagine the following customer service scenarios:

Scenario 1: You call customer service for information about a new product or service you’ve seen on the internet. The person answers the phone and right away you can tell this is someone who doesn’t like what they’re doing. You ask your question about the product or service and the customer service representative tells you it’s a very exciting product, but they drone on using what sounds like a scripted conversation.

Scenario 2: You call customer service needing technical support on a software product and the customer service rep sounds as if they are in a hurry to get you out of the way so they can move on to something else, probably more important than you and your petty concern.

Scenario 3: Customer service answers the phone with some “canned” personal greeting but the person sounds angry or stressed out. You have a complaint about a product you’ve purchased and the rep starts arguing with you, or communicates their impatience with you.

In each of these situations, it was the sound and quality of the other persons voice which created the negative feelings. Often HOW we say what we say communicates more than the actual meaning of the words we use. Can you think of times you were talking with a friend or colleague about a controversial topic and they assured you in an emphatic way, “NO! I am NOT upset by what you just said!!!”

In customer service, especially when your main contact with customers is in on the phone, the tone, pitch, timbre, and rhythm of your speaking will shape and determine the customer experience with your business. There are many aspect to building solid customer relationships. How your voice impacts others is a subtle, but very important part of your relationship building with your customers.

Following are two exercises which focus on the sound and rhythm of your speech. The first exercise deals with the sound of your voice when you speak to another person. The second deals with the rhythm and beat of your speech. Both are subtle, but vitally important to setting the right emotional tone when you’re dealing with customers.

Exercise 1: The Tonal Qualities of Communication

This exercise helps you learn to “tune in” to the sound of your own and others speech. As you learn to listen to the quality of your voice when you are speaking with another person, you can check yourself to make sure that what you are saying and how you are saying it match.

There are patterns of sound that are part of everyday communication which provide an opportunity to experiment with enhancing your communicative capacities. You can use this auditory realm to deepen your communication with others in the course of everyday relating. This exercise will help you practice getting your message and voice in synch with each other.

1. Spend a couple of evenings watching a variety of TV shows and analyze the tonal qualities of the dialogue. Use the chart below and see how many of the vocal tonal patterns listed you can recognize.

sarcasm	impatience	affection
irritation	empathy	happiness
sympathy	sadness	boredom
contentment	sincerity	surprise
determination	frustration	excitement

2. Over the course of several days, listen carefully to the tones of peoples' communication with one another. See if you can hear the same qualities that you did when you were analyzing the TV shows. When you recognize the tonal pattern, check the box of the appropriate mood or emotion in the chart above.

[Remember: You’re not listening for the content of the message. You’re listening for the vocal tonal patterns which express the mood or emotion.]

3. Finally spend time listening carefully to the tones of your own communication with others, both on-the-job and at home. See if you can detect some of the same vocal tonal pattern that you noticed when you were analyzing the TV shows and other people’s speech. When you recognize the vocal tonal pattern in yourself, again check the appropriate box in the chart.

4. Reflection:

• What really stands out from my experience of this exercise?
• What do I find most interesting? Most surprising? Most entertaining? Most disturbing?
• What have I learned about the role of tonal patterns in the art of communication?

Exercise 2: The Beat, Rhythm, and Vibration of Communication

When I was working on my master’s degree, there were a couple of professors which almost drove me mad. One professor spoke in such a slow, relaxed, and meandering fashion that it was almost sleep-inducing. He had good stuff to say; it just took him forever to say it.

The other professor was a young, fresh out of school woman who was so excited about what she was teaching she could hardly contain herself. She talked so fast and in such a staccato manner, that I was a wreck at the end of her classes. The rhythm and vibration of her teaching literally raised my stress level.

This exercise mirrors the previous one; however, this time you’ll work with the rhythm, beat, vibration, and all the other sounds of communication.

1. Once again, spend a couple of evenings watching a variety of TV shows. This time listen to and analyze the rhythmic and vibrational patterns of the dialogue and the accompanying sound effects. As much as possible ignore the pitch and tone of people’s voices. Use the chart below and see how many of the rhythmic and vibrational patterns listed you can recognize.

tension	anxiety	well-being
urgency	nonchalance	frivolity
excitement	fear	boredom
anger	hostility	terror
determination	frustration	excitement

2. Over the course of several days, listen carefully to the rhythmic and vibrational aspects of peoples' communication with one another. See if you can hear the same patterns that you observed in the various TV shows. When you recognize the vocal rhythmic pattern, check the box of the appropriate mood or emotion in the chart above.

