How to Respond to Complaints

If you work in customer service or even if you know somebody who works in customer service, you’re probably familiar with a story or two about customers from hell whose sole objective in life seems to be making work miserable for customer service representatives.  Whether on the phone or in a letter, these customers do nothing to hide their anger and frustration and spare no words letting you know what they think of your product or service.

It’s natural that your response to complaints like these will reflect the tone in which they were written.  Angry letters, after all, get angry responses.  When you’re responding to complaints, however, your professionalism hangs on whether you can overlook the anger and emotion customers have shoved in your face and focus on the issues and the solutions.  After all, the people you’re dealing with are probably very nice face to face.  The anonymity of telephone calls and letters, however, allows them to vent their frustration with impunity.

Remember, although you needn’t agree with your customer’s point of view, responding to a complaint successfully means that you do need to understand their situation and their feelings.  In this way, regardless of whether the customer’s expectations or demands for a solution were completely met, you can still go a long way towards soothing their anger and disappointment.

All communications with complaining customers, therefore, must be expressed in an understanding tone, whether you are speaking with them on the telephone or writing to them in a response letter.  That’s why now is a good time to read through the dusty old response formats your company has been sending to complaining customers for ages and see if the language you’re using to express your empathy is current, new- millennium, business English.

Once you have responded to a customer’s complaint, take ownership of it and follow through to the end.  If you ensure that your company does the right thing by your customer and then call to check that the issue has been resolved to their satisfaction, you will consolidate your relationship and keep this customer for life.

Complaining customers aren’t really trying to spoil your day.  They just need to be understood.  If you can genuinely empathize with their problems and provide what they need, they may become more loyal than they were before complaining.

Complaints: What, Who and Where?

Today, three answers to three questions about complaints: What, who and where?

First, what’s better, complaining by phone or by letter? 

If your problem must be resolved urgently, use the phone.  In all other circumstances write a letter.  Among the many reasons for this is simply to make it easier for the organization to handle your complaint.  They probably require facts and written records for their complaint processing and letters provide a more reliable way to deliver these than phone calls do.  You may also keep a copy of the letter for your records so you always have something to refer back to.

Telephone calls are less controlled and allow emotions to take over.  Letters, on the other hand, allow you to plan exactly what needs to be communicated.  You can sit, calm down present your case in the best possible way. 

Second, once your letter’s written, to whom do you send it? 

 

The head of the customer service department at the branch office nearest you is where you start.  These are the people most prepared to help you because this is what they do.  Writing to the CEO or the MD should be saved until the problem gets worse or remains unresolved.  Writing to the top of the organization too early will only get you referred to the customer service department by the CEO’s PA anyway.

Third, where do you complain if the organization fails to satisfy you? 

 

Before you take your complaint too far, stop and ask yourself, is it really worth the effort?  Is your need to push onward fueled by emotions or by a genuine need for resolution?  Remember, some battles with giants aren’t worth fighting, so it may be in your best interest to walk away.

Some things, however, are worth fighting for.  If you feel the need for a personal crusade, use the media to broadcast your situation.  This will get the attention of the organization you’re complaining about.  Write letters to government regulatory bodies and ensure that you present clear records of everything that has transpired so far.

Remember, the higher you go with your complaint, the more professional and authoritative you will need to appear.  Your further letters, therefore, will need to be objective, factual and error-free.  As you may attract media attention, the image you present should be one of a consumer wronged rather than of a whiner and whinger.

Filing complaints when necessary is a legitimate part of doing business.  That’s why we have customer service departments.  To ensure that your complaints are honored and resolved, remain objective and follow due process.  Remember, most companies would rather keep you happy.

Filing a Complaint? Stop Complaining!

When you need to file a complaint, writing a letter is usually the most effective way to accomplish this.  Unlike phone calls and e-mail, complaint letters explain your situation in black and white.  Holding your letter in their hands makes your complaint feel substantial to your readers.  As a result, a well-written letter adds gravity to your complaint and makes it feel more serious.

A well-written complaint letter, however, is not an angry letter.  To be successful with your written complaints, it’s helpful to remember that your reader is another human being who’s doing his or her job to the best of their ability.  Confrontation, therefore, is unproductive.  No matter how angry you may feel, a good complaint letter will take the feelings of your reader into account.

This is why the most effective complaint letters are concise, authoritative, factual and friendly.

Complaint letters need to be concise so your reader can easily understand and respond to your problem.  You may feel a need to be long-winded in your explanation of why the product failed to meet your expectations, but this isn’t what your reader needs.  The main idea of your letter must be understood within the first few seconds so that your reader can begin planning your solution immediately.

Good complaint letters are also authoritative.  The presentation of your complaint must establish your credibility.  This is why it’s helpful to use letterhead on quality stationery.  Professional sounding language and correct grammar are also essential.  Remember, the way you write will make an impression on the reader, affecting their attitude and their response.

In addition, your complaints must be factual.  Relevant names, dates, prices and details must be included.  The facts you present will justify whether or not your complaint should be resolved as you wish.  Therefore, allow your facts to speak for themselves and build your case.  Facts provide objectivity where emotions do not.

Also, remember to be friendly with your complaints.  Being negative, terminating the relationship and taking your business elsewhere will give your readers little incentive to make any adjustments for you.  Express your desire to remain loyal, and the customer service agents will do their utmost to maintain your loyalty.

