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How Great Customer Service Skills impac Fleet Managers: Part 5

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“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.” – EPICTETUS

How Great Customer Service Skills impac Fleet Managers: Part 5

Emotional Intelligence and Great Customer Service

Welcome to Part Five of our Six-Part Series:

Every interaction a Fleet Manager has with a customer matters. Making time to Improve your customer service skills to effectively communicate and build your brand is essential to your success and the success of the company.

Part 5.1 EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Emotional intelligence, refers to how you manage your emotions, and your ability to read and react to other people’s emotions, empathizing with those emotions and responding appropriately.

How does this apply to customer service? The interaction your customer has with an employee can determine how they feel about the company itself.

What are some positive emotions? Happy, Grateful, and Joyful. If the customer you are interacting with seems happy and wants to chat, you should switch to a more friendly, happy tone. Show them a bit of your personality, joke with them and then give them a chance to share the same. This type of conversation will have a positive impact on the customer. 

Have you heard a funny joke lately? Be sure to check out Part 4.3 of our series for a little humor.

What are some negative emotions? Frustration, Anger, and disappointment. If the customer you are interacting with seems upset, angry or frustrated, it’s critical for you to be patient and empathetic. When you express your desire and use your skills to resolve their concerns, talking calmly, and allowing them to vent their frustrations will have a positive effect.

Emotional intelligence is something that will be developed with time. A few basic elements to help you enhance your customer service skills include:

  • Empathy – you understand people’s emotions.
  • Social skills – you manage relationships and build networks.
  • Self-awareness – you recognize and understand your moods and emotions, and how they affect others.

Part 5.2 CUSTOMER SELF-SERVICE OPTIONS

While over half of your current customers want to problem solve on their own, your company can provide top notch self-service tools like a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page on it’s website. FAQ pages include standard answers to your customers’ most commonly asked questions about your product or service, business hours, prices, and more. When you provide self-service tools your customers as well as employees will save time. Therefore, your company’s customer service will improve.

TIP: Organize questions by category and include a search bar.
How Great Customer Service Skills impac Fleet Managers: Part 5

Part 5.3 INVEST IN CUSTOMER SERVICE TRAINING

If you expect your staff to provide great customer service you need to take time to train them. Continue to train new and seasoned employees about valuable people skills. The benefits of great customer service include customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and more quality referrals – leading to growing the bottom line, happy customers and employees.

“Conclusion”

This concludes part five of our six part series on “How Great Customer Service Skills Impac Fleet impac Fleet Managers”. If you enjoyed our article please share and subscribe to get email updates from this discussion as well as future articles. Please check out our blog page for real time fleet tracking, fleet fuel card, and fleet management solutions, along with other industry related articles.

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How Great Customer Service Skills impac Fleet Managers: Part 1

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“89% of companies now expect to compete mostly on the basis of customer experience” – GARTNER RESEARCH

Good customer service can have a big impac on your bottom line.

There are plenty of fleet management and fleet fuel card companies, but only a few that offer top-notch customer service.
You often hear it said that it’s cheaper to keep an existing customer than it is to find a new one. And it’s true: The U.S. Small Business Administration reports that 68% of customers leave because they are upset with the treatment they’ve received. Over the next six weeks, we are going to cover 18 of the top customer service skills in a 6 part blog series.

Part 1.1 AUTHENTIC CUSTOMER SERVICE – SKILLS

Skills required for operational and technical actions are called hard skills or skill sets. Typically, you learn hard skills in the classroom with training material or on the job experience. By contrast, soft skills are the traits that make you a good employee, such as etiquette, listening, communication and getting along with other people.

Soft skills have to do with the personal side of customer service and may affect a customer’s emotional side of the brain. Research shows the right side of the brain is home to emotions, intuition, creativity, art, and music, whereas the left side of the brain affects language, reasoning, analysis, logic, and math.

Customers can be affected by how you greet and listen to them, including the warmth and sincerity in your voice over the phone or in person. Soft skills can have positive, negative or indifferent reactions and at the end of the day, customers will definitely remember how you made them feel. The difference between a good customer service employee and a remarkable customer service employee is the ability to get raving reviews about the help and service the customer received from your company.

Part 1.2 EMPATHY

What exactly is empathy?

According to Study.com empathy is the ability to understand and connect with someone’s feelings. In customer service, empathy is the ability to affirm a customer’s feelings and indicate that you can understand their pain or frustration, even if you cannot fix it.

Our account manager here at impacfleet.com told me a story about the frustration a professional fleet driver had when their fleet fuel card was not working properly after several failed attempts to activate the fuel pump. I definitely feel the frustration of thinking about the situation.

As the fleet driver holds up the line at the gas station, he is thinking about how he still needs to make the final delivery for the day and how pressed for time he is. Again, after several more failed attempts he decides to call our customer service department and in doing so he immediately receives a friendly greeting.

As the driver explains the problem with the fleet credit card our customer service representative immediately shows empathy, sensitivity, and understanding and continues to listen, taking an active interest in his concerns while building rapport with the driver. Now that the fleet driver is feeling more at ease the process to gather the necessary data can begin and the problem can be quickly resolved, professionally and without incident.

“Your customer doesn’t care how much you know until you show him how much you care.” -Damon Richards

Part 1.3 GETTING TO KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS

Here at impacfleet.com we really take the time to get to know our customers and learn all the details of their account and nine times out of ten we know who is calling as soon as we hear their voice on the other end of the line.

“Good, Old Fashioned Customer Service.”

Do you recall the “good old days” when the corner diner welcomed all their customers by name, doctors actually made house calls and everyone greeted you with a friendly hello? Blending old fashioned expectations with the modern customer is as simple as that. Friendly greetings, genuine interest in your customer’s well being and a true appreciation for their time and money spent with your company can go a long way.

Stay focused and present, listen to what your customers are talking about and most importantly take time to learn about their business and the services you provide. Any barista worth his stock knows his everyday customers’ preferences – from their special flavor to how much froth they prefer.

For those of you that really want to stick out from the crowd, always add a little emotional element to every interaction – a calm voice, friendly smile and of course fast, efficient and knowledgeable service.

“Old School Values Still Rule.”

Old school communication skills are good practice and good business and don’t worry about showing your appreciation. Have you ever heard anyone complain about feeling over-appreciated? And always address your customers by name, this makes them feel valued and acknowledged. If you have a hard time remembering names try using repetition. When your customer calls in or you’re introduced for the first time be sure to use their name and again during your meeting or conversation and again when you finish up your call. If you have forgotten someone’s name, instead of not using their name at all, ask him or her to remind you, and then repeat the repetition process again.

“Old School Meets Technology.”

Impac Fleet Customer ServiceIf you cannot meet in person, use technology to improve the customer experience and create that personal touch. Meeting face-to-face using platforms like Skype, Facetime, ZOOM, and GoToMeeting is a great way to add that old school touch without the time and expense of travel.

You can also record live sessions with your colleagues or customers and create engaging and informative training content or review your conversation later instead of taking notes.

If you plan on using the recording for training, make sure you get permission from everyone involved in the recording. For regular face-to-face meetings simply let everyone in attendance know that you will be recording the meeting and always offer to make it available to anyone that would like a copy.

“Conclusion”

This concludes part one of our six-part series on “How Great Customer Service Skills Impac Fleet Managers. If you enjoyed our article please share and subscribe to get email updates from this discussion as well as future articles. Please check out our blog page for real-time fleet tracking solutions and other industry-related articles.

Fleet Card For Non-Fuel Purchases-Impac

Fleet Card For Non-Fuel Purchases

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Fleet Card For Non-Fuel Purchases-Impac Fleet fuel cards have become a powerful management tool that offer fleet-based companies the opportunity to control and manage fuel expenses instated by their employees. Unlike credit cards, fleet cards provide in-depth transaction data, and more granular purchasing controls to help minimize abuse and inappropriate spending.

While it is possible–and acceptable in some cases–to use fleet cards for non-fuel purchases, it is important for business owners to decide in advance how drivers should–and should not–use their cards to ensure time and money savings. Fleet card networks, like Impac, organize data by grouping like products separated by type, which a business owner has the ability to customize.

Firm rules take the employee guesswork out of fueling and help them stay informed on all proper guidelines, such as: what products or services can be bought with the card, spending limits, and the duration of hours in which the card can be used. Fleet managers must communicate rules and guidelines well to their employees to prevent confusion, avoiding unnecessary spending or fraud. Research shows that company costs can decrease significantly by simply informing drivers that there is open visibility to their purchases.

Fleet Card For Non-Fuel Purchases-Impac

Impac’s fleet fuel cards grant business owners and fleet managers easy access to summary reports of drivers’ buying habits to better identify odd spending patterns, reiterating the flexible nature of the card. Business owners can set a limit on our fleet cards for fuel purchases only–to disregard paying for every cup of coffee–or block purchases individually by the number of transactions in one day.

Impac combines exquisite customer service and unique card program solutions to create the perfect product for your company’s needs. Contact us today and learn more about our fleet fuel card programs.

 

Fleet Card Advantages-Impac

Fleet Card Advantages

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Fleet Card Advantages-Imapc In today’s competitive marketplace, identifying ways to reduce expenses and maximize productivity are crucial components of a business’ success. For many companies, fuel can be one of the most overlooked expenses, however the use of fleet cards is becoming an effective solution to analyze this matter.

Fleet cards pose as management tools that allow business owners to control fuel expenses initiated by their employees. These credit cards’ capabilities can help a company with as few as two vehicles achieve a fair percent savings in fuel expenditures within the first year of implementation.

Fleet cards offer companies detailed reporting on a cardholder’s purchase history that a typical gas card does not provide. An automatic single invoice, e-receipt based, eliminates time wasted on organizing reimbursement checks. Additionally, the cards can reveal useful information about employees, like underperforming vehicles.

Fleet Card Advantages-Impac

Fleet cards can habilitate cost-control restrictions, imposed by a business owner, resulting in fuel theft control and the prevention of unauthorized behavior. A set of restrictions can be unique to each driver and any questionable activity, such as purchasing after-hours, can be addressed or rectified immediately.

Fleet cards also offer employee support to ensure drivers are not expected to use their own money for work expenses, reducing the worries associated with tracking receipts and reimbursements – ultimately, liberating smoother operations for the business.

Impac provides the most comprehensive tracking and reporting fleet card program in the industry today. Our cards are tailored to meet a company’s specific needs, aiding them in tax exemption, discount processing, online system access, and card level purchase controls.

Contact Impac today to further discuss the advantages of fleet cards and how our program can be of benefit to your organization.