Never Say This To A Customer.....

Dear Friends,

What shouldn't you tell your customers?

One of my Realtor friends said to me the other day, "You train us on what we can say or should say to our clients to improve our relationships, maybe you can tell me what I shouldn't say."

At first I thought this was a silly question. With the challenges of today's market we may tend to say what we "can't" do instead of what we "can" do.

At the very least, we should be conscious of what not to say. It's okay to have an unexpressed thought!

If you are in the mortgage business, real estate or any financial service business you should know what not to say.

As the week passed I thought about his question. I thought of the times I was the customer and a salesperson said things to me that were just plain dumb.

How often do you hear things said in the wrong tone, the wrong words and the wrong way?

The wrong words almost always have the wrong tone and the wrong intent.

First, thank you to my friend who asked this question and an apology for thinking it was silly. It is a great question and I hope it will reveal to all of us a few phrases we should never say to our customers.

According to Jeffery Gittomer, author of "Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless" and quality service consultant here are the words that your competition hopes you will tell your best customers.

Words that add fire to an argument, or just start one.

Remember, whoever talks to the customer IS the company.
It's our policy.
What seems to be the problem?
I can't.
We don't.
We can't.
There is no way.
That's the way we've always done it.
I don't handle that.

I can't find any record of that.
What do you expect me to do?
You should have done...
It's your fault.
Sorry, we're closed.
We did the best we could.
We've done all we can.

I'm either on the phone or away from my desk. (Voice Mail)
I'm buys right now.
That's not my job.
What do you want me to do about it?
What was that again?
I don't have the time.
I haven't had the time.

Let me transfer you to the people who handle that.
We never.
I'll have to ask someone if that is okay.
You'll have to...
If you had just...
Why didn't you...
You can talk to my manager, but she'll tell you the same thing.

Let me tell you how we operate.
I've done all a I can.
The manager never lets anyone do that.
I don't have to take this.
Sorry about that. (Perhaps the least sincere of all)
You're not the only one.
You don't have to be rude.
Sir, I'm just doing my job.

Sir, you don't have to yell.
Please don't use that language.
Sir, if you keep talking like this I'm going to hang up.
"Have a nice day" said with a fake smile and sassy.

As Gittomer says, "Your first response, your first words, set the tone for the transaction and the future relationship with the customer."

Of course, these are just a few of the phrases and words that our competition would like us to say to our best customers and I bet you've heard most of them at one time or another.

Maybe it is a waste of time to go over something so obvious and elementary. Maybe not! As a customer yourself, now is service out there?

Customer loyalty is at an all time low. It doesn't have to be that way. So what can you do? Here's a guide we've used for over 25 years that has helped us to improve our customer relations, improved our quality service and significantly enhanced our referrals.

From the Customer's Point of View...
Am I treating the customer with the utmost respect?

From the Customer's Point of View...
Am I exceeding the customer's expectations?

From the Customer's Point of View...
Is what I am doing in the best long term interest of the customer relationship?

If you can intentionally choose a behavior, tone, phrase, action, response, words, or activity that will get a YES to all 3 questions you are on your way to becoming more referable.

Isn't that what we all want? More referrals!

Thanks for spending 3 minutes with me...
The best is yet to be!

Always On Your Team
Jeffrey Stanton
Your Trusted Advisor For Life


One of the fastest ways to build a successful referral based business is by training. Now, with me, I like to invest significant time immersing myself in training, while some people prefer to take it in bite-size chunks. Whatever your preference is, now is the best time to contact me.

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