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November / December 2009
Volume 21, Number 6

It’s a hectic day in the tax-assessor collector’s office (or is it the county clerk’s office?) and a long line of residents waits to be served. The residents have each taken a number, are all checking their watches, holding their wallets or pocketbooks close.

Not one wants to be where they are, but they all have a problem that needs to be addressed, and they all have other problems on their minds: how to afford college for their kids, whether their spouse will be targeted in their company’s next round of layoffs, the miserable headlines in the newspaper that refuse — refuse — to mention anything positive or endearing about the world. Financial crisis, energy crisis, unemployment crisis, housing crisis, water crisis, swine flu crisis. Should the kids get vaccinated?

Everyone feels the flu coming on, but first: it’s a hectic day in the tax-assessor collector’s office, or the clerk’s office. There, the frontline employees who serve as the connecting tool between taxpayers and the county are in battle, fighting the weight of other people’s stress and other people’s problems.

How can I help you? Some customers are friendly enough; others came wearing armor and dagger eyes. While customer service can be a battlefield, experts on conflict management and customer relations offered attendees of TAC’s Annual Conference some insight on everything from how to build immediate rapport with a client to the best way to confront a bully in public.

Some insight was obvious, but easy to forget when it’s 4:30 in the afternoon, the office is short-staffed, the phone is ringing and the customer at the counter needs a payment plan to pay the property taxes, and where is that money going anyway?

“Never, ever should you ever insult somebody, because you don’t know where their head is at, because we are living in difficult times,” said performance improvement consultant Hugh Cabello during a breakout session on conflict management, adding that factors as mundane as low lake levels and summer heat contribute to people having less fun. “When is this madness ever going to end? Things are upside down right now and these customers are visiting you. They are trying to be cordial with you, right, but … everybody is at a tipping point right now.”

Eliminating the Hassle
Not only are people more on edge, their expectations about what they can do and get and how fast they should be able to do something are higher than ever thanks to the Internet and cell phones, so Cabello recommended moving as many services as possible to the Web, where feasible.

“We live in a digital world,” he said, adding that counties that offer services online end up reducing the number of conflicts that occur in their courthouse or offices. “Nobody is driving to the courthouse all happy, right?”

If residents are still coming to the courthouse to take care of a service that is available online, Cabello recommended thanking the customer for dropping in and giving them the online information to take home.

“‘Hey, thanks for coming in to see us, Mrs. Jones. I’m glad we were able to take care of your passport issues and here is a pamphlet’ — don’t just give them the pamphlet — ‘with our Web site address, and if you need to do other things, always know that in the comfort and convenience of your home, because we have a Web site, you can do a lot of the stuff rather than spending time off your busy day to come see us,’” he illustrated.

But some times, an office that has information and services on the Web will reduce foot traffic but increase phone traffic, making phone skills more necessary than before since residents are attempting to have their needs met without driving to the courthouse.

“Technology requires more skills,” Cabello said. “Phone skills training will be the best training you can invest in this year.”

Service consultant Peggy Morrow, who has authored several books on customer service and service over the telephone, said there are different factors to consider when helping a constituent over the phone, such as whether and how to ask a person to hold. (Along those lines, Morrow recommended offering to call a person back, rather than making them hold at all.)

Before answering the phone, take a deep breath, clear the throat and grab a pencil or pen and piece of paper, Morrow recommended. “That makes your voice come out more confidently,” she said. “It’s a good stress reducer.” She also recommended doing an “attitude flip flop” — a conscious recognition that when the phone rings and a member or co-worker needs help, it’s job security, not an intrusion.

Always include a simple “hello” soon after answering, rather than just the name of the office or county. When the caller says their name, write it down and use it later during the conversation and to say goodbye. “The direction that the phone call is going to go is set by how you answer the telephone,” Morrow said. “I like to say, ‘How may I help you,’ because that helps them get to the point of the conversation.”

In person, body language makes up 55 percent of the message sent to other people, tone of voice makes up 38 percent, and the actual words used make up only 7 percent, Morrow said. But there is no body language over the phone, so people rely more heavily on deciphering a person’s tone of voice, which makes up 82 percent of the message, though certain nuances — like a smile, whether real or faked — can still impact a person’s tone of voice. Words make up only the remaining 18 percent of the message.

“The very meaning of a word can be changed by your tone of voice,” Morrow said, starting an exercise in which participants used the same word — “oh” — to signify different attitudes and responses — surprise, anger, pleasure, understanding, indecision, disappointment.

