Make Strong Connections with the customers to build unshakeable trust and solid rapport.

Building unshakeable trust and solid rapport with customers is not just a strategy but a fundamental necessity in today’s competitive business landscape. Establishing strong connections with customers contributes significantly to achieving customer delight on the service floor.

Let’s delve into actionable steps to build unwavering trust, solid rapport, and captivate customers’ attention, ultimately leading to delightful customer experiences:

1. Make a Great First Impression

• • The First Five Seconds

First impression makes all the difference when creating a positive feeling of trustworthiness and rapport with your customers. According to a 2013 study from Harvard University on the importance of first impressions, customers make a snap judgment and conclude in the first five seconds of interaction. How courteous are you? How passionate are you? How supportive are you in solving their problems? The power of the first impression lies not in what we say but in how we say it. Your visual appearance, handshake, eye contact, smile, and energy are your non-verbal weapons to instantly connect with customers in the first few seconds. According to Vanessa Van Edward, “Body language is the fastest way to showcase your energy and enthusiasm to your customers and hack your winning first impression.”

If you are on the telephone or even if you are not face-to-face with customers, they are still forming a first impression of you in less than five minutes. Remember, 86% of the impact over the phone is in your tone. 14% impact is based on your words. Whether face-to-face or on the phone, creating a positive first impression sets the stage for building trust and rapport.

• • Twenty Seconds Elevator Pitch

Being a world-class and beyond-exceptional Service Advisor or Customer Experience Officer, how compelling are you when it comes to introducing yourself to someone new? Elevator Pitch is a useful tool to captivate your customers’ attention and time. It’s a persuasive and concise introduction of you, your company, and how you can help your customers. As said earlier, customers make a snap judgment and have a solid impression of you within the first few seconds of interaction.  Elevator pitch gives you the confidence to think, act, and behave like a pro and an expert. Your Elevator Pitch should be concise, clear, and simple. And aim to keep it around 20-30 seconds. Your Elevator Pitch should stay to the point and doesn’t go into too many unnecessary details. Don’t use jargon and acronyms.

 2. Connect with Emotions.

Connecting with customers at an emotional level is very important because people form opinions, make decisions based on their emotions, and justify them with logic or fact. If you connect with customers’ emotions and deliver a heart-touching and delighted customer experience, they will remember you throughout their lives. Sales and Service leaders must pursue emotional connections as a science -strategy to build rapport and win their customers’ trust. They should strategically target the customers’ feelings that drive their behavior called “Emotional Motivators.” For instance, high-value automobile customers may desire a “sense of belonging,” while bank customers may seek to “feel secure.” Building emotional connections leads to memorable customer experiences and long-term loyalty.

Emotional Connection Score (ECS) of a brand measures how many customers are emotionally connected with your business or brand. A customer who considers your business to be a “good brand” doesn’t necessarily have an emotional connection with you. To make them emotionally connected, you need to ensure they are fully satisfied, connected, and more valuable customers for your brand.

The important lesson I learned in my Toyota days, being an amazing Service Advisor or Customer Experience Officer, is that our number one priority should be, “We must not only repair the customers’ vehicles but also repair the customers’ feelings.”  

3. Serve with Empathy.

Empathy isn’t just a buzzword. It’s a game-changer. Empathy is “How Sales and service Leaders think, feel, see, hear, say and act on the service floor.” Empathy is “Seeing the world with the Eyes of Another, Listening with the Ears of Another, and Feeling with the Heart of Another.” Imagine whatever customer is complaining about just has happened to you. What would you be thinking and feeling? How would you react? What would you expect? What would it take to make you happy?

To know and better understand the customers, you need to be the first one, “Be The Customer.”  

Empathy is the secret sauce behind successful leaders, effective communicators, and compassionate human beings. Service Advisors or customer Experience Officers should be considerate and courteous, polite and pleasant, energetic and zealous, sympathetic and friendly with customers to create positive feelings. They should connect with the customers at a deeper level through empathy and build rapport to create deeper bonds and turn them into raving fans.

4. Be a SUPER Listener.

Being a “Super Listener” is significant to building unshakeable trust and strong rapport with customers. The key to a Service Advisor’s success and effectiveness is his ability to put himself in the customer’s shoes. One of the best ways to do this is by becoming a “Super Listener.” A SUPER Listener can listen and see the world through the ears and eyes of others. I have derived the acronym “SUPER” Listener for Service Advisors or Customer Experience Officers from Super Listening. S in SUPER stands for Summarize; U stands for Understand; P stands for Provide Uninterrupted Space To Talk; E stands for Eye Contact, and R stands for Reflect Back. I passionately believe that one of the best things you can do to get your relationships (both professional and personal) to world-class is to become insanely good (Steve Job term) at listening. A Super Listener Service Leader can transform a mediocre customer experience into an outstanding, heart-touching, and memorable customer experience.

In conclusion, mastering the art of making strong connections with customers involves creating positive first impressions, connecting emotionally, serving with empathy, and becoming a “Super Listener.” These elements, when implemented consistently, contribute to building unshakeable trust and solid rapport, paving the way for heart-touching customer experiences and long-term relationships.

References:

https://hbr.org/2015/11/the-new-science-of-customer-emotions

What makes Beyond Exceptional?, Beyond Exceptional by Moazzam Abu Bakar