How to create steps of service (and why you need them)

I love In-N-Out for its remarkable consistency.

The service is the same every time I go. There's a warm and friendly greeting. The cashier takes my order and confirms it. They conclude the transaction by handing me my receipt, telling me my guest number, and thanking me.

It always happens.

Each step has a purpose. The greeting establishes rapport and makes me feel welcome. Carefully walking through my order ensures they get it just right. The conclusion ends the transaction on a positive note.

The steps also promote quality. I've only experienced two errors over a lifetime of going to In-N-Out:

1. A stray piece of lettuce once landed on my burger.

2. I received a bonus order of fries.

Two minor mistakes. That's it. An error rate of less than .1 percent.

What's never happened is unfriendly service. In-N-Out employees are unfailingly friendly. How does In-N-Out do it?

They have clear steps of service.

In this article, we'll cover:

1. What are steps of service?

2. When do you need steps of service?

3. Can employees deviate from steps of service?

4. How can you create steps of service?

5. How do you make sure steps of service are followed?

What are steps of service?

Steps of service are a process for serving customers. Following them helps employees deliver more consistent customer service.

Some steps of service are very specific and detailed.

For example, In-N-Out cashiers are trained to ask each customer, "How are you?" If a customer asks "How are you?" in return, cashiers are trained to respond, "I'm good, thank you."

Other steps of service cover a broader set of interactions. Retail associates at the Apple Store follow five steps that spell out the word APPLE:

A = Approach, personalized, warm welcome
P = Probe (politely) to understand the customer's needs
P = Present a solution
L = Listen for (and resolve) any issues or concerns
E = End with a fond farewell and invitation to return

The three steps of service at The Ritz-Carlton are even more general:

1. A warm and sincere greeting. Use the guest’s name.

2. Anticipation and fulfillment of each guest’s needs.

3. Fond farewell. Give a warm good-bye and use the guest’s name.

When do you need steps of service?

Broad steps of service are helpful in almost any customer service situation. They guide employees' interactions with customers and ensure consistency.

There should be a minimum of three steps:

1. Rapport: make customers feel welcome.

2. Understand: learn what customers need.

3. Solve: help the customer have a better experience.

These are based on the three essential customer service skills.

It can be helpful to have more specific steps for employees who handle a high volume of similar transactions. This includes:

• Cashiers

• Restaurant servers

• Contact center agents

Caution: Service steps should be simple and easy to follow to avoid employees adopting a checklist mentality.

Can employees deviate from steps of service?

Generally speaking, steps of service should be followed each time an employee serves a customer. They represent your specific brand of service.

Following them allows companies like In-N-Out, the Apple Store, and The Ritz-Carlton a consistent customer experience across many locations.

There are exceptions to this rule.

Employees should be empowered to identify situations where deviating from normal steps of service makes more sense.

Technical support reps are often trained to ask customers to reboot their device as a first step to solving a problem. However, it should be okay to skip this step if the customer tells you they have already performed this step.

Sometimes, doggedly sticking to service steps can be absurd.

I once bought a single pack of gum at a grocery store. The store's steps of service required cashiers to ask each customer if they needed help carrying out their purchases. A single pack of gum should have been a clear exception, but the cashier dutifully asked, "Do you need help carrying that to your car?"

Bottom line: service steps should be the standard, but empower employees to make exceptions.

How can you create steps of service?

There are two routes you can go here: the basics or full custom.

The basic route is easy. There are four fundamental steps of service that work in nearly any situation. I call them the HELP steps.

1. Hello

2. Engage

3. Listen

4. Provide Solutions

Going full custom takes a bit more effort. The benefit is the steps will be tailored to your specific needs.

I recommend using the PDCA method to create customer steps of service and verify they work as intended.

PDCA is an acronym that stands for four steps:

1. Plan

2. Do (implement)

3. Check

4. Adjust

Step 1: Plan

Start by outlining the flow of an interaction. Identify key moments, such as the greeting, that take place every time. If you're focusing on an existing process, it might help to observe employees in action to see what already works best.

There are two principles to keep in mind:

1. Simplicity. Steps should be simple and easy to follow.

2. Alignment. The steps should align with your customer service vision.

Step 2: Do

Have your team do a test. Ask them to try following the draft steps of service and observe them to see what happens.

Step 3: Check

Evaluate the steps of service after observing them in action and getting feedback from employees. Look for steps that are awkward, confusing to employees, or don't seem to work well for customers.

Step 4: Adjust

Refine the steps of service based on feedback from both employees and customers.

You might need several iterations to get the steps of service just right. It's normal to repeat this process several times and make several changes.

How do you make sure steps of service are followed?

There's no substitute for hard work when it comes to making sure employees follow steps of service.

First, those steps need to be documented. An easy way to do this is to film them. Videos don't need to be pretty, they just need to communicate effectively.

Here's an easy way to that video into a document:

Next, the steps of service must be communicated. In particular, you need to verify three things:

1. Employees understand the steps of service.

2. Employees agree to follow them.

3. Employees are capable of following the steps of service.

Finally, its up to you as the leader to reinforce the steps of service.

I recently spent an hour watching a manager interact with employees at In-N-Out. He was constantly giving them feedback about the things they did well and reminding them about steps of service. The manager also demonstrated the steps of service with guests, so employees had a good role model to follow.

Additional Resources

Here are some additional resources to help you.

Steps of service are a type of customer service procedure. I've also written a more general guide on getting employee input.

You can incorporate steps of service into a customer experience guarantee. My book, The Guaranteed Customer Experience, will walk you through it.

Finally, my Managing a Customer Service Team course on LinkedIn Learning will help you with all the steps you need to lead your department.

Developing service standards from Managing a Customer Service Team by Jeff Toister

Help phone customers faster with visual communication

Your customer struggles to describe the problem over the phone. "The doohickey won't connect with the thingamajig," they stammer.

Their words don't make sense.

You try to walk them through some diagnostics. It's equally muddled. The customer can’t see something that should be right in front of them.

Are you two even looking at the same thing?

This would be so much easier if you were face-to-face. You could see exactly what the customer was talking about and vice-versa.

