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Most Popular
Tip Sheet for How to Handle Tough Calls from Tough Customers.
Video Tip of the Month
4 Questions to Ask Before Giving Money Back with Myra Golden
Recent Articles by Myra Golden
Recognize Your Team with Praise
How Being Gumby Can Transform Your Service Culture
How to Get to the Root Cause of Any Problem by Asking 'Why" 5 Times
Don't ask me to talk about customer satisfaction
20 Diplomatic Phrases to Help You Regain Control in 7 Common Situations with Difficult Customers
How to Craft Friendly & Professional Customer Emails
Are Your Reps Making Any of These Mistakes In Consumer Email Responses?
How to Get Any Angry Customer to Back Down
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Jack Nicholson's hilarious Chicken Salad Sandwich scene
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Ever have bad service at a restaurant?
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"I'll fix the problem, but I am not apologizing for a problem that is not my fault." Myra's response to: I'll fix the problem, but I am not apologizing for a problem that is not my fault.
Is it wise to "split the difference" with a customer? My customer service representatives have two customers really - the end user customer and the franchisee -- and we have to keep both happy. Often, when we reach an impasse, we offer to split the difference with the customer. For example, when the customer is wrong and we don't owe them a refund, but they are still every unhappy and argue that our policy wasn't clear, we simply offer to split the difference to get them off of the phone. Would you recommend this or do you think we should seek other solutions? Myra's answer to: Is it wise to "split the difference" with a customer. How do you respond to a bully customer? How
do you respond to the customer who says something like: "You know
you'd be smart to make me happy because I will tell everyone I work with
and all my friends and statistically one unhappy customer will influence
over 100 people, etc...." It is a form of
bullying - do you have a suggestion that is courteous but effective? Myra's answer to: How do you respond to a bully customer? 11 Quick Email Writing Tips by Myra Golden What is the customer's true motive? What
do you make of customers calling to complain and saying they don't
want anything - they just want to complain? Do you have any idea of
whether sending them a travel voucher or something anyway helps recover
them as customers? Or should it be taken at face value and no compensation provided? Myra's answer to: What is the customer's true motive? 13 Great Phrases for Negotiating with Customers....You'll love these! Common Courtesy Isn't So Common - 10 Telephone Blunders in Everyday Business by Joy Fisher-Sykes 7 Questions (and answers) about negotiating with customers with Myra Golden How do I give a diamond-level client constructive feedback? My staff occasionally becomes the scapegoat & to be blamed for mistakes caused by the 2nd level Agents (My client's staff). If this repeats and my staff is still projecting professional support/cooperation to them but emotionally demotivated & affected their team spirit forward. As the supervisor & manager of my team, how should I address this or should I address this as a feedback to my client? I do meet my client (call center manager) on a monthly basis. I am concern about my staff(s) and also this in-sourced project as well as this diamond customer. Please assist options that I can take either for my staff or preventive action or if this happens again what & how should I handle the account as well as retain the relationships. Myra's answer to: How do I give a diamond-level client constructive feedback? Seeking a technique to handle the talkative, un-productive caller. Myra's answer to: Seeking a technique to handle the talkative, un-productive caller.
Looking for affordable telephone skills training for a small group of call center agents.
Can you point me in the direction of affordable (i.e. cheap) customer service or telephone skills training for call center representatives?
