Brad J. Anderson of Blueprint Creation hosted a series of free customer service and hospitality sales trainings, presented by the Carbon County Office of Tourism and the Carbon County Chamber of Commerce.
There was a number of these trainings hosted at the South Eastern Regional Development Agency (SERDA) building on Thursday, Sept. 19 and Friday, Sept. 20. Anderson began the training by speaking about customer’s needs. He told a story about his barbershop and how it is such a personable place.
Anderson has a great fondness of shoes and his barber makes sure to blow-dry his shoes after every haircut to get the excess hair off of his shoes. This is a small touch, but is something that goes a long way to show customers that they are paid attention to.
Due to the barbershop being such a personable experience for Anderson, when he was told that they had to increase their prices by $5 a haircut, he knew that he would remain a customer. Anderson said that when an individual is engaged to a business, they are dedicated, loyal and forgiving.
Moving onto communication styles, Anderson explained that within the first four seconds of interaction, customers form their initial impressions of the employee. In regard to telephone communication, 86% is dependent on tone, while 14% is on words. In person, 55% is body language, 38% is tone and 7% is words.
Anderson went over words to avoid that are used in typical conversation, but tend to come off unprofessional or negative. He also encouraged employees and business owners to avoid “sad talk”, which is phrases that relate to not wanting to be at work or counting down the hours until quitting time.
The one word that can guarantee that a person is going to pay attention to what is being said to them, Anderson explained, is their name. He said that putting an individual’s name before something that they really need to hear is highly useful.
Anderson spent quite a bit of time getting those in the training acquainted with the four types of customers or patrons, which are eagles (10% of the population), owls (15% of the population), peacocks (20%) and doves. Each of these bird types classify a person’s mannerisms, their preferences and the best way to work with them in a professional setting.
Concluding the training, Anderson spoke on how important empathy is in the world of customer service. Empathy is defined as emotionally placing yourself in the shoes of another, and using empathetic statements can make anyone feel safer and as if they are valued.