In this post, I'm going to share three techniques you can use to solve this problem when serving customers via phone, email, or chat.

You don't need any special software, though I will show you some ways that software can make it easier.

Use visual words

Visual words can often help you quickly get on the same page with a customer. The goal is to establish a common frame of reference.

I primarily use this technique over the phone. A support agent named Janelle recently used this concept brilliantly to help me diagnose an issue with my cable modem.

Janelle: “Do you see some lights on the front of your modem?”
Me: “Yes.”
Janelle: “What does the top light look like?”
Me: “It appears to be the power light. It’s solid green.”
Janelle: “Great. What about the next light?”

Janelle guided me like this until the issue was fully resolved. It seemed a bit slow in the moment, but I realized by the end of the call that it was really pretty fast. Janelle’s visual communication saved a lot of confusion and gave me confidence.

Visual communication works well for email and chat in two situations:

1. Quickly explain simple concepts

2. No other visuals are easily available

Customers often contact me for help downloading the exercise files that come with my LinkedIn Learning courses. Many ask for help on the course's Q&A page, where I don't have the option of attaching a screenshot.

I try to guide them with visual words since I can't share visuals. Here's how it works:

1. Identify a visual reference

2. Use that reference to guide the customer

I used visual words to guide the learner to the exercise files:

The way my response is formatted is outside of my control. All the text gets squished together in one paragraph, so I kept my answer short to make it easy to read.

This technique works really well when you and your customer can both look at the same thing, such as a website or a document. Here's a short video that provides a demonstration, including a good and a bad example.

Use advanced communication techniques from Phone-Based Customer Service by Jeff Toister

Share a picture

Pictures and graphics can quickly put you and your customer on the same page. There are many situations where this is helpful:

• Troubleshooting software

• Diagnosing a product quality issue

• Generating a price estimate

Customers can often access photos on their phone or email while they talk to you.

When my car got a minor scratch on the rear bumper, the salesperson at the bumper company asked me to text a few photos of the damage. I snapped some photos with my phone and got an instant quote. Happy with the price, we scheduled the service for the next day.

Email and chat is perfect for sharing photos.

LinkedIn Learning customers sometimes contact me via email or LinkedIn messaging to ask for help downloading exercise files. Those channels allow me to attach an image, so I can share this screenshot:

Share a video

Video can take visual communication to the next level. It works especially well for a multi-step process. Your customers can also use it to review what you shared with them.

My mechanic calls me to walk me through the vehicle inspection whenever I drop off my car for service. He then sends a video that provides a detailed walk-through of everything he shared.

Video is great for email and chat, too.

Osprey makes awesome backpacks for hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts. They post really helpful product walk-through videos that customer service reps can reference when assisting customers.

Writing this post gave me an idea for helping people find the exercise files for my LinkedIn Learning courses. A short video shows people exactly how to access them. I can share a video link in situations where I can’t attach a picture or a video.

Additional Resources

There are software tools that can make it even easier for you and your customers to share visuals via phone, email, or chat.

Technical support teams can use Birdie to enable customers to share a screen capture video when they submit a ticket. Customers don't need any special software, which makes it easier for them to share.

Birdie integrates with a lot of customer service platforms, such as Zendesk:

Another option is Gryyp. It allows screen sharing and even co-browsing, so you and your customers can literally be on the same page while you talk on the phone.

Here's an example:

Take Action

Try experimenting with these techniques. Use visual words, share pictures, and find opportunities to share short videos.

Visual communication doesn't need to be slick to be helpful. The video I created to help people find the exercise files in my courses is pretty low-quality. I could spend more time making it pretty, but it gets the job done.

The goal is to use visuals to establish a common frame of reference so you can help customers faster.

How to convince managers to reinforce customer service training

You're a customer service trainer.

You care deeply about helping employees develop customer service skills. It bothers you when employees' managers aren’t nearly as invested.

These managers take a "fix my people" approach. The manager delegates customer service training to you and expects you to do all the work. They fail to reinforce the training and employees quickly go back to their old habits.

It's a broken model.

This problem plagued me for years until I found a solution. It's a simple worksheet that you use to complete an action plan with the employees' manager before training.

Let's take a closer look at the process. You’ll be able to download the worksheet at the bottom of this post.

Meet with Managers

Ask the employees' manager to join you for a one-hour planning meeting. If more than one manager is sending employees to training, ask all of the managers to attend the same session.

You can schedule separate sessions with managers as a backup if you're unable to get them all to attend at the same time.

What if managers won't attend the planning meeting?

As an external trainer, I have the luxury of turning down the business. I simply won’t take a job where the manager refuses to do their part because I know the training is likely to fail.

You might not have the ability to turn down the training request, especially if you are an internal employee. Here are a two alternatives:

1. Offer to reschedule the training for a time when the manager has more bandwidth.

2. Use the manager who doesn't attend as a control group for an experiment. Compare their results to the managers who do attend the meeting.

Now, let's walk through the worksheet and the meeting flow.

Step 1: Confirm objectives

Start by filling in the informational boxes at the top of the worksheet. This information is usually set before the training is scheduled, but it helps to make sure you and the manager are on the same page.

1. Workshop name and description

2. Audience (who is attending training)

3. Learning objective(s)

The learning objectives section is an opportunity for the manager to explain what they hope the training to accomplish.

I recommend focusing on two things during this phase of the discussion:

1. Making the objectives specific and measurable

2. Ensuring the objectives can be reasonably accomplished with training

Here’s a sample worksheet:

The training program was for customer service agents at a home repair company. Agents handled initial customer calls, set appointments, alerted customers when technicians were due to arrive at their homes, and kept customers updated on projects that required multiple visits.

The rest of the worksheet is laid out to focus on the participant first, then the manager or supervisor, and finally the trainer.

Step 2: Before Training

The next step is to create an action plan to prepare participants to get the most out of the training program.

Box 1: Start by asking the manager what participants should do before the training program so they're fully prepared. Keep it simple—you want any pre-work to be quick, focused, and easy to complete.

