How to Get Better Service by Phone

This is the piece I'd love to post on some worldwide blog read by customers and callers everywhere. Doing what I've listed here won't guarantee perfect service but it will greatly increase the chances of a satisfactory outcome in a shorter amount of time.

• If you're calling to solve a complex problem that involves a number of transactions or previous conversations, organize your thoughts first. See if you can summarize the problem and your request in 2-3 short sentences. Jot down notes if it helps you.
• If the situation has been going on for a long time (insurance claims following an accident come to mind) write down the steps you've taken to solve it in chronological order. Better yet, start keeping a log of contacts and correspondence right off the bat if the situation looks like it might involve a lot of time and money. Save any email messages, letters and (do I really need to say it?) bills.
  
• Always get the name of the person to whom you're speaking - always always always! If something needs to be verified, the person who answers your next call will need to know who to ask. If the service rep has to track down an anonymous coworker out of several hundred employees, you'll lose a lot of time.
• Have your account number, card, invoices, letters or whatever you need at hand before you make the call. It will save everyone time. For identity security and privacy reasons, many organizations these days won't look up accounts or give out information without an account number.
  
• If you'll be asking for information, have a pen and paper handy as well.
• When you're on the phone, speak at a moderate pace and give the phone rep the verbal space to respond to you. Many of us tend to talk too quickly (and sometimes too much) when we're upset. However, a barrage of words delivered in a breathless rush won't make sense to the person on the other end of the line.
• Before hanging up, ask the service rep what further steps will be taken. She may not be able to guarantee a specific outcome (big decisions are made by managers, not front-line workers) but should be able to tell you roughly how your request will be processed.
• Keep in mind that the person answering the phone probably doesn't have the authority to waive charges, grant refunds or approve exchanges. If she offers to transfer you to a supervisor, she's not blowing you off; she really can't do anything more.
  
• Finally, ending the conversation with a thank you generates good will. The positive feeling will be passed on to later callers, plus you'll leave a good impression behind you.

May all of us have a stress-free holiday season!

Tips for Getting Satisfactory Service

Here are a few suggestions based on experience (mine & several friends) in various customer service jobs. I didn't conduct an exhaustive study or interview any "experts," but the people I polled had a number of similar comments & ideas:

• If you're calling or going in person in order to resolve a problem, gather any necessary papers, invoices, documentation, membership cards or account numbers before calling/coming. Some places can't look your record up without a member or account number.
• If the history of the problem is complicated, jot down the steps you've already taken, with dates if possible. If you're dealing with a large institution, you might never get the same customer service rep twice. Even if everyone with whom you speak has taken meticulous notes, you might still have to repeat information you've already given.
• Realize that customer service professionals want to help you resolve problems or issues. A satisfactory resolution is win-win. It helps to approach staff with an expectation that a mutually acceptable solution will be reached, rather than in a me-versus-them frame of mind. This might sound obvious but everywhere I've worked, it has always surprised me how often customers seem to be in fighting mode when they enter a dialogue.
  
• This applies to all of us - staff and customers: develop the habit of seeing people as individuals, not primarily as parts of an organization. This prevents the us-versus-them mindset that gets in the way of good relationships and transactions.
  

Having a Drek Day at Work? Read This.

Probably at some point everyone gets splattered by random splashes of ill will, bursts of bad behavior or drive-by verbal shootings. If you work in a service occupation, a wide umbrella that encompasses waitstaff and sales associates as well as teachers and other certified professionals, you're more likely to be a target of convenience than if you have minimal public contact. When I've been on the receiving end of an adult tantrum, most often it's simply because I happened to be behind the cash register or counter.

It can be discouraging when you're trying to provide good service but a customer chews you out because he's frustrated by a rule you had no hand in making, or because she's having a bad day. For example, most retail workers can't simply say, "Hey, I didn't write the refund policy - take it to the district office!"

And frankly, some customers (very few, fortunately) are one-uppers with any service provider they meet. There's an old-school job hierarchy in our culture that puts service workers on the bottom of the heap even though many such jobs require high-level "people" skills. At one of my former jobs there was a frequent customer I privately named The Queen because she had a condescending manner towards everyone, even the manager. Some people think that putting others down raises their own stock.

In situations where you have to suck it up and respond politely to someone who's behaving like a jerk, it helps to have some tools handy. I polled a few friends and came up with these ideas.

If you've been showered by drek:

• Remind yourself "It's not about me." This might not help much at first but it has a cumulative effect.
  
• Ask your supervisor for a 5-minute time out. Blow off steam.
• Channel Spock (this is my favorite) - put on a bemused expression and say to yourself, "That wasn't logical."
• Perform a sort of mental cleansing ritual - visualize yourself being showered with a gentle spray of clean water that washes away the energetic mud clinging to you or lingering around in the workplace.

To protect yourself from the effects of emotional mudslinging (prevention):

• Adopt a regular philosophical or spiritual practice consistent with your personal beliefs. If nothing else, try practicing breath-awareness meditation: simply spend some time each day sitting in a comfortable position and focusing on your breath. When random thoughts intrude, acknowledge them and get back to focusing on your breath. I've found that when done regularly this helps develop the ability to detach from the emotional heat of the moment and step into "observer consciousness."
• Keep an ongoing current list of your strengths and best skills. Knowing how good you are at what you do can be a surprisingly effective form of insulation.
• "Be excellent" (see book list, below) to everyone you work with. If you have plenty of allies (or at least no enemies) at work, you'll be supported during bad times.
  
• Always always always have a life and friends outside of work. But then, you already knew that or you wouldn't be reading a blog about work and art...
  

Here's a list of my favorite titles that deal with day job/art life topics
Amazon List: Working With What You Have

Self-Preservation for Servers

'Tis the season. The season for what depends on what you do.

For some it's the season for shopping, partying and merry-making. Cozy times with friends and reunions with family. Church or synagogue activities. Caroling. Fun get-togethers. Vacation days ahead. Chestnuts roasting on open fires and all that jazz.

For those who make the merry-making possible, however, the winter holiday season can be 2-month stressfest: too much overtime (and not enough family time), homesickness, crabby customers, feeling like everybody's favorite shooting target, missing out on gatherings because of work, long hours on tired feet, the feeling that if your head ever hits the pillow you might never wake up, and in the end, a paycheck that barely pays for basic necessities.

I know; I've been there. I vividly remember closing up the candy store where I worked at 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve and realizing that whatever bus was running through downtown Seattle wouldn't get me to the family gathering before everyone else left. Fortunately I was 24, single, mostly footloose and didn't mind overly much. If it had happened half a decade later when I was a working mom, I would have minded terribly. At 32, with a baby, I hated being away from home on holidays.

During those years I often wondered whether it's possible to have a spiritually significant winter holiday season as long as I continued to work in the retail/restaurant field. Later, when I worked in public education, I had official winter breaks but a second "career" in music meant that December was still packed.

Over the course of three decades, including my last 4 years in customer service once again, I've worked out ways to smooth out the bumps and work in as much personally meaningful observance and celebration as possible. Here they are:

• If you're working more than 40 hours per week, either at one job, several PT jobs or a job plus shows/gigs, get as much rest as you can. Yeah, I know, you snort, They all say that. But I mean it. If you're worn to a frazzle, you can't make anyone happy, including yourself. If conditions at home prevent a full night's sleep, consider some occasional creative alternatives to sleeping at home. One friend of mine offered free house-sitting services in exchange for being able to stay at the places she watched. Last December this gave her a total of 10 days away from home, in a bed all to herself with no background TV noise to filter out. She credits the fact that she's still married to her house-sitting gigs. Take naps if you need them. If you drive, keep a blanket and alarm clock or kitchen timer in your car; if you must use the staff room, use headphones as a "do not disturb" signal. And take it easy on the caffeine - past a certain point, it doesn't help.
  
• Even if you're not religious or you don't practice a spiritual/philosophical discipline, take 15-20 minutes every morning to do emotional protective work. If visualizing works for you, close your eyes and create a mental picture of being surrounded by a protective bubble of light, a bubble that allows positive energy in but screens out malicious or detrimental energy. If you pray or do workings, ask for protection from the effects of others' ill intentions. Putting up self-protective energy won't turn you into an unresponsive emotional Vulcan - it will make you less vulnerable to the energy vampires that suck the juice out of you and still leave problems unsolved.
  