Customer service agents are doing what they can to help you, so don’t take your frustrations out on them.  When you write a complaint, be concise, authoritative, factual and friendly and you’ll be more successful in getting the solutions that you want.

Complaints: It's All About Loyalty

One of the most important principles you can remember for your business communications is this: If you want to get people to do what you want them to do, you have to make them feel the way you want them to feel.  In other words, you must create the desire within others to take action. 

It’s obvious to see how this principle applies when you’re motivating or persuading.  It’s less obvious, however, to see where this applies in your business writing.  So today we’ll discuss applying this principle in one very common area of business writing, and that’s writing complaint letters.

If you want to get people to do what you want them to do, you have to make them feel the way you want them to feel.  Let’s imagine that you want to write a complaint.  Maybe you bought a new handphone that needed servicing and after you waited for three weeks, the authorized service center returned it to you still malfunctioning.  You need to express your dissatisfaction.  So how do you go about writing the complaint letter?

Research shows that more than half of the complaint letters that customer service people receive are expressions of anger.  Many go on to insult the company or even the customer service agent reading the letter.  Letters like this are not helpful to you, however, and are unlikely to get the results you want.  Angry letters, after all, will receive angry responses and angry customer services agents will be reluctant to make any adjustments on your behalf.

So ask yourself, how do you want the reader to feel?  If the customer service agent is going to respond positively to your complaint letter he or she has to understand your needs and feel a sense of responsibility or even accountability on the company’s behalf to keep you satisfied as a customer.  Your job as a letter writer, therefore, is to make the reader feel understanding and accountable.

How can you do this?  Most importantly, remember that your complaint letter is about YOU, the customer, and not about their product.  The reader needs to sense that you are a loyal customer whose expectations were unmet.  You can do this by explaining your normally happy experience with the product and expressing your disappointment that this time your experience is different. 

Be friendly when you suggest a solution.  Your objective is to make your reader feel obligated, not forced.  Making demands is less effective than explaining what it would take to make you happy again.

If you want to get people to do what you want them to do, you have to make them feel the way you want them to feel.  To make people feel good about responding to your complaints, make them feel good about you first.

The View from the Top

A few years back, I spent ten days in Scotland attending a conference with 50 other trainers.  The October weather was cold, windy and rainy, so we all spent much of our time working indoors.  By the fourth day, missing Malaysian sunshine, I developed cabin fever and needed a long walk.  I put on boots and raingear and headed for the hill behind our venue.

As I trudged upwards, the rain subsided and gave way to breezy, cloudy skies.  It seemed for a moment that the sun would actually break through, but before I knew it, I found myself in the rain again.  From the time I began walking to the time I reached the top of the hill, the weather had changed a dozen different times.

It wasn’t until I reached the summit, however, and turned to see the valley spread out before me that I got the big picture.  All over the valley, different areas were experiencing different weather patterns depending on the position of the clouds above.  A patch of sunshine would move across the valley floor giving way to more rain.  A windy patch would blow through the trees for miles before dying out.  A field full of grazing sheep would get soaked under a passing shower. 

From my perspective climbing from the bottom of the hill, all of these changes were happening to me alone.  From my view at the top, however, I could see how the moving clouds affected changes in the weather throughout the whole valley.

Change management in your organization works the same way.  From your view at the top, you can see how changes that you initiate or respond to are going to affect, and maybe even benefit, different parts of your organization.  From the bottom, however, the view is different.  Your staff experiences the change without the benefit of the big picture.  For them, change means disruption in the familiar environment, disturbances in routine schedules, and stressful adaptation to the unfamiliar.  It’s no wonder that change is often met with resistance.

Ultimately, organizational change is about people and that’s why your prime consideration needs to be the impact of the change upon your staff.  To help you change their resistance to acceptance, remember to keep them informed and updated.  Highlight benefits and success, but be honest with bad news as well.  Your enthusiasm for the change will be infectious, so be a model for dedication and get complete investment from your senior management as well. 

Delegate responsibilities to the staff most affected by the change to guarantee investment and ownership.  And most importantly, keep the channels for feedback wide open to allow honest communication back and forth between you and your staff so you can monitor the impact of the change.

It’s easier to see patches of sunshine from the top than it is while standing in the rain at the bottom.  For the benefit of your people, keep this in mind when you plan you change initiatives.

Change Management: One Size Fits All?

Choosing a t-shirt at the night market is easy.  Everything is free size.  Choosing the right change management strategy for your organization is not so easy.  One-size-fits-all won’t work.  The strategy you choose needs to suit the unique characteristics of the change you’re introducing and the needs of your organization.
 
Three different strategies you can choose from to implement change are persuasion, adaptation and coercion.  Persuasion means providing your staff with lots of information, explaining the benefits of the change and providing incentives for improved performance.  Adaptation means making incremental changes, redeveloping your processes slowly and retraining your staff so that they gradually accept the new status quo.  Coercion means exercising your authority and making unilateral decisions for change, imposing sanctions and eventually expecting compliance.

Although each of these strategies may be implemented in various degrees, choosing which one to use will depend largely on five different characteristics of your organization.  The first is the degree of resistance.  Weak resistance may allow for adaptation.  Strong resistance, on the other hand may call for strong persuasion or coercion, depending on what your employees best respond to.

The second characteristic to consider is the size of the group affected by the change.  Larger groups will call for a greater mix of the three strategies.  Persuasive incentives may need to be combined at times with a bit of enforcement.