At a minimum, I recommend making sure participants can answer three questions:

1. What is the training program about?

2. Why are we doing the training?

3. How will I be expected to use what I learn?

Record these actions in Box 1.

Box 2: Now, ask the manager what they will do to ensure participants complete the action items listed in Box 1. Write those down in Box 2.

Typical examples include:

• Announcing the training in a team meeting

• Sharing any pre-assignments with participants

• Meeting one-on-one with participants to review learning goals

Box 3: Finally, ask the manager what support they need from you, the trainer, to prepare their participants for the training program.

This might include sharing a flyer, short video, or some other marketing material the manager can use to promote the upcoming training with their team. Write those actions in Box 3.

Here’s a sample from the home repair company:

Step 2: Training

This next phases focuses on what the participant should do during training to get the most out of the learning experience.

Box 4: Ask the manager what they'd like participants to do during the training. Common responses include:

• Be fully present

• Actively participate

• Connect the training to their daily work

Write these down in Box 4. Remember to keep it simple. Just a few reminders will do.

Box 5: Next, ask the manager what they will do to ensure participants fulfill the items listed in Box 4. Here are a few typical examples:

• Adjust schedules so participants can attend

• Address the team at the start of the training so they know its importance

• Participate in the training to set a positive example

Write those actions in Box 5.

Box 6: Finally, ask the manager what they expect from you during the training. The most common responses include:

• Facilitate effectively

• Make the content relevant

• Create opportunities for interaction

Write those actions in Box 6.

Here’s a sample from the home repair company. Notice the actions are straightforward. You don’t need a lot of steps to create a solid action plan.

Step 3: After Training

This section is used to craft a plan to help participants implement what they learned in training. It includes a reinforcement plan that is driven by the manager or supervisor.

Box 7: Start by asking the manager what they'd like participants to do to apply what they learned in training. The response is often simply, “implement the new skills.”

It's helpful to tie this back to the learning objectives that you discussed at the start of the meeting.

Write those actions in Box 7.

Box 8: Next, ask the manager what they will do to reinforce the training and ensure participants apply what they learned back at work.

I've been really impressed by what managers come up with here. A few examples include:

• Observe employees using the new skills and offer feedback

• Reinforce the new skills in team meetings and one-on-ones

• Demonstrate the new skills to serve as a role model

Those actions go in Box 8.

Box 9: Finally, ask the manager what support they need from you to help reinforce the training. This usually includes a request for support materials and reminders.

Fun fact: my Customer Service Tip of the Week email was born out of one of these discussions.

Record those actions in Box 9. Your action plan is now complete.

Here’s an example of the completed Workshop Planner for the home improvement company. The entire plan was created in just one hour.

Resources

Here are the resources you need to use this Workshop Planning tool the next time you organize a customer service training program.

Download the tool here:

Watch a short video on how to use it. This video comes from my LinkedIn Learning course, How to Design and Deliver Training Programs.

Prepare employees for training from How to Design and Deliver Training Programs by Jeff Toister

Sentiment arc: a better alternative to customer surveys

A customer calls your company for service. After the call, they get an email asking them to complete a survey. The survey is intended to evaluate overall customer service and the individual rep's performance.

A host of problems hurt that mission.

• Response rates are too low

• Survey scores are notoriously inflated

• Reps get blamed for factors outside of their control

A new metric called the sentiment arc can solve those problems and eliminate annoying surveys. It works by tapping into your existing data to answer a fundamental question:

Is the customer happier at the end of the contact than they were at the beginning?

I partnered with Balto, a contact center agent support software provider, to test this metric by analyzing aggregated data from over 29,000 de-identified customer service phone calls made to a home improvement company.

The anonymous data revealed some surprising conclusions about how customers really feel about the service they receive, and what the best reps do to achieve better outcomes.

In this post, I’ll show you:

1. What is the customer service sentiment arc?

2. How is the sentiment arc evaluated?

3. What did the sentiment arc reveal?

4. How can you implement the sentiment arc?

5. Resources to get you started

What is the customer service sentiment arc?

A sentiment arc is defined as the change in emotion over time.

Unlike a survey that only measures customer satisfaction after a contact, the sentiment arc measures the change in customer satisfaction over the course of a contact.

This helps evaluate the specific impact the customer service rep had on the interaction. The rep clearly had a positive impact if the customer is happier at the end of the interaction than they were at the beginning.

How is the sentiment arc evaluated?

The sentiment arc is evaluated by gauging a customer’s emotions at the start of a contact and comparing them to the customer’s emotions at the end of the contact.

For our test, Balto's software identified the words customers used during the first 30 seconds of the call. A deep learning model then evaluated each customer's starting sentiment.

Sentiment was evaluated on a scale of 1-9, with "1" being extremely negative, "5" being neutral, and "9" being extremely positive.

Customer sentiment was calculated again at the end of the call using a similar process.

This data helped us identify two things:

1. How did sentiment change over the course of the call?

2. What did agents do to increase (or decrease) sentiment?

What did the sentiment arc reveal?

The sentiment arc revealed a number of advantages over a traditional customer service survey. It also identified what successful agents did well.

Unlike a survey where just 5 percent of customers might respond, Balto was able to analyze the sentiment arc for nearly 100% of the calls tested. The analysis provided a much more granular view of customer sentiment than a survey might reveal.

Finding 1: Most customer interactions are neutral

The vast majority of customer service calls to the home improvement company ended with neutral sentiment. Customers were just fine with the service they received.

Traditional surveys make it difficult to tell the difference between truly happy customers and people who are merely satisfied.

These surveys ask customers to rate their satisfaction after an interaction. "Satisfied" is essentially neutral, so customers often give a top rating when everything is just fine.

Survey respondents also tend to be selective. People who complete these surveys are either generally happy or they're furious. This can further skew the results.

The sentiment score provides some more granular insight. When you plot out the data, it shows few customers experience emotional extremes.

Finding 2: Agents are usually helpful

Customer service reps are supposed to help customers have a better experience. One way to gauge that is by measuring whether sentiment improved over the course of a call.

Here, the home improvement company’s reps did very well. An impressive 46 percent of calls ended with higher sentiment than they started. Sentiment decreased on fewer than 1 percent of calls.

Drilling down a bit, the sentiment arc reveals exactly how much sentiment improved over the course of a call.

When sentiment improved, it often improved just one point on the nine point scale.

This provides a more realistic picture of agent contribution than a traditional survey where a satisfied customer might give a top score simply because there was nothing wrong with the interaction.

Another limitation of traditional surveys is they can unfairly punish agents. A three rating on a five-point scale might be viewed as a failure under this system. The assumption is that the rep must have done something wrong to earn a three.

The sentiment arc provides a new perspective. In our test, reps improved customer sentiment on nearly 40 percent calls that ended neutral.

Customers are sometimes frustrated by an issue that's beyond the rep's ability to solve. The rep might lack the resources or authority to make the customer happy. Here, a poor survey score is a reflection of an unfortunate situation rather than the rep's ability to serve.

Tracking the sentiment arc makes this easier to see.

The home improvement company's customer service reps were true miracle workers when the call started off on the wrong foot. Calls that started with negative sentiment almost always ended better.

Finding 3: Proactive reps improve sentiment

One of our goals was to identify specific actions reps can take to improve sentiment. Improvement was tightly correlated with two things:

• Agents asking more questions

• Agents talking more than the customer

Let's start with agents asking more questions. Sentiment tended to improve when agents asked more questions per call.

Questions are a good proxy for active listening. Reps who do a good job listening to customers tend to diagnose issues faster and with more accuracy. That, in turn, puts customers at ease and makes them happier with the outcome.

The second trend was surprising. Agents got better results when they talked more than their customers.

This seems counterintuitive at first. Isn't talking more the opposite of listening? Here, it helps to think of a call in two parts.

Part one is where the customer explains the issue they are calling about. The most effective agents use active listening skills to quickly diagnose the customer's needs.

Part two is where the rep solves the issue and communicates the solution to the customer. It's natural for an agent to do more talking during this part of the call.

Both of these skills are examples of call control.

Call control is a process for proactively guiding customers through a call towards a successful resolution. It requires agents to listen carefully to customers' needs, quickly diagnose the issue, and expertly solve the problem.

This short video can help you improve your call control skills:

Control the call with friendliness from Phone-Based Customer Service by Jeff Toister

How can you implement the sentiment arc?

Try running an experiment to see if the sentiment arc can replace your customer service survey. There are two ways you can run this test.

The first is by using your existing sentiment analysis tool. Companies like Balto can provide sentiment data on each call. You can use the built-in BaltoGPT feature to answer questions about change in sentiment.

What if you don't have a sentiment analysis tool?

The low-tech alternative is to use your existing quality assurance (QA) process. Ask your QA technicians to evaluate starting and ending sentiment.

You might want to use a 1-5 scale to make it easier to manually score:

1. = extremely negative sentiment

2. = somewhat negative sentiment

3. = neutral sentiment

4. = someone positive sentiment

5. = extremely positive sentiment

Run an analysis once you've gathered your data. Try to answer these questions:

1. How does your ending sentiment score compare to your customer service survey?

2. What is your sentiment arc score? (percentage of calls where sentiment improves)

3. What agent behaviors drive sentiment improvement?

Resources to get you started

LinkedIn Learning subscribers can use my Phone-Based Customer Service course to build the skills necessary to serve customers over the phone.

Phone service still matters from Phone-Based Customer Service by Jeff Toister

How to improve customer satisfaction with concrete language

Imagine two customers call a contact center at the same time.

They're both experiencing the same issue—a promised discount wasn't applied to their last order. The two reps taking their respective calls follow the same routine:

1. Listen to the customer

2. Apologize for the issue

3. Solve the problem

The only difference is how each rep communicates.

Alton uses general language. "I'm sorry for the error. Your account will be credited within 3-5 business days."

Laura uses more concrete language. "I'm sorry the promotional discount wasn't applied to your order. You'll receive a $25.37 credit back to your card by Wednesday."

That small change in language can have a huge impact. Research shows Laura’s customer is more likely to be happy with the solution and spend more in the future.

In this post, I'll show you:

• What is concrete language?

• How does concrete language impact service?

• Why do customers prefer concrete language?

What is concrete language?

Concrete language is clear and direct. It involves using specific details to remove ambiguity.

Let's go back to Alton and Laura.

Both reps apologized to the customer. Alton used vague language while Laura used concrete language to give specific details.

• Alton: “I'm sorry for the error."

• Laura: "I'm sorry the promotional discount wasn't applied to your order."

The way the two reps communicated the resolution also highlighted the difference between vague and concrete language.

• Alton: "Your account will be credited in 3-5 business days."

• Laura: "You'll receive a $25.37 credit back to your card by Wednesday."

Here's one more.

It's common for restaurant servers to suggest an appetizer when greeting guests. Notice the difference between vague and concrete offers.

• Vague: "Would you like to start with an appetizer?"

• Concrete: "Would you like to start with our signature table-side guacamole."

Okay, that last example might be personal. I rarely want to start with an appetizer, but I’m almost always down for table-side guacamole. Delicious food and a show?! Yes, please!

How does concrete language impact service?

Concrete language improves customer satisfaction and increases revenue.

Grant Packard and Jonah Berger did two field studies on the effect of concrete language in customer service.

The first study analyzed 200 customer service calls placed to an online apparel retailer. It found that customer satisfaction was 8.9 percent higher when customer service reps used concrete language.

The second study analyzed 941 customer email interactions with a consumer durables company. That study found customer spent an average of 13 percent more over the next 90 days when reps responded to customer emails using concrete language.

These results back up many anecdotes I’ve seen in the field.

When I managed a contact center, repeat contacts were also significantly reduced when reps used concrete language. If a rep said, “You’ll get a refund in 5-7 business days,” customers often called back five days later to ask about their refund.

We avoided this by being more concrete.

For example, “I’ll process the refund today, but you might not see it on your credit card account until the 29th.” That was much more specific and fewer customers called a second time to check on their refund.

Why do customers prefer concrete language?

There are two reasons why concrete language is so effective when serving customers.

