# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Our Personal Impact courses have been carefully designed to provide women with a deeper understanding of how we all show up in the World and how our personal style can affect the impact we have on other people and our ability to be heard, influence and persuade.

Our experience of coaching senior executives for over 20 years has shown us that behind the most confident facade; so many of us are prevented from speaking up because of beliefs around how we look, sound, or even doubts that we have the right to be heard.

Our suite of workshops ranges from straight forward presentation skills training through to empowering women to take to the stage and draw on psychological, theatrical and onscreen coaching to take their performances to the next level. All of our coaching is underpinned by examining the key elements of: two way communication, handling internal triggers, presentation, assertiveness, confidence building and influencing.

Over 80% of delegates tell us that they avoid speaking up/presenting/appearing on video due to concerns about how they come across.

Supporting delegates to ease out of their comfort zone and explore different ways of communicating can be a great first step and confidence builder. Here are some things you can try at home:

Practice reading Shakespeare, or your favourite piece of poetry.

One block to great performance is nerves. These cause all kinds of bad reactions in the body - closing your throat up so your voice has limited pitch, to blocking our real personalities and emotions as we recoil and try and protect ourselves. Like everything in life practice makes perfect and one great way of starting to think about voice and emotion is to read out loud. Shakespeare's text All The Worlds a Stage from As You Like it is a great starting point. Read the text first a few times and really understand and get into the narrative. Now try reading aloud feeling the sense of each word as you articulate it. Next try in a mirror and maybe even add a few actions to support the words. Get really bold and have fun. Next get your family and friends to listen to your performance and maybe get them to read it with you. All the time you're training the body, the mind and the voice to think about communicating a story - which is all we are ever trying to do in life.

Stand in front of a full-length mirror and look hard at your posture.

Our posture tells people so much - research tells us our body language sends out way more powerful messages than the words we speak. The fear of on camera communications is often centred in seeing yourself back through a lens. It is much more intense than looking in the mirror as the camera acts as a microscope and picks up little "tells" of uncertainty or nervousness.

A good place to start building confidence in this area is to comfortable in our bodies. This may sound obvious but so many people are not comfortable. Look at how a dancer moves, who has practiced for years and years in getting to know how their body moves. Outside of this many people's bodies hold the tension, knocks and challenges that life has thrown at them - and it shows. The good news is that we can all work to be more comfortable in our bodies. A great place to start is in front of the mirror. Open up your chest, rotate the shoulders in clockwise direction, tuck your tailbone under, soften the knees slightly, dip your chin just a fraction. Take the feet hip distance apart, take the awareness into the feet and feel all four corners of the feet pushing down into the ground. The idea is to feel really grounded and stable in the bottom of the body and open and flexible at the top.

Keep working on this each day - especially before a big event or a presentation. Stance is everything in communications - it provides the right foundations to use your body, your voice and your emotion. It really is worth the effort of working on this before anything else. Oh and most importantly ditch any negative talk - this will not serve you well and is very probably completely untrue!

Then look around you and watch how other people are conveying/leaking emotions through their stance. It's a fascinating area.

Take time to understand your own psychology

Actors and performers spend years understanding how their own psychology impacts on their performance. Remember that beliefs are simply that - your beliefs. They are not necessarily the truth or reflect what other people are thinking. One of the biggest barriers to using our voice is the erroneous belief that we don't have a right to stand up and be heard. Taking time to analyse and challenge one's beliefs can be a great step towards more confidence and impact

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Top tips for personal impact - Rock My Age

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Our Personal Impact courses have been carefully designed to provide women with a deeper understanding of how we all show up in the World and how our personal style can affect the impact we have on other people and our ability to be heard, influence and persuade.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Amazon way : 14 leadership principles behind the world's most disruptive company ( 171 Pages )

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Revised second edition in September, 2016Interested in innovating and creating a customer focused culture like Amazon? In The Amazon Way, Rossman introduces readers to the unique corporate culture of the world's largest Internet retailer, with a focus on the fourteen leadership principles that hav

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I've sent out hundreds of resumes over my career, applying for just about every kind of job. I've personally reviewed more than 20,000 resumes. And at Google we sometimes get more than 50,000 resumes in a single week.

I have seen A LOT of resumes.

Some are brilliant, most are just ok, many are disasters. The toughest part is that for 15 years, I've continued to see the same mistakes made again and again by candidates, any one of which can eliminate them from consideration for a job. What's most depressing is that I can tell from the resumes that many of these are good, even great, people. But in a fiercely competitive labor market, hiring managers don't need to compromise on quality. All it takes is one small mistake and a manager will reject an otherwise interesting candidate.

I know this is well-worn ground on LinkedIn, but I'm starting here because -- I promise you -- more than half of you have at least one of these mistakes on your resume. And I'd much rather see folks win jobs than get passed over.

In the interest of helping more candidates make it past that first resume screen, here are the five biggest mistakes I see on resumes.

Mistake 1: Typos. This one seems obvious, but it happens again and again. A 2013 CareerBuilder survey found that 58% of resumes have typos.

In fact, people who tweak their resumes the most carefully can be especially vulnerable to this kind of error, because they often result from going back again and again to fine tune their resumes just one last time. And in doing so, a subject and verb suddenly don't match up, or a period is left in the wrong place, or a set of dates gets knocked out of alignment. I see this in MBA resumes all the time. Typos are deadly because employers interpret them as a lack of detail-orientation, as a failure to care about quality. The fix?

Read your resume from bottom to top: reversing the normal order helps you focus on each line in isolation. Or have someone else proofread closely for you.

