The Forbidden Customer Service Phrases
Creating an awesome customer experience comes down to 3 things:
Words. Tone. Intent.
The wrong words almost always have the wrong tone, and usually the wrong intent. These are phrases such as:
- I can’t…
- We don’t…
- There’s no way…
- You should have…
- We’ve done all we can…
- We never…
- Why didn’t you…
- ???
If your team is using these words with your customers, you’re headed down the customer disaster path. Time to step in and train people on what to say and how to say it.
How about “It’s against our policy…..” Customers don’t care what your policy is. Instead of stating some corporate mandate, explain things to the customer in a way that relates to THEM: “The reason we do this is so you, the customer….”
I’ve banished the word POLICY in our team. It’s one of the few rules that I enforce. It’s cold, heartless, and shows the customer that your organization is against helping the customer.
Now, are there things we won’t be able to do? Sure. But it’s better said “for security purposes, we follow these steps”, or “in order to make it fair to everyone…”. It’s much better than POLICY which says I don’t care.
How about, “It’s going to cost you $$$ if we discover it’s not our fault. ” That continual statement from my internet service provider has convinced me I need to change to another company.
Great one! Total lack of respect for the customer. You might as well just tell them you don’t really care about them.