Thursday, September 30, 2010

Take a Walk with Your Customers

In a busy bank lobby, I recently overheard a banker reiterate a policy, only to have the customer respond irritably, "Why are you making it so hard? I could close this account and move it to another bank. You won't let me simply take my uncle's name off the account without a death certificate?"
Customer satisfaction expert Gary Heil tells a similar story. Gary had asked for overdraft protection on an account at his bank, where he was a long-time customer with several accounts. In response the bank requested his tax returns for the previous three years. When he suggested his other accounts could be collateral, the bank was inflexible.

Even though two different policies dictated these scenarios, they shared a common dilemma. The customers' requests weren't handled as they wished, which happens when customers don't understand why banks have certain policies.

Not as obvious yet integral to these interactions were customers who did not feel understood. The bankers tried to help by explaining the policies, but were the customers heard or understood by the bankers? And is understanding the customers more important than processing their requests?
Understood Customers Are Happy Customers

When push comes to shove, making sure customers feel understood is more important than getting paperwork done. Why? Customers who feel understood feel good about the relationship. They're willing to comply with necessary requirements, and they'll come back to do more business. They'll also tell others how great you are.

As Gary Heil says about customer service, "Loyalty is never rational, and nearly always emotional." Reaching customers on a human, emotional level that leaves them feeling understood can bring you many benefits.

To paraphrase an adage: if you feel understood, you will find several reasons to buy. If you don't feel understood, you won't find a single reason to buy, no matter how great the product is.

Customers like feeling understood. If you contribute to their positive feelings they'll like you. And two people who like each other get more done in less time than two people butting heads--or one who's upset while the other patiently re-explains a policy.

Shorter, more congenial interactions boost your productive. Prospects who don't feel understood raise more objections, especially on prices and fees, and make buying decisions more slowly. They use objections as trump cards against your demands, eating away at your time.

Prospects and customers who feel understood often make decisions more quickly, using fewer bank resources. Another bonus is that customers treated with dignity and respect reward bankers with their trust, which leads to openness, information sharing and efficient use of time.

Turnaround consultants consistently report that the most important yet least used tool for building customer relationships is courtesy. Customers who feel understood respond willingly and naturally to your camaraderie.

Customers who are understood value their relationships with your organisation and object less to prices and fees. Feeling understood, they're more likely to take long-term views of their relationship, which will pay off in future business from them, family members, friends, associates and businesses.

Mary Kay Ashe, of cosmetics fame, reminds her salespeople, "Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from his neck saying, 'Make me feel important.' Never forget this message when working with people."

Feeling Understood: What Does It Really Mean?
As we communicate "I understand" to our customers to make them feel understood, are we saying "yes" to whatever they request? No. Feeling understood doesn't mean getting whatever you want. Are we saying, "In your shoes, I'd do the same thing"? No.

What we are saying, verbally and non verbally, is, "I hear you. I allow you to express what you need to say." Customers feel understood when they have been able to "speak their piece," and when we accept that what they say matters. Acceptance conveys that you value them.

Respecting customers' time and experience also contributes to their feeling understood, so be sure to give customers opportunities to express themselves. This creates a powerful connection. It communicates your willingness to help them accomplish what they want in the best way possible for them. This interaction style shifts emphasis from regulations and policies to your customers.

So, how do you move from the angry customer who's about to take his savings account across the street to a customer who'll keep his money in your bank, finance his new home with you and convince his partners to move their business accounts to your bank?

Tips for Helping Customers Feel Understood
Achieving a base of customers who feel understood takes more takes more than posting a new customer service creed or running a sales contest. It's a more integrated and continuous process.

A good starting point might be your business cards. Pull one out. Is it elegant reflective of your positions? Does it convey dignity? Is this what business cards are for?

Rather than using business cards to impress or to fit a corporate design, consider a card that customers will find informative, practical and useful. Print telephone numbers in large, easy-to-read type or include direct lines for specific services. A list of services could be effective, or the locations and hours of your services.
Speaking of hours, are yours set for your convenience? Or do they reflect that your customers' needs, so you're open when they need you?

A good opportunity for helping customers feel understood is your processes. Do you make it easy for your customers, or do regulations dominate interactions? Perhaps you could you reduce the paperwork, ease its complexity or even eliminate some document requests. Today's customer-focused organisations scrutinize "fine print" and obtain regulatory approval for more friendly processes and forms.