Mistake 2: Length. A good rule of thumb is one page of resume for every ten years of work experience. Hard to fit it all in, right? But a three or four or ten page resume simply won't get read closely. As Blaise Pascal wrote, "I would have written you a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." A crisp, focused resume demonstrates an ability to synthesize, prioritize, and convey the most important information about you. Think about it this way: the *sole* purpose of a resume is to get you an interview. That's it. It's not to convince a hiring manager to say "yes" to you (that's what the interview is for) or to tell your life's story (that's what a patient spouse is for). Your resume is a tool that gets you to that first interview. Once you're in the room, the resume doesn't matter much. So cut back your resume. It's too long.

Mistake 3: Formatting. Unless you're applying for a job such as a designer or artist, your focus should be on making your resume clean and legible. At least ten point font. At least half-inch margins. White paper, black ink. Consistent spacing between lines, columns aligned, your name and contact information on every page. If you can, look at it in both Google Docs and Word, and then attach it to an email and open it as a preview. Formatting can get garbled when moving across platforms. Saving it as a PDF is a good way to go.

Mistake 4: Confidential information. I once received a resume from an applicant working at a top-three consulting firm. This firm had a strict confidentiality policy: client names were never to be shared. On the resume, the candidate wrote: "Consulted to a major software company in Redmond, Washington." Rejected! There's an inherent conflict between your employer's needs (keep business secrets confidential) and your needs (show how awesome I am so I can get a better job). So candidates often find ways to honor the letter of their confidentiality agreements but not the spirit. It's a mistake. While this candidate didn't mention Microsoft specifically, any reviewer knew that's what he meant. In a very rough audit, we found that at least 5-10% of resumes reveal confidential information. Which tells me, as an employer, that I should never hire those candidates ... unless I want my own trade secrets emailed to my competitors.

The New York Times test is helpful here: if you wouldn't want to see it on the home page of the NYT with your name attached (or if your boss wouldn't!), don't put it on your resume.

Mistake 5: Lies. This breaks my heart. Putting a lie on your resume is never, ever, ever, worth it. Everyone, up to and including CEOs, gets fired for this. (Google "CEO fired for lying on resume" and see.) People lie about their degrees (three credits shy of a college degree is not a degree), GPAs (I've seen hundreds of people "accidentally" round their GPAs up, but never have I seen one accidentally rounded down -- never), and where they went to school (sorry, but employers don't view a degree granted online for "life experience" as the same as UCLA or Seton Hall). People lie about how long they were at companies, how big their teams were, and their sales results, always goofing in their favor.

There are three big problems with lying: (1) You can easily get busted. The Internet, reference checks, and people who worked at your company in the past can all reveal your fraud. (2) Lies follow you forever. Fib on your resume and 15 years later get a big promotion and are discovered? Fired. And try explaining that in your next interview. (3) Our Moms taught us better. Seriously.

So this is how to mess up your resume. Don't do it! Hiring managers are looking for the best people they can find, but the majority of us all but guarantee that we'll get rejected.

The good news is that -- precisely because most resumes have these kinds of mistakes -- avoiding them makes you stand out.

In a future post, I'll expand beyond what not to do, and cover the things you *should* be doing to make your resume stand out from the stack.

================================

If you're enjoying these posts, check out my book, WORK RULES!: INSIGHTS FROM INSIDE GOOGLE THAT WILL TRANSFORM HOW YOU LIVE AND LEAD. Learn more at www.workrules.net.

Photo: Smit/Shutterstock

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Biggest Mistakes I See on Resumes, and How to Correct Them

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I've sent out hundreds of resumes over my career, applying for just about every kind of job. I've personally reviewed more than 20,000 resumes.

# data[].attributes.body
“THE ONLY PEOPLE YOU HAVE NO LEVERAGE ON ARE THE PEOPLE THAT REFUSE TO TALK TO YOU, THE PEOPLE THAT REFUSE TO MEET YOU, THE PEOPLE THAT YOU’VE NEVER HAD ANY INTERACTION WITH. IF THEY AGREE TO MEET WITH YOU, IF THEY AGREE TO SIT DOWN WITH YOU, IF THEY’VE EVER COMMUNICATED WITH YOU, YOU HAD SOMETHING THEY WANT.”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
4 Key Learnings - Chris voss

How to negotiate when you have no leverage.

Creating magic in a negotiation.

How to use people's names and other information to diffuse situations.

Tips and tricks to negotiating that anyone can use.

Negotiating without any leverage is a lousy position to be in, but is a place many of us at least early in our careers find ourselves. Chris' experience as a hostage negotiator turned business negotiation consultant gives us just about the best advice you can possibly get from someone who has negotiated with terrorists around the world to CEOs in the boardroom. Learn the tricks of the trade you can use today in your career.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
4 Key Learnings - Chris voss How to negotiate when you have no leverage. Creating magic in a negotiation. How to use people's names and other information to diffuse situations. Tips and tricks to negotiating that anyone can use.

# data[].attributes.body
What is cross selling?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When it doesn't work, cross-selling can be annoying for customers and ineffective at generating sales. This is almost always down to a lack of planning or appropriate data. If you recommend a product that makes no sense - for instance, promoting winter clothing to a customer who just bought a bathing suit - you may drive that customer away. If you approach a customer by phone who would typically place orders via email, you may not be able to make contact.

And strangely enough, cross-selling is not always a great idea, even when it works. According to a Harvard Business Review study published in 2012, certain types of problem customers can actually make cross-selling a profit-losing strategy. According to Denish Shah and V. Kumar, some customer types can put stress on your customer service staff, whether by returning or cancelling a large number of goods and services or withholding spending in other areas to spend on your cross-selling promotions.