The first is it demonstrates listening.

Listening is one of the three essential customer service skills. A big part of listening is making customers feel confident they’ve been heard.

Concrete language does that well. It demonstrates that you are attuned to your customers’ needs and understand what they are communicating.

Let’s go back to Alton and Laura again. Imagine you are their customer. Which of these approaches is the strongest signal that you’ve been heard?

• Alton: “I'm sorry for the error."

• Laura: "I'm sorry the promotional discount wasn't applied to your order."

The second advantage of concrete language is it helps avoid confusion.

Vague language is often unclear. For instance, if you tell a customer a credit will appear on their account in 3-5 business days, when will the customer expect to receive it?

“Business days” is a vague concept. Is today a business day? What if your company is closed on Customer Experience Day, but your customer doesn’t even know that’s a holiday?!

Nobody likes to stop and work out the math.

Date ranges are also a problem. Customers tend to hear the best-case scenario. They'll often hear "three days" if you tell them 3-5 business days.

Concrete language avoids all that.

There's much less room for confusion if you tell a customer, "You'll receive a $25.37 credit back to your card by Wednesday."

You can learn more about using clear language to set expectations from this guide.

Take Action

Here's an exercise to help you or your team develop concrete language skills.

1. Identify a list of specific situations where concrete language is useful.

2. Brainstorm examples of concrete language to use in each situation.

3. Practice using those examples for one week.

Regroup at the end of the week to review what worked, what didn't, and make adjustments.

Bonus: This short video will show you how concrete language can help avoid service failures.

Use clear language to avoid surprises from Customer Service: Managing Customer Expectations by Jeff Toister

How to use inspiring stories to grow your service culture

A customer walked into Nordstrom with two tires and asked for a refund.

Nordstrom doesn't sell tires, so the customer clearly didn't buy the tires from that store. Yet the associate gave the customer a refund anyway.

The story became a legend.

You need legendary stories of your own if you want to deliver legendary customer service. This guide will show you three things:

1. What makes a great customer service story.

2. Where to gather your own legendary tales.

3. How to use stories to inspire your team.

We'll also break down the Nordstrom tire story to see why it works so well at Nordstrom, but probably won't work for your employees.

Photo credit: Mike Mozart

What makes a great customer service story?

Legendary customer service stories help employees understand the service culture. They connect at an emotional level to help explain the customer service vision and inspire action.

Legendary stories have three characteristics:

1. About your company

2. An example of the vision

3. Authentic

Let's see how the Nordstrom tire story fits.

First, it's about Nordstrom.

The tire story is unusual, but nearly every Nordstrom associate can relate to serving a customer who needed help with a return or an unusual request.

Second, the story exemplifies Nordstrom's specific customer service vision:

Use good judgement in all situations.

The Nordstrom tire story is really a story about an associate following the vision.

A different store occupied the building before Nordstrom moved in. And that store did sell tires. The customer explained to the Nordstrom associate that he was told he could return the tires if they didn't work out.

The associate believed the customer's story. His good judgment told him he should try to help the customer.

The associate decided to call a nearby Firestone tire dealer to get the estimated value of the tires. He then gave the customer a cash refund for that amount.

The third characteristic of a great story is it has to be authentic.

What makes the Nordstrom tire story so great is it actually happened. I'll admit, I once doubted the authenticity, until I heard this episode of the Nordstrom podcast.

In the episode, Nordstrom president, Pete Nordstrom, interviewed Craig Trounce, the associate who gave the customer a refund for his tires. Trounce goes into detail about what happened and why he made the decision, which makes the story even more impactful.

Warning: the Nordstrom tire story only works at Nordstrom. It wouldn’t fit the three characteristics if you applied it to your organization. You'll need to gather your own legendary tales to inspire your team.

Where to gather legendary tales

When I advise customer service teams, they often get hung up on finding extreme examples like the Nordstrom tire story. You don't need extreme. Your story just has to be compelling.

Here are a few places to look for examples.

Team Meetings

Ask your employees for examples of things they've done or observed others doing that fit the customer service vision.

I asked a group of customer service reps at a medical device company for examples and learned how an agent went the extra mile to help save a patient's life.

Observations

Spend time observing employees interact with customers and you're bound to find some great stories.

I visited an apartment community to do research before I gave a keynote at the management company's leadership retreat. It didn't take me long to spot a great story.

An employee was cheerfully greeted by several dogs (and the residents who owned them). The employee had made friends with the dogs and residents by always carrying treats for the dogs.

Here's my step-by-step guide to performance observations: Observation Guide

Customer Feedback

You often learn about legendary stories directly from customers. They share tales via conversations, surveys, and even emails or letters.

All you have to do is listen.

I was helping a university's parking department analyze its customer service survey results when an unusual trend emerged. Several employees were repeatedly mentioned by happy customers.

A little more digging revealed these employees went out of their way to create personal connections with the people they served. They got to know people by name and customers got to know them as well. Each one became a legendary example.

Get help analyzing your own surveys: Customer Survey Resources

How to use stories to inspire your team

Customer-focused teams talk about customer service a lot. The Nordstrom tire story is so compelling because employees have heard it many times. They know the story themselves and they use it to inspire their own actions.

Think of situations where you discuss customer service with your team. That's a great time to share a legendary story.

• New hire training

• Ongoing training

• Team meetings

• One-on-one coaching

• Team communication

Many Nordstrom stores have a sign near the employee entrance reminding associates of the tire story. It's another way to remind employees about the customer service vision, "Use good judgment in all situations."

Take Action

Remember, your stories don't need to be over-the-top to become legendary. The stories just need to help explain your service culture.

You can start building your legend today. Gather stories that fit the three characteristics:

1. About your company

2. An example of the vision

3. Authentic

Once you have a few legendary stories, start sharing them with your team.

The 3 Essential Customer Service Skills (and How to Grow Them)

You want your team to grow their customer service skills.

The challenge is finding the right skills to focus on. There seems to be a million different ideas out there. Which ones are the most essential?

My advice is to focus on three fundamentals:

1. Rapport

2. Understanding

3. Solving

These skills are the foundation of consistently great service. Each of them has endless permutations and combinations, so they can be adapted to any situation.

