The Apple Experience: Secrets to Building Insanely Great Customer Loyalty by Carmine Gallo Page B

fundamental psychological principles of human behavior, is similar to the Apple experience described earlier. Her three-step process that helped the tasting room’s sales soar is very simple. Rookies can adopt and use it to be more effective multitaskers when servicing more than one customer at a time: address, assess, assign. 3

Step One: Address
     
    This first step is the most important. When customers see the room is filled with other customers and there are only a few customer service reps to service them all, they are patient and understanding
only
when the rep acknowledges their existence. If you are waiting on someone when a new customer arrives, you should stop within ten seconds (if possible) of their arrival to do three things: (1) smile, (2) lock eyes, and (3) verbally welcome this new customer.
    Eye contact is critical. Remember when we discussed friendly and fearless employees? Unfriendly and timid employees do not make eye contact. A 2008 study in Seattle found that bank robberies declined when tellers were taught to provide better customer service. 4 The program was called SafeCatch and taught employees to unnerve would-be bank robbers with eye contact, a smile, and a friendly greeting. Since bank robbers want to remain anonymous, they would leave the bank. I guess this is one case where turning off customers with a smile is a good thing!
    An acceptable verbal remark to say to customers upon greeting them would be, “Thank you for coming in, I’ll be with you shortly.” An even better remark would be, “Thank you for coming in. I will be happy to help you today. Do you know what you are looking for?” This is a better response because it will give you more information to help you decide how quickly you can get to this person and determine what he or she needs. I recall a recent visit to a local large department store where I waited in line forever behind a customer who was arguing over a price on a sale item. The sales rep told me, “I’ll be right with you,” but all I needed to do was put something on hold so I could retrieve my wallet from the car. If she had said, “What do you need help with?” she would have learned that I didn’tneed much but for her to take my garment and put it aside. She could have done this easily while still dealing with the price whiner.

Step Two: Assess
     
    Now that you know what the customer needs, this is where step two comes in—assess the situation and determine the best strategy for keeping this customer content while you continue to help your existing customer. You should be able to identify one of four plans to execute:
    1. Quick fix. The need is a quick fix you can facilitate while still working with your existing customer (e.g., direct the customer to where she needs to go, hand him a menu, give her directions). If you go with this option, be sure to tell your existing customer something like this, “It’s important that I continue to help you, so please hold on one moment while I get this other customer on track.”
    2. Kill two birds. If the new customer has the same need as the one you are currently serving, bring them together and help them at the same time. Here’s an example from Vanessa’s tasting room experience: when an existing customer would want to taste the same flight of wines as another customer who just walked in, Vanessa would set them up with glasses and educate them about the wines in their flight at the same time. They appreciated that she made an effort to help them both in a timely manner, and the experience was more enriching with additional people involved.
    3. Enforce help. The need is not a quick fix, and there is another rep close by who is available to help. Don’t operate in a vacuum, or assume you have to take it all on. Use your teammates when possible, and doing so will foster a receptive and pleasant environment for your “guests” to wait in and for you and your team to work in.
    4. Monitor wait time. If the need is