It's crucial to analyze customer data and metrics related to your cross-selling marketing campaigns to evaluate which efforts produce cross-sales without reducing overall profitability, and which customers should be left out of cross-selling or approached with different methods, such as upselling. In general, cross-selling too many options to too many customers can be a losing endeavour if you don't have a well thought out strategy in place.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When it doesn't work, cross-selling can be annoying for customers and ineffective at generating sales. This is almost always down to a lack of planning or appropriate data. If you recommend a product that makes no sense - for instance, promoting winter clothing to a customer who just bought a bathing suit - you may drive that customer away.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Whatever your industry, customer service should feature right at the top of your list of priorities. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. Even if customer service is a top priority, knowing how to make a difference in this area of business can be difficult.

In this list of 20 best TED talks, you will find a range of interesting and insightful videos. These TED talks span industries, and focus on the many different aspects of customer service. Not only will they remind you of the importance of customer service, they will provide theories and strategies to help you tune into the needs of your businesses consumer base and empower your support staff. And hopefully the lessons you take away from these TED talks will make a real difference to your customer service.

So let's take a look at the 20 best TED talk currently available to help improve customer service...

In the first of this TED talks collection, Tamekia MizLadi Smith addresses the importance of empowering customer service representatives. Smith covers key principles like ensuring employees know why they are asking questions, what is happening with the data they collect, and the importance of their role as a face of the company they work for.

During this chat, Tamekia MizLadi Smith concentrates on customer service predominantly within the health industry. But the key takeaways of this chat are useful for any company that employs face-to-face customer service representatives who find themselves daily having 'difficult conversations' with customers. Delivered with humour and thoughtful insights, this is a great short watch.

Frances Frei, a professor of technology and management operations at Harvard Business School, gives an insightful talk into trust. Based on her experience at Uber, she talks about the three main components that create a trusting environment - authenticity, logic, and empathy. She argues that by ensuring these qualities are present within an organization, trust, or the rebuilding of trust, becomes commonplace amongst employees and customers.

The importance of being true to yourself, celebrating differences, and creating a culture of acceptance within companies, also rings clearly through this talk. This is a lesson that Frances Frei preaches not just for businesses, but for all of us to take into our everyday lives.

An oldie but a goodie, and one that can't be left out of this TED talks collection! Presented in 2004, 'What Consumers Want' has received over a million views, and still is very relevant to customer service today. In this TED talk Joseph Pine lays out the importance of authenticity around customer experiences and service, and focuses on the principles of understanding what the customer wants.

That customers want to buy an authentic product, memorable service or experience is undeniable, but Pine argues that due to 'mass customization', authenticity no longer exists. However, he discusses a number of experiences and businesses, Disney for example, that are successful with artificial authenticity. An interesting watch, and one not to be missed.

John Boccuzzi has more than 20 years experience in sales, marketing, and customer service, within both public and private companies. In this TEDx talk from Bryant University, John Boccuzzi discusses why excellent customer service has the potential to be the greatest form of marketing for a brand.

Particularly relevant in this day and age of social media, Boccuzzi argues that it is customer service, not traditional marketing strategies, that will put your business on the map. A short but interesting chat, that you definitely add to your TED talks list.

Sophie Andrews shares a strong message in this TED talk. It is, in fact, a message that many working in customer service positions and industries need to not just consider, but also incorporate into their dealings with clients.

After having personal dealings with the UK 24 hour Samaritan's helpline, Sophie Andrews founded The Silver Line, a helpline to support older, isolated and lonely people. In this talk, Sophie Andrews shares how her experience has taught her the importance of listening, and not just jumping in with advice. An emotional but powerful talk with a key message that needs to be heard.

'Applied Happiness' is a talk that was given by Jenn Lim at a TEDxKC event. Jenn Lim is the joint CEO of Zappos, and also holds the position Chief Happiness Officer of Delivering Happiness!

The ethos of the brand is based on customer service and company culture, inspiring happiness in work, community, and everyday life. By ensuring happiness is always at the heart of their business, Zappos has become a thriving and successful business. This is an interesting look at how a business can be run, and customer service influenced, by the principle of happiness.

This TEDx talk provides an interesting insight into both sides of customer service. Laura Hockenbury shares experience she gained working in the service industry. And she looks in-depth at behind the scenes stats on customer service workers in the US.

Discussing the effects of working in the service industry, Laura Hockenbury provides advice for both service workers and customers. And with a focus on the importance of service workers authentically connecting, Laura Hockenbury's talk is meaningful for those in and outside of the customer service industry.

Another TEDx talk, but this time from Naperville, 'Meaningful Micro-Engagements' will get you thinking about customer service and technology. Jeannie Walters discusses the importance of micro-engagements and the impact they have on us, on society, and on our brand.

During this TEDx talk, Jeannie Walters looks at a number of occasions where customer service messages from machines can cause frustration, negative reactions, and brand alienation. She then considers how we can use micro-engagements that occur via technology to create high-quality customer service, and ultimately turn customers into brand ambassadors.

Andrew Tarvin has worked with thousands of people in over 200 organizations. His aim is to teach people the importance and value of humor, both in and outside the workplace. He gives examples of why humor can help in industry, including improving listening and communication, reducing conflict and stress, increasing trust, and much more.

During Andrew Tarvin's TEDx talk, he discusses his belief that humor can in fact be learned. This humor can then impact on people's work experiences and interactions between people, helping with employee relationships and customer service. This is a very well presented talk, extremely funny, and contains some very actionable tips.

Bobby Stuckey has had an extensive career working, managing, and owning restaurants, and has received multiple awards for wine and service. In this TEDx talk, Stuckey discusses the difference between service - "what you do for someone" - and hospitality - "how you make someone feel".

Sharing personal experiences from restaurants he has worked in and eaten in, Boddy Stuckey focuses on the importance of customer 'experience' in any industry. And importantly, how to make customers feel great. Another witty and well delivered chat, and easily one of the best customer service TED talks around.

In this TED talk, Tim Leberecht sets the scene of today. He argues that, due to online behavior, brands and businesses have no control over their reputation. He then shares ways for businesses to use this loss of control to their benefit, by not only accepting loss of control, but planning for it.

Leberecht, who describes himself as a humanist and a business romantic, in Silicon Valley, discusses the importance of giving customers control and empowering them with choices, or lack of choices. Ideas include collaborating with customers on the creation of content, designs, and products, giving them control over pricing, and taking away too many decisions. This is another useful and extremely relevant talk to online customer service.

During this TED talk from Diana Dosik, she looks at how businesses engage with customers and come to understand customer journeys. This, in turn, enables them to deliver excellent customer service, tailored to their customers' needs. However, Dosik also extends this concept to discuss how businesses can use this knowledge to understand and increase the productivity of their employees.

Diana Dosik discusses a variety of tools, techniques, and theories, that companies use to help them understand their customers, and learn what makes customer experiences easy or hard. She uses the example of Apple, who monitored customers journeys within their stores. From this research, they then alleviated the key pain points that were preventing people from making purchases. A thoughtful TED talk, and one that many businesses could learn from.

'How I Stole Great Customer Service with Pride' is an insightful TEDx talk from Lisa Ekstrom. Here she discusses her career, working within the often frustrating department of customer service. Ekstrom shares problems that all customer service departments regularly come up against. And she talks about how to make small changes to ensure positive, and not negative, experiences prevail.

She also shares an amusing anecdote, where she steals a customer services strategy, and how this experience played out in real life. The takeaway from this story is the idea that customer service strategies are easily transferable whatever a companies niche, and much can be learned and re-used across the customer service industry.

Although this talk doesn't specifically mention customer service, the lessons within it are relevant to anyone who works in this field. In this TED talk Amy Cuddy delivers an energizing and thought-provoking presentation about the power of body language.

Here Cuddy argues that not only does our body language affect how others see us, it can also have a direct impact on how we see ourselves, as well as helping to increase our confidence levels. From changing our body language, to 'power-posing', Amy Cuddy gives us insight into how to change people's perceptions of us, and how to 'fake it until we make it'. This is a fascinating TED talk about body language, behavior, and our interactions with others.

In this well presented TEDx chat, Alex Cabanas discusses great service moments. He argues that although companies want to achieve great customer service, it is in fact extremely hard to obtain, and not often come across.

Alex Cabanas shares theories on why the bar is so low in customer service, and looks at the factors that prevent high quality service. He then uses personal anecdotes and real-life examples to explain how companies and individuals can raise the bar. An energizing talk, offering actionable ideas to improve customer service throughout a company and across industries.

'What's Next in Service for the Hospitality Industry, a Culture of Care' is a thoughtfulTEDxx talk that will get you thinking about the culture of your company. Jan Smith is an expert in employee relations and customer service, and as a consultant she works with international corporations and non-profit organizations, to support and share her passion for service.

In this TEDx talk, Smith considers why some service workers over perform, whereas others grossly underperform. She then goes on to discuss the importance of a culture of care, and how creating and nurturing this culture can affect both your employees and customers. This is a relevant talk for all businesses, and one that will no doubt give you food for thought.

Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb, gives an energizing TED talk about the creation of his global business. During this talk, Gebbia discusses how his business is built on the concept of trusting and treating customers and guests as friends.

When Gebbia failed to get funding for his business, he fell back on what he knew: design. This enabled him to create a community and culture of trust and connection. This is an amusing and refreshing chat from Joe Gebbia, giving an insider's view into Airbnb and its customer service.

Jerry Inzerillo is the Chief Executive Officer for Forbes Travel Guide. During his fascinating TEDx chat, 'Global Trends in Luxury Hospitality', Jerry Inzerillo shares stories and experiences from his career. He focuses on not just how customer service leads to success, but how service deserves recognition.

A funny and exhilarating chat, that has numerous takeaways for those working directly in customer service. Discussing 'pride and service from your sole', Jerry Inzerillo talks about the many outcomes of top class customer service.

Mark Harmon is the founder of Auberge Resorts Collection, an international portfolio of hotels and resorts. In this TEDx talk, Mark Harmon discusses how to create a hotel with a soul, that delivers an unforgettable experience to those that stay in it.

Harmon discusses his experiences of building hotels from the ground up. He shares what he learned and what he got wrong. Particular focus is placed on hotel staff, and how they can create stories and moments that connect guests together. Some useful lessons for customer service managers and staff, this TED talk is worth watching.

In the last of the TED talks of our collection, Anna Dolce discusses the difference between genuine hospitality and service-by-default. From a decade and a half in the hospitality industry, Anna Dolce speaks from experience about the expectations of everyday service, and the importance of instead providing memorable hospitality.

Anna Dolce is clear that great service is no longer enough in the increasingly competitive world of business. She explains the difference between the two notions of service and hospitality. And then gives numerous examples where companies have ensured people's needs are met emotionally through top quality hospitality. The top takeaway from this talk has to be the idea that hospitality is a big concept, but is built through the tiniest of moments.

