Serve Me Better… Please!

OVERRIDING SKILLS Bring this book in the bathroom. Look at yourself in the mirror, take a deep breath, expand your chest, stand straight, bring your shoulders back, lift your nose slightly, look yourself sternly in the eyes and with conviction say: "I AM!". Do this again and add your name at the end of the sentence... Now say it as if you were the master of the universe... Do it twice more, or until you BELIEVE that you are the best Customer Service rep in the World. If you sounded over the top, and if you laughed a little (or someone else hearing you made fun), then you did it right. This simple exercise serves to teach you one of the overriding skills you will need to succeed: if you have confidence, you can make it. Confidence is one of those attributes that you can improve through a self-help journey, but throughout this guide, you will find tools to help you gain inner strength. Be extremely careful with confidence though. The way this exercise will make you feel could brush towards omnipotence and delusions of grandeur... But you must keep this to yourself. You may think you know all, and can do all, but you should never allude to it when speaking to others. As paradoxical as it may sound, the second skill you must have is humility. There is nothing worse for you than to argue with a client or vendor to preserve your ego. Let the client think they know more than you, but make "suggestions" and let them believe that the solution came from them. This will make the client feel good when they deal with you, and they will become less difficult. In my opinion your goal should not be to “break” the client into the mould you want them to follow, but instead, you should make them feel at ease and comfortable.