[Remember: Again you’re not listening for the content of the message. You’re listening for the vocal rhythmic patterns or the beat of their speaking which express the mood or emotion.]

3. Over the course of several days, listen carefully to the rhythmic and vibrational aspects of your own communication with others. See if you can detect the same patterns as you did in the TV shows. When you can recognize the rhythmic pattern, check the box of the appropriate mood or emotion.

4. Reflection:

What really stands out in my experience of this exercise?
What do I find most interesting? Most surprising? Most entertaining? Most disturbing?
What have I learned about the role rhythmic and vibrational patterns play in the art of communication?

About the author:

David Lazear is a mentor and coach for mentors, coaches, and trainers. He is an associate of Mike Klingler and Ann Sieg at the Renegade University and Renegade Professional.

David has written some 15 books and created numerous resources for home business entrepreneurs, coaches, and trainers. His expertise is training others in how to assess and address other’s “learning profile” using the research on “multiple intelligences” (a.k.a. The 8 Kinds of Smart).

David Lazear teaches how to turbo-charge any mentoring, coaching, and training you provide so you Reach Everyone, Everytime – Guaranteed!

A Customer Service Strategy: “Tell Me More!” – The Art of Questioning

2009-06-17T20:18:24Z

By David Lazear

When we are talking with a customer, a lead or prospect, or to our business partners we often make certain assumptions about them which may or may not be accurate. Learning to ask good questions is an important customer service technique which not only helps you get to know them better, but to quickly zero in on exactly what their unique needs are.

Following is a questioning strategy which allows you to move beyond assumptions and explore real feelings, opinions, values, and beliefs with your customers, thus deepening your relationship with them. I promise that you will leave the conversation with a greater appreciation for and understanding of each other. In short, you will build the customer relationship .

The questioning strategy involves learning to take a customer service experience through four distinct levels that mirror the natural way the mind thinks about almost anything. Usually the mind goes through this in a split second, but for the sake of understanding this strategy, I’ll will slow down the process and isolate the levels.

Here are the four levels of the questioning strategy:

Objective-level customer service questions ask people to state what they see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. This level tends to be verifiable by the five senses and by everyone involved in the discussion.

When the objective level is ignored, people will often interpret and make decisions based on erroneous information or subjective feelings only.

Reflective-level customer service questions illuminate people’s emotional responses, what they are feeling toward something. This level is more personal and individual.

When the reflective level of is ignored, people tend to remain dispassionate and make decisions void of commitment.

Interpretive-level customer service questions highlight the meaning and significance people ascribe to what is being discussed. They allow people to state what is important to them and why.

When the interpretive level is ignored, outcomes and final decisions tend to be superficial or somehow not quite on target given the data.

Decisional-level customer service questions allow people to choose a course of action in light of the conversation. This level reveals people’s decisions and the steps they plan to take.

When the decisional level is ignored people feel like they have talked an issue to death but made no decisions, and resent that their time was wasted.

Exercise: The Four-Level Questioning Technique

Let’ s now try it! You’ll need a small group of 4-5 people who are willing to experiment with and learn this method. Select a poem or a short article from a trade journal for your industry.

1. Objective Level. Read the poem or article aloud 3-4 times, then discuss:

What words or phrases grabbed you?
What parts of it really stand out in your mind, for whatever reason?

2. Reflective Level. Read the poem or article again and notice your feelings. Discuss:

What feelings did it call forth? You do not have to explain why; just be aware of your feelings.
What music would you play as a background for this poem or article?
What colors does it evoke?
If you could delete part of this poem or article, which part would it be?
If you could add something, what would you add?

3. Interpretive Level. Now discuss your interpretations:

If you could read this poem or article to anyone, to whom would you read it? Why?
In your own words, what is the core message of the poem or article?
What real-life experience does it call to mind?
When in your own experience have you known the truth of this poem or article? Tell each other about that time.