Myra's answer to: Looking for affordable telephone skills training for a small group of call center agents. How
do I My call center has a great quality monitoring program and it's been well received by our call center agents. We have had some challenges with consistency and most likely, regular calibration sessions will help, but we just cannot find the time to get every supervisor together. What suggestions might you have for getting an entire team of call center supervisors together for call monitoring calibrations sessions? The answer to "How do I get all of my supervisors together for calibration?" If you think losing one customer isn't a big deal, think again! What's the best way to coach call center agent calls? Do you have any recommendations or even a script for coaching call center agents when their phone calls are monitored? The answer to "What's the best way to coach call center agent calls?" We have a great call center call monitoring program in place and our call center supervisors hold one-on-one coaching sessions with every agent monthly. We are getting a lot of resistance from some of our agents. They get defensive about feedback, dispute everything, and make no change. What can we do to get agents to be less resistant to feedback? Answer to: Call center agents resist feedback Are Generation X employees slackers? Is it true that most Generation X workers are lazy slackers? I supervise 12 Generation X employees and they do the work of only about four people. The answer to: Are Generation X employees slackers? Myra's Favorite Phrases for Dealing with Difficult Customers I attended your full day customer service training workshop in Puerto Rico a few years ago and you gave everyone a handout called "Myra's Favorite Phrases for Dealing with Difficult Customers". I held on to that for quite some time, but now I've changed jobs and I (and the entire call center) could really use your tips. Would you be willing to email that handout to me? The answer to "Myra's Favorite Phrases for Dealing with Difficult Customers" How can I get Generation X and Generation Y employees to work on time in my call center?!! Is it me or do "under 30" employees have serious issues with getting to work on time? In a call center environment we don't have room for flexible scheduling, yet our Generation X employees seem to take this ticket anyway. Ideas? Supervisor training to help address problems with attendance, dress, and personal phone calls? Is apologizing to customers safe? I've heard convincing arguments from both sides: You should always apologize to customers AND you should never apologize, as it puts the company as risk for litigation. Is it "safe" to apologize to customers? The answer to "Is apologizing to customers safe?"
Can I Get Your 10 Golden Rules for Complaint Handling and Dealing with Difficult Customers?
I attended your Negotiation Skills for Call Center Agents training event in Denver last week and you referred to the 10 Golden Rules for Complaint Handling (and dealing with difficult customers). That sounds like a great script. Can you email me a copy of the 10 Golden Rules for Complaint Handling.
Structured Empowerment for Call Center Agents How can we get call center agents to feel empowered, yet not give away too much money? Myra's answer to: Structured empowerment for call center agents. 10 Tips for Implementing a Quality Call Monitoring Program Top 5 Reasons to Record Agent Calls How can we get call center agents to work in inclement weather? Any ideas on how to get call center agents to work during inclement weather? We have tremendous call ins and late arrivals when snow falls. Myra's answer to: How can we get call center agents to work in inclement weather? What are the top 10 ways to motivate call center agents? I attended your How to Motivate Call Center Agents webinar 2 or 3 years ago and you gave list of the top things that motivate call center agents. Is it possible to get a copy of that list? The answer to: What are the top 10 ways to motivate call center agents? Find out why the issue is not the issue when it comes to customer complaints 7 Questions About Generation Y With Myra Golden
25 Telephone Tips for Investigators How can I stay motivated around negative people? Some of the people around me have become increasingly negative. They complain and gossip when they're not helping customers. how can I stay upbeat around this? And is there anyway I can make them upbeat again? The answer to How can I stay motivated? Five questions about call centers with Myra Golden New Generation Y articles and videos right here! Get Myra's Killer Verbal Self Defense Techniques By
verbal self defense, I don't mean you fight back with
killer wisecracks or tactics to wipe the floor with your
customers. By equipping you with tactical verbal self
defense techniques, I want to give you strategies ?
and confidence- to regain control of a tough verbal
attack from your customer. It's simply about helping
you regain control, while maintaining your credibility. Here
are three of my favorite verbal self defense techniques. How can we improve customer service delivery in the face of growing customer needs and technological advancement?
The answer to improving customer service in the wake of technological advancements.
How do you start a customer service training program with employees have been doing it their way for a long time?
The answer to customer service training for long timers
How can call centers proactively prepare to handle an outage issue?