The time frame is your third characteristic.  If you have a longer time frame in which to introduce the change, adaptation will work well.  A shorter time frame, however, means less time to plan.  Coercion may be necessary to implement the change in the short run and you can hope for adaptation in the long run.

Your fourth consideration is the level of expertise within your organization.  Greater expertise in change management and in the areas affected will allow for a greater mix of persuasion and adaptation.  Less expertise, however, may call for coercion to be thrown into the mix.

Your final consideration concerns levels of dependency.  If your organization is more dependent on its people, management power is weaker and persuasion will be more effective.  If the people are more dependent on the organization, however, people power is weaker and coercion may be more effective.

Every change management initiative is unique and the impact of each change on your organization may vary.  Ensuring that the change management strategy you choose fits the characteristics of your organization can make the transition smoother.

Planning Change Around Situation, Structure, and Strategy

An organization that is prepared for change knows how to strategize and manage change.  Since each project or change management initiative is unique, however, each may require separate and unique planning.  To ensure that your change management initiatives are most effective, remember these three criteria to plan around – Situation, Structure and Strategy.

Situation planning helps you understand the nature of the change that you are initiating or responding to.  Is the change a formal project?  A company-wide campaign?  In any case, knowing the characteristics of the change being introduced will help you recognize its scope and impact.
Situation planning also means understanding your organization.  Is your organizational culture accepting when change is introduced?  How has change been managed in the past?  The more responsive your organization is, the more successful your change initiatives will be.

Situation planning also means knowing which groups in your organization will be affected by the change.  Some groups may be more affected by others.  Knowing who will be affected and how they will be affected helps you customize your plan to ensure buy-in from everyone.

In addition to planning around your situation, it’s also important to plan your working structure.  This takes place on two levels – the teams responsible for the work and the management on board.
 
Individuals working on change management teams must be carefully chosen from the most affected groups to ensure full energy investment.  Likewise, management must also be fully invested to build support and communicate openly with their respective audiences.

Once you understand your situation and your structure, your final criteria to plan around is your strategy.  This will help you determine how the change will be implemented based on factors such as risk and resistance.  Dramatic, wider-reaching changes will have higher risk.  Greater resistance from the organization will also mean higher risk.  Both of these will affect your change management strategy.

The specific change initiative you’re implementing will determine the special tactics required.  This may involve training, choosing appropriate channels of communication, delegating responsibilities to the right people and status monitoring and reporting.  While your overall strategy shapes your plan, your tactics determine how the plan will be implemented.

Adapting to and initiating change is always a challenge for your organization.  But, knowing how to plan around Situation, Structure and Strategy helps you meet that challenge with greater success.

Fixed or Fluid: What's Your Perspective?

Heard this one?  How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?  Well, only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change.

Light bulbs aside, it’s difficult to find people who want to change because, generally speaking, we look at life from a perspective that we call “fixed’.

If you have this perspective, you see life as static and nicely packaged with clear boundaries that define YOUR job, YOUR business, YOUR responsibilities and YOUR reality.  In other words, the fixed perspective draws a sharp line between the YOU ‘in here’ and the rest of the world ‘out there’.
Also, from the fixed perspective, time, for you, is a linear experience.  Events that have occurred in the past are separate from each other and may have no bearing on events occurring now or in the future. 

Change, as a result, is probably something that you dislike and resist if you can.  Change is something that happens to you from the outside and requires you to make unwanted adaptations.  As result, change is something to be avoided whenever possible.

The fixed perspective is the ‘default setting’ for us as human beings.  Much of what we do is motivated by the desire to maintain things as they are.  Consequently, the fixed perspective is also the ‘default setting’ for most businesses.

For you and your business to survive and remain relevant in a perpetually changing environment, the first change you can make is in your perspective.  Rather than seeing life as fixed, see it as fluid.

Developing this perspective enables you to view life as changing, moving and evolving.  Life, in other words, is a process for you rather than a thing.  As a result, time is less linear and more interconnected. 

From the fluid perspective, you see change as the natural order of your environment and change, therefore, defines your participation within it.  Because change is something you and everyone else will inevitably experience, you develop strategies to adapt to change when it comes and initiate change on your own when necessary.

Because the fluid perspective recognizes change, it also allows you to anticipate and prepare for change.  And this is why your business will thrive and remain relevant if you encourage the development of a change culture.

Change, after all, is no longer the exception.  It’s the rule.

How Adaptable is Your Corporate Dinosaur?

In July, 2011, 45 scientists from around the world pooled their data and confirmed that the extinction of the dinosaurs and 70% of the species living on earth was caused by the impact of a gigantic asteroid 65 million years ago.

According to their calculations, the scientists speculate that the asteroid was approximately 9.5 km across and traveling at the leisurely speed of 69 thousand km per hour.  It struck off the east coast of what is now Mexico, leaving an impact crater 38 km deep and 200 km across.

The pressure wave and the resulting fireball probably cleared most of the forest cover from the North and South American continents.  It took 15 million years for the planet to recover.

The dinosaurs, however, never did.  The resources required to maintain their massive bodies were gone.  The species that survived, however, were more adaptable to the abrupt change that had taken place around them.  The demise of the huge and powerful dinosaurs allowed for the emergence of the smaller, quicker mammals that inhabit the planet today.

Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones who are most responsive to change.”  In other words, external environmental changes must initiate internal changes for the organism (or the organization) to survive.