Final Thoughts on the Best TED Talks to Help Improve Customer Service

As you can see, there are a wide assortment of TED talks that will help you to improve your customer service. Whatever your industry or position within your company, the TED talks mentioned in this collection will give you much to think about. And hopefully, much to act on.
Can you recommend any great customer service related TED talks that we haven't mentioned? If so, please share them with us in the comments below...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The 20 Best Ted Talks to Help Improve Customer Service

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Whatever your industry, customer service should feature right at the top of your list of priorities. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. Even if customer service is a top priority, knowing how to make a difference in this area of business can be difficult.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Raphael Rose: How failure cultivates resilience | TED Talk

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In his research for NASA, clinical psychologist Raphael Rose discovered that failure is key to creating resilience. He explains how leaning into trials and setbacks builds the emotional callouses that help us value what’s good in life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Shout out to all the women moving mountains in the New York Women in IT Awards next week! Save the Tatas! 💕 & GO Vote! #MotivationMonday 🎶 #ImAWoman...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Facing a difficult customer, whether in person, on the telephone or via direct messaging, email or social media, is many people's worst nightmare. If talking to customers is part of your role, however, it is almost inevitable that you will have to deal with a difficult customer sooner or later. Learning how to manage those conversations will be a useful skill for the future.

Difficult customers are not just encountered when they make a complaint, although this is often the case. Sometimes, though, the most difficult customers to satisfy are those who have contacted the company for the first time, because you have no history with them, and therefore have less information about how to treat them. For those customers, it is doubly important to listen carefully to what they are telling you, because that will give you important information.

This page discusses how to deal with difficult customers in general, with some information about particular situations. These include, for example, on the phone, and dealing with complaints.

The Key to Good Customer Service

Our page on Customer Service Skills explains that the key to good customer service is simple:
You have to focus on the customer, and what they need and want from you, at all stages of the relationship: before, during and after a purchase.
This applies with difficult customers as well, if not more so.

The Number One Rule of Dealing with Difficult Customers

There is one primary rule when dealing with difficult customers: don't make a bad situation worse.

It may, therefore help to consider what might make the situation worse for the customer. In other words, what is going to make an already angry or frustrated person more angry or frustrated? This list covers some of these issues:

Not listening to what they are saying - or being perceived not to be listening. You can show that you are listening by responding with 'fillers' such as 'yes, I see', and 'uh huh' periodically, as they speak. If you are typing as you listen, it is a good idea to explain that you are making notes about their issue, so that they do not think that you are getting on with other work, and just letting them vent. It is also helpful to check your understanding by reflecting and paraphrasing, as this shows very clearly that you were listening.

Not acknowledging their feelings, or that they have a reason to complain. We all like to have our feelings acknowledged, and it is a relatively simple thing to do. It puts you on the customer's side, and makes it less likely that they will be angry with you. It also gives you more time to think about how you are going to respond. Use phrases such as:

" I can tell that you're very frustrated by this situation, and I can understand that."
"I can hear that you're really angry about this, and I am very sorry that you have had to go through this."

Not letting the customer explain the problem. It can be tempting to jump straight in and start to answer the customer, as soon as there is a pause in their speech. Don't. Wait until you are sure that they have finished, and take time to check that you have really understood the problem by asking them questions and summarising the situation.

Making excuses or getting defensive. There is nothing quite so annoying as someone who is making excuses. Don't do it. Your customer probably doesn't care why something went wrong, or whose fault it was, they just want it put right. Focus on how to improve the situation, rather than explaining it.

Promising too much and then having to backtrack. It can be tempting to promise the earth, just to stop your customer from shouting at you. It is, however, going to make things much worse if you then have to backtrack and explain that, actually, you have no power to deliver a new product tomorrow. Only promise what you can actually deliver. If anything, under-promise, and over-deliver.

Not explaining what is going on or disappearing for long periods. If you have to leave your customer, perhaps to go and talk to your manager about what is possible, explain what is happening:

" I need to talk to my manager about what can be done, so please wait here, and I will be back as soon as I can. I'm sorry, it may take me a few minutes to locate her, so please don't worry if I am gone ten minutes or so."
"I need to talk to someone in Accounts about this. Would it be OK to put you on hold while I do so, or would you rather that I called you back?""I need to talk to my manager about this, but he's on another call right now. Could I take your details, and call you back in about half an hour?"

Trying to guess what they want, and how to resolve their complaint or issue. It sounds simple, but many difficult customers are made more difficult because nobody has asked what they actually want. They may simply want to be heard. The best way to find out what your frustrated customer wants is to ask them. Try saying something like:

" I can see that this is frustrating for you. How can we best resolve it, in a way that will work for you?"
"I am so sorry you had such a bad experience. What can we do to put it right?"

Our guest post on Dealing with Customer Complaints contains other suggestions about how to take a complaint, and also what to do next. It also contains some tips for dealing with complaints, including keeping records of all interactions, and providing comprehensive staff training for anyone who deals with customers.

Dealing with Difficult Customer Telephone Calls

Dealing with difficult customers is doubly hard on the phone, because you do not have any visual clues-and neither do they. It is therefore harder to build rapport, and you are also unable to use body language mirroring or other standard techniques.
You have to work much harder with the main tool at your disposal: your voice.
Your voice has to convey your emotion, whether pleasure at speaking to the customer, or sympathy with their issue. Because so much of our meaning is conveyed by body language, you may have to exaggerate your tone of voice on the telephone to ensure that your meaning is understood. This can feel artificial at first, but it does work.

There is more about tone of voice, and other aspects of speaking in our pages on Effective Speaking, and Non-Verbal Communication: Face and Voice.

TOP TIP! Smile...
Believe it or not, smiling can be 'heard' over the telephone.
People can tell if someone they are talking to is smiling. Your voice sounds different, and you come across as warmer and more welcoming. It is therefore good to answer the phone smiling, particularly if you often answer it to customers trying to make a complaint or resolve an issue!