The answer to call center outage. Any ideas for rewarding and motivating call center agents when you have no budget? The answer to Any ideas for rewarding call center agents on a budget? How do I address "little tardies" without coming across as a micro manager? I have two to three employees who are regularly late every single day. They are usually in the office within 10 minutes of the start of their shift, but the point is they are always a few minutes late. How do I address the "little tardies" in such a way that I'm taken seriously, yet not come across as a micro manager? The answer to: How do I address "little tardies" without coming across as a micro manager? When should you reverse a fee for a customer? When should you reverse a fee for a customer, what is a good way to say enough is enough. Is their a tactical way to give tough love. The answer to: When should you reverse a fee for a customer? Motivating Agents for Quality (Beyond Call Monitoring) Other than monitoring and feedback, which has minimal impact on some individuals, how can we motivate our tenured agents to improve their call quality? The answer to: Motivating Agents for Quality (Beyond Call Monitoring) What's the falsest and easiest way to build rapport with customers over the telephone? The answer to: How to build rapport on the telephone. Gen X v. Boomers What are some of the major differences between Generation X call center employees and workers who are Baby Boomers? The answer to: Gen X v. Boomers. How can I proactively detect problems with call center agent morale? Is there a way to proactively identify problems with morale or productivity before they bubble over and become huge problems? We usually have pretty good employee morale, but then sometimes we look up and have a huge problem. The answer to: How can I proactively detect problems with call center agent morale?
Should we expect high turnover with Generation Y? In your opinion, is turnover going to be as big of an issue with Generation Y as it has been with Generation X? Got stress in your call center? Then you'll want to grab and share these 4 tips now!
How can I reward call center agents on a budget? I just took
over a small customer service department and it?s
already apparent to me that morale is very low. There is
no bud The answer to: How can I reward call center agents on a budget? How do I address too many personal phone calls in a call center? How would you address employees who are spending too much time on personal phone calls or personal emails? I don't want to "police" my agents, but we do have a business to run and in a call center, a lost call is lost revenue. The answer to: How do I address too many personal phone calls in a call center?" What help you can provide to deal with an outage in a call center? The answer to: What help you can provide to deal with an outage in a call center? Can you provide solid statistics for IVR versus live agent? Do you have statistics that reflect the cost savings of customers being served with an IVR versus talking to a live agent? The answer to: Can you provide solid statistics for IVR versus live agent? Trying to justify the bottom line benefit of your consumer affairs department? Click here.
Do you have tips on how to politely, but firmly say "no" to customers. Saying YES and helping in every way possible is the nature of customer service representatives. Do you have any tips on how to help them politely but firmly say 'no' to a consumer, or decline a request when it is necessary? We still want happy consumers and happy reps, but unfortunately, we have to say 'no' more often than in the past. How do we help reps make that transition? Answer to: Do you have tips on how to politely, but firmly say "no" to customers. Seeking tips to improve written English in emails The answer to: Seeking tips to improve written English in emails. Are customers always right? The answer to: Is the customer always right? Seeking good interview questions. I wondered if you could give me some possible questions so that I might prepare more effectively for a call center manager position. The answer to: Seeking good interview questions. How can we improve productivity with email responses? My call center is struggling with email customer service. Our average resolution time is lower than our targets and our email agents actually are less productive than agents who are exclusively phone agents. Can you offer any tips on how we can streamline email communication in order to be more effective and productive? The answer to: How can we improve productivity with email responses? Seeking good customer service training videos for call center training. Can you point me in the right direction for obtaining customer service training videos to augment our call center customer service training? Thank you for any help you may be able to provide. The answer to: Seeking good customer service training videos for call center training? I've submitted over 2 dozen questions and you've always helped me right on target, so I'll give this off the wall question a shot: What exactly is a home improvement loan and how does one go about applying for a home improvement loan? The answer to: What is a home improvement loan? What is caller ID spoofing? In order to more effectively reach consumers in our outbound calling I was told to research caller ID spoofing. Can you explain what this is? The answer to: What is caller ID spoofing? Do you have tips you can share to motivate employees through coaching? We have a really good coaching program in place, but I'm wanting to also motivate employees, specifically call center agents. Do you have any tips you might share? The answer to: Do you have tips you can share to motivate employees through coaching? Looking for things NOT to do with angry customers. What are some proactive things call center agents can avoid doing so not to arouse anger in customers who are calling with a problem? The answer to: Looking for things NOT to do with angry customers. How is Agent tone of voice scored on call monitoring forms? I am considering some of the classes for several of my analyst. I want to know if you have any specific information on how TONE is scored or looked at from a scoring perspective and a coaching perspective? The answer to: How is agent tone of voice scored on call monitoring forms? How many agent calls should we monitor? Is their a scientific formula to tell call centers how many calls should be monitored for each agent and how often agents should be monitored? The answer to "How many agent calls should we monitor?" What should we look at when it comes to monitoring emails? We have not monitored emails in the past, but in an effort to ensure quality in all of our customer contacts, we will be monitoring email correspondence. Can you provide a checklist of what to look for in email communications?