Now, take a look at your organization.  Are you now or are you becoming a corporate dinosaur?  Have your policies, processes, behaviors and cultures evolved enough to ensure that you can adapt to the changing realities that we experience more and more frequently in business today?

Most of us like to think we’re prepared, yet studies show that 70% of all business change management initiatives FAIL to deliver the promised benefits.
 
Mathematician and philosopher John Allen Paulos wrote, “Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.”
 
This means that for your organization to remain productive and relevant today, you must be changing and changing regularly.  And this is especially true in large businesses, where your challenge is to keep your people thinking smaller and quicker.

After all, you never know when the next asteroid might come and wipe out a few more dinosaurs.

How to Handle Hair and Hands

Centuries of scientific research has proved conclusively that men and women are different.  Surprised?  I didn’t think so.  I could elaborate on this topic for the rest of the year.

But, the topic I’ve been discussing with you recently has been non-verbal communication through body language, and since I’ve only got room for a few paragraphs, I’ll quickly explain gender differences between the most distracting aspect of body language in business presentations.  For women, it’s hair.  For men, it’s hands.

Women: If you have short hair or traditionally keep your hair tied up at work, you’re unlikely to encounter this distraction.  If your hair is long and free-flowing, however, your may be inadvertently sending subtle signals to your audience that are out of alignment with your message in your business presentation.

Imagine this: You lean forward over your laptop and click to forward to the next slide.  Your hair, as a result, falls over your shoulder and into your face.  When you stand up and begin presenting again, what’s the first thing you do?  You either brush your hair with your hand or toss your head to flick it all back.  Outside of the context of your business presentation, what message might these gestures otherwise send?  To help you ensure that your signals always send what you want to say, a simple no-nonsense hair clip will do the trick.

For men, however, the problem is not so easily solved.

Men: Have you ever noticed that when you get up to deliver a business presentation, you suddenly don’t know what to do with your hands?  You clap them and rub them together, you scratch your forearms, and you wave them aimlessly in front of your body or towards your PowerPoint slides.  And yet, those hands still feel like gangly appendages that you have suddenly sprouted from the ends of your arms.  Unfortunately, a simple, no-nonsense clip won’t get them out of the way.

The messages you send with your hands at times like these tell your audience quite clearly that you are uncomfortable, nervous, and probably lacking confidence.  So what do you do?  Well, after you try clasping your hands in front of you and then again behind you, you finally slip them into your pockets.  Which is fine, until you find a 20 sen coin in there and nervous energy goes back to work.  Imagine how this might appear to your audience.

To help you relax, remember: the most natural-looking posture you can assume is to drop your hands straight down at your sides.  If this feels uneasy, press the tips of your index fingers and your thumbs together.  This completes a circuit and helps you feel ‘in touch with yourself’.  The best part is, it controls your hand gestures so they don’t distract your audience.

Yes, men and women are different.  But, no matter the gender, the need to get your non-verbal signals straight makes all presenters the same.

Congruency: The Simple Lie Detector

Do you watch CSI?  Of course you do.  It’s arguably the best TV drama on crime forensics ever made (sorry, Jack Klugman fans).  The science is mind-boggling and sometimes you wonder if the technology they’re using really exists.

Get out of the laboratory and leave the technology behind, however, and you’ll see another science at work on CSI that’s much more subtle, but just as mind boggling.  It’s the science of congruency.  Let me explain how it works.

Jim Brass from CSI Las Vegas takes a suspect into a small, dark room outfitted with nothing but a table and some chairs.  This is his laboratory.  He starts asking some simple questions and watches for the suspect’s reactions.  Then the questions get tougher and Brass finally comes out and accuses the suspect of the murder or crime in question. Now he observes carefully, because without fail, this is where the suspect will deny. 

When he does, Brass is paying attention to five of the suspect’s communicative signals – word choice, tone of voice, facial expression, eye contact and body posture.  If all five of those signals send the same message at the same time, then Brass knows that the suspect is telling the truth.  The suspect’s signals, in other words, are congruent.  However, if one of those signals is even the slightest bit out of alignment, Brass can detect that.  He’s professionally trained to do so.  When the suspect’s signals are not congruent, Brass leans harder and asks even tougher questions until the suspect finally cracks.

Believability in your business presentations works almost the same way.  Even though your audience might not be professionally trained in congruency, they can still detect if one of your communicative signals is out of alignment with the rest.  Maybe your facial expression and your words are sending different messages.  Perhaps your body posture is betraying a lack of confidence.  Or possibly, just at that critical moment, you broke eye contact.  As insignificant as these incidents may seem, they play a big part in congruency, and therefore in getting your audience to believe you.

To ensure that your signals are in alignment with each other, the most critical step for you is to know your material inside and out and to anticipate any questions that may arise.  This will elevate your confidence levels and will immediately show up in the way you address your audience.
 
Speak with clarity and project your voice throughout the room.  Stand up straight, elevate your chin just slightly and lift your shoulders back.  Then, face your audience directly, make eye contact, and greet them with a smile on your face. 

Now, that would impress Jim Brass.

Say It on Your Face

Paul Ekman is one of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century.  Through his work on human emotions, he has determined that the meaning of facial expressions is universal across cultures, and therefore, that they are biologically determined and not culturally determined as previously thought.  By showing photographs of different facial expressions to people from different backgrounds, Ekman found that basic emotions such as anger, disgust, fear, sadness and surprise were recognized across cultures.
 
Every facial expression you can imagine has been programmed into Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System, or FACS.  Using the FACS, experts can tell you precisely how certain muscles in the face move to create a recognizable expression.  The smallest movements, or microexpressions, may even be used to determine whether a person is telling the truth.  Through his work, Ekman has demonstrated how facial expressions are the window into human emotions.

You don’t need to be an eminent psychologist like Ekman to know this, however.  Facial expressions tell you how people really feel about what they have to say to you, and you can sense this without expert training.  Knowing this can also help you send messages more effectively when you deliver your business presentations.  If your facial expression matches what you have to say, people in your audience are more likely to believe you.

When you begin your presentation, for example, telling your audience that you are very pleased to have the opportunity is only half the game.  As you say this with words, you must also say this with your face.  If you really are pleased, you need to look pleased.
 
Most of the time, it’s not even necessary to mention the emotion you’re attempting to deliver.  Suppose you’re presenting a drop in your quarterly sales figures to the sales team than you manage.  This is serious business, and the expression on your face needs to tell your sales team that you’re concerned without your having to say so.

When you have exciting news, look excited.  If the trends you’re presenting are worrying, look worried.  Emotions can be infectious.  During your most effective moments in your business presentations, your audience should not only believe what you’re saying, but should also feel what you’re feeling.

When you speak with people in normal face-to-face conversations, your changing facial expressions are natural and spontaneous.  So think of your business presentation as just another conversation.  The more naturally you express yourself, both verbally and facially, the more likely it is that your audience will believe you.

The I-D-E-A Behind Gestures

Recently, I attended a training program in the UK where, among fifty participants, I was the only American.  During one session, I demonstrated a training technique I use dividing the class into four small groups and counting them off.  For Group One, I raised my index finger; for Group Two, I additionally raised my middle finger and flipped them both into the faces of my British classmates; then I went on to number off Groups Three and Four.

The class listened politely, but oddly enough, I seemed to be getting a frosty response from Group Two.  It wasn’t until a few hours after the session that one of them pulled me aside and explained the offensive meaning behind the two-fingered gesture I’d innocently tossed their way.

The meaning of the words you say will be influenced by what you do as you say them.  This is particularly important for you to remember when delivering a business presentation to an audience.

Careless or meaningless gestures add nothing to your spoken message.  In fact, some unintentional gestures can actually prevent your intended message from getting through effectively.  That’s why gestures during your presentations need to be coordinated with your words so that what you say and what you do both mean the same thing at the same time.

To augment your message, you have four good reasons to gesture.  The first reason is to indicate.  This simply means pointing to a slide, a flip chart, an object or even a member of the audience that you want everyone to look at.  If you point, they will look.  Indications help you create associations between what you want your  audience to see and what you have to say.

The second reason to gesture is to demonstrate.  This involves showing your audience with your hands how something looks, moves or works.  If, for example, you use the words “…a small amount…” in your presentation, can you see the gesture that might accompany that?  Demonstration gestures like this make your words visually real.

The third reason is to enumerate, or to count on your fingers.  If you have three ideas to discuss in your presentation, for example, show three fingers during your introduction and then count the ideas off – one, two, three.  For obvious reasons, limit your counting to 10 items (and be careful with the number 2 in the UK).

The final reason to gesture is to accentuate, or emphasize.  Snapping your fingers, clapping your hands, rapping on the podium or raising a fist all make what you say seem more important at that moment and can be used effectively when reaching your main point.  Emphasis with an accompanying gesture wakes your audience up and tells them to pay attention.

Indicate.  Demonstrate.  Enumerate.  Accentuate.  Using gestures appropriately will help your audience get a better I-D-E-A about the message you want to send.

Visual Signals Send Messages

When you communicate face-to-face with an audience, such as when you’re delivering business presentations, you’re sending three different types of signals from which your audience interprets your meaning. 

The first of these are your verbal signals.  These are the actual words you choose.  You can clarify your meaning by choosing words that are familiar to the audiences you’re addressing.  If you’re an engineer, for example, certain technical terms you’re familiar with may be understood by other engineers, but maybe not by everyone else.
 
The second type of signals you send are vocal signals.  These are not the words you say, but rather, the way you say them.  Your audience will add additional meaning to your words depending on the tone, speed and volume of your speech.  You may notice that by modulating these speech characteristics, you can say the same words many different ways and, as a result, send many different messages.

The third type of signals you send are visual signals.  Visual signals, or your body language, are what your audience sees as you speak.  Hand gestures are the most obvious forms of body language, but your audience can read meaning from even more subtle types of body language than this.  Posture, or the way you stand, for example, sends a powerful message to your audience about your confidence level.  Even slight expressions that flash across your face in just a glance can add extra meaning to the words you say for your audience.

Business presentations are largely made up of spoken and written words, so obviously, the words you choose to deliver your presentation will be important for your audience’s comprehension.  However, research suggests that your visual signals also send meaningful messages to your audience that influence how they feel about what you have to say.  In fact, your visual signals may account for about half of the overall communicative impact that your presentation has on your audience.

This being true, your business presentations can be more effective if visual signals become a part of your planning.  In addition to planning what the audience will hear, also plan what they will see.  Attractive slides can make your presentation visually memorable, but what you do with your body language will influence how your audience interprets your message as you deliver it.

In other words, it’s not just what you say nor how you say it, but what you do as you say it that makes a difference.

