The Customer Is NOT Always Right

Yes I said it and you read it correct, “the customer is not always right”. Most of us are led to believe the customer is always right but you know from your practical experience that this is an absurd thing to say.

So, at close analysis I would like to say “the customer is always right in his/her world”. You see the customer has a certain perception of the level of service he/she is expecting. We necessarily are not always aware of this and make an assumption based on experience, company policy and other factors on what the expectation could be. Sometimes, we under value the expectation or their expectations are beyond our capacity.

We need to realise the customer is always right in his/her world and we are right in our world. So, there is a misalignment of thoughts from both parties. The challenge here is the customer or we “assume” the expectations. Remember this word assume is a dirty word and simply means “making an ASS out of U and ME”

Please stop being in this state of “assume”. Just be more aware of your customers needs and wants which leads to letting them know the flexibility and limitations of your services/ products. Always remember to clarify your expectations as well to the customer. 

This in turn is the foundation to eliminate the creation of a difficult customer. 

My name is Rohit Bassi and I am the founder of In Learning. My mission is about sowing the seeds of passion to help you outperform yourself by enhancing your core critical skills of communication, leadership and collaboration. I have delivered workshops to the likes of Oracle, Harley-Davidson, Emirates NBD, Emaar, Alshaya, Baskin Robbins, Mazda and many more. Please feel free to contact me via rohit@in-learning.com or call on +971-(0)55-553-2275.

Six Golden Rules In Minimising Difficult Customers

The six golden rules of Dale Carnegie are the key to minimizing issues with difficult customers.

1. Become genuinely interested in other people – Be responsive towards a customer especially when the situation is tough. Acknowledge the customer and make them feel you are there to resolve the issue at hand.
2. Smile – This certainly helps with any kind of interaction. It makes the customer feel welcome and comfortable. Remember on the other hand the same smile is road to aggravation for the customer if you are not providing the customer with acceptable resolution.
3. Remember that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language – Knowing your customer name and using their name with courtesy during such scenarios will play an important part in diffusing difficult interaction.
4. Be a good listener - Encourage others to talk about themselves – A great listener always allows the other party to express their thoughts and gives them time to vent out their feelings. When you interrupt a difficult customer during his talk it will make the matter worse.
5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interest – When a customer hears you say “the company policy is...” his or her immediate reaction could be a negative one as you are not paying attention to his or her need. You have not listened to them or are not interested about their concern. This a danger zone to avoid.
6. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely – Amazingly this can be easy but a number of professionals have fine-tuned the art of ignoring and not listening to the customer. When you make the customer feel welcomed, comfortable and acknowledge them, you are now on the path of making them feel important.

Every customer who interacts with your organization provides you with a chance to provide Soul Based Service Excellence. Dealing with difficult customer truly tests yours skills in providing such a high standard of service. 

My name is Rohit Bassi and I am the founder of In Learning. My mission is about sowing the seeds of passion to help you outperform yourself by enhancing your core critical skills of communication, leadership and collaboration. I have delivered workshops to the likes of Oracle, Harley-Davidson, Emirates NBD, Emaar, Alshaya, Baskin Robbins, Mazda and many more. Please feel free to contact me via rohit@in-learning.com or call on +971-(0)55-553-2275.

Five Secrets of a Great Listener

A music group called Mike & The Mechanics sang a line in one of their songs which said “You can listen as well as you hear”.


