Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Jeff Gee is a popular motivational speaker and trainer with over 20 years' experience.

Val Gee is an instructional designer, an ordained priest, and a regular contributor to Training magazine.

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Super Service Completely Revised and Expanded

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Contents

Chapter One

Connecting with a customer's heart and soul means experiencing your customers as fully rounded human beings with all the joy, family issues, money scares, and work problems that every one of us experiences from time to time.

Here is how two of our clients, who participated in our Super Service workshop, answered the following three questions:

Mary—McDonald's Corporation, Accounting

1. As a customer, what do you want?

"I want to get a sense of being valued. I place more value on service than I do on the price tag. Yes, I'm frugal so if I've decided to buy the product, I will, but it's the service that makes me a repeat customer."

2. As a customer, what do you feel stops you from getting what you want?

"People who just don't care or won't go the extra step. I will choose not to get the product if the person is not the right fit. I will get what I need somewhere else."

3. In your experience, what do customer service people do best?

"They respect and listen to the customer. They give undivided time and attention. They make you feel valued, so you do not feel like a statistic."

Frank—GE Commercial Finance, Inside Sales

1. As a customer, what do you want?

"I want to be listened to and shown empathy."

2. As a customer, what do you feel stops you from getting what you want?

"Employees that simply don't care. Make excuses, don't listen and try to get you off the phone or out of their way as fast as they possibly can!"

3. In your experience, what do customer service people do best?

"They listen, empathize, and take charge."

The IKTA Disease

Before you read any further, please be aware of the IKTA disease (I Know That Already). It is a disease that stops us from learning new things, because we truly believe we know everything already. Open up your mind, clear your head of what you think you know, and be prepared to learn something new.

Brain Talk

I give this talk in every Super Service class that I facilitate. It's the foundation of creating loyal customers, and more importantly, of having an amazing life; in which you are happy, full of joy, and have a sense of purpose about your life. So in a way, this section of the book is the most important because it talks about you. Everything you do, your reactions and behaviors, starts and stops in your brain. The human brain is amazing, and it consists of three sections. The first brain is the reptilian brain. On top of this is the limbic system, or the animal brain. And on top of the animal brain is the cerebral cortex, which is the human brain.

The reptilian brain sits in the base of your spine. It looks after your amazing body. It makes sure your heart is beating, your lungs are breathing, and your kidney is filtering out toxins. It makes sure that every function in your body is working so that you can live a full, rich, and purposeful life.

Without the reptilian brain, you would die. Let's face it, you would not last very long if you were in charge of your heart beating. It would go beat, beat, beat, beat, oh forget this, this is too much work. It's unfortunate that the only time you stop and think about how amazing your body is, is when something goes wrong. And, then it's sometimes too late to be thankful.

There are many things to be thankful for your body. Your body is an amazing machine and the reptilian brain looks after it all without you thinking about it. For instance, do you know your heart pumps three Olympic-size swimming pools of blood through you every year. There are six thousand miles of veins, arteries, and tubing making sure everything is traveling where it needs to go. Two million blood cells die every second to be replaced by two million new ones until the day you die. Within each blood cell there are four million molecules. Each of those molecules has an atom oscillating at ten thousand times a second. And all of this is happening so that you can go out there and do outstanding things.

You are so full of energy that the next time your city has a blackout you could run up to the electric company and say "plug me in"! Your body has so much potential that you could climb Mount Everest, if you wanted to. You could run a marathon at 80 years of age. Your body is capable of achieving many things and this entire system is all being looked after by your reptilian brain.

Do you remember being a child? You had so much energy you couldn't wait to get out of bed. You probably got up at five or six in the morning and immediately started doing things. You couldn't wait to play and learn new things. And you didn't want to go to bed because you had the most amazing experience "living the day." But all you heard from your parents and teachers were, "Sit still and be quiet." Now, you can't wait to get INTO bed. Now you want to take things easy and do as little as possible. And this is all because we are thinking different thoughts all the time, which brings me to the animal brain.

On top of the reptilian brain sits the limbic system, or the animal brain. It's into survival because that's what an animal does. It's a survival-only process called "flight or fight." An animal has two things it can do when faced with a problem—run away or fight. If it sees a smaller animal, it will kill it; if it sees a bigger one, it will escape. An animal is freaked out about everything. It doesn't have great thoughts. It doesn't fall in love. Have you ever seen a giraffe with a five-year plan? When was the last time you saw your dog volunteer? Animals don't like eye contact. Animals don't like to be seen. Animals keep a low profile and try to get through the day without being killed. That is your limbic system; it's there to help you survive.