Be Social -- Call a Meeting

My four-year-old daughter is a Disney Pixar fan, and one of her recent favorites to watch again and again is Wall•E, a futuristic story of a hard-working little robot who saves a spaceship full of humans from an evil computer, kind of like Stanley Kubrick for pre-schoolers.  The humans spend their days communicating with each other via touch screens that float in front of their faces.  Even when seated side-by-side, they have no personal contact.  Golf games, conversations and social activities all take place in a virtual world.

Now, if you take a look around your office, you’ll probably notice that we’re not far from that today.  How much of your communication at work is electronic compared to face-to-face?  Do you have MSN running?  Do you have Facebook up?  Are your friends helping you farm?  If you want to join a colleague for lunch, are you more likely to send a text message, or to walk over to her desk and ask face to face? 

Yes, it’s true that electronic media and social networking enable you to keep in contact with all of your friends, but the face-to-face element, especially on your job, is minimized.
 
This is why I think face-to-face business meetings during your work day deserve a better reputation than they have.  Meetings are your opportunity to reestablish human contact with your colleagues and experience human interaction face to face.  Subtle nonverbal communicative signals that are lost in cyberspace can be enjoyed face-to-face.  Emotions absent from text and difficult to express in written words can be interpreted immediately simply by reading a facial expression.
  

The reason why business people view meetings as tolerably useful at best and agonizingly wasteful at worst is because we’re losing the idea that a face-to-face business meeting is an opportunity for social interaction.  Instead, we’re thinking that meetings take us away from our ‘real work’, which takes place on the screen back at our desks.
 
Perpetuating these ideas may lead to social disaster.  Decades of psychological research confirms that interpersonal contact is essential for normal human existence.  Social isolation is harmful, and business meetings offer the opportunity for us to be social with each other during our workday, even though the topic of discussion may be business.

Dr Richard Arvey of the National University of Singapore points out that Facebook’s popularity suggests how people may be hungrier for social friends than can be satisfied in their present day-to-day work and personal lives.
 
And I’d like to suggest that realigning your attitude towards business meetings will not only make you grateful for social interaction with your colleagues, but will also make your meetings more productive.

Is Teleconferencing Cheaper than Business Travel?

How much of your time at work is spent in business meetings?  Statistics show that your average employees attend meetings between 25 to 40% of their workday.  Figures for upper management are even higher.  Because of the investment of time, money and human resources, business meetings are becoming an expensive way to get business done.

As a result, many companies are cutting back on the amount of time that they spend in face-to-face meetings and are turning to other communications channels instead.  Cost considerations have resulted in more teleconferences, videoconferences, and even simple e-mail messages.  This is particularly true at the upper management level, where face-to-face meetings often involve air travel and hotel accommodations.  Many companies believe that a videoconference can be just as effective as a face-to-face meeting and the cost saving is considerable.

But is this really true?  No one disagrees that a videoconference is cheaper than an air ticket in the short run, but when it comes to effectiveness, can a videoconference really replace a face-to-face meeting and will it save money in the long run? 

Whether to invest in a long-distance face-to-face meeting or to simply rely on other forms of electronic communications can be a tough choice to make.  However, carefully considering both the process and the outcomes expected from the meeting will provide you the criteria you need to make the choice easier.

Long-distance meetings that are mostly informational can probably be conducted electronically.  For example, for technical updates, Intel in Penang conducts teleconferences with all participants viewing the same PowerPoint presentation on their networked laptops.  Your company probably does something similar.  Meetings of this sort require little collaboration, and the participants’ role is to listen passively to the presenter unless they have questions at the end.

On the other hand, videoconferences allow participants to check their e-mail, send text messages, and carry on with their work.  They may not pay attention.  That’s why meetings that require coordination, collaboration, group processes and consensus must be conducted face-to-face. 

Studies on business communications have shown that the communication channel used for a meeting is likely to affect the outcome.  Face-to-face meetings encourage participants to collaborate and engage each other.  Persuasion and consensus are more easily achieved as a result. 

Videoconferences and teleconferences may save you a little money in the short run.  However, when it comes to the quality of your meeting outcomes, think twice.  Spending on travel expenses now could save you more in the long run.

You're Invited to a Meeting...

Twenty-five years ago here in Kuala Lumpur, the public sector and private sector employees would take off from work an hour apart.  Public sector employees took off at 4:30 and private sector employees took off at 5:30.  The ostensible reason for this was to minimize rush-hour traffic.
 
Today this seems like a fantasy.  For one thing, with the number of cars on the road, rush-hour traffic is here to stay.  Furthermore, with the amount of work that today’s employees say they need to do, taking off at 6:30, 7:30 and even 9:00pm has become the norm.  Look around your office.  Your staff have obvious demands on their time.

This being true, the last thing your staff wants is to attend another meeting where their presence isn’t required.  Meetings take time, and that time must be spent productively for your staff to feel a sense of purpose and achievement.
 
That’s why choosing the list of attendees thoughtfully and carefully is important to the success of your business meetings.  Having the right people there ensures that everyone’s time is invested into a common purpose and that all affected stakeholders can share in the decision-making process.
 

People who should be invited to attend your meetings primarily include the subject matter experts and the key decision makers.  These are the people who have the knowledge and the data relative to the purpose of the meeting and key senior management who will authorize decisions made in the outcome.  Additionally, representatives of the staff whose jobs are directly affected by the objectives of the meeting should attend.  These are the people who can provide input necessary to influence the decision-making process.