The line is so true as most of us have a habit to hear and this differs to listening. Listening in simple terms means you make a 100% attempt to understand the other party. You avoid assumptions and actively listen to what the other is expressing.
The five secrets of a great listener is no rocket science, they simply are:

1. Active Listening – It’s about making a decision to listen. This means to let the other speak and you through repeating, paraphrasing and reflecting to understand what the other has said.
2. Stop Interrupting - Always let the other finish what they are saying. This is the easiest way to give respect to them. It shows you are giving the them time to process their thoughts and the opportunity to express these thoughts by letting them speak.
3. Body Language – Ensure your eyes are focusing on the person rather than wandering around looking at other things or people. You body posture and hand gestures should come across as helpful rather than being aggressive. Nodding while you listen is a great sign of keeping rapport with the customer.
4. Write – Most of us tend to forget things quickly. So, carry a small notebook/pad to jot notes of your discussion. Always let the other person know you will be taking notes thus indicating you are taking their permission to do so.
5. Ask Questions – Always remember to ask appropriate questions. In other words it should be related to the others needs and wants. It allows you to display to the person you are interested in what their requirement is and by eliciting questions you are clarifying their requirements. Too many questions may come across as an interrogation, so please be careful.

Ideally, we need to be aiming for compassionate empathic listening. 

My name is Rohit Bassi and I am the founder of In Learning. My mission is about sowing the seeds of passion to help you outperform yourself by enhancing your core critical skills of communication, leadership and collaboration. I have delivered workshops to the likes of Oracle, Harley-Davidson, Emirates NBD, Emaar, Alshaya, Baskin Robbins, Mazda and many more. Please feel free to contact me via rohit@in-learning.com or call on +971-(0)55-553-2275.

Power of Three: Secret of a Quality Voice

“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it”? 

Our voice can easily communicate the wrong message to the other person. This wrong use of the voice combined with unfriendly words and body language can make the situation worse.

The three secrets of a quality voice are simply:

1. Pitch Power – When your pitch is high it often informs the person you are anxious or upset. You may come across as unfriendly and are unaware of how to behave with others. A medium pitch comes across as more serious and authoritative. Great to have but some people may see it as being autocratic and rigid. Be careful, a smile will help here. A low pitch could make the other person feel you lack confidence and may not trust you.
2. Tone Truth- I have often heard my close friend say to me in anger “I don’t like that tone of voice!”. This basically refers to the combination of various pitches being used to set a scene or a mood. Listening to the tone of the voice you are able to envisage whether you are friendly or unfriendly. In essence they portray your feelings.
3. Speed Strength – When someone speaks as fast a speeding train it is extremely difficult to understand him or her. This will especially make the other person feel you are anxious and in a rush. While someone who speaks at a moderate pace it certainly is easier to comprehend him or her. Speaking very slow will surely make the other person lose interest and many a times the other person will believe what you are saying is not at all important.

Our voice tends to mirror our inner feelings and great caution is advised on how you use your voice. Remember when your voice comes across as annoyed, impatient, or condescending, the listening party could easily get difficult with you. 

My name is Rohit Bassi and I am the founder of In Learning. My mission is about sowing the seeds of passion to help you outperform yourself by enhancing your core critical skills of communication, leadership and collaboration. I have delivered workshops to the likes of Oracle, Harley-Davidson, Emirates NBD, Emaar, Alshaya, Baskin Robbins, Mazda and many more. Please feel free to contact me via rohit@in-learning.com or call on +971-(0)55-553-2275.

You Lie & Your Breath Stinks

My friend (certainly a friend in my mind) Tony Robbins says: “Initially style is more important than substance. If you don’t have the right style, you won’t get to share any of your substance.”

First impressions play an important part in how customers feel about your organization. Think, about your own interactions as a customer. You have been a customer numerous times and as a customer, you have choices.

So, as a service provider, just remember that your customers have numerous choices. If they are not happy with the way you treat them, they can go elsewhere.  So, your treatment towards the customer does matter.

Think about your own interactions as a customer. You are likely to remember service that is either outstanding or awful. Mediocre service is simply forgotten.  The first impression is the introduction of the organization to the customer.

People do make judgments based on your initial appearance. If you take a deep look inside yourself, you probably judge people by their appearance too. We tend to assume many unwarranted things, just based on appearance alone.

