Throughout this series on Winning at Customer Service, I want to share numerous practical tips that will help equip you and your team relate better to your customers. Consider the following:

1. Collect customer service problems as you encounter them and regularly train your people around them. Keep adding new scenarios to your training program including rare occurrences. Even if you don’t think it will be encountered again, it does give your customer service people the opportunity to brainstorm and think creatively about solutions.

2. Emphasize simplicity. Do not use company or product jargon that confuses rather than clarifies. Remember that many people don’t care about technical details so cut to the chase. Always think about an issue from the perspective of your customer and use analogies they can relate to.

3. Remember to use people’s names—yours and theirs. Would you rather get an email from Mike or from The Technical Support Team? People want to do business with humans, not companies. Dale Carnegie, author of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” has said that, “A person’s name is to that person, the sweetest, most important sound in any language.”

Do you have any practical tips to share with my readership? Please email them luke@lukekuepfer.com.