When you are working in customer service, no matter which industry, customers should be your friends.
Why should they be a friend? To quote Sam Walton “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”
You have to build customers trust.
I have been with Chillibreeze for six years now and building customers’ trust is the best thing that I have learned throughout these years. This did not happen in a day; it started from day one and gradually increased with every experience. This habit has been ingrained so deeply in me that whatever I do, I always keep my customer in mind. Whatever I communicate with customers, it should be worthy of their time.
I joined Chillibreeze in 2012. At the start of my career in Chillibreeze, I was being trained by Suresh, now a Manager. I had a rough start because I had a hard time understanding and meeting the expectation of the customers. I was very slow in executing, understanding instructions. I lacked in paying sufficient attention to detail due to which my training got extended.
I focused on skill development
At the end of my training, I was given a month to improve my performance before I could move on to probation. I was sad and disappointed with myself. When I saw my colleagues moving to become probationers, I knew that I had to get out of my comfort zone and get to where my batch mates were.
I was determined to succeed and spent extra time working on improving my skills. I cut my lunch break to 15 minutes. I came into work an hour early.
It took me three months to come up to the skill levels of my team-mates and format PowerPoint decks to the point that were customer ready.
I recall a particular day April 6, 2012, when James, deputy manager had presented a challenge to me. He asked me to work on a project of 60 slides in one day. It would typically take me eight hours or more to work on 60 slides.
It is a credit to Suresh’s coaching that I was able to complete the project in six hours!
With each day and each project, my confidence increased. My understanding of each customer’s requirement grew to a point where my teammates sought me out for guidance.
Communicating with customers
Communicating with customers did not come naturally to me. Initially, I had a lot of difficulties expressing my responses and thoughts in writing.
I was always concerned about whether I was communicating well. Was I using the right words? Was my grammar correct? Was my tone right? My mentors, James and Suresh, who had six years of experience, showed me the ins and outs of communicating with customers. With their support, I gained confidence and was quickly learning on my own. And learning fast!