The answer to: What should we look at when it comes to monitoring emails? What is an acceptable rate of abandonment? We are trying to set up quality service standards for our small call center and were wondering what is an acceptable rate of abandoned calls? The answer to "What is an acceptable rate of abandonment?" We need agents to not escalate calls to supervisors Some of the agents in our call center are too quick to escalate a call to a supervisor when we know the agent could have quickly and easily handled the problem with a little listening and care. How do we get agents to handle more calls on their own without sounding like we (supervisors) don't want to take customer calls? The answer to: "We need agents to not escalate calls to supervisors" Need skills to negotiate with gold-digging customers We are finding that many customers today are savvy negotiators and they are tough to deal with. Do you have tips for how to negotiate with customers who are bent on taking the company to the bank? The answer to: Need skills to negotiate with gold-digging customers. How can we reduce call volume? What ideas can you share for redirecting calls or eliminating unnecessary calls? The answer to: How can we reduce call volume? How do we get call center agents to buy-in to a quality call monitoring and coaching program? Hi. We're looking for ways to create buy-in among our call center agents for our quality call monitoring program. The answer to How do we get call center agents to buy-in to a quality call monitoring program? Can you provide a list of job competencies for call center agents for use in screening and hiring? We are preparing to ramp up for our peak summer season and desperately need tools for screening and hiring call center agents. We currently require a typing test and a voice sample. What else should we consider as we hire not just to fill seats, but to retain employees? Also, can you point me to sample interview questions we might use? The answer to: Can you provide a list of job competencies for call center agents for use in screening and hiring? What is an acceptable level of call abandonment for a large call center? The answer to: What is an acceptable level of call abandonment? Can you provide an outline for calibrating? The answer to: Can you provide an outline for calibrating? What factors impact turnover for call center agents? We are experiencing turnover levels of nearly 300% and we're at our wits end about what to do. We're attempting to start by identifying what factors lead to turnover with call center agents. Can you advise on factors that lead to turnover in call centers? The answer to: What factors impact turnover for call center agents? Looking for tips on email customer service We are handling 170% more emails from customers this year than we did this time last year and we need to ensure our emails are professional. Can you provide email writing tips I can take back to my email response team? The answer to Looking for tips on email customer service. What are ideal service level targets for call centers? We are setting and monitoring service standards for the first time in our call center and could use help with determining what ideal service levels are. Do you have a benchmark of service standards for call centers in the areas of response to complaints and inquiries? The answer to: What are ideal service level targets for call centers? Seeking a list of call center acronyms with description. I just returned from a call center conference and there were at least a dozen acronyms used that were just Greek to me. Is there a master list you can pass on to me? The answer to: Seeking a list of call center acronyms with description. Looking for sample complaint response letters We're
looking to beef up our consumer letters and wondered if
you had any templates?
