“The Customer Service Survival Kit: What to Say to Defuse Even the Worst Customer Situations” by Richard S. Gallagher is a resourceful guide aimed at professionals in the customer service industry. The author brings his expertise to the forefront, offering practical advice for dealing with difficult customer interactions, and these end up being helpful in any type of human interaction – whether in the professional, or personal context.
The book is celebrated for its approachable tone and relatable examples, which come together to create an enlightening read for customer service agents at all levels.
The book’s first part reviews customer service skills and techniques for dealing with challenging customer scenarios and general conflict management that you may have explored in your career. However, the constant use of storytelling and real-life scenarios discussed in the latter part of the book helps review and solidify these approaches, significantly improving engagement with the content and making it very enjoyable.
A few noteworthy remarks
I don’t like the title. Although I understand the “Clickbait” attempt, it implies that customer service is something you need to “survive through” and it sets the wrong tone for me throughout the reading experience.
Gallagher’s discussion on how to frame a response to unrealistic expectations from a customer or situations when we can anticipate that the likely solution won’t be what they are asking for was especially helpful. The recipe here is to frame the response in the following manner:
- Here is what you want/need (paraphrase, show understanding of their wish);
- We can do that in this certain manner (usually involving spending money, or a solution that is different from what they asked for specifically but that would still accomplish what they need);
- If and when they say “No”, acknowledge that that’s totally fair and contextualize it (Example: “Many people don’t want to spend that kind of money”), and explain what you CAN do for them – which usually will involve a compromise.
Here is a great example from the Book:
A man had never been trained to use our complex software, and as a result he had made a mistake that was going to cost him hours of extra work to fix. He was not happy about this. In fact, he felt that this was somehow our fault and was demanding that we fly someone to Chicago the next day to “fix everything”…
I immediately replied, “We would be happy to do that for you. You should be aware that there is a lead time of three weeks for a site visit, and it costs about $3,000.” When he retorted that he did not want to spend $3,000, I was right there with him again. “Of course you don’t want to spend that kind of money. So let’s see what we can do to help you for free, right here on the phone.”
Chapter 6 quote
The author’s exploration of reframing was also a highlight of the book. It shows how linguistics can be used as a tool every day and all day in human interactions to suggest helpful outcomes in any scenario.
In the latter half, Gallagher explores several customer service scenarios that feel very real and support the techniques and approaches suggested in the book. This is a great method to build upon the techniques earlier discussed in the book.
Final remarks
Although the book’s title is not helpful, I recommend this book to anyone at any point in their customer service journey. It is especially helpful to people with existing experience in the area since it leads to a review and solidifies existing techniques they may have already explored earlier in their careers.
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