Press Release

Difficult Conversations with Customers

(Boonton, NJ, Jun 4, 2009) — The economic environment has made it tough for everyone, and many companies have been forced to trim staff, services, and other offerings. If that's the case with your company — or even if you are just considering it — then it is likely to have an effect on your customer relations, a negative effect if you're not careful.

To avoid negative consequences and strained relations, and to ensure a positive forward-looking relationship with customers, Kerry Patterson, co-author of Crucial Conversations, suggests that companies need to have several conversations with customers to set the stage for service or other cutbacks and to maintain the relationship during tough times.

In the June issue of Customer Service Newsletter, Patterson discusses three of those key conversations:

1. The proactive conversation, in which you tell customers, well in advance, what's changing and what's not changing.
2. The recovery conversation, this is the conversation you have when a customer calls with complaints related to changes.
3. The loyalty conversation, this isn't a separate conversation so much as the direction in which you want to take the conversation when you are setting expectations or even dealing with a complaint. In this conversation, you want to shift attention from short-term inconveniences to positive long-term goals.

In the article, Patterson expands on each of these conversations and provides training information and suggested language to smooth any conversation.

About the Customer Service Group

For more than 20 years, the Customer Service Group has helped customer service, call center and help desk managers increase productivity, improve service quality and boost customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention. The Customer Service Group publishes Customer Service Newsletter and The Customer Communicator.

Website: http://www.CustomerServiceGroup.com