4. Decisional Level. Next discuss what decisions about the poem or article you might make:

If I gave you a nicely mounted copy of this poem or article, where would you hang it in your home? Why?
If this poem or article were a person, what would it say to you? What would you say to it?
What title would you give this poem or article?
What implications does this poem or article have for your life today?

Customer Service Application Scenario:

A customer has called you with a question about a bonus they thought they were to receive when they purchased your product. Unfortunately the bonus is not available with the version of the product they purchased. They needed to upgrade to the professional version to get the bonus.

Here’s an example of how you might use the 4-level questioning technique to deal with this customer.

1. Objective Level: What words or phrases do you remember from the ad or sales letter that convinced you to buy the product in the first place?

2. Reflective Level: What are your feelings about the main product so far? What do you like? What surprised you about it?

3. Interpretive Level: What were you hoping for in the bonus? Why did you want it? What need would it fulfill for you?

4. Decisional Level: I’d like to send you a trial version of the product which includes the bonus. Would you be willing to try the professional version to see how you like it? You can keep the bonus if you decide to return the product.

About the author:

David Lazear is a mentor and coach for mentors, coaches, and trainers. He is an associate of Mike Klingler and Ann Sieg at the Renegade University and Renegade Professional.

David Lazear teaches how to turbo-charge any mentoring, coaching, and training you provide so you Reach Everyone, Everytime – Guaranteed!

CUSTOMER CARE: Deep Listening, Hearing, and Understanding

2009-06-11T21:05:56Z

By David Lazear

In your customer care or care for your leads and business partners, how often have you thought you clearly communicated something to them, and you thought they were listening and that they understood, only to be surprised later to find that they seemed to miss the whole intent of your communication?

Hearing others’ words is one thing. Hearing and listening to what they are saying is an entirely different matter. And understanding the meaning of their words is a highly developed skill that cannot be assumed simply because one has heard and listened.

There may be no single customer care skill that is more important than deep listening, hearing, and understanding. This will shape your customer experience more than any thing else you might do!

There are at least three situations that often challenge our listening, hearing, and understanding abilities: listening when you disagree, listening when their communication is confusing, and listening in a meeting.

Following are three exercises to help you build your own customer care skills which are also the skills needed to care for leads, prospects, business partners and/or your business team.

The exercises deal with several levels of the hearing, listening, and understanding process in everyday situations of human relating.

Listening When You Disagree

One time when deep listening is very difficult is when you’re having a casual conversation with someone else and suddenly they are saying something that is at odds with your own perspective or that may in fact challenge some of your own cherished values and beliefs. What usually happens to our listening in this case?

A whole world of inner voices begins making such comments as, “I can’t believe she could really believe that! I thought she was an intelligent person.” Or we start planning our rebuttal; we look for flaws in their logic or places where they are contradicting themselves. Sometimes derogatory thoughts come to us: “Why does she wear her hair like that? It surely doesn’t flatter her.”

The upshot of this is that we have basically stopped listening. We are missing what the other person is saying because our own mind chatter drowns it out. We’ve got to train ourselves to listen.

CUSTOMER CARE EXERCISE: Listening When You Disagree

Place yourself in a customer care situation (or one with a lead or business partner) where you strongly disagree with the viewpoint of another person or other persons. Your goal is to understand his/her perspective thoroughly. It may be a conversation over a political issue, a religious belief, or something happening in the community.

1. Ask the other person to explain his/her viewpoint to you. Listen as deeply as you can to what they are saying, trying to understand where they are coming from. Consciously practice cutting off the mind chatter.

2. When the person has finished, ask questions to clarify, but do not state your opinions. Remember, understanding is not the same as agreeing. Following are some questions to try, but be careful not to ask them in an argumentative way:

Who are some people who have influenced your thinking on this issue?
What experiences in your life have led to your current viewpoint?
What are the most common arguments against your viewpoint and how do you answer them?
Are there any books or articles you would recommend that would help me understand your position more fully?

3. See if you can paraphrase what the other person has said and what his viewpoint on the issue is. Ask him to interrupt you and correct you if you have not fully understood what he was saying. At the end of the conversation, thank the person for sharing his views with you.

As soon as you can after the conversation, reflect (even write) on how your own perspective has been informed as a result of the conversation.

