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Interview Patty

How To Avoid Bursting A Customer's Bubble With Your Customer Service Enthusiasm

The BUBL Method


Every customer is surrounded by an individual, invisible, protective bubble. This bubble should only be entered after receiving implied permission from the customer. I’ve mentioned this concept on these pages before, but it’s so essential that it seems ripe for a recap.

 

Customer service training should emphasize awareness of whether a customer’s protective shell is open or closed at any particular moment. Employees need to learn to recognize when it’s okay to venture into the customer’s protective bubble—the invisible “meditation chapel” within which the customer has an expectation of solitude–as well as how to interact with the customer while that bubble is open, and how and when to graciously make an exit.

 

Doing so depends on employee sensitivity, and benefits from customer service training in the use of the framework that I’ve codified as the BUBL (pronounced ‘bubble’) method.
The awareness and behaviors represented by the BUBL acronym spell out how to interact with customers in an effective and nuanced way.

 

The BUBL Method:

B: Begin immediately

U: Un-code the customer’s messages and pacing

B: Break your schedule

L: Leave room for additional interaction

 

Let’s take these one by one.

 

  • Begin immediatly A customer expects service to begin the exact moment that she comes into contact with the employee, so deciphering whether or not the customer actually considers meaningful contact to have been made is essential to this step. For example, if a customer catches an employee’s eye, it may be just an accident, but if the customer holds the employee’s gaze, it usually means that the customer is expecting to be offered assistance.

 

(Note: At busy times, the “begin immediately” step may need to be accomplished even if the employee is currently tied up with another customer. This requires learning to work with one customer while visually acknowledging the presence of a new arrival.)

 

  • Un-code: (I know the word should be “Decode,” but then I’d end up with an acronym of “BDBL,” which, though it’s tons of fun to try to pronounce, isn’t as good a mnemonic as “BUBL.”) Decipher the messages the customer is throwing off about the pace of service they prefer—is your customer in a hurry or feeling leisurely; are they aloof or are they needy?–and adjust appropriately. (Such cues aren’t only detectable in person, by the way; they can be discerned on the phone, in online chat, via videoconferencing, etc.)

 

  • Break your schedule: True service can never be a slave to checking things off in a predetermined order. Attending properly to a customer means adhering to the customer’s schedule, not your own. This means, for example, waiting for a natural break in conversation before asking how a meal is tasting, rather than barging in when your customer’s in animated discourse or mid-bite into a juicy burger, just because she’s next in your natural progression around the room and you don’t want to have to backtrack. And during that time that your customer has allowed you into their bubble, you need to drop whatever you were working on previously and fully focus on the assistance you are giving them.

 

  • Leave room for more: Check if the service is actually complete before you conclude the interaction. It’s the service professional’s responsibility to ask if anything additional is needed and, if it isn’t, to graciously thank the customer before leaving the customer in their solitary sanctuary.

 

At the Center of the Customer’s Universe

The reason that such subtle aspects of service make such a difference is because a customer wants to feel like they’re at the center of your world. And, as a service provider, there’s a lot of power in creating this impression. In a sense, this impression is actually an illusion that you create, because in reality you have, inevitably, more than one customer to support. But it’s an extremely powerful, business-building illusion when a customer service professional learns to successfully pull it off.

 

Source: forbes

 

​Patty Block, President and Founder of The Block Group, established her company to advocate for women-owned businesses, helping them position their companies for strategic growth. From improving cash flow…. ​to increasing staff productivity…. ​to scaling for growth, these periods of transition — and so many more — provide both challenges and opportunities. Managed effectively, change can become a productive force for growth. The Block Group harnesses that potential​, turning roadblocks into building blocks for women-owned businesses​.


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