Press Release

Does Your Service Language Meet Customers' Needs? Try the Mama Test

Customers don't usually get their make-or-break impressions of your product or your company from your advertising. They get them primarily from your frontline reps.

(Boonton, NJ, July 1, 2010) — Most companies invest a lot more time on the language and word choices in their marketing materials than they do in their everyday conversations with customers.

That's a mistake, says Micah Solomon, in the July issue of industry monthly Customer Service Newsletter.

Solomon, a co-author of "Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit" notes that customers don't usually get their make-or-break impressions of your product or your company from your advertising. They get them primarily from day-to-day conversations with your company and specifically with your reps.

To ensure that all frontline reps are using the most customer-friendly language, Solomon recommends creating a speech and style handbook. But, he tells readers of "Customer Service Newsletter," when conversations do go awry, it's time for the Italian Mama approach.

"Think of your customer as a toddler, a bambino, who has taken a spill on the sidewalk," he says. "If you were the stereotypical Italian mom, you would comfort the child, you would say how horrible it is that this has happened, and you would not only fix the problem by putting a Band-Aid on the scratch, you would also offer the child a scoop of ice cream."

"You would never blame the child or minimize the problem," he adds. "If anything, you maximize it, you say how bad this is, until the child himself calms down and says, 'It's OK, Mom. I'm over it. I'm going out to play again. You need to take the customer's side right away, because if they sense that you are holding out on them, they are just going to be grouchier -- or more hurt."

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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