While body language is often used to build rapport with an in-person customer, other aids must be used over-the-phone. “Mirroring” is a common, though often subconscious, practice that people use with body language — sitting how the other person is sitting, looking where the other person is looking. But mirroring can be effective over-the-phone, too, by matching the speaking speed of the other person — slowing down or speeding up, but not so much that it’s obvious. If a customer or member is a fast talker, they are more likely to build rapport with other fast speakers, whereas they may be turned off or frustrated by slower speakers. On the other hand, if a caller is a slow speaker, they may grow agitated with a fast speaker.

Almost nothing is as bad as over-the-phone silence; it’s the equivalent of being left in the dark. Morrow recommended always giving callers a play-by-play of what’s happening so they can feel left in the loop. For instance, if a member calls and requests something that requires the Internet or finding a computer file, mention that the screen is still loading or that the search is still finding the file. “Otherwise
it’s just like dead air,” she said. “They can’t see you.”

Finally, the best way to help a customer is to focus. People are not naturally great listeners; we tend to draw our own mental images and assumptions of what something means or what a person will say next, instead of asking for more information or waiting until a person is done speaking. That results in mistakes, ending up at the wrong conclusion and possibly frustrating the customer into thinking
their call or concern isn’t important.

“You get the same questions over and over and over again, and you know most of the time you do know what is coming next, but every once in a while you don’t and if you think you know what is coming next, you tend to hurry the caller,” Morrow said. “We really want to listen very carefully … always give the caller your undivided attention.”

A Culture of Service
For those customers who do come to the courthouse, it’s important to create a culture of service — meaning employees who empathize with customers and actively want to help.

“When you have a true culture of service in your organization, everybody is going to give good customer service to everybody else,” Morrow said, adding that customers can be coworkers within the courthouse as well as constituents, and that a culture of service encompasses internal needs (can you email that information?) as well as external needs. “You run into what we call the bump into factor: everywhere
you turn around, you’re hearing about customer service.”

In her presentations, Morrow said customers want five things: to feel welcome, to feel understood, to feel important, to feel comfortable and to feel informed. “If you make those five things happen every customer every time you will find your reputation for customer service will escalate,” she said, though Cabello stated it even more simply: “Mutual respect and trust is what you want,” he said.

To build an atmosphere of service, the culture needs to encompass four areas: management commitment, customer feedback, employee performance, and policies and procedures. While employees are often the focus of customer service training and complaints, Morrow said that in actuality, about 85 percent of customer service problems stem from an organization’s systems, policies or procedures. Only about 15 percent come from rude or inadequate person-to-person interaction, though those encounters weigh more heavily in customer’s
memories.

“You have lots of systems and procedures and rules and regulations. ... If they aren’t working well, there is no way that you can give good customer service,” Morrow said, citing telephone systems and difficult transferring procedures as one example where customer service can go haywire despite the best of intentions. “You can have somebody that really tries to do a good job and if the computers aren’t working right and the system is very difficult to navigate and not well understood, then you are going to have a negative impression.”

Tony Brigmon, who helped improve the quality of customer service at Southwest Airlines during the late 1970s and on, said an important aspect of establishing a culture of service lies in an organization’s overall work environment and mission. The more employees enjoy themselves, the more pleasant they will be around customers and constituents.

“At Southwest Airlines, we began to take fun very seriously when we noticed just the serious results we got when we approached things from a fun manner,” he said during the keynote address at TAC’s Annual Conference. “We noticed in our employee development customer care sessions that our employees were more energized, they were more creative, they were more receptive to any of the ideas presented and more likely to act on the things that they heard.”

Something as simple giving a unique, “Texan” response to standard greetings can go a long way toward reducing another person’s stress levels; Brigmon likes to answer “How are you doing?” with “Finer than a frog’s hair” and “If I were a dog, I’d be wagging my tail”; either will grab the other person’s attention and catch them off-guard in a good way. Leaving on an unexpected but high-spirited note is good and memorable, too; instead of the standard “have a nice day,” Brigmon may offer a salute and say “Adios, amigos.”

In an internal customer situation with a coworker, or when beginning a meeting, humor can be used to increase the energy and creativity in a room. Music also goes a long way toward directing an office’s overall atmosphere, whether it’s calm and soothing or energizing and invigorating.

Learn to Listen and Choose Words
Most of the time, when people need customer service, they are at a grocery store or hair salon or restaurant or automobile dealership, getting something they want: ingredients for dinner, a new style, a night on the town, a new car.

