{"id":1170,"date":"2015-05-05T12:56:14","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T12:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/csm210469\/?p=1170"},"modified":"2015-12-09T15:11:47","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T15:11:47","slug":"three-worst-words-in-customer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/three-worst-words-in-customer-service\/","title":{"rendered":"The Three Worst Words in Customer Service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By changing a few words, you can turn a bad customer experience into a great one.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6169\" src=\"http:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/bossy-man.jpg\" alt=\"You'll Have To!\" width=\"250\" height=\"376\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/bossy-man.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/bossy-man-199x300.jpg 199w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/>We all have little things that drive us nuts. Here&#8217;s one of mine &#8211; the phrase &#8220;You&#8217;ll have to.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday I walked into a store, politely asked for help, and was told, &#8220;You&#8217;ll have to wait for one of our technicians to be free.&#8221; I didn&#8217;t mind the wait, but it got me thinking how often we hear that statement in public &#8211; and how abrasive it is to hear as a customer. (Excuse me, but I don&#8217;t &#8220;have to&#8221; do anything, especially for a stranger!)<\/p>\n<p>Most of us probably don&#8217;t say &#8220;you&#8217;ll have to&#8221; out of rudeness. We say it because we are trying to protect ourselves, or set expectations with a customer. But when you examine the meaning of this statement literally, you can see where it breeds a lot of customer resentment right off the bat:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It tells another person what to do.<\/li>\n<li>It implies that you have the power in this transaction, not them.<\/li>\n<li>It doesn&#8217;t give the customer options.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The irony is that, just by changing a few words, you can turn a curt brush-off into a great customer experience. Let&#8217;s try a few examples:<\/p>\n<p>Before: You&#8217;ll have to fill out this form.<\/p>\n<p>After: I&#8217;d like to get a little information from you so we can help you better.<\/p>\n<p>Before: You&#8217;ll have to wait for a technician.<\/p>\n<p>After: I&#8217;ll have someone out to help you in just a few minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Before: You&#8217;ll have to wait in line.<\/p>\n<p>After: We should be able to get to you soon &#8211; it shouldn&#8217;t be more than a short wait.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the best example of an alternative to &#8220;you&#8217;ll have to&#8221; came when I tried to go to a sold-out Philadelphia Phillies baseball game last year, while I was passing through town. Instead of saying the obvious &#8220;We&#8217;re sold out &#8211; you&#8217;ll have to come back another time,&#8221; the ticket clerk said, &#8220;We&#8217;d love to have you see the game. Even though we&#8217;re sold out, here&#8217;s what I&#8217;d suggest &#8211; if you&#8217;d like, feel free to check at each of our gates to see if there are any extra tickets. Good luck!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As it turned out, there were no tickets at any of the gates and I eventually left empty-handed &#8211; but every person I dealt with at the ballpark was so polite, upbeat and helpful that it was still a great customer experience. I later discovered that these people are specifically trained for what to say to fans in situations like these, and it works!<\/p>\n<p>So look critically at times where you are tempted to say &#8220;you&#8217;ll have to&#8221; to customers, and start rehearsing new responses that speak to your customers&#8217; interests. The difference will be amazing!<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the Author<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.PointOfContactGroup.com\" target=\"_blank\">Rich Gallagher<\/a> is a communications skills expert and seminar leader. He is the author of several books including Great Customer Connections (AMACOM, 2006) and What to Say to a Porcupine (AMACOM, 2008).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By changing a few words, you can turn a bad customer experience into a great one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1170"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6171,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions\/6171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}