I'm going to show you what each skill entails, why they're essential, and how you can train yourself or your team to master each one.

Rapport Skills

Building rapport is the process of getting customers to know, like, and trust you.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines rapport this way:

1. a friendly, harmonious relationship

2. especially: a relationship characterized by agreement, mutual understanding, or empathy that makes communication possible or easy

Think of your favorite place to be a customer. It could be a restaurant, salon, or a store. There's a good chance the employees there use rapport to make you feel great.

Rapport is more than just being polite or nice. True rapport must be genuine.

Why is rapport essential?

Rapport makes customer service easier. It helps customers become more:

• Trusting

• Willing to listen

• Forgiving of mistakes

My research shows that customers are 2-3 times more likely to give higher ratings when then know an employee by name.

How to grow your rapport skills

Most of us have a good foundation of rapport skills. These are the skills we use to make friends and build relationships with people outside of work.

The key is identifying and using these same skills with customers.

Here's an exercise that can help. Watch the short video below. There's a scene that starts 35 seconds in which shows a brief customer service interaction. See how many of these techniques you can identify the employee using:

• Making the first move

• Smiling

• Offering a warm greeting

• Using positive body language

• Calling the customer by name

• Conveying enthusiasm

• Demonstrating interest

Implementing techniques to build rapport from Customer Service Foundations by Madecraft and Jeff Toister

If you're an introvert like me, you might need a little help getting a conversation started. The Five Question Technique is my go-to move.

It works by identifying five possible questions ahead of time. Each question should be designed to put customers at ease and get them talking about themselves.

This short video shares some examples.

Understanding Skills

Customer service is about helping people. That makes it essential to understand exactly what help people want and need.

Listening is a big part of understanding your customers. Merriam-Webster defines listening this way:

to hear something with thoughtful attention : give consideration

Understanding skills also include reading comprehension.

Email, chat, and text are all popular forms of customer service communication. Your ability to read and understand these messages is critical to outstanding service.

Active listening, as the name applies, means participating in the conversation. The goal is to learn more about your customer:

1. How they feel

2. What they need

3. How you can serve them

Here's an example of great active listening.

A software customer called the support department to ask if the software had a particular feature. It didn't, but the customer service rep used active listening to dig deeper.

He asked the customer clarifying questions to understand why she wanted that particular feature. Once he understood the customer's true purpose, he was able to suggest a better way for the customer to accomplish her goal.

Why is understanding essential?

Understanding helps us discover what help customers want and need.

Each customer is different. They have different personalities, needs, and expectations. Many don't communicate their needs clearly.

Empathy is a part of understanding customer needs. It's the process of being aware of and understanding another person's feelings. That’s important because a big part of customer service is helping customers feel better.

How grow your understanding skills

Like rapport, most of us already use understanding skills in our personal relationships. This active listening exercise will help you identify some of those skills you naturally use.

1. Find a partner. It could be a coworker or even a friend.

2. Ask them to tell you a story. It could be about anything: their weekend, an upcoming vacation, or whatever else they want to talk about.

3. Listen carefully for the main idea of the story and why you think it might be important to the storyteller.

4. At the end of the story, give the storyteller a recap of what you heard. Ask your partner to tell you how close you came.

5. Finally, reflect on the specific skills or techniques you used.

Do you tell your partner that you’ve included them in a customer service training exercise? That’s completely up to you. For them, it could just be a fun conversation.

This short video contains two additional exercises to help you build your understanding skills:

1. Identify the real problem

2. What's my job?

Uncovering customer needs from Customer Service Foundations by Madecraft and Jeff Toister

Solving Skills

Our ultimate goal in customer service is to help customers. It starts by getting people to trust us through rapport and then understanding their needs.

Now, it's time to solve their problem.

Here's an example from Osprey, a brand I really love. I wanted to find a new backpack, and the Osprey rep quickly diagnosed my needs and made a recommendation.

Jennifer made it look effortless, but look carefully at some of the skills that were needed:

• Rapport. (Okay, that opening line was probably scripted.)

• Understanding. Jennifer quickly diagnosed my needs.

• Solving. A lot of product knowledge was required to make a great suggestion so quickly. (The Raptor 10 turned out to be perfect.)

Why is solving essential?

Solving often involves helping customers feel better and restoring trust if a promise was broken.

Here's an example:

My wife and I used to own a vacation rental cabin. One winter, our propane service missed a delivery.

This was a huge breach of trust.

It was a cold winter and our cabin was fully booked with guests. We had just 10 days left of propane. If the tank wasn't filled in time, our guests wouldn't have propane to heat the cabin or cook meals.

This created a huge emotional problem: worry.

We worried about…

• the consequences of running out of propane

• having a negative impact on our guests

• the cost of relocating guests to another cabin

• getting a bad reputation and negative reviews for a poor experience

• spending extra time trying to solve the problem

That’s a lot of needless worry that could have been prevented with better solving skills. It ended well, but not without a great deal of effort. You can read the rest of the story here.

How to grow your solving skills

Start with the end in mind. Visualize yourself helping customers achieve their goal and making them feel better. One exercise that helps is the Thank You Letter challenge.

Here’s how it works:

1. Imagine you delighted a customer.

2. Write a thank you letter to yourself from that imaginary customer.

3. Read your thank you letter each day for 21 days.

4. Try to receive that same feedback from a real customer.

The hardest part is sticking with it and remembering to read the letter each day. If you’d like, I’ll send you a daily reminder.

The combinations for building your solving skills are endless, but these three short videos will give you a great start.

This first video focuses on taking ownership. This means accepting responsibility for finding a resolution, even if you aren’t personally responsible for solving it.

Taking ownership of problems from Customer Service Foundations by Madecraft and Jeff Toister

The next video focuses on empathy.

Empathy bridges across multiple skills sets.

• Rapport can make customers more willing to open up about their feelings.

• Understanding can help you discover and understand their feelings.

• Solving skills can help you take action to help customers feel better.

Empathizing with customers from Customer Service Foundations by Madecraft and Jeff Toister

Serving angry customers is one of the most difficult parts of customer service.