The answer to: Looking for complaint response letters From agent to call center supervisor I
was once my employees' peer and now I'm the boss and
admittedly, I have a challenge giving constructive
feedback. What tips can you share to help me more easily
give my employees feedback. The answer to Help giving employees feedback? Is my employee really sick? This is going to sound awful, but I know that I have employees who call in sick when they aren't really sick...could be that they are out clubbing the night before, hung over, or some other equally unacceptable reason. What do you do when you suspect -- but do not know for certain - that the employee is not really sick? |
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Myra Golden's Latest Article... |
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News Flash: Customers Want to Talk to Humans
by Myra Golden 27%
of customers surveyed said they’d be willing to pay to
speak to a live representative Consumers
in Control Dec 07 Survey I
was shocked when I read a press release last September
that announced that Wal-Mart would no longer give
walmart.com customers a toll-free number to call. "We’ve
made a significant investment in the enhancement of our
online customer “self-help” tool at Walmart.com to
better serve our online customers,” said Amy Colella,
a Wal-Mart spokeswoman. Ms.
Colella said the customer service ph one number was being
removed because “a significant number of calls are
related to order tracking,” and the improvements to the
website will make tracking easier. Hmm.
I think the jury is still out on this one, but in
my opinion, this was not a wise move by Wal-Mart.
According to a recent survey by Consumers in Control,
27%
of customers surveyed said they’d be willing to pay to
speak to a live representative. Customers
would actually be willing to pay to speak to a live
person! The sad thing is Wal-Mart is not alone.
The trend today is to make it almost impossible to find a
human. A few weeks after Wal-Mart axed its toll-free number from walmart.com, Netflix bucked the trend and eliminated email-based inquiries. Today,
Netflix prominently displays its 800 number and greets
anxious customers with friendly humans. Customers
are so frustrated with phone trees and interactive voice
response systems, that a movement
was created from the voices of millions of consumers who
want to be treated with dignity when they contact an
enterprise for customer support. That movement led to the
creation of GetHuman.Com. It’s an amusing and really
quite helpful website. In fact, I’ve used it myself. GetHuman.com
shows consumers how to reach live humans. For example, I
learned from this site that in order to reach a human at
American Airlines, I need to dial 800-433-7300, press 0 at
each prompt, ignoring messages. If
a website exists for the sole purpose of showing consumers
how to get in touch with people, what does that say
about customer service today? I think it says we’re
grossly out of touch with the needs of customers. If
you want to stand out and WOW customers, it’s really
simple: make it easy to talk to real people. The
bottom line:
Customers want to talk to real people and they want open
access to you through every channel. Make yourself
available to customers easily and consistently and
you’ll actually surprise and delight your customers. Get Myra's Articles Every Week! Get real-world tips & techniques for WOWing customers, dealing with difficult customers, and handling complaints with finesse delivered right to your inbox - FREE.
Sign up now and we'll give you a 6-pack of Myra Golden's Dealing with Difficult Customers videos. You'll be able to download the videos immediately!
Myra Golden's Customer Service Training
I was very pleased with Myra's presentation, but even more so, I was left with a sense of new energy and desire to put her recommendations to use. I can't wait for Monday.
Tim O'Laughlin The Coca-Cola Company
If
you poke your head into one of
Most importantly, the participants are learning real-world strategies that will absolutely empower them to deliver exceptional customer service.
I appreciated all the pre-work you did to learn about McDonald's training and operational procedures. You did a great job of customizing your training to meet our specific needs. Also, it appeared as though the entire group was completely engaged and thoroughly enjoyed the training. Beth
Vickers
Every
one of
Don't
miss
Myra
Golden’s
Complaint Handling Webinar Handle Complaints & Difficult Customers Like a UN Ambassador! Friday, May 16th 1:00 - 2:30pm ET How to completely restore customer confidence and regain goodwill after any service problem so that you don't lose your customers and your company doesn't end up on YouTube. Get the full story here.
Myra
Golden The
one to call when you’re tired of losing customers
because of rude or poor service. Myra
Golden teaches
a customer service transformation system that helps
service professionals create warm experiences, surprise
and delight customers, and completely restore customer
confidence after any
service failure. Over 90% of the organizations using the
system realize measurable improvements in customer
retention rates, customer satisfaction levels, and
document drastic reductions in the amount of money it
takes to resolve customer problems. To bring one of Myra's dynamic, transformational workshops to your company, call Michael at 866-873-8419 today.
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