Some of your staff should not be invited to attend.  These include the people who are not affected by the meeting’s objectives as these staff will find it difficult to contribute to the process.  Very often you may have people attending your meetings who remain silent throughout, and although you may wish that they’d contribute, is it possible that they have no ownership in the meeting and, as a result, have nothing to invest?  Think about it.  Why have people at your meeting who neither need nor want to be there?

Having clear, goal-oriented objectives is the first step towards successful business meetings.  Having the right attendees who can invest in the process helps you ensure that these objectives are met.

Action Objectives for Successful Meetings

Despite their importance to your organizational communications, business meetings have a bad reputation.  Common complaints people have are that they run too long, they’re dull and boring, and they go off track.  They’re frequently dominated by just a few speakers and many people who could contribute never speak up.  Although the purpose is often to come to agreement, arguments often result and decisions don’t get made.  For the time, costs and human resources invested, meetings are just wasteful.

The saddest thing about this list of complaints is that they’re often true.  In fact, many studies have shown that more time is wasted in meetings than in any other business activity.  Business people spend up to 40% of their time in meetings that are only 50% efficient. 

One of the best ways to improve efficiency at your business meetings is to ensure that every meeting has a clear action objective.  In other words, if any one of the attendees were to ask, “Why are we having this meeting?”, your action objective would provide the answer.

Your action objective is the outcome your meeting should achieve in the amount of time allotted.  If you state your objective clearly in the e-mail announcements and in the agenda, all of the participants invited will know the purpose of the meeting before they arrive. 

Vague objectives lead to unproductive meetings, so avoid phrases such as, ‘…discuss the effectiveness of the new mobile tracking system” and “…talk about the need for training programs.” 

Instead, use specific action words so that your objective sounds more like a goal that you must achieve.  For example, “…to assign responsibilities for Phase 2 of the Alpha project”, or “…to brainstorm a list of questions for the new customer survey form”, or “…to choose among three proposal options for teambuilding activities.”  Each of these objectives has a clear outcome that measures the success of
your business meeting.

Business guru Peter Drucker said, “If managers spend more than 25% of their time in meetings, it is a sign of poor organization.”  One of the easiest ways that you can get your meetings organized is around a common purpose, and clear, action objectives provide the purpose that you’re looking for.

Four Roles to Assign for Better Meetings

Think about this, and tell me whether you agree or disagree:  Meetings with your staff and colleagues can be the most productive time spent during your business day. 

You’d almost have to agree with that.  Face-to-face business meetings are your best opportunity at work to come to agreement, to solve problems, to choose among options and to circulate information.  Without the open forum of business meetings, your company’s communications would be more dependent on less immediate channels and your business decisions would be more unilateral.

At the same time, however, you’re probably also thinking that spending time in meetings is the most unproductive time of your business day.  Some participants can be long-winded, disruptive or argumentative, causing meetings to run longer than they have to.  You know what it’s like.  Spending time in an unproductive meeting when you could be doing something else can be the most frustrating time spent during your business day.

But meetings don’t have to be like this.  With just a little planning and conformity to guidelines, your meetings at work can be run more efficiently and effectively.  Let’s begin discussing how this can be done by looking at roles.

Attendees at your business meetings will play one of four roles.  First, you have the leader.  The leader is usually responsible for calling the meeting in the first place and for setting the objectives.  Logistics, such as booking a room, writing up an agenda and inviting participants over e-mail, are usually delegated by the leader as well.

While the leader sets the meeting objectives, however, the facilitator ensures that they are met.  The facilitator manages how people work together during the meeting.  He or she quickly irons out problems and conflicts that may arise and also ensures that just one participant at a time is recognized to speak.  Mainly, it’s up to the facilitator to move the meeting along and end it on time.

The recorder is responsible for keeping track of the information from the meeting and making it visual.  This is often done on a flip chart or a white board so participants can follow the meeting’s progress.  More often than not, the recorder will also be responsible for sending out minutes after the meeting is through.

Finally, the last role is that of a participant.  Although untitled, participants play an important role.  They generate ideas, analyze information and make decisions.  Participants bring a wide variety of talents, skills and personalities to your meetings, and as a result, can work towards making them more productive.

Business meetings don’t have to be a drag on your day.  As long as everyone knows the role they’re playing and plays it appropriately, your business meetings can be your day’s greatest achievements.

Seven Steps to Ward Off Customer Anger

Back when I was selling electronic equipment, a customer walked into the store carrying a phone answering system that he had purchased at our sidewalk sale.  He placed the box on the counter and told me, “This doesn’t work.” 

He asked for his money back, and following store policy I told him, “Sorry.  That was a final sale.  Purchased as is.”  Without changing his already dour expression, he lifted the box from the counter, slammed it down again and repeated loud enough for everyone to hear, “I want my money back.” 

Bingo.  My fault.  I turned an unsatisfied customer into an angry customer.  Not wanting to provoke him further, I turned him over to my manager.

Since then, I’ve learned a simple seven-step process that can prevent this from happening.  Let me share it with you so you can handle similar situations, either on the phone or face to face, with more success.

Step 1: Focus.  Remember, your job is to keep this customer happy.  Emotional responses that the customer triggers need to be suppressed and any assumptions you might make about the customer’s situation must be temporarily ignored.

Step 2: Listen.  Allow your customer to vent if necessary.  An unsatisfied customer has a problem that he or she wants to unload and you are the person most readily available.  Let the customer know you’re listening by providing quite feedback and by making eye contact.