This final video shares some proven techniques for defusing upset customers and helping them feel better.

Defusing angry customers from Customer Service Foundations by Madecraft and Jeff Toister

Conclusion

Think back to all the great customer service encounters you've had. It could be service you've received or service you've given.

Chances are, those three skills were on display:

1. Rapport

2. Understanding

3. Solving

You can build these skills in just 10 minutes per week with my free Customer Service Tip of the Week email.

Each tip focuses on one of those three core skills. The emails are free, and anyone can subscribe.

3 ways to build better connections with remote coworkers

Building relationships can take more effort when you aren't located in the same office. You don't have those natural moments to strike up a conversation in the break room, the hallway, or at lunch.

It's not hopeless. Some remote customer service professionals have built great relationships with coworkers.

My 2023 burnout study found that remote contact center agents are just as likely to have a good friend at work as agents who work onsite.

What's their secret? Here are three principles that can help.

Principle 1: Rapport

Rapport allows you to work more effortlessly with other people because you know, like, and trust each other.

That often happens informally when you work in the same office. Coworkers stop by your desk, chat with you after a meeting, or say "hi" to you in the hallway.

Those opportunities don't exist with your remote coworkers unless you intentionally create them. So try being intentional.

• Schedule a virtual coffee to get to know a coworker.

• Login early to a video conference so you can chat before the meeting begins.

• Text or Slack a few words of appreciation to a coworker who is doing great work.

Some companies occasionally bring teams together for an all-staff meeting. If you get that opportunity, break out of your comfort zone and spend time with coworkers you don't yet know.

One client organized an all-staff meeting where many employees met in person for the first time. They spent a few days taking workshops together, coordinating plans, and building bonds over meals.

Those few days in person created a deeper sense of rapport that made work faster once employees went back to their far-flung locations.

Principle 2: Inclusion

You naturally build relationships with other people when they’re included in your daily activities.

That's easy when everyone is in the same office, but many remote employees are left out of impromptu meetings, important decisions, and even team building activities because they aren't physically there.

Make a point to include your remote colleagues:

• Invite them to participate in impromptu meetings.

• Get them to weigh-in on important decisions.

• Involve them in team building activities.

I once got a chance to tour the human resources contact center at Starbucks. Reps who worked in this center took human resources calls from employees working at Starbucks locations.

Most of the team was based onsite, but one member worked remotely. It would be easy to leave this team member out of the physical tour, but the team made sure she was involved.

The remote team member joined us via a video conference to give our group a coffee tasting tutorial. It was a lot of fun, and including her in the tour showcased her value to the team.

Principle 3: Flexibility

Your remote coworkers might be in different time zones or have different work hours than you do.

This can take some extra thought and require a few adjustments. For instance, a lunchtime meeting for you might be a nighttime meeting for a coworker halfway around the world.

Take time to establish norms for how you will communicate with each other and create agreements on how quickly you will respond.

I once worked closely with a remote coworker who typically worked a different shift than mine. We established communication norms that worked for both of us.

• Daily: We used email to send messages and updates.

• Weekly: We connected via phone once per week as our schedules allowed.

• Monthly: We adjusted our schedules to meet in person about once a month.

Take Action

Building great relationships with your remote colleagues takes effort, but it can make work easier and more fun.

It helps to think of them as internal customers. Treating remote colleagues the same way you would an external customer helps you maintain a service-focused mindset.

You can learn more about serving remote coworkers from the short video below. It’s part of my Serving Internal Customers course on LinkedIn Learning.

Serving remote coworkers from Customer Service: Serving Internal Customers by Jeff Toister and Madecraft

4 ways to train customer service skills without awkward role playing

Why do we subject employees to role playing?

Managers often request it for customer service training, but participants don't like it. Here are just a few comments from a discussion on LinkedIn Live:

• "It's always awkward and stressful."

• "The interactions are just not natural."

• "It's unnerving."

It would be one thing if role playing was a highly effective customer service training technique. It's not.

I'm a customer service trainer who has trained thousands of employees, and I can tell role playing doesn't work.

There are alternatives that improve training without making your participants feel uncomfortable. Here are four that your participants will like better.

Why is role playing ineffective?

Let's take a moment to cover why role playing doesn't work for customer service training. As a trainer, I've used role playing in the past and have seen its limitations.

The first one is participants don't like it.

But there’s an even bigger reason. Role playing slows down learning. That's because a role play scenario requires participants to split their attention between two tasks. One is the skill they are trying to practice and the other is the character they are playing.

Here's an old video from the archive that shows what happens when people try to do more than one thing at once:

What can you do instead? Here are four techniques that work much better.

Option 1: Discrete skill practice

This option narrows your focus to one specific skill. Participants can practice the skill in a realistic manner without having to pretend to be a character.

This option works well for skills that are easily isolated. For example:

• Greeting customers

• Reading customer emails

• Using positive tone and body language

Below is a short video from my LinkedIn Learning course, Customer Service Foundations. You can use it to help your team practice using appropriate tone and body language.

The video includes an explanation of how to use the skill. There are demonstrations at :31 and 1:25 in the video to illustrate what the technique looks like in action.

After watching the video, have your team practice using positive tone and body language while responding to typical customer requests.

Enhancing your likability from Customer Service Foundations by Jeff Toister and Madecraft

Option 2: Walk-through

A walk-through is like a role play scenario played at half-speed without the unnatural acting.

Use it to walk through the steps of a service interaction. Pause to cover what to do and say at various steps in the process and have participants demonstrate each skill.

Walk-throughs are great for any situation that follows a standard procedure:

• Receptionists greeting office visitors

• Contact center agents answering customer calls

• Valet parking attendants delivering customer vehicles

You've probably done a walk-through if you've ever been a cashier.

1. The trainer walked you through the steps to ring up a transaction.

2. You were coached you through several transactions with live customers.

3. The trainer eventually left you to work on your own after you demonstrated a reasonable level of proficiency.

You likely had to call for help a few times when you encountered something unexpected, but generally you started getting faster and more accurate as you worked.

