Customer Service – Its all about timing not just actions

When we talk about customer service, we often forget about when the best time is to greet people and farewell. We talk about, greetings and farewells and asking questions but what’s not really discussed in detail is timing.

For example, when do you greet someone? When is the right time to greet someone?

If you greet someone, when they get to the counter, they’re often looking down, they are looking at what they’re putting on the counter, so, in that moment there is no eye-contact.

Eye contact is one of the key parts of the customer service, when we look at training customer service standards into teams, if face to face, it’s all about timing and when is the right time.

When training customer service standards face to face we train teams to greet people as they approach, we look at every possible situation. How is the counter placed and where does the customer approach from and what is the best position for the staff member to greet from? WHY? Because it all comes down to eye-contact.

Customers appreciate their personal space, and most retail counters are 900 to 1200mm wide. WHY? Because it allows for customers’ comfortability. If well designed, counter layouts provide the customer with the personal space they need to be comfortable to connect with the customer service person.

"Have you noticed, if you get too close to people, people look down, simply because you’re in their space, you have stepped over their boundary and in doing so, eye contact is not possible.

When it comes to creating basic customer service standards, posture is also an important factor.

Standing up right, facing the customer and as they approach greeting with eye contact and a smile so they can see your teeth, as you can see in the photo below the top front teeth is a natural smile.

Obviously, there’s no point if your timing is off, you won’t get a reaction.

One of my secrets to training customer service face to face into teams is that we go on the job and actually watch the service whilst it’s happening.

Let’s think about supermarkets, they face to the side, they don’t face you directly. So, when is the right time to greet with eye contact? There’s no point greeting someone when they’re putting their groceries on the conveyor belt. WHY? Because they are looking down, they are looking at what they are doing.

We found in a supermarket type situation the best time to greet is once the customer has stopped unpacking their groceries and turns towards you. Timing is perfect, you are assured to receive a response with eye contact.

What about farewells?

We’ve found the perfect time to farewell a customer is the moment you offer something to someone’s hand. Whether it be a receipt, their purchase or cash, timing is perfect.

In training I demonstrate this by asking a portion of participants to line up and I walk down the line and offer every person a piece of paper into their hand whilst the other participants observe this demonstration, and then I ask them to tell me what the people receiving the piece of paper did do. Every time, without fail, I am told just everyone looked me in the eye. They did this without even thinking they just took the piece of paper from me.

The timing coordinates perfectly when we farewell a customer with eye contact and a smile with teeth, in the moment we are handing something to them, saying have a lovely day, I guarantee you will receive a response, eye contact, maybe a smile, and a thank you.

However, if you miss that moment, and the customer is turning away because you’ve already given them what they want, information or their purchase, they’re already head down and on their way.

"Right timing is relevant for any customer service standard face to face. It doesn’t matter what type of business.

Whether you are providing information, or handing over a purchase, we should pick up the bag, put our thumb in the handle like in the old days, rather than leaving customers to pick up their purchases themselves. WHY? Because this creates the perfect moment to engage your customer.

So, every business needs to look at timing:

When is the right time?

How do you design your standards?

Do you include timing, posture, eye contact etc.

Facing the customer?

How high is the counter?

Can we easily see the customer?

Another example, when I’m training teams in the car servicing industry, this particular company is a big company, lots of customers came in every day and they walked into an open reception area, where all the employees were sitting at their desks.

Whilst conducting on job observation, I noticed that the customer would walk in and get to a certain point and stop, unsure of where to go next. Why? Because every staff member remained sitting and focused on what they were doing. Not one, lifted their head, provided eye contact or a smile and all remained seated.

Immediately, I was able to show the company that their service standard had to include a trigger – a nominated person whose role was to stand up and greet them. In on job training we practiced the service standard with real customers, the customer would walk in, and the nominated person would stand up, smile with teeth, and greet them.

"Think about it, when someone stands and faces towards you, they have got your attention, right?

Service stations and like-minded services, are a whole other scenario, generally approximately a 45 second transaction.

When working with a client in this industry, our on job observation was watching the queue – in most cases a large queue or two queues depending on the size of the service station.

Timing was critical, so we introduced the following standard, the moment directly after farewelling the customer and responding to their response, we would actually greet the next person before they’d even physically moved that next step to the counter.

So, that’s what I mean, by the right timing, when should your team greet, approach and farewell your customers. Not all service standards are the same.

In gaming venues, when do you approach someone playing a machine? if you’re approaching people sitting on a machine, how do you know they want to be approached? And when is the right time? And where should you position yourself?

When training service standards into hospitality and gaming venues, we approach from side angles. WHY? Because we want to get their attention without intruding, and we want them to provide us with eye contact.

In restaurants, approaching a table is the same, positioning and timing is critical. It’s no point greeting when you are standing behind half of the guests seated at the table. There’s always, a perfect place to approach and greet from, it must be where all guests can see you, hold eye contact and engage easily with you.