There is more about some of the issues specific to telephone calls with difficult customers in our guest post Dealing with Difficult Customer Calls.

Generic Skills, Different Types of Customers

Every customer, of course, is not the same. The skills required for dealing with difficult customers, however, are generic. They will usually work with most customers.

There may, however, be some specific situations where you need a slightly different approach. Our guest post on Difficult Customers provides a useful and fun infographic to identify different types of difficult customers, and suggests some specific approaches that may be useful.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Dealing with Difficult Customers | SkillsYouNeed

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Facing a difficult customer, whether in person, on the telephone or via direct messaging, email or social media, is many people's worst nightmare. If talking to customers is part of your role, however, it is almost inevitable that you will have to deal with a difficult customer sooner or later.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What makes a great Salesforce Solution Architect? After looking at Admin's and Dev's we look today at what traits a successful and employable Solution ...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Course details

Cross-selling is the practice of selling an additional product or service to an existing customer. It can generate a significant opportunity, as the relationship already exists, but ensuring the additional product or service sold to your clients enhances their value is critical. This course helps you understand cross-selling and its benefits and develop and execute a cross-selling strategy that works for your business. Sales and leadership coach Jeff Bloomfield also explains how to align sales and marketing to achieve improved sales, consistent messaging, and data-driven insights.

Instructor

Jeff Bloomfield is a sales and leadership coach, and the author of Story-Based Selling.

Jeff Bloomfield spent the better part of his corporate career at Genentech, in various leadership roles ranging from sales and marketing to leadership development. He is the founder of two consulting companies, Braintrust and Apex Training & Development, and speaks to audiences of all sizes on the topics of leadership, communication, story-based selling, and the powerful impact of neuroscience on sales and marketing.

Jeff wrote the book Story-Based Selling, and has trained multiple Fortune 500 companies on story-based selling and coaching, acted as an executive coach to senior executives of Fortune 500 companies, consulted on strategy, sales and marketing, and leadership for companies ranging from ten to ten thousand employees.

See more See less

Skills covered in this course

Viewers of this course

9,310 people watched this course

Related courses

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Quantifying customer potential - Cross-Selling Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Once you have an understanding of your customers' objectives and challenges, you can begin to map your solutions and your current pricing strategy to the overall potential of the customer. By creating the right cross-selling profile maps, you can better predict the total revenue potential for each customer across your product lines.

# data[].attributes.body
Infographic here

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Course details

What do great companies have in common? They have a customer-centric culture that makes employees obsessed with the customer experience. Discover how to get your team excited about customer service, with these practical tips from expert Jeff Toister. Jeff explains how to create a vision that gets everyone on the same page, engage employees, and be the customer service champion your company needs. The concepts apply whether you lead a small team, a department, or an entire organization.

Instructor

Jeff Toister

Your service culture guide.

Jeff Toister is an author, consultant, and trainer who helps customer service teams unlock hidden potential.

He is president of Toister Performance Solutions, Inc., a consulting firm that helps companies improve customer service. Jeff has appeared on numerous lists of top customer service experts including Global Gurus' World's Top 30 Customer Service Professionals, ICMI's Top 50 Thought Leaders to Follow on Twitter, and HDI's Top 25 Thought Leaders in Technical Support and Service Management.

Jeff is the author of The Service Culture Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service, a practical guide that helps leaders develop customer-focused cultures in their organizations. The book draws upon profiles of successful companies, shares cutting-edge research, and provides practical tools.

He is also a nationally recognized employee training expert, and was one of the first people to receive the Certified Professional in Learning and Performance certification from the Association for Talent Development. In 2015, Jeff was awarded the CPLP Contributor Award by ATD for his numerous contributions to the program. He is a past president of ATD's San Diego chapter, where he was a recipient of the WillaMae M. Heitman Award for distinguished service.

Jeff lives in California and serves clients throughout the United States.

See more See less

Skills covered in this course

Viewers of this course

19,652 people watched this course

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Leading a Customer-Centric Culture | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What do great companies have in common? They have a customer-centric culture that makes employees obsessed with the customer experience. Discover how to get your team excited about customer service, with these practical tips from expert Jeff Toister.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Overview Transcripts View Offline

Course details

Have trouble getting by when the going gets tough? Everyone wants to perform well when the pressure's on, but a lot of us withdraw in times of stress or adversity. If you can build your resilience, you'll have an easier time facing new challenges and earn a valuable skill to offer employers. In this course, Kelley School of Business professor and professional communications coach Tatiana Kolovou explains how to bounce back from difficult situations, by building your "resiliency threshold." She outlines five training techniques to prepare for difficult situations, and five strategies for reflecting on them afterward. Find out where you are on the resilience scale, identify where you want to be, and learn strategies to close the gap.

Note: This course was featured in Market Watch, Inc., Fortune, Forbes, and Entrepreneur.

Instructor

Tatiana Kolovou

Faculty - Kelley School of Business - Indiana University

Tatiana Kolovou is faculty member at the top-ranked Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.

She came to the United States as an "academic immigrant" from Athens, Greece. Now she teaches business communication and cross-cultural effectiveness. Tatiana consults with executives and teams at large companies to develop effective communication skills for the global enterprise.

See more See less

Skills covered in this course

Viewers of this course

187,174 people watched this course

Related courses

What, why, and how to become resilient

- Do you ever wonder what it takes to bounce back from an adverse situation, what it takes to rise to the occasion when the going gets tough? This course is designed to help you prepare for facing a stressful occurrence, and then be able to reflect and learn from your experience after it has passed, to prepare for day to day things that are likely to happen to all of us, either in our work or our personal world. My name is Tatiana Kolovou, and this course on resilience will help you identify the what, why, and how of resilience skills and help you be more effective in your every day life. Most importantly, this course will help you assess your own level of resilience and provide learning strategies for strengthening your own resilience. Let's get started.

Download courses and learn on the go

Watch courses on your mobile device without an internet connection. Download courses using your iOS or Android LinkedIn Learning app.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What, why, and how to become resilient - Building Resilience Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Overview Transcripts View Offline Have trouble getting by when the going gets tough? Everyone wants to perform well when the pressure's on, but a lot of us withdraw in times of stress or adversity. If you can build your resilience, you'll have an easier time facing new challenges and earn a valuable skill to offer employers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Overview Transcripts View Offline

Course details

LinkedIn is more than just a platform for you to showcase your own professional achievements and updates. With over 500 million members, LinkedIn is also a hugely valuable space for business owners to maximize their exposure and reach, as well as spark new sales conversations with professionals of all stripes. In this course, join instructor Marcus Murphy as he shows how to market your small, medium, or solo business on LinkedIn. Get tips for sprucing up your personal profile; building an effective company page that's optimized for search; creating a smart content strategy; crafting high-quality, sharable posts; and more.

Instructor

Marcus Murphy

Chief Executive Officer at The Five Percent

Marcus Murphy is a sales expert who cares deeply about the success of entrepreneurs.Marcus previously worked for Yelp in San Francisco. He has also worked at Infusionsoft as the global partner development manager, where he developed and broadened new international markets through strategic partnerships.Currently, Marcus works as the director of monetization at DigitalMarketer, where he has pioneered new and effective sales techniques that enhance the results of the traditional inside sales model. He also sits on the customer advisory board for LinkedIn. Marcus believes a combination of inside sales, social selling, and strategic partnerships are the next generation of business growth.

See more See less

Skills covered in this course

Viewers of this course

19,334 people watched this course

Related courses

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Posting videos on your LinkedIn profile - LinkedIn Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Overview Transcripts View Offline LinkedIn is more than just a platform for you to showcase your own professional achievements and updates. With over 500 million members, LinkedIn is also a hugely valuable space for business owners to maximize their exposure and reach, as well as spark new sales conversations with professionals of all stripes.

# data[].attributes.body
Infographic here

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This is a typical scene at a McDonald's outlet. Every time a customer walks up to the counter for a burger, he or she is asked: Would you like fries to go with that? More often than not, the customer says yes. It may not be apparent immediately, but the customer has just validated a strategy that has helped McDonald's scale its business in over 119 countries with 35,000 franchisees, generating $21 billion in revenue last year, and serving up 9 million fries globally every day.

"Would you like fries to go with that?" has become an iconic catchphrase in the business world and a relatable example of the power of cross-selling.

Cure.Fit, one of our portfolio companies, started by offering fitness programs at its gyms Cult.fit. Today, apart from fitness, they offer meditation, fresh food, nutrition and wellness programs as part of encouraging the customer's overall journey into wellness.

Milkbasket started by delivering milk to homes every morning. From that beginning, Milkbasket today has expanded into fulfilling most of the grocery needs of a home. It now delivers not just milk, but also bread, eggs, juices, and other daily need items.

Just as with McDonald's, cross-selling is all around us. Take the movie hall, for example. If I buy a bucket of popcorn, I am asked if I want a drink to go with that. If I buy a smartphone on an e-commerce site, I receive suggestions that I might want to add a mobile case or insurance to the cart. If I buy a digital camera at a store, the sales assistant might helpfully suggest I might want a memory card.

Cross-selling is when a business or company offers or sells additional, complementary products to the customer who is already making a purchase.

Cross-selling effectively is an institutional strategy to create higher quality revenue.

Some of the most successful companies are those that have used the power of cross-selling to great benefit. It is one of the keys to organic growth.

We have many examples of startups that have used cross-selling to expand their revenue streams. The travel industry has long been good at cross-selling and up-selling, of course.

CAC or the customer acquisition cost is part of standard MIS and a metric that most companies track, especially in the consumer space. For example, in India, the CAC for most e-commerce companies can be anywhere between INR 300-5000. Which is why these companies need to raise a lot of capital to acquire customers and then hope to convert this customer to a profitable relationship through LTV (Lifetime Transaction Value).

Acquiring new customers is a difficult and expensive process. Obviously, retaining current customers is essential, and the more you cross-sell, the more you unlock the goldmine! It not only increases revenue and reduces customer acquisition costs, but is a validation of brand value and NPS (proxy to customer satisfaction).

Which is why it's so important to have a detailed strategy on how to cross-sell. Cross-selling is not an ad-hoc outcome; it is a science in itself.
Building the steps to cross-selling success
So, if cross-selling isn't random or ad hoc, how deeply is it integrated into the product strategy or growth plans of a company?

Cross-selling, to be successful, needs to be an intrinsic and essential part of the company's strategy.

It has to be integrated into the core vision of the company. But this is rarely the case, in my experience. We often talk about cultivating innovation as part of a company's culture, as its DNA. But we also need to cultivate revenue expansion and customer value expansion. It takes time, but a company that is focused on this, and then integrates it into its DNA is more likely to dominate and differentiate in the long term.

But how do we make cross-selling a process? I think the following steps may help to begin with:
Start with the customer
How well do you understand the customer segmentation and profile? It is not enough to say, "My customer is the 25-40-year-old woman who is working and independent."

It is about understanding the emotional, social motivations, and behaviors of your customers and finding the patterns that you can draw from those.

For example, I am willing to spend money on high-quality food ingredients and kitchen gadgets. I rarely check the prices on these. I pay 2x the normal price on milk because it is fresh and gets delivered to my home within an hour of milking from an organically fed free-range cow. It might sound insane, but now you can start profiling me from this data and understand what matters to me and where I have price elasticity. I won't splurge on electronics. I always buy last year's model of the iPhone (I only replace my phone about every three years!) nor do I look for the latest trends in apparel. Unless the apparel I am looking for is about enhancing performance.

I have a pair of $40 compression socks, a $20 a pair running socks and a $500 Pashmina shawl that is always in my travel bag. As you can see, every customer is a complex profile of spending habits.

So, know your customer. It is the first step, though this sounds easy, it is not often at the core of the strategy as it should be.
Identify the products or services for cross-selling
Now, what are the adjacencies to your business that you can offer your customers?

Develop a matrix of these. Not as a one-time exercise, but as something you do as an in-depth process every year as part of your annual planning process.

Cross-selling is also about positioning and product mix. It makes sense for a travel site to offer travel insurance for booking a flight, and for a ride-sharing service to offer deliveries, but if a customer is buying a toaster, should you offer them a daily bread service? Sounds unlikely, right? But some rice cooker players, by embedding IoT, can predict if you are running low on rice and offer to place an order. Everyone is familiar with the razor and blades business model: sell a razor once but a blade every week.

So, non-linear thinking of what and how to cross-sell is the key to competitive evolution.
Make cross-selling a KRA
We know that incentives matter to influence outcomes. Hence, we have bonus structures linked to performance. It's important to know the answers to questions like these:

So, who is responsible to focus and create growth revenue from existing customers?

What is the incentive system that ensures the signalling that you are serious about this?

Are revenue targets carved out for cross-selling?

Are all teams aligned from product to service to make this happen?

Do the weekly, monthly MIS and track and review these metrics.
Deep-dive into the data
The best cross-selling approaches have at their core a solid foundation based on data. Blind product pushes are no longer acceptable.

What would my customers want as add-ons?

Are they open to spending more?

What products work best with my brand positioning?

Will this really benefit my customers?

Does this product I am offering complement what my customer is already buying?

There is a story that Target Corporation's data analytics group could recognize customers in their early pregnancy through their purchasing patterns. Then, product groups could target recommendations and coupons by each trimester, so that, maybe, in their third trimester they would respond to that offer on that infant stroller!

Therefore, obtaining real-time insights into customer behavior is critical. Data helps understand the customer's decision-making process.

Actionable insights can influence buying behavior and unlock cross-selling opportunities. The correct product for cross-sales promotion is a personalized combination based on the customer profile, life stage, and behavioral insights and dynamics.

Today's technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), can help create new marketing frontiers. With more data being generated now than ever before, ML algorithms are essential to make a difference in improving offer personalizations.

Amazon's data recommendations or any e-commerce site's suggestions are data-driven, ensuring that customers get the right product at the right time. Galeries Lafayette, a department store chain in France, explains in a fascinating post just how they used an ML-based model of cross-selling that could be replicated across all of its stores in the country. Knowing that clients wanted a more personalized experience while shopping, Galeries Lafayette centralized all its data from its existing customer base to create an omnichannel journey for each customer with tailored recommendations and personal assistants. Closer home, malls such as Pacific Mall in Delhi are using data and algorithms to provide customers with what they want. The mall reported a Rs 50 lakh jump in monthly sales when it added a vegetarian outlet at its food court after analyzing that 65% of its customers preferred vegetarian food!

Good cross-selling means that the customer always receives additional products or services that provide added value to their purchase. Cross-sell the value, not the product.
Focus on developing strong relationships
As with life, so with work. The best cross-selling processes recognize that building strong loyalty with customers is the key to selling more. When you add value by providing products and services, you build trust as well with customers.

The most successful companies we know are mindful of creating mutually beneficial relationships with their customers. There are many opportunities to continue a customer relationship beyond just the initial sale. And for this, the focus should not be only on a transactional sale. The key here, I believe, is to focus on the customer and their needs, not just the product, and building a long-term relationship.

In banking, "relationship banking" is the norm to support cross-selling, a foundational source of revenue for banks. Conversations drive relationships, and banks are using data to drive personalized offers that build additional services rather than pure transactions support.

Customer-centric content messaging might offer easy ways to stay in touch. Like the tips that show up on my iPhone to explore more of an app's features, or tips from my bank on fraud warnings or even just wishing me for anniversaries or birthdays! Customers welcome such interactions when there is genuine value. Obviously, if done wrong, it is a huge setback. I recently checked into Four Seasons around 11 pm for one night. When I walked into my room, there was a very nice birthday cake and greetings. But here's the thing. It was not my birthday. I wasn't going to eat cake at midnight. So, instead of making me feel good, it had the opposite effect.

Let us remember that cross-selling is always about influencing the customer to offer the solution to a problem, meeting the gaps in their needs, and helping to ease their journey through meaningful products or services.

Cross-selling may not be easy, but it's important to get it right. And the keys to getting it right is building a strong cross-selling process that focuses on value, trust, relationship-building, metrics, and customer-centricity. The keys to success are many - but this one key can open many doors.

Have you used cross-selling in your strategy? Would you share how it has worked? What are your best practices that we can learn from?
Disclaimer: Views represented in this blog are personal and belong solely to the author and do not represent the views of Kstart or Kalaari.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This is a typical scene at a McDonald's outlet. Every time a customer walks up to the counter for a burger, he or she is asked: Would you like fries to go with that? More often than not, the customer says yes.

# data[].attributes.body
Infographic here

# data[].attributes.body
Infographic here

# data[].attributes.body
Infographic here

# data[].attributes.body
Infographic here