That’s not always the case when a resident needs a county service. Even a person who is receiving a free defense attorney or health care is still either sick or facing the possibility of a criminal conviction.

“People have preconceived notions or perceptions prior to them visiting your sphere of influence,” Cabello said. “How do you feel your constituents and your customers feel about you? … They are mad at you already, you have a tough job.”

Greeting customers at the door will help alleviate some of that anger or resentment, the experts said. While it may save money to post a sign telling those walking in to please take a number, it’s best to smile, say hi, ask what they came in for and make sure they are in the right place — then have them take a number, if necessary.

“A lot of customers are, across the board, they don’t know what to expect when they visit you,” Cabello said. “(If) they don’t even acknowledge me when I show up, how rude is that? They are taking my money!”

A customer may seem rude or agitated without knowing, understanding or caring; someone who has a talent for customer service won’t allow themselves to get hijacked by the other person’s emotional state and will instead think about the other person’s story, even fictionalizing it internally to make the other person come off more positively.

“Being rude or acting immoral, understand that that’s maybe not their persona, but they are suffering through some tremendous challenges,” Cabello said. “We have to accept that and we have to be empathetic. Empathy, that needs to be incorporated into your bones, into your nervous system. You’ve got to have a little empathy because it’s going to happen to you.”

To improve on a perception of poor customer service, Morrow said it’s important to connect attitudes — what Morrow called “onion words” — with behaviors so that the perceived problem can be fixed. “If you feel that someone was rude to you and you want to make sure that other people do not feel that you are being rude, you have to figure out what behaviors make a person feel that you are being rude to them,” she said.

Other tips include managing expectations by under promising and over delivering and forgoing the “the customer is always right” philosophy for a “the customer is always the customer” philosophy and focus on solving the problem and offering as much help as possible.

Using positive words and accentuating the benefits of a situation — even if the only positive is you’ll have this paid off by 2020 — is key to keeping a situation from accelerating.

“If you know you can solve a problem, say, ‘I’m sure we can do something about that.’ Of course, don’t say that if you know you can’t,” Morrow said. “Say something positive and that will help calm the person down a little bit.” Phrases like you should have called us sooner and why didn’t you are fire-starters that shouldn’t be used. “Forget lecturing them,” she added. “Just let that go, and solve the problem. ‘OK, here is what we can do for you,’ ‘Here are some things that we can do to make this happen.’ If you have to say no, you say, ‘I wish I could do that for you, however, I can’t (because)...’”

Cabello uses personality profiles — whether they are task-oriented or people-oriented, fast-paced or slow-paced — to assess how someone will handle or create conflict. Some personality profiles will result
in a passive person, or an assertive person, while other combinations
will create an aggressive person.

“Someone who is fast-paced and task-oriented tends to be someone
who is domineering,” he said. “Somebody who is very task oriented
and goes very slow, they will never trust you. They are already checking their references to make sure you’re not lying.”

If a customer becomes aggressive, combative or disruptive, Cabello said the best thing to do is move them to a private area as quietly and nicely as possible, without critiquing their behavior or implying that something is bad. An aggressive person, he added, is generally a showoff who wants to be praised, so to move them to a more private area it’s a good idea to say things like Thank you for bringing that to our attention or Let’s talk about this someplace where we can sit.

The other thing about aggressive people, he added, is that they are often afraid of failing whatever it is they are trying to accomplish; they may have a point they want to prove and may not want to admit fault or wrongdoing in front of others, so removing them from onlookers or gawkers may make it easier for them to accept that they can’t get what they wanted.

“It’s time to stop (them from) being Shakespeare,” Cabello said. “You take their stage from them and isolate them in a private one-on-one. … You don’t want to create a flashpoint.”

Of course, no matter how hard a person tries, workplace conflict, either with a coworker or a constituent, is impossible to avoid completely.

“Whether it’s the animal kingdom or the human kingdom, conflict has been existent since the dawn of man and since the dawn of time. Conflict is totally natural in our society,” Cabello said. “If you push, it’s perfectly natural for somebody to say, ‘Okay, man, you’re not going to put me up against the wall, I have to defend myself.’ … If you push, understand that people will get defensive because that is their natural reaction.”

So it’s important to take each instance as a learning experience and a chance to improve the county’s relationship with its residents, Brigmon said. When things go well, think about why, and when things go poorly, think about why. When a customer comes in upset, there’s hopefully a greater opportunity to improve their day.
“We don’t do negatives at Southwest, we talk opportunities,” he said. “Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. ... Positives attract positives.”