Don’t forget personal space either, if you get too close to it is uncomfortable and too far away, is just too weird. Your guests are thinking – why are you standing so far away? So, identify that perfect position for each table and add to your service standards.

It’s also why we serve with the outside arm, when we serve a meal, again because it creates space between us and our guests, rather than intruding on their space with arms going in front and across the person. You can see this perfectly in picture below.

Again, engaging as we serve saying, enjoy your meal. This also allows for eye contact and a response. I remember dining one Mother’s Day. We had a long table with three mums and the wait person stood right behind four of us, instead of coming to the end of the table, where he could greet with eye contact and a smile.

We were trying to spin around in the chair to see him. Clearly, he was not thinking about the right. place to stand. It might seem really obvious right, but so many business’s don’t think about it, when training and designing customer service standards face to face.

It’s always about the timing. It’s always about your positioning.

Did you know the banks changed their customer service standards due to speaking with their customers via a customer research program and addressing their feedback.

Remember when, you would decide to quickly go to the bank in your lunch break and be standing in line waiting for a teller to say, “next please”, whilst watching a number of employees sitting at desks behind the tellers. In the research conducted by banks, most customers described this as an infuriating experience because they wanted the seated staff to serve them. What the customers did not know is that these people were not trained as tellers. So, their way of fixing that was to build a wall. Now you cannot see the other employees, so no expectation to be served by them.

Up went the walls, behind the tellers.

When you go to a bank now, most tellers greet you with no eye contact and simply yell out – “who’s next”? Like really….. customers are standing in line as directed and the tellers are asking the customers to decide who is next? I just shake my head!

It is the moment after the previous customers farewell and the next customer takes the steps to the counter is when they should be greeting. And I mean greeting – not whose next, please? A warm welcome like, Hello or How can I help you?

Certainly not “Who’s next”? Which puts the onus on the customers to decide when there is no decision to make, there standing in line, for goodness sake.

Food courts and fast food outlets are the same.?Line up, approach the counter and in most cases, there is no greeting – the customer has already started placing their order. Can I please have. No chance to greet them. WHY? Because they need to greet their customers, as they approach, as they take those last steps to the counter.

"This timing actually speeds up customer service, by the time the customer gets to the counter, you’re ready to transact.

You’ve got a queue of people, each of these little savings of time really add up. over a day.

Next time you go to any of the services we have discussed, look at:

How many people look to you, How many people greet you? And When? How often are you farewelled? And When? Do you respond?

Look for the variation.

It is?important it is to understand the variation of any process and the best ways to minimise it, to deliver a 10/10 experience.

Systems that identify?the action, not the intention, and identifying?who is responsible to implement?and?by when?will build on best practices and decrease the variation; the areas of improvement.

To understand more about variation and?W. Edward Demings ?System of Profound Knowledge, read my previous article?Variation is the Devil for Excellence in your business

I remember when I was in the states one time at a diner and the lady behind the counter was saying, to every customer “have a blessed afternoon”, she was so robot like, she became unconscious and her timing was so bad, that, that’s what she said to you when you walked up to her, as her greeting. Don’t do that.

The eyes are like the window to the soul. Eye contact at the right time backed up with a smile with teeth and a warm greeting, has customers feel warmly welcomed. Remember, we are all selling a feeling.

Don’t do that.

The eyes are like the window to the soul. Eye contact at the right time backed up with a smile with teeth and a warm greeting, has customers feel warmly welcomed. Remember, we are all selling a feeling.

"I think one of the secrets of my customer service training is all about timing and positioning.

I look at a situation, I observe what happens in the business. I am watching to see, how customers move, where they come from and what’s the best way of engaging them.

Training a nightclub team, customers spread across the bar, 30 wide and 3 people deep, and they wanted to be served quickly.

Again, timing was critical. It becomes about efficiency and generating the highest possible revenue, whilst providing a high level of customer service.

The fastest bar person was serving one customer in 17/18 seconds. His process was like “Hello, how can I help you”? Bang, drink ready, transacted and farewell –“enjoy”. Next customer, same process, but varied the words so not robotic it was like watching a magician.

Training became about upskilling all bar staff to do the same. We measured how fast every bar person was and we practiced the process and upskilled their technique.

This made a huge difference in lifting the level of customer service and revenue, especially on the big trading nights, where they had a full house.

Maybe you want to think about this and apply to your own business. If in lockdown, make the most of it, now is a great time to put your focus on training, service standards and engaging your customers on another level on reopening.

Everything we have discussed in this article doesn’t happen by luck. You’ve got to create the structure in your service standards and train those service standards into your teams, to minimise the variation.

For more information on?‘Customer Service Training’?download my?Customer Service Training brochure?here.

If you would like to have a chat with me about ‘Customer Service Training’?and customer loyalty best practice?contact me ?I look forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards,

Craig