The Pillars of Outstanding Customer Service: Tone, Active Listening, Communication, Ownership and Empathy

This article is being edited …

In his book Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill wrote about a “secret which has made fortunes for more than five hundred exceedingly wealthy men whom” he “analyzed over a long period of years.” Each chapter of the book guides the reader through mind-blowing steps toward riches.

Implicit in Hill’s book, many of the five hundred exceedingly wealthy men had mastered the art of outstanding customer service through mind control. Hill wrote that mind control “is the result of self-discipline and habit. You either control your mind or it controls you. There is no hall-way compromise.”

Indeed, outstanding customer service requires control over five pillars: tone, active listening, communication, ownership and empathy. You either control your customers or they control you and there may not be a hall-way compromise.

Tone is defined as “accent or inflection expressive of a mood or emotion”.

Your tone over the phone is key for outstanding customer service. Customers expect the right expression, the right mood and emotion!

Active can be defined as “having practical operation or results”. To listen is defined as “to hear something with thoughtful attention”.

Customers expect thoughtful attention and practical results!

Communication is “a process by which information is exchanged between individuals”. Information is the “reception of knowledge”. Knowledge is “the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association”.

Ownership is the state of being an owner (a person who owns something). To own means to have power over something. Power is “possession of control, authority, or influence over others”.

Empathy is “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.”