But we are living in a day and age when you don't need the animal brain to kick in all the time. There's not a lot of things we have to run from or fight. We don't have to hunt out a cow in our grocery stores. Your boss isn't trying to eat you. We can actually enjoy our lives and operate from our human brain. In the animal brain, we literally come from fear. It is born in fear and it dies in fear.

When you are in your animal brain and you are fearful it plays out in different human emotions like anger, depression, frustration, envy, and greed. All of these negative emotions come out when you live in the limbic system or the animal brain. It hates successful people and it doesn't think too highly of you either. It tells you that you are ugly, stupid, and that you'll never make it. It doesn't care about your health. Cigarette packages warn you that smoking clogs the arteries and causes heart attacks and strokes, yet your animal brain convinces you to smoke. "Other people may die because they smoke but not you, your lungs are huge." Alcohol? "Yes! You've had a hard day, plus it'll help you sleep." Exercise? "Who needs it?"

All you want to do when you are in your animal brain is survive the day. Everything is a problem. And what does your animal brain think of customers? "What do they want now?! I wish the phone would stop ringing. I can't wait to go home and relax because I've been working like a dog." That's a great expression, because most dogs I've seen don't work very hard. In fact, most animals I've seen sleep all day and do as little as possible. They eat, poop, and if they can, they reproduce. Now some of you are thinking, wow, what a wonderful life that would be! All I have to do is sleep, eat, poop, and reproduce? Except we are amazing human beings; we've been asked to do more. We've been asked to fall in love. We've been asked to imagine a better future. We've been asked to do outstanding things. You can't do that in your animal brain, it only wants to survive.

On top of the animal brain, we have the cerebral cortex with the crowning achievement of the frontal lobe. We are the only animals who have it. This human brain is capable of planning and creating. We can imagine the future and bring it into reality. We can literally achieve anything we put our mind to. How do we know? Because ordinary people are doing extraordinary things all of the time, all over the world. The human brain wants to love, be loved, and be happy. How many happy people do you know? How quickly does it take you to be happy and how quickly does it take you to be angry? There is a way to see which brain you are in. You are in the human brain when you are happy or when you are in love.

Everyone has been in love or thought they were in love. How long did it last? Well, some people say that things creep in like reality, life, and excuses. But, that's not what happens. No, what creeps in is the animal brain saying don't get too close, don't be too vulnerable, remember you could get killed. So keep your light low, keep them at a distance, don't trust them, and everything will be okay. But that's not the way to have relationships or live an amazing life. The human brain wants to love, be loved, and be happy. A human being has a dream and can make it come true.

You are staggeringly amazing. The problem is we have this duality going on between the animal brain and the human brain. In between these two brains is the "reticular activating system." It's a tiny, white bone, like a toggle, that vibrates or flicks up and down between the limbic system and the cerebral cortex all day long. This is where the voices come into play. Everyone on the planet has voices in their heads which talk to them every second. Sometimes the voice comes from the animal brain and sometimes it comes from the human brain, depending where the reticular activating system is switched. How quickly does it take you to get angry or upset? That is how you know which brain you are in. Usually the first voice you hear is the human brain, which says, "Wow, I'll exercise today because it makes me feel good." It's immediately followed by the animal brain, which says, "No, no, no, don't do that, it'll kill you. Do it next week when you're feeling better. Plus, it's hard work and we hate hard work."

So you have these voices constantly telling you to do things and not to do things. To be amazing or not be amazing, and this is the problem we have as human beings. Which voice do we listen to? Which voice is the master? Most of us want to be amazing but our animal brain tells us otherwise. I'm too fat, I'm too thin, I'm too short, I'm too tall, my nose is too big, it's not big enough, I'm mathematically challenged.

Let's take a look at a typical Monday morning to see which brain you are operating from. The alarm goes off and the first thing you do is hit the snooze button. (Some of you will hit the snooze button five or six times before getting out of bed.) The first thoughts are, "I hate Mondays." Finally, you drag yourself into the bathroom, look in the mirror, and all you can see are the flaws—the fat belly and the wrinkles. This is how you start your day. You don't want to go to work. You get in the car and have some road rage. You expect to have a bad day and many problems. And if it wasn't for those darn customers you'd be the best salesperson, or customer support person in the world!

Or do your voices sound like this in the morning? "Yahoo! It's Monday! Awesome! I'm alive!" And then you leap out of bed full of energy, and skip into the bathroom. You look in the mirror and see a god or goddess. You blow yourself a kiss and sing your heart out in the shower.

So we are either living in the animal brain or the human brain. And we have to train our animal brain. We have to use it when we need it, not when it wants to rule our life. You've seen trained dogs. The owner says a command and the dog follows. The dog sits, fetches, and rolls over. Have you seen a dog that is untrained? The dog jumps up on you, barks like a lunatic, has no discipline, and it's chaos. Train your animal brain and start to talk to yourself about how amazing you are because in the human brain you can literally achieve anything. Remember how animal trainers train their animals? They do it by giving them food, attention, and encouragement—because that's what works best.

I don't care where you come from, what your religion is, what your color is, what your past is, or what your parents did. When you are in the human brain, you can literally achieve anything. We know this because there are millions of stories about people who have come from the "wrong" backgrounds with the "wrong" education and are successful beyond their wildest dreams. Why, because they are in the human brain more than they are in the animal brain. They are passionate about their lives, and they want to be the very best they can be.

Watch what people are doing. Can you spot the people who are operating in their animal brains? When you are in a restaurant or driving, see if you can spot the people in their human brains. And I'm telling you there are a lot more people in their animal brains than you think. These people are frightened, worried, upset, and depressed. One of the biggest industries around the world focuses on the treatment for depression. The American pharmaceutical companies make billions and billions of dollars because people are popping little pills to make themselves feel better. I'm not really sure what they have to feel bad about, but the pills make them feel good. The problem is the pills can slow you down. Some people on pills don't know where they are in terms of awareness. I'm not saying that no one should take anti-depressant drugs, I'm just saying that not everyone needs them.

Which brain do you want to be in? It's your choice. What purpose does it serve to go around blaming people? Or be defensive or, worse, be complacent. It doesn't serve you at all. You have to take in the fact that you are amazing. Whatever other people are doing is their thing and that is fine. We all have our own opinions and we make different choices because that is life. Remember:

• I don't have to take it on board.

• I don't have to take it personally and get upset, worried, or miserable.

When customers show anger toward me:

• I will not react to them in a negative way.

• I will, instead, be there to help them.

• I will not defend myself or my company.

• I will not tell them they are wrong.

• I will not take their words personally and get upset.

• I will be there to help them because I am in my human brain.

• I will be there to serve them and to be amazing.

When you are in the human brain, you want to love, to be loved, and to be happy. You want to be challenged, to take risks, and to give. You actually want to volunteer. When you are in your animal brain, you never raise your hand. You think that somebody else should do it. But when you are in your human brain you are passionate, interested, and capable of achieving anything. Everyone reading this book is a winner and we're just here to remind you.

Watch your voices. The one that says you are too thin, too fat, too short, too tall, too ugly, or too dumb; don't pay it any particular attention. Talk to yourself and affirm your day. Start right now. Go to a mirror, look at yourself in the mirror, and say "you and I"—who is "you" and who is "I"? You are on your own, just you and a mirror! "You" is your animal brain and "I" is your human brain. They are both in your head watching you.

So you look at yourself and say, "You and I, just for today, are going to be amazing. I don't need to be in survival mode and feel negative emotions. You and I are going to work together to have an amazing day. We are going to sing in the shower because it feels good! When I get stuck in traffic, instead of getting frustrated I'll sing to myself or wave to the other people. When I get to work, I am going to be the best they've ever seen. I'm going to have at least three people say, 'Wow, you look really happy!'"

That's what you need to do. You need to talk to yourself constantly. Why? Because of habits and routines, it's easy to forget, and we forget instantly, how amazing we are. You are in charge of your state of mind. You need to tell yourself you are talented, fabulous, smart, caring, sharing, and loving. You, yes you, you are amazing. I don't care about your past or any of the things you have done, or not done because, right now, you are perfect just the way you are.

We've talked to many successful people and this is what they do. They affirm their day. They talk to themselves about how amazing they are. They visualize their day:

• Maybe people are going to say bad things about me or to me.

• Maybe people are going to bring major problems to my doorstep, and it's okay. That's life.

• I am going to handle all of it with grace and compassion because I am a human being. And it's my choice how I deal with my life.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Super Service Completely Revised and Expandedby Val Gee Jeff Gee Copyright © 2009 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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