While in your customers' shoes, look around your lobby, at your statement stuffers, statement formats and other communications. Are they talking "at" your customers, or communicating effectively? Your organisation's communication style is paramount in developing customers who feel understood. It includes written pieces, atmosphere and personal interactions. Is yours a communicating style, where conversations with customers are two-way exchanges? Or do you tell your customers what you think they should know?

Integrating communication that contributes to customers feeling understood requires everyone in the organisation to adopt the same practices. Interaction examples personal experiences and role-playing can demonstrate specifics. A good place to begin is with employee discussions of communication style.

If this sounds like a family communication course or a consensus-building, win-win workshop, it's because each contains human interaction elements. Remember, our human and emotional side helps make decisions.

Pressure for increased new sales and cross-sales may prompt you to offer more product and sales training. These sessions offer an ideal opportunity for building and polishing skills that help customers feel understood.

As communications guru Dale Carnegie said, "When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bustling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity."

Five Steps to Helping Customers Feel Understood:
1. Prepare for customer interactions with information and focus.
2. Listen to your customer.
3. Acknowledge what you hear.
4. Communicate that you value your customer.
5. Involve the customer in the process and the solution.

Preparation includes gathering background information on customers with scheduled appointments; using demographics that focus on specific customer segments; and establishing rapport in your exchange.

The more you know about your customers, the better understood they'll feel. Today's micro-demographics provide more in-depth specifics than the broad categories of empty-nesters or dual-career couples, small business or middle market. Accessing this information will help you develop valuable rapport with your customers--rapport that goes beyond opening chitchat to a real connection.

Listening is an active, not a passive, behavior. Listening means making eye contact, focusing only on the customer and conveying respect as the customer speaks. And sometimes you'll find that all your customers really need is an opportunity to have their say. That done, they're ready to move on.

As you listen, acknowledge what you are hearing. This can be done nonverbally by nodding, smiling or relaxing your body posture. Use verbal cues such as, "Oh," "I see" and "I hear what you're saying." Sometimes you may want to clarify, "I think I hear you saying ..." The tone of your voice, too, says as much as the words you use.
Your listening should be affirming and sincere, without being patronizing. For instance, "You are feeling worried. Let's see what we should do." Don't try to argue customers out of their feelings or become defensive. That fuels ill will. Instead, convey that you value customers by allowing them their say.

Once you have listened, clarified and acknowledged hearing the customer, continue involving the customer in the process as you move into accomplishing a task or resolving a problem. Rather than saying, "Okay, here's what I'm going to do," you might, for example, suggest a couple of alternatives. Try to be flexible. And by keeping your customer involved in the process, you are giving the customer some ownership in the ultimate decision and solution.

If you're cross-selling, for example, instead of giving a monologue on your products, ask what problem the customer would like solved. Then you have the opportunity to offer a specific product as though it were custom-created rather than saying, "We have six types of ..."

Also, this approach can be used as you structure loans by involving customers in determining what best fits their needs while you gain needed credit information and documentation requirements. Your marketing department can be a great source for developing decision trees that customers can use as the basis for their selections.
Dale Carnegie reminds us, "You're doing well if you can make people think that what you've said is their idea." Your goal is an understood customer, not an understood service provider.

Try to keep away from giving the power to policy, too. You know the routine, "Our policy states ..." Instead, help your customers feel confident about what your firm says and do, so they don't hide behind policies.

Once you begin actively listening and involving your customers, you'll identify countless opportunities for helping customers feel understood and for cross-selling. For example, when a customer closes an account, find out why. Learn from what the customer tells you. When commercial lenders ask about a business's aging of receivables, use it as an opportunity to explain the customer's benefit in knowing and tracking such information.

When you learn in an interview that a customer has been approached by another financial institution, spend time gaining information, such as, "Why did you agree to the appointment? What was said that interested you?" The process helps your firm find out what you've been missing and it conveys that you value and care about your customer.

Understood Customers are Buyers
You may say, "These five steps seem to work. But wouldn't two steps be easier? Step one, customers express a need. Step two, we tell them what they must do and what we'll do. Job done?"

Sure, two steps might be easier, if both providers and customers weren't humans and if we didn't need customers as much as we do. The reality is that we're dealing with humans and you want customers to buy from your firm.

Max Dixon, a communications professor and coach, says, "People don't buy because they understand. They buy because they feel understood. When a consultant helps a customer feel understood, the consultant creates a buyer."

Five Steps for Effective Listening
1. Make eye contact and keep your body relaxed.
2. Convey respect.
3. Give the customer your full attention.
4. Confirm what you think you heard by saying, "I think I hear you saying..." or "It seems like you are feeling..."
5. Respond openly to customers, "You'd like to see this resolved..." "You're hoping to find a way to..." "You're looking for an account that will..."

Monday, September 13, 2010

How Good Are Your Communication Skills?

Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Reading Effectively

Communication skills are some of the most important skills that you need to succeed in the workplace.

We talk to people face to face, and we listen when people talk to us. We write emails and reports, and we read the documents that are sent to us. Communication, therefore, is a process that involves at least two people - a sender and a receiver. For it to be successful, the receiver must understand the message in the way that the sender intended.

This sounds quite simple. But have you ever been in a situation where this hasn't happened? Misunderstanding and confusion often occur, and they can cause enormous problems.

If you want to be an expert communicator, you need to be effective at all points in the communication process - and you must be comfortable with the different channels of communication. When you communicate well, you can be very successful. On the other hand, poor communicators struggle to develop their careers beyond a certain point.

Whenever you communicate effectively with someone else, you and the other person follow the steps of the communication process shown below.

Here, the person who is the source of the communication encodes it into a message, and transmits it through a channel. The receiver decodes the message, and, in one way or another, feeds back understanding or a lack of understanding to the source.
By understanding the steps in the process, you can become more aware of your role in it, recognize what you need to do to communicate effectively, anticipate problems before they happen, and improve your overall ability to communicate effectively.
The sections below help you do this, and help you improve the way you communicate at each stage of the process.


The Source - Planning Your Message
Before you start communicating, take a moment to figure out what you want to say, and why. Don't waste your time conveying information that isn't necessary - and don't waste the listener or reader's time either. Too often, people just keep talking or keep writing - because they think that by saying more, they'll surely cover all the points. Often, however, all they do is confuse the people they're talking to.
To plan your communication:
• Understand your objective. Why are you communicating?
• Understand your audience. With whom are you communicating? What do they need to know?
• Plan what you want to say, and how you'll send the message.
• Seek feedback on how well your message was received.
When you do this, you'll be able to craft a message that will be received positively by your audience.
Good communicators use the KISS ("Keep It Short and Simple") principle. They know that less is often more, and that good communication should be efficient as well as effective.
Encoding - Creating a Clear, Well-Crafted Message

When you know what you want to say, decide exactly how you'll say it. You're responsible for sending a message that's clear and concise. To achieve this, you need to consider not only what you'll say, but also how you think the recipient will perceive it.

We often focus on the message that we want to send and the way in which we'll send it. But if our message is delivered without considering the other person's perspective, it's likely that part of that message will be lost. To communicate more effectively:
• Understand what you truly need and want to say.
• Anticipate the other person's reaction to your message.
• Choose words and, if appropriate, use body language that helps the other person really hear what you're saying.
With written communication, make sure that what you write will be perceived the way you intend. Words on a page generally have no emotion - they don't "smile" or "frown" at you while you're reading them (unless you're a very talented writer, of course!)

When writing, take time to do the following:
• Review your style.
• Avoid jargon or slang.
• Check your grammar and punctuation.
• Check also for tone, attitude, nuance, and other subtleties. If you think the message may be misunderstood, it probably will. Take the time to clarify it!
• Familiarize yourself with your company's writing policies.

Another important consideration is to use pictures, charts, and diagrams wherever possible. As the saying goes, "a picture speaks a thousand words." Also, whether you speak or write your message, consider the cultural context. If there's potential for miscommunication or misunderstanding due to cultural or language barriers, address these issues in advance. Consult with people who are familiar with these, and do your research so that you're aware of problems you may face.

Choosing the Right Channel
Along with encoding the message, you need to choose the best communication channel to use to send it. You want to be efficient, and yet make the most of your communication opportunity.

Using email to send simple directions is practical. However, if you want to delegate a complex task, an email will probably just lead to more questions, so it may be best to arrange a time to speak in person. And if your communication has any negative emotional content, stay well away from email! Make sure that you communicate face to face or by phone, so that you can judge the impact of your words and adjust these appropriately.

When you determine the best way to send a message, consider the following:
• The sensitivity and emotional content of the subject.
• How easy it is to communicate detail.
• The receiver's preferences.
• Time constraints.
• The need to ask and answer questions.