Listening When the Message Is Confusing

Often when during our customer care and our communications with our leads, prospects, and business partners the messages we are getting are confusing or seem to be contradictory. We’ll often dismiss their thoughts and feelings simply because we couldn’t make sense out them. Again, this is a great occasion to train ourselves to listen!

CUSTOMER CARE EXERCISE: Listening When The Message Is Confusing

During the next month whenever you are communicating with someone and you feel the message is unclear, you feel you are hearing contradictory information, you don’t understand, or you feel the need to grasp the larger context.

1. As the person is talking, turn off your mind chatter. Listen as fully and deeply as you can, even though the communication is confusing (make mental notes to yourself about what parts are clear and what is confusing).

Do not accuse the other person of sending a confusing message. Do not look confused or communicate distress.

2. When the other person has finished a statement, begin by saying, “I’m not sure I understand what you just said. What I heard you say was. . .” and repeat as accurately as you can what you heard.

3. Ask the person if you have heard correctly. If not, ask her to repeat the message. Note what parts of your confusion are cleared up. Zero in on those parts that are still confusing using the following process:

In your own mind, isolate the confusing and contradictory parts.
In a non-accusatory way, try to explain what is confusing or what seems contradictory, asking the other person to help you understand.
After the explanation, paraphrase what you heard and ask for confirmation or correction.
In your own mind assess how the explanation has helped: What is still confusing? What still seems contradictory?
In the same fashion, continue to work on gaiing clarity; that is, explain your confusion, ask the other to explain, paraphrase what you heard, and reassess your level of clarity or confusion.

Listening In A Meeting

How often have you been sitting in a meeting and suddenly you’re no longer there? You’re off planning what you’re going to do after work, or you’re thinking about some problem you could be working on if you weren’t in this “so and so” meeting, or you’re thinking about a TV show you watched last night. Part of working and learning with others involves training ourselves to stay focused and to listen in this kind of situation.

CUSTOMER CARE EXERCISE: Listening In A Meeting

During the coming month, every time you are in a meeting (even if it’s a customer care conference call!) take notes. Set up three columns on your note page: column 1 is for the content (what is being said); column 2 is for who said it and how they said it; and column 3 is for your observations of how this contribution affects others in the group. Include your contributions. (Note: You may not have an entry in every column for every comment.)

1. As in the previous exercises, practice cutting off your mind chatter so that you can deeply listen, hear, and understand the process that is happening. You’ll likely need to use the skills of the previous two exercises—namely, listening when you disagree and listening when there is confusion—to help you be successful in this situation.

2. After the meeting, carefully analyze your notes, trying to grasp the complex interpersonal dynamics that were involved in the meeting. Ask yourself the following questions, trying simply to understand these dynamics:

Look at column 1. What were the recurring themes of the meeting? What points were made several times, maybe in different ways?
Look at columns 2 and 3. Who were the key participants in the meeting? Why do you feel they were key?
Reflect on column 3. Chart the mood shifts of the meeting. What was the overall mood of the meeting?
When were people effectively communicating with one another?
When were they not communicating?
If you were to replay this meeting, what would make the communication more effective and affective?

When you develop the skills of deep listening and hearing you’ll discover that your whole approach to customer care is transformed. You’ll find a new depth in your communication with customers, leads, and your business team, new levels of personal connection with them, and you’ll have a new respect for their opinions and feelings.

This will also change you. As you genuinely open yourself to others your own life will be enriched, your perspectives broaden, and your appreciation for others enhanced. This is at the heart of relationship and attraction marketing - giving without want and yet receiving without asking!

About the author:

David Lazear is a mentor and coach for mentors, coaches, and trainers. He is an associate of Mike Klingler and Ann Sieg at the Renegade University and Renegade Professional.

David has written some 15 books and created numerous resources for home business entrepreneurs, coaches, and trainers. His expertise is training others in how to assess and address other’s “learning profile” using the research on “multiple intelligences” (a.k.a. The 8 Kinds of Smart). For more information please go to his website at Home Business Smarts.

David Lazear teaches how to turbo-charge any mentoring, coaching, and training you provide so you Reach Everyone, Everytime – Guaranteed!