Some of these being:

1. General grooming
2. Cleanliness
3. Clothing
4. Tone of voice
5. Attitude
6. Non-verbal language (e.g. posture, gestures, posture)
7. Individual’s personal style

Self image and first impressions do matter, they matter a lot. The could make or break the relationship with a customer.

Rohit Bassi is the founder of In Learning and works with you so that you can outperform yourself. He works on the premise of “Feel the Fear & Do It Anyway®” and the "100 0 Principle". He has carried out work for organisations such as Oracle, EMC, Alshaya, Baskin Robbins, Mazda, Emirates NBD, Emaar and many more. Please feel free to contact him on rohit@in-learning.com or call on +971-(0)55-553-2275.

Secert of Great Sales - Four Pillars to Create & Grow Sales

A number of sales people miss out on the four pillars that drive the sales of an organisation. These being:

1. Unique Selling Proposition/Point (USP) – What is exceptional about your service/ product? How do your products/services differentiate from other vendors?
2. Benefits Advantages Features (BAF) – Customers just don’t buy features. Neither do they just buy the advantages. What they really buy what the features & advantages will do for them, which means the benefits.
3. Unique Perceived Benefit (UPB) – This was developed by The Marketing Guild and simply means what your USP means to your customer. In other words the perspective of the customer about your service/products. What your offering is in terms with your customer needs and wants?
4. Research. Analysis. Plan (RAP) – Before your interactions with the customer have you done your homework about your products/services and more importantly your customer. Do you really have the insights of your products/services? Have you studied your customer?

These four pillars allow you to uncover the true value of your services/products and truly identify who truly are you customers. In this manner allowing you to create and grow sales.

Click here to contact In Learning to assist you and your team in providing great sales through true service mind-set.

Not All Salespeople Are Liars!!!

Over the past three months I have gone through some seriously pressurising, stressful and painful challenges. This has been around the setting up of the new business license for my organisation in Dubai. Now the process requires a lot of paper work and requires numerous governmental approvals. The toughest and most crucial part of this setup is getting the right business setup (formation) company to assist you.

Dubai has many organisations who help you with this but till date the numerous ones I have interacted with have proven to be pathetic in their service apart from one. Service in terms of unclear/unaware of governmental processes, overly priced, terrible communication skills and much more. 

Some of them are terrible in their sales process. Many of them are simply awesome at selling but these organisations fail in delivering a service they promised, they simply lie and deceive in order for you to use their services.

Yes these deceiving people and companies have mastered the art of:

• Knowing their USP (Unique Selling Point/Proposition)
• Comprehend the BAF (Benefits, Advantages, Features) of their offerings
• Pay a close attention to UPB (Unique Perceived Benefit) of the customer
• Carrying out RAP (Research, Analysis, Planning) about the customer
• Communication skills (verbal, non-verbal, written) are good
• Listening and questioning the customer
• Connecting with the customer forming rapport and trust

They provide the perfect act of a service mind-set during the initial process but they fail miserably in delivering the service promised. After the dotted line is signed and the money is handed over they simply lose interest. Now you face some of the following:

• Pay no attention in carrying out your work
• No longer value your time
• Ignore your correspondence and phone calls
• Provide lame excuses in not carrying out the work
• Demand of unnecessary extra payment
• Hide information that could cause legal issues for you
• Give you unnecessary stress

I am sure you could add many more to the list. In all this has an extreme negative impact on your health, relationships, business and financial status. You simply are a monetary transaction to them and the element of service is non-existent.This is when you strongly go back to the belief of salespeople are liars. It is no wonder incidents like this make you look at all salespeople as liars, never to be trusted and always on the edge when one of them approaches you. 

 

The whole game changed when I met Jennifer Hall from OryxWorld Business Centre. Her non selling approach helped me where the other business setup companies had failed miserably. Rather than sell to me she provided a solution and helped me completely through out the process with ease and comfort. Instead of thinking of the customer in terms of Always Be Closing (ABC) she focused on Always BeCreating Value (ABCV).