Option 3: Simulation

Simulations give participants a chance to practice their skills in a realistic way without playing a character. They can just be themselves.

There's a growing range of software solutions that provide simulations for customer service training. Those can be great, but there are also low-tech ways to run simulations.

Think of other situations where you could use the same skills. For example, active listening is an essential customer service skill. It’s also a skill that’s really useful when you’re just having a conversation.

Here's a simulation you can use to help people build their active listening skills by having a conversation.

1. Place participants in pairs.

2. Ask one participant to tell a story for 90 seconds.

3. Give the second participant 30 seconds to recap what they heard.

4. Debrief by asking pairs to describe the listening skills they used or observed.

Option 4: On-the-Job Practice

Daily interactions with real customers provide some of the best customer service training. You can learn something from each one and find ways to constantly improve.

Here's how to practice specific skills on-the-job:

1. Select one specific skill to work on.

2. Practice using the skill while serving customers.

3. Pause and review how well it worked.

4. Decide what adjustments, if any, to make.

5. Apply the adjustments while using the skill with more customers.

My Customer Service Tip of the Week email provides you with a weekly suggestion for on-the-job practice. You can try the tip yourself, or share it with your team.

For example, one tip is using the Acknowledge and Refocus technique to defuse upset customers:

1. Acknowledge the upset customer's emotions

2. Refocus the conversation on finding a solution

After a week of practice, customer service reps can become quite skilled at using the technique. You can then introduce a new technique to practice the following week.

Take Action

Ditch the awkward role playing activities for customer service training. Your employees don't like it and it's not effective.

Try one of the four alternatives instead:

1. Discrete skill practice

2. Walk-throughs

3. Simulations

4. On-the-job practice

Here are some additional resources:

1. Subscribe to the free Customer Service Tip of the Week email

2. Watch the LinkedIn Live discussion on role play alternatives

Performance observations: a step-by-step guide

If you want to solve a customer service problem, go and see it.

That's a performance observation. It's a process for observing employees doing their work to understand how they currently do things and what can be improved.

It's a go-to technique for improving performance, designing training, or identifying best practices.

You might worry employees won't be truthful if you observe them. Or perhaps they'll change how they do things just to impress you.

In reality, that rarely happens.

I've conducted over 1,000 performance observations. And ooh boy, I’ve seen and heard a lot! Most employees are brutally honest if you approach them the right way.

Here's my step-by-step guide.

Image courtesy of LinkedIn Learning

Step 1: Prepare

A little preparation can make your performance observation much more successful.

Start with a specific objective. Here are some common reasons to observe employee performance:

• Designing training that reflects how the job is actually done.

• Improving performance by looking for obstacles that hinder employees.

• Identifying best practices by watching what top performers do.

Next, identify the employee or employees you'd like to observe. The employees you select depend on your objective.

• Do you want to observe a mix of top, mid, and bottom performers?

• Are there specific employees you want to observe?

• Is there a particular process or activity you'd like to see?

If you aren't the boss, be sure to get permission from the employee's boss beforehand. You don't want their leader to be blindsided by you showing up in their work area.

Finally, notify the employee or employees you'd like to observe ahead of time if possible. They should feel comfortable with you being in their workspace and understand why you're there.

I once worked in a contact center where employees were expected to pitch the company credit card to certain customers. Our average acceptance rate was just 5 percent, but an agent named Betty routinely exceeded 40 percent.

So I contacted Betty’s boss to get permission to observe her. Then I scheduled some time to observe Betty’s credit card pitch.

Step 2: Observe

The performance observation itself is generally easy with the right preparation. I've found employees are typically very accommodating and willing to answer questions.

Here are a few tips that can make it go smoothly

1. Avoid interfering with the employee's work.

2. Listen and observe carefully. You'll often see things you don't expect.

3. Ask questions. Avoid making assumptions about why an employee does something a certain way. Get their perspective on it.

Important: Employees tend to be very honest if they understand you're there to listen, observe, and be helpful. However, you might get some resistance if they believe you're there to catch them doing something wrong.

Betty was happy to share with me. In between calls, she explained her process for pitching credit cards and answered my many questions.

The observation revealed insights that I wouldn't have discovered on my own.

For instance, Betty pointed out that she felt the credit card had some features that frequent customers could really benefit from using.

This sincere belief helped her pitch the card with enthusiasm, an enthusiasm I hadn’t seen from other agents. I wondered if a lack of enthusiasm prevented other agents from making pitches.

Betty also had a unique approach to her offer. She’d congratulate customers for being selected to receive the credit card. (The card wasn’t offered to everyone.) I noticed this made customers much more receptive to the pitch.

Step 3: Follow-up

There are a few follow-up activities once you complete your observation.

1. Validate your observations with other data.

2. Use what you learned to take action.

After I observed Betty, I reviewed call reports from other agents and confirmed something Betty had shared. Many agents simply weren't offering the credit card at all.

I dug a little deeper and discovered many didn't understand the card's features and benefits. They were wary of the card's high interest rate and didn't feel comfortable pitching it to the customers.

There was also another reason agents didn’t pitch the card: it wasn’t part of the quality assurance process.

These insights helped me create a plan for rapid improvement.

1. Pitching the credit card was added to the quality assurance process. It would now be a clear job expectation for agents.

2. Agents received training on Betty’s unique approach along with the credit card’s features and benefits.

The “Betty method” was a hit. Many agents were much more enthusiastic about pitching the card once they understood how it could benefit customers. They also found Betty’s approach fun and easy to use.

The contact center's average credit card acceptance rate soon increased from 5 to 20 percent.

Take Action

I encourage you to conduct a performance observation on your own. You'll likely gain something you can use to improve training, fix a problem, and elevate the team's performance.

This short video recaps the process:

Conducting performance observations from Instructional Design: Needs Analysis by Jeff Toister

Want to go even deeper? My book, Getting Service Right, reveals ten hidden and counterintuitive customer service insights that came from performance observations. You’ll discover:

• How incentives often make customer service worse

• Why employees find it so difficult to pay attention to customers

• What causes employees to give up and stop trying

Check it out —> download the first chapter