Customer Retention Management – Honing Your Skill Sets

2009-06-11T19:03:09Z

By David Lazear

Creating a customer retention management system is critical to the success and growth of your business. Central to this system is the development of a number of skill sets which must be “in place” to make sure your system is completely on target. It must be a priority to get the necessary skills training for yourself and to provide it for your business partners

Use the following survey to gauge your customer retention management and the skills needed for establishing effective and long-term retention of your customers, leads, and business partners.

Place a mark by each item you feel is “in place” in your customer retention management. [Please Note: throughout this article I will use the term “customer” to refer to customers, leads, prospects, business partners, and team members.]

Customer Retention Management: Foundational Skills

The foundational skills represent the bottom line skills necessary to establish basic human relationships and to create an effective interchange with your customers, leads, and business partners.

Without these skills chances of providing a great customer experience are dim. All other customer retention skills are built on this solid interpersonal foundation.

Maintaining appropriate eye contact with the customer in face-to-face contacts

Using the customer’s name

Waiting till the customer is finished speaking before offering a response

Deep listening to the customer’s concerns or questions

Making sure the customer has plenty of time and opportunity to speak

Expressing acceptance and appreciation to the customer for being a customer

Maintaining an open mind in all dealings with customers

Respecting customers’ opinions

Customer Retention Management: Functioning Skills

These are the skills needed to manage communication with your customers, leads, and business team. The importance of the functioning skills is that they draw the customer into a meaningful dialogue where you then have the opportunity to discover what they really need and how you can be of the greatest assistance to them.

Praising or affirming the customer

Keeping conversations with customers focused

Offering help to the customer

Encouraging customers to fully express their concerns

Sharing important information about the company or organization, product or service with customers

Using positive body language in face-to-face customer encounters

Using positive voice tones, pitch, rhythms, timbre, and inflection when talking with customers

“Mirroring” and “matching” a customer

Encouraging customers to express their feelings

Customer Retention Management: Formulating Skills

These are the skills needed to build deeper understandings between customers, leads, and business partners and yourself, the company you represent, your organization, product, or service.

All customer retention strategies are about building long-term relationships; however, the formulating skills are the main tools for insuring that this happens. They are about building trust between your customers and you and your organization.

Checking for the customer’s understanding

Encouraging and supporting the customer

Asking for clarification or more information when needed

Energizing customers

Inviting the customer to offer his or her opinions on a product or service

Summarizing or paraphrasing what a customer has said to make sure you’ve “gotten it right”

Empathy with a customer’s point of view and feelings

Customer Retention Management: Fermenting Skills

These are the skills needed to “think outside the box”, to resolve disagreements or conflicts, to search for more information or different solutions, or to communicate rationales behind different aspects of your business system, how it works, and how to align oneself with it.

The application of the fermenting skills often results in new ideas for improving a product or service, and even ideas about totally new products or services that would help customers. At this level you and the customer almost become co-partners.

Correcting a customer’s misperception without putting them down

Explaining or clarifying business procedures and practices in open, non-defensive ways

Asking for elaboration of customer concerns when more information is needed

Asking questions to gain a deeper understanding of customers’ concerns

Offering a range of alternative solutions to create customer satisfaction

Elaboration on customers’ insights

Creating a consensus when dealing with customers

Integrating and synthesizing discussion points

Staying in touch with customers to gain ongoing feedback

Now you’re probably thinking, a lot of this is pretty obvious. However, how often have you experienced other’s lack of skill in doing the obvious? And, how often have you, unwittingly, failed to practice the skill sets above?

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, these skills must be central to your customer retention management program. You want them to become almost second nature. There is no better resource that I have found for getting systematic skills coaching and training than Renegade University. I highly recommend that you check this out today!

To help you further in "honing your skills", watch this space over the next several weeks for a series of very practical “skill-building exercises” to help you with your customer retention management.

About the author:

David Lazear is a mentor and coach for mentors, coaches, and trainers. He is an associate of Mike Klingler and Ann Sieg at the Renegade University and Renegade Professional.

David has written some 15 books and created numerous resources for home business entrepreneurs, coaches, and trainers. His expertise is training others how to assess and address other’s “learning profile” using the research on “multiple intelligences” (a.k.a. The 8 Kinds of Smart).

David Lazear teaches how to turbo-charge any mentoring, coaching, and training you provide so you Reach Everyone, Everytime – Guaranteed!