Decoding - Receiving and Interpreting a Message
It can be easy to focus on speaking; we want to get our points out there, because we usually have lots to say. However, to be a great communicator, you also need to step back, let the other person talk, and just listen.

This doesn't mean that you should be passive. Listening is hard work, which is why effective listening is called active listening. To listen actively, give your undivided attention to the speaker:
• Look at the person.
• Pay attention to his or her body language.
• Avoid distractions.
• Nod and smile to acknowledge points.
• Occasionally think back about what the person has said.
• Allow the person to speak, without thinking about what you'll say next.
• Don't interrupt.

Empathic listening also helps you decode a message accurately. To understand a message fully, you have to understand the emotions and underlying feelings the speaker is expressing. This is where an understanding of body language can be useful.

Feedback
You need feedback, because without it, you can't be sure that people have understood your message. Sometimes feedback is verbal, and sometimes it's not. We've looked at the importance of asking questions and listening carefully. However, feedback through body language is perhaps the most important source of clues to the effectiveness of your communication. By watching the facial expressions, gestures, and posture of the person you're communicating with, you can spot:
• Confidence levels.
• Defensiveness.
• Agreement.
• Comprehension (or lack of understanding).
• Level of interest.
• Level of engagement with the message.
• Truthfulness (or lying/dishonesty).

As a speaker, understanding your listener's body language can give you an opportunity to adjust your message and make it more understandable, appealing, or interesting. As a listener, body language can show you more about what the other person is saying. You can then ask questions to ensure that you have, indeed, understood each other. In both situations, you can better avoid miscommunication if it happens.

Feedback can also be formal. If you're communicating something really important, it can often be worth asking questions of the person you're talking to, to make sure that they've understood fully. And if you're receiving this sort of communication, repeat it in your own words to check your understanding.

Finally:
It can take a lot of effort to communicate effectively. However, you need to be able to communicate well if you're going to make the most of the opportunities that life has to offer.
By learning the skills you need to communicate effectively, you can learn how to communicate your ideas clearly and effectively, and understand much more of the information that's conveyed to you.
As either a speaker or a listener, or as a writer or a reader, you're responsible for making sure that the message is communicated accurately. Pay attention to words and actions, ask questions, and watch body language. These will all help you ensure that you say what you mean, and hear what is intended.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

ADEBOWALE JEFF JOHNSON

ADEBOWALE JEFF JOHNSON is a Human Resource Consultant. He is the founder/CEO Jeff Johnson Business Solutions and Jeff Johnson Business School. He is also a member, Board of Director, Grace House Worship Centre.

Prior to 2010, Adebowale has worked in over 5 consulting firms starting from Phillips Consulting Limited, Soft Skills Limited, People Prime Limited, SIAO and West Africa Capital Market School. He also worked with several other organisations in different capacity ranging from Human Resource Manager, Business Service Manager, Project Manager, Resource Consultant, Corporate Affairs Manager, and Training Consultant. He was involved in several national projects including the Ministry of Education Reform and the review of the NEEDS document. He is a speaker of national reforms and an HR Generalist. He was a team member on the Ministry of Finance, Lagos State retreat in 2009 and single handedly managed a Team Building retreat for RF Planning and Optimization Unit of MTN Nigeria in 2009 and 2010. He also took a class on Total Quality Management for the Federal Ministry of Power, Capacity Development for Local Government Chairmen and members of Local council commission and has facilitated several training sessions for small and medium scale organisations.

He is currently writing a paper to develop quantitative analysis and decision making with the use of data to develop business model that will enhance organizational performance. This paper has made him entre into the real estate market as a research analyst saddle with the mandate to research into all elements of the real estate industry in Lagos state.

He has spoken at several university campuses including University of Ibadan, Federal University of Technology Minna, Udegbe North American University, Benin Republic and Olabisi Onabanjo University Ago-Iwoye. He is a teacher of Value, a writer and a great orator. He had been on radio several times speaking on several work related issues and motivation. He currently holds a page on TIMELESS magazine where he educates on several soft skills issues and business advisory.

With the passion to make the youths of Nigeria and Africa become great Leaders of the world, Adebowale Jeff Johnson has embarked on an Africa tour to engage the African youths in Leadership training, Root appreciation and Value driven life. His first stop was Benin Republic, in July 2009, in collaboration with GPH of Udegbe North American University.

His love for service excellence has made him take it upon himself the fight against poor customer service around the Nigerian service providers. This young man is willing to teach and train corporate organisations on how best to manage and sustain their customer base.