Develop your customer awareness skills with these 3 questions 🤔

It's Friday evening and time to close the shop, but you have an angry customer in front of you.

You know you should try and help them, but it's late and you want to get home. You're about to suggest they come back tomorrow when the store reopens.

Deciding what's most important, like closing a shop on time or dealing with an angry customer, can sometimes mean choosing business decisions over providing a good service. So how do you show a customer you're thinking about their needs even if you can't help them straight away?

Follow these three steps to raise your awareness of the customer's point of view and become the best customer-whisperer in the business!

When a customer is angry, it's very tempting to try to immediately calm them down, often because you want to get straight into fixing the problem.

The trouble is, you can't speak and listen at the same time. So what do you do?

First of all, put yourself in your customer's shoes. Think of a time when you've been upset and someone told you to just calm down. Now, think about if that actually helped you calm down. Probably not.

If you found yourself getting even more annoyed than you were, then you're not alone — and that's how your customer will feel if you do the same to them. The frustration of not being listened to gets layered on top of the original complaint.

Here's what to do instead:

Do ✅

• Take the customer seriously.

• Recognise that just because something doesn't seem like a big deal to you, it clearly is a big deal for your customer.

• Listen without interruption, for as long as it takes your customer to tell their story.

Don't ❌

• Cut the customer off mid-sentence, even if you think you know what they're going to say.

• Rush them to finish their story.

• Roll your eyes, or sigh, or engage in any behaviour that shows you think this customer is just being demanding.

Giving your customer time and space to really explain what's on their mind is a skill that takes a bit of practice but comes with a huge reward — when your customer feels heard, they'll actually calm themselves down.

And this is when the conversation about solutions can begin.

Well done! Your customer feels heard and you can move on to fixing their issue. But how will you know what to fix?

The quickest way to find a "good" solution for your customer is to look at the difference between what they were expecting and what they got.

Asking your customer some open questions about this will help you understand:

• Why they're upset

• What the solution could be

It's really worth spending extra time on these questions so you can solve the issue at the first attempt.

Here's an example in action:

Your customer bought a new kettle and it's stopped working.

• What they were expecting: To be able to make a nice cup of coffee with their breakfast every day.

• What they got: A morning without coffee, and now they also have to go back to the shop they bought the kettle from.

• Why they're upset: Coffee helps them start their day well, and the kettle was new, so it should be fault-free.

• What the solution could be: A replacement kettle (at minimum) and maybe a free bag of coffee beans (going the extra mile) to help them enjoy their morning drink once again.

This is going really well! Your customer feels heard, and you know where to start thinking about potential solutions. Now you just need to get things over the line.

Before you decide on what should happen next, keep in mind that you should try not to make decisions for your customer. Instead, come up with a few solutions that your company is happy to offer, and give your customer the choice of which one to go with.

Research shows that customers who feel in control are more likely to have positive experiences and exhibit higher levels of satisfaction.

Three solutions:

Thinking again about the faulty kettle, and knowing the customer is missing having their morning coffee, your company could be happy offering these options:

• Giving an immediate refund (so they can move on and buy another kettle).

• Sending a replacement by express delivery (so they don't need to come back to the shop).

• Exchanging it for a more expensive model at no extra cost to them (as a goodwill gesture).

Now put yourself in your customer's shoes. Which solution would you choose?

A customer returns a blue jumper they bought three days ago. After wearing it once, they noticed a hole in the sleeve. They're upset because they bought it for a weekend trip and now don't have anything suitable to wear.

They want to know what you're going to do about it. What should you say?

A. "I can see you're frustrated. I'll be with you in a moment, but you'll need to be quick because we're about to close."

B. "I'm sorry this has happened. You were right to expect a jumper to last more than a few days. We can either replace the jumper or give you a refund. Which would work best for you?"

C. "I understand why you're disappointed. Holes shouldn't appear after one wear. We can replace the jumper with this green one, so let's get that sorted"

D. "Please calm down. Can you prove it's a fault and you didn't damage it yourself?"

Now you know the three steps of customer awareness, look out for opportunities to put them into practice!