As a salesperson you have only one objective and that is to have a service mind-set. You are there to help, serve, assist and guide the customer to a solution that will fulfil their needs and wherever possible their wants. Jennifer Hall and her team are an example of Soul BasedService Excellence.

Thank you Jennifer Hall, Toni Aninon, Usman Ahmed and the rest of Oryx World Business Centre for your great support and assistance.

Click here to contact In Learning to assist you and your team in providing great sales through true service mind-set.

You should NEVER set Sales TARGET

“Sales“ is an astonishing field no matter which industry you belong to. There is a notion amongst buyers that most salespeople are liars. In fact when I talk to salespeople most salespeople feel and believe they are liars. I would imagine with such a thought a sales person would come across numerous challenges when selling.

Anyways, let me focus on the topic in hand and that is sales TARGET. We all know in sales the importance of having a TARGET. The whole purpose of a setting sales TARGET is to reward an individual’s performance and more importantly it is there to help a business plan its growth. So, having a sales TARGET is crucial to the success of the individual and certainly the business.

Yet through numerous interactions with sales people I discovered that most of sales people hate sales TARGET. In fact if it were up to them they would get rid of the darn sales TARGET. On closer examination it was evident it was the word TARGET that scared them more. In fact most felt whenever someone says TARGET in any context they only relate it to sales. It is interesting how the word TARGET has such a strange effect on them.

When asked how come they hate the word TARGET or are scared (frightened, worried, nervous) of it I get responses such as:

•  “The word feels as if I have to shot someone with an arrow or a gun”.
•  “I feel as if I am part of a firing squad, out there to execute people”.
•  “I really feel threatened as if I am attacking someone with a weapon”.

The list is endless and I am sure you get the message. This is one of the reasons I strongly believe sales is all about Soul Based Service Excellence, which not about a transaction, it is about creating a positive customer service experience for your customer.

When we look at the word TARGET it means as per http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/:

• A person, object, or place selected as the aim of an attack. For example the airport terminal was the target of a bomb or a military target. 
• A mark or point at which one fires or aims, especially a round or rectangular board marked with concentric circles used in archery or shooting
• A person or thing against whom criticism or abuse is directed

Just looking at these definitions will make you wonder how crazy we are to use the word TARGET when it comes to sales.  Firstly, most buyers view salespeople as liars and secondly, these liars have been given targets. Now that comes across as very negative and dangerous.

The question arises what could we replace this sales TARGET with so that the stress, worry, pressure is minimised for the sales person thus allowing the sales person to perform in a productive manner to achieve great sales.

Here are a few options to consider rather then saying TARGET:

1. The first word comes to mind is AIM. Although it could mean determine a course, direct an effort or propose to do something but it also could mean direct a weapon. So, we possibly could be going in circles with this one.
2. Then the word GOAL comes to mind. This means purpose toward which an endeavour is directed; an objective. This certainly is a strong contender for a replacement word.
3. I read somewhere to use the term MINIMUM ACCEPTABLE SALES PERFORMANCE. This is an interesting concept and could certainly work.
4. PURPOSE is another word, which would mean to an intended or desired result. And we know is sales we are looking for a desired result.
5. The word DESTINATION seems very interesting. When we look at this word it means place to which one is going or directed, purpose for which something is destined or a place worthy of travel. Certainly, we could uses this as a replacement as now we are on a journey and we all know journeys can be extremely adventurous, especially in sales.

The above is just some food for thought. You may have your own thoughts on what would be a suitable replacement and if so please share it with me by emailing me on rohit@in-learning.com.

Replace your TARGET with one of the above or something you feel comfortable with. You will certainly see the emotional state of yourself and your team change to a positive one. This will surely lead them to focus on the customer needs and wants rather than seeing a customer as a TARGET. Because with a replacement in place with ease and comfort you and your team will perform in a positive productive manner to achieve awesome sales.

