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Upon returning home and after       Daniel Goleman has become the     or advice have trickled down to the
        ordering the item online at the current   leading go-to person on “emotional   majority of those in sales including
        price, my husband conducted some    intelligence”. He springboards upon   customer service.
        further investigation specific to online   the work of Howard Gardner who was   Think about a recent sales or cus-
        ordering and the veteran discount.    researching other bits of intelligence.   tomer service experience as the buyer
        He learned he could now order online   Even though some sales experts or   or as the seller. The basic definition of
        with his military discount. When    keynote speakers are focused on      emotional intelligence in any com-
        we returned to the store to have the   emotions, I don’t believe those words   munication scenario is listening to
        veteran’s discount applied, the cus-
        tomer service person knew all about
        veterans ordering online and having
        the discount. Talk about poor commu-
        nication and inconsistent procedures!
        The result was the surfacing of more
        negative emotions.
           These recent experiences had me
        wondering about how others defined
        customer service. I happened across
        this newly evolved definition, “the
        support you offer your customers –
        both before and after they buy and use
        your products or services…delivering
        proactive and immediate support to
        customers anytime on the channel of
        their choice” (Source Salesforce.com).
           What was even more insightful
        were the words of Seth Godin who
        stated, “the only purpose of customer
        service is to change feelings.” If we
        believe people buy on emotions first,
        supported by logic, then both defi-
        nitions would make for exceptional
        customer service experiences. These
        exceptional services have their root in
        positive feelings.
           Being somewhat curious, I
        “Googled” the phrase “how to gen-
        erate more sales.” Beyond the paid
        advertisements, all of which were
        technology or social media related,
        the next few results all returned to
        the common actions of increasing
        the number of customers, stating
        your value proposition, raising
        your prices, showcasing your full
        potential, standing out, focusing
        on existing customers, requesting
        customer feedback, etc. Not one of
        these sales sites mentioned the words
        feelings or emotions. Possibly these
        sites and experts presumed people
        knew that sales were the transference
        of feelings. However, I sincerely doubt
        that presumption is accurate given
        my numerous decades in sales and
        consequently customer service.

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