Here is a common challenge that leaders encounter: A customer service employee's overall performance is solid. However, the customer service employee is not using one particular skill or set of skills necessary to deliver high-quality service to customers consistently.

Here are the fundamental communication steps leaders follow to successfully coach a customer service employee to improve a particular segment of service performance:

Greet Customer service employee and Define Purpose of Discussion

Identify Specific Problem

Ask for Specific Results of the Behavior

Ask for a Comparison of Results to Expected Performance

Ask/Agree on Ways to Improve

Encourage Accomplishment

Schedule Follow-Up

Let's review each step in more detail.

1) Greet Customer service employee and Define Purpose

When you coach a customer service employee whose customer service performance needs to improve, your initial words should extend a GREETING, using the person's name, and should DEFINE THE PURPOSE of the conversation. Here is an example of an effective greeting that clearly defines the purpose:

"Judy, I want to give you some feedback about the level of service you provided your last customer."

2) Identify Specific Problem

For coaching to be effective, the customer service employee must first clearly understand which part of his/her performance is not satisfactory. This need requires the coach to be very specific in describing the customer service employee's unsatisfactory performance. If the coach describes the behavior in general terms, the customer service employee will not know the specific behavior to change. The following illustrates how to be specific when coaching a customer service employee.

Do in specific terms: "Judy, when the customer, Mr. Allred, complained about the level of service he received over the phone yesterday, you avoided his concern and tried to move on to another subject."

Don't use general terms: "Judy, you sure need to improve your service quality skills."

For coaching to be effective the customer service employee now needs to actively participate in the rest of the discussion. Failure to involve the customer service employee quickly in the discussion establishes an adversary relationship between the coach and the customer service employee. From the customer service employee's point of view, the situation becomes a disciplinary action versus a helping action. An important element of customer service employee participation is the reality that the customer service employee needs to develop "OWNERSHIP" for the needed change. With ownership, the customer service employee becomes more interested and enthusiastic about performing the job successfully.

You'll discover how the remaining coaching steps and the skills of asking questions are designed to positively improve customer service employee performance by garnering customer service employee involvement. By asking questions, the coach provides the customer service employee the opportunity to analyze the situation to determine how best to improve performance.

3) Ask for Specific Results of the Behavior

This step helps the customer service employee understand the negative impact of his/her performance. The coach asks questions like these:

"How did Mr. Allred respond when you did not respond to his complaint about poor telephone service?"

"How did the other customer's react when Mr. Allred raised his voice and said, 'Wait a minute...? Aren't you going to do anything about the way I was treated yesterday?'"

"What impact did not responding to his complaint initially have on you, Judy?"

"What are customers likely to do if we do not help them when customers bring a concern about our service to us?"

Effective questions asked by the coach give the customer service employee the opportunity to get involved in the discussion. Plus, the customer service employee is able to analyze and identify the potentially unsatisfactory results. Because the customer service employee participates in the discussion, the customer service employee's awareness of the performance weakness is heightened.

4) Ask for a Comparison of Results to Expected Performance

One of the most difficult activities for any leader is to tell an customer service employee that a segment of his/her performance is not acceptable. Managers sometimes are reluctant to confront the customer service employee for fear of upsetting the person. While customer service employees need and expect feedback, they prefer not to be talked to in a judgmental way. By using participative skills to compare the customer service employee's performance to the expected performance, the problem is confronted by the customer service employee who evaluates his/her own performance.

In most cases, when customer service employees are given the opportunity to evaluate their own performance, they will accurately identify the gaps in performance as compared to established performance standards. If not, the coach still has the option of filling in missing information the customer service employee overlooks.

5) Ask/Agree on Ways to Improve

This is a critical step in gaining customer service employee involvement. In order for performance to change, it is vital that the customer service employee identify specific ways to perform better. Naturally, it is also appropriate for the coach to share some of his/her own ideas and work with the customer service employee to develop successful service quality improvement strategies.

Here again, a valuable coaching skill when developing strategies or ways to improve is to ask, not just tell. Remember, people implement their ideas more successfully than other's ideas.

The coach encourages the customer service employee to use his/her experience and creative thinking to solve the problem. Some examples of open-ended questions to ask include:

"Why is it important to paraphrase the customer's concern?"

"What questions could you have asked Mr. Allred to help him vent his concern?"

"What other techniques could you have used with Mr. Allred to restore his confidence?"

Each of these questions encourages the customer service employee to think about possible solutions. The coach need only concur with the acceptable solutions. By being the source of ideas, the customer service employee is more likely to accept ownership and responsibility for implementing them.

The questions by the coach in the above example led to the customer service employee to develop these performance improvement strategies when working with dissatisfied customers:

State regret and express empathy.

Confirm that you will help the customer.

Ask questions to clarify the facts.

Educate the customer or correct the error.

Restore confidence by reviewing what will be done.

Complete a follow up with the customer to ensure resolution.

This type of coaching session usually ends on a positive note because the customer service employee has discovered solutions to be more successful because of the communication steps completed with his/her coach. Both have worked together for the customer service employee's benefit to achieve successful performance when dealing with dissatisfied customers.

6) Encourage Accomplishment

Any type of change required effort. So, the coach now reinforces the changes by encouraging accomplishment.

The coach says, "Judy, you have established solid ways to resolve customer complaints. From now on, whenever you deal with a dissatisfied customer, I encourage you to use all the service recovery skills we discussed. State regret and express empathy, confirm that you will help the customer, ask questions to clarify the facts, educate the customer or correct the error. Then you'll restore confidence by reviewing what will be done and complete a follow up with the customer to ensure resolution. I am confident you will be successful, Judy."

7) Schedule Follow-Up

The final step of establishing follow up establishes a strong sense of accountability with the customer service employee. A scheduled follow up with the coach sends a clear message that the coaching discussion with the person is important and the coach expects success from the customer service employee.

Summary: Effective communication and customer service employee participation are the keys to help customer service employees improve their service quality performance. Use the reality-based coaching skills and guidelines introduced in this article to help customer service employees help themselves achieve solid customer service performance results.