• Find a time during each day when you can connect with the spirit of the season as you experience it. For some of my traditional Christian friends this means time for prayer and Bible study. For a Pagan friend who practices a blend of traditional Celtic and Native American Earth spirituality, it means going for a pre-dawn walk. For a Zen Buddhist colleague it means silent mindfulness meditation. And for yet another friend who doesn't belong to an organized religion, it means having a long talk with her sister or mother. You decide what's meaningful to you.
• See what social events you can reasonably do. Tell family/friends that even though you might be late, you still want to come just to check in. If you're short on money or time this year, let them know. If they love you & want to see you, your presence will be what matters, not the price of your gift or quality of your potluck dish.
• If you work in retail you might be able to take time off after the holidays. Request vacations days during January or February, and think about how you really want to spend them. If packing up and flying off to some destination is more stress than it's worth, forget about it. Stay home and catch up on sleep, reading or movie-watching, and visiting friends. On the other hand, if you really want to go somewhere, then go.
• Above all, ask for help and understanding if you need it. This is the hardest thing for me to do! As the oldest of six and a do-er, I feel embarassed asking for help or saying "I'm feeling overwhelmed by all this." But I've learned that if the mother ship sinks, a few piddly life jackets won't do any good. If you're a stiff upper lipper like me, suck it up and ask for help.
  

For the last decade I've experimented with "doing" the holidays and have come up with a rough plan that fulfulls basic obligations (but not unreasonable ones), takes a packed December schedule into account, provides pockets of observance and celebration around the Solstice and Christmas, and gives me (Finally! Yessss!) vacation time in January. Every year my household adjusts our celebrations to fit available times. It's worked for 20 years but it took a lot of experimentation. Toggle and tweak whatever you need to.

Best seasonal wishes to all of you, especially those of you who make celebrations possible by assisting customers, serving food, caring for the ill or elderly or for children, providing music and other entertainment, providing emergency services (EMTs, firefighters, police officers) or who staff the many social services helping those who don't have a place to go. May you find meaning in the work you do as well as in your holiday celebrations.

Getting Good Service Pt. 1

This blog is for people who practice an art and work a day job. However, I'm posting this piece because many of us day-jobbers work in customer service occupations. In my own working life, I've been a busgirl, waitress, cashier (now called sales associate) for a major retailer, sales associate at various specialty shops, receptionist, phone operator and library assistant. I've also worked as a preschool teacher and school staff assistant. All these jobs have entailed extensive contact with the public. Most of my working life has been "out there" rather than safely tucked away in a cubicle, removed from public scrutiny. I'm familiar with the common conflicts between customers and organizations. For this reason I believe I can offer insights to customers who approach customer service workers with a problem or need.

I'm also posting this because in a few weeks, we start the annual shopping orgy known as the Christmas Rush. It begins with Black Friday, so called because if retail operations make a good profit the Friday after Thanksgiving, it's likely they'll stay in the black during the holiday shopping season. I hope that this post (and possible subsequent ones) can contribute to a sane and civil holiday season.
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Good to Know: Before You Approach Customer Servers

• Assume that service workers want to help. If reasonable customers are satisfied, everyone wins: the business gets repeat customers, the customer gets what she wants and at the least, the service worker gets to keep her job...not a small deal during times like these. At best, she gets a commission, bonus or brownie points in her employee file. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt when you approach a situation.
• Realize that service workers are people just like you. They have feelings, families, friends, hopes and dreams. Drop any ideas that they work in customer service jobs because they can't find anything else or they aren't smart/accomplished/educated/lucky enough for desk jobs. Many folks out there are doing what they can to make a living in tough times. And some of us actually like the contact with the public. People with university degrees and white-collar jobs need to get the message: occupations have very little to do with intelligence.
  
• Above all, do not treat service workers like "hired help" or attendants in your personal retinue. Most of my readers would never dream of doing this but I've encountered enough Queens of Sheba in my various jobs to feel that it's an important point.
  
• If you're coming in with a major gripe about company policies, realize that the person at the cash register, across the counter or on the other end of the phone line probably didn't have any say when that policy was made. Front-line people are normally the lowest on the company food chain. Depending on the company, they may have a single vote or no voice whatsoever. But chances are, none of them made the rule you're upset about. Save the venting for corporate headquarters. If a policy strikes you as unfair, request the name of the store or district manager, and thank the sales associate when she gives it to you.
• Remember that civility greases the wheels while antagonism jams gears. Until you have evidence that the company or worker is trying to darken your day, use an even-toned voice and choose neutral words. If you feel like you've been slighted, stop and do an honest reality check. Is the store crowded? Was the line orderly, or was it unclear who was next?
• After you've been helped by anyone, thank him or her. It doesn't matter that he's "just doing his job" like he was hired to do - this is never a good reason to fail to acknowledge good service.

Next: Specific things you can do to prepare for a customer service transaction such as returning items.