Step 3: Empathize.  Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and let him know that you understand how frustrated, annoyed or displeased he must feel.  Apologize if necessary, but keep it in mind that the problem is not your fault.  State your apology to acknowledge the problem and how it is affecting him.

Step 4: Help.  Immediately after expressing empathy, tell your customer what you can do.  Use these two words, help you.  Had I known this, I could have said to my customer, “I’m sorry that this machine is causing you some trouble.  Let’s see what I can do to help you.”  That would have made him feel much better.

Step 5: Understand.  Ask questions to find out what you need to know.  Open-ended questions will keep your customer talking.  Closed-ended questions will get you the details you need.

Step 6: Solve.  This is your bridge to customer satisfaction.  Make a positive offer of help expressing what you can do to make the customer happy.  Remember, at this point your customer wants to know what you can do, not what you cannot do.

Step 7: Agree. Restate the problem your customer has, restate the solution you’re offering, and then ask, “Would you like me to proceed with this right away?”  When your customer says ‘yes’, you have agreement.

Focus, listen, empathize, help, understand, solve, agree.  Seven steps are all you need to keep your customers happy.

Emotionally Intelligent Customer Service

Okay, so today didn’t start off very well. 

Your alarm didn’t go off so you missed breakfast at home.  Your boss gave you a dirty look when you reached the office because some clown in an SUV broke down in the fast lane on Jalan Tun Razak and made you twenty minutes late.  A colleague bumped your arm as you carried your coffee from the pantry and your white blouse is stained for the day.  And now, at 11:30, just as your morning settles down, in walks the customer from Hell.  (sigh)

Among the many customers you serve, the difficult types are very few.  Yet these are the ones that trigger your emotions and lead you into potential confrontations.  This is why developing emotional intelligence is critical for customer service people. 

And just who are customer service people?  Anyone who comes into contact with customers.  So this probably means you.

Developing your emotional intelligence happens on two levels – recognizing and managing your own emotions and recognizing and managing the emotions of others.

Managing your own emotions is simply a matter of breaking patterned behavior.  We all have emotional buttons that are easily pushed, and when they are, they trigger the same emotional response.  Think about your emotional response when that customer walks into your office.  It’s familiar.  You’ve felt it before.

Managing this response is simply a matter of breaking the pattern.  Once you know your triggers and identify the accompanying response, your next step is to find a disruptor.  This could be an image in your mind, a key word, the punch line to a joke or intimate thoughts of a friend.  The idea, however, is that your patterned emotional response is interrupted, and this prepares you to move in a different emotional direction.

As soon as you find yourself face to face with a difficult customer, think rationally for just a moment.  First, recognize that something that this customer is doing or saying is irritating you.  This is your trigger.  Second, recognize and acknowledge the emotion that accompanies this trigger.  It could be anger, irritation, frustration or helplessness.  Whatever it is, embrace it and feel it.  But, before you respond to it, call up your disruptor.  Think of your joke.  Concentrate on your key word.  Imagine your lover’s smiling face, or whatever about your lover. 

Then, once the emotional behavioral pattern is interrupted, face your difficult customer and begin managing his or her emotions.

How is this done?  Next week I’ll tell you a story, and you’ll see.

Don’t be angry!

A Positive Twist on Customer Service

Here’s a true story.

I flew into the island resort of Penang, Malaysia, "Pearl of the Orient", right about the time that they were redoing the airport.  Construction was obviously going on everywhere and sheets of plywood lined the corridors.  As I exited the aircraft, I immediately noticed a large sign which said, “Construction in Progress.  Regret the Inconvenience Caused.”  Suddenly I felt… inconvenienced.  My bags felt heavier.  I wondered, if I’d been a tourist rather than on business, is this the way I would have wanted my holiday to begin?

Put yourself in the place of an arriving tourist.  When you get off the plane, what’s the first thing you want to read?  That’s right.  Welcome to Penang!  And what about all of this construction?  We are Upgrading to Serve You Better!  Now, that makes you feel a lot better doesn’t it?  It makes you feel… welcomed, rather than inconvenienced.

If you take a moment to think about it, you can always state a negative message in a positive way, and this is a technique your customer service representatives need to learn.  When they know how to emphasize positive ideas, not only will they make unsatisfied customers happy again, but they’ll also prevent them from getting angry.

Imagine a very common situation.  A customer passes your service rep a credit card to make a purchase, but the transaction is rejected.  Publicly, your rep hands the card back to the customer and says (loud enough for everyone to hear), “Your card isn’t going through.”  What kind of reaction can you expect?  Well, the customer is likely to get defensive.  Obviously there has been some Terrible Mistake.  The customer might even blame your machine, or worse, your service rep for the problem.  Why?  Because the negative message your service rep passed along caused your customer embarrassment and offense.

Is there a better way to say this?  You could probably think of dozens.  One of the first is by simply passing the card back to the customer and quietly asking, “Do you have a different card you’d like to use?”  The message will be clear without the embarrassing baggage attached.

Look around your premises.  Have you got any negative signs that your customers might see?  Replace them with positive messages.  Your customers are much more interested in what you will do for them than what you won’t do.

Negativity is infectious.  If your reps pass it along to your customers, even unintentionally, they’ll begin feeling negative as well.  Positive messages get positive responses and prevent unsatisfied customers from becoming angry customers.