Ways to Improve Your Customer Service Skills using Verbal Communication
Customer service is hard sometimes but it is pretty easy to improve on your customer service skills if you put in that little bit of extra effort here and there. Today I’d like to talk about verbal communication because it is one of the most important aspects in customer service. What you say and how you say it is what’s going to generate a sale for you and it’s what the customer is going to take away from your interaction. If you fail to communicate effectively with your customer you are going to lose money; simple as that.
When you’re talking to someone you aren’t just communicating with the flat words you’re using. There are tons of subtle inflections in your voice that convey deeper meanings than what the words can possibly mean alone. These subtle changes are called tone and we must always be aware of the tone we are taking with customers. Good customer service interactions will have welcoming tones to them. You want to be genuinely friendly and kind in your speech and you don’t want to sound sarcastic or angry.
Diction is key to proper verbal communication. The words you use to express each idea are incredibly important. If you don’t take care and choose your words properly you run the risk of alienating, confusing, or even insulting a customer and that is far from what we want to accomplish with all of this. Avoid using idiomatic expressions and slang terms like “How’s it going?” or “Sup, dude?” You want to be formal in your word choices.
If you’ve ever tried acting on a stage you know that if you don’t project your lines the audience is never going to understand what’s going on in the play. The same thing goes for face to face customer interactions. You need to project your words so that they can hear them clearly. Everyone has a different hearing range, and I’m not telling you to shout or yell at your customers, but if you consistently project to them you are going to get a higher percentage of people who understand and like you.
One of the most important pieces of advice I can give is this: Don’t mumble! The clarity of your words is everything! If you can’t be understood, you can’t help your customer, and that is going to make them angry. You won’t like customers when their angry, trust me. A confused and disoriented customer isn’t going to buy what your selling so make sure that each word that comes out of your mouth is clear and concise and understandable.
Put these simple ideas into action during your next customer service interaction and you might be in for a pleasant surprise. People just want to understand things and if you communicate your ideas clearly and use the proper language to convey happy feelings they are going to really love you for it. The easier it is to communicate with you the better the interaction will be and the more likely the customer is to buy your wares.
Joann loves to talk about how to take a customer service skills test and she also talks about how to have great customer service skills.
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