Want to excel in sales? Click here to see In Learning offers trainings in powerful selling skills.  

Powerful Words: Use with Caution

We are always communicating. Even, our act of silence is a form of communicating.

Verbal, non-verbal, vocal or written for all of this we use words. Words are extremely powerful which can lead to creating, developing and growing a relationship. On the other hand words can be destructive and can easily sabotage and kill a relationship. 

This relationship could be with your sister, brother, mother, father, friends, work people or your lover. The most important of all the relationship is the relationship with yourself. 

So, even in our silence we have our inner voices that talk to us and say things to us. These inner voices use words with us to communicate with us, these are our inner thoughts.

We should be more aware of what we say to others and to ourselves with these words. Some words are extremely powerful and should be used cautiously. These common words we use day to day without realising they cause more damage than helping us and others. 

These words being:

• But – "You look beautiful but....". Notice how the "but" immediately deletes what was said before it. "But" is the sledgehammer to anything you say. It has the ability to diminish or negate the phrase that precedes it. Note "however" is soft way to say but, so should be avoided as well. Instead replace the "but" with an “and”. 

• Should – "You should have...." . Amazing how "should" arouses a sense of feeling guilty. It's one of the worst words to use in scenarios where the solution applied has not worked. Then someone says "we should" or even worse "you should". 

• Don't –  "Don't think of a pink elephant". I am sure you thought of an elephant or pink colour or thought how will a pink elephant look like. The brain finds it difficult to process something said in the negative. It has to do that act to comprehend what "don't" meant. So, if you end your email saying "do not hesitate to contact me" then you are really telling the person not to contact them. Maybe you could replace this with "feel free to contact me"

• Try – is consider a disguised word for failing. "Try" is seeking or giving the permission to fail. Remember Nike slogan “just do it”.  You replace the "try" with "do your best" or "I will do my best".

• Why – this word easily makes a person feel defensive and find justifications for his/her actions. Instead use the word “how” or “and”.

Words can make you move backwards or forwards. Be selective in the words you use with others and especially the words you use with yourself.

Secret of Your Success in 2014

Your Dream! Your Goal! Your Journey!

Remember the secret of your success is simply you. Have an abundant 2014.

Thank you for all your support and welcome to 2014.

Kind Regards
Rohit Bassi

It Is About Serving You

My aim is to provide Soul Based Service Excellence to you. For a long time I have been wondering what can I do that will allow your life (in terms of your learning and development) to have greater flexibility, more accessibility and especially be valuable. 

So, I had the idea to introduce online learning for you. I am a great believer in technology. It is due to technology I landed with my first professional job. My earlier life was all about being technical. Then it dawned on me being technical was not enough. In fact, it was all about people and how technology could be used to serve them better.

Obviously, nothing beats the human interaction and the purpose of technology is to empower the individual and organisations to excel in whatever their goals are. So, finally I have taken the leap and am launching an online learning (e-learning) platform.

"Constant Learning Anywhere, Anytime” to launch 2014 by In Learning. It is simply all about you.There are over 400 courses available online, these being both for IT and Soft Skills. So, for you its about:

• Flexibility – you decide when and where you learn, manage your time as you want
• Accessibility – you select what device (PC, MAC, Tablet or Mobile) to learn on 
• Valuable – you work with investments that are within easy reach

The purpose of this easy to use online learning (e-learning) solution is:

• Blending learning for self development
• Engage with courses at your leisure
• Avoid unnecessary commuting to training venues
• Cost effective for individuals and organisations
• Eliminate expense such as travel and hotel stay
• Expand learning options 

Some of the common features for all the courses available online are as follows:

• Mobile Friendly
• Mac & PC Compatible
• Inline Quizzes
• Progress status
• Global access
• Easy to use
• Valid for 12 months

Go ahead, develop yourself anywhere and anytime.

Want to be simply awesome at customer service? Click here to see In Learning offers trainings in customer service.