Superstar Customer Service

Affirm yourself. In other words, intentionally choose to believe positive things about yourself. After you’ve thought of them, write them down and reflect on them regularly.
2. Learn from mistakes, but don’t linger on them. When you fail or fall short, reflect on your shortcomings only long enough to learn from them. Then move on. After a mistake, the majority of your mental work should be devoted to picking out the positive, building on it, and applying it again and again.
3. Maintain perspective. Belief builds upon belief. It takes hundreds of minor movements to make it up a mountain, in the same way that it takes several small steps to achieve success. So, be patient with yourself as you attempt to alter your attitude. It’s all about perspective; the way you looked at something yesterday might not be worlds away from your approach today, but as long as you have a different angle, you’re making progress.
4. Keep learning. If we aren’t learning and growing, we are decaying and dying. As you increase your learning in life, you increase your earning. Your efforts with this book are a great place to start. Keep at it and apply the information.

He acted in an emergency, summoned his body’s reserve potential, and lifted the pipe. He felt a high and was able to do remarkable things!1 Everyone can tap these reserves and fulfill their full potential; you just need to work at it.
The Problem

Total Competency:

19. Communicate in a clear, understandable, and respectful manner.

20. Translate complex information into messages that are understandable for each customer.

21. Communicate in an empathetic manner, especially when expressing “bad news.”
Total Competency:

22. Quickly get to “the heart of the matter” when diagnosing customer problems.

23. Separate irrelevant information from information central to diagnosis and resolution.

24. Carefully monitor your impact on your customer to maintain an open environment.
Total Competency:

25. See the difference between “symptoms” of complex problems and the root causes.

26. See obstacles that must be removed to achieve the customer’s desired outcomes.

27. Avoid “shooting in the dark” on solutions that may cause additional problems.
Total Competency:

28. Offer appropriate reality-based information to help customers decide to invest in available solutions or not, based on their criteria.

29. Avoid getting ahead of the customer and generating anxiety or frustration when they must decide.

30. Follow the customer’s wishes even when there is another choice you would prefer.
Total Competency:

Avoid getting sidetracked by personal judgment of customer motives or character.

5. Ask, “How may I help you?”

6. Patiently work through the customer’s problems, even if they’re expressed inappropriately.
Total Competency:

7. Manage your time to be productive working with your customers to meet their needs.

8. Begin your day with a well-organized plan, focused on the most important tasks to complete.

9. Stay focused on your priorities rather than getting swept away with random “to-do’s.”
Total Competency:

10. Consistently maintain a focus on producing error-free” results.

11. Strive to be productive 100 percent of the time on the job—no slacking off.

12. Manage your efforts in order to maintain a consistent and high level of productivity
Total Competency:

13. Know what you need to accomplish in order to do your job.

14. Maintain consistent effort so your time on the job is always directed productively.

15. Set up goals, plans, and measures to guide your efforts and measure your outcomes.
Total Competency:

16. Listen actively to ensure that you understand your customer’s needs, fully and completely.

17. Manage your biases and judgments to gain a clean perspective on your customer’s needs.

Introduction: The purpose of this assessment is to give you an opportunity to review your customer service skill level based on the core competencies for Superstar customer service. What is needed here is your total honesty. Each of the statements is presented in the context of meeting customer service responsibilities, whether in a retail setting or a highly tech setting. Use the scale and write the number of your response in the space provided to the left of each item to indicate how likely you are to use each of these Customer Service Behaviors.
Response Scale

Select a number from the scale to indicate how likely you are to:

1. Get ready to do your job, knowing that there will be challenges ahead.

2. Remain focused on your professional role when you’re challenged by difficult situations.

3. Make sure your work is “up to standards” before moving on to the next customer or task.