Manage Customer Engagements Effectively by Remembering “the 3 C’s”
Skew the odds of success in customer interactions by remembering “the 3 C’s”. We frequently encounter teams who are doing good work, but struggling to get credit for their efforts and not controlling meeting outcomes. If your team is in this situation, focus on:
CALM: Calm the customer. Outwardly project a calm state (even if you’re panicking on the inside!) will reduce the risk of your customer reacting emotionally in a crisis. Demonstrate (with actions, not just words) your understanding of the customer’s concerns, and your team’s willingness and ability to address those concerns proactively (before being asked).
2) CLARIFY: People have finite attention spans and limited energy. Strive to make your materials crystal clear. You want to engage your customer in discussion of the meaning and implications of your update. You don’t want them spending lots of effort trying to “de-code” what your team is trying to communicate. Pro tip: Prefer visual information over words. Make sure all graphs are clearly labeled and annotated.
3) CONTROL: Control the outcome, Conveying a sense of control will help influence the customer’s perception and reaction. Take control of the flow of information by volunteering periodic updates to your customer. Ensure fresh information is fully vetted by the team before it is conveyed outside your organization. Manage the resources and action planning to drive swiftly toward the desired outcome.
We’ve resolved more than our fair share of crises with teams over the years, and we’ve taught hundreds of people the proven techniques to effectively manage customers when the pressure is on. We’d love to help your team get (and stay) on the right track.
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Over the years we’ve been exposed to Six Sigma, Juran, Deming PDCA, 8D, Dale Carnegie, A3, Shainin, and more. Each technique works pretty well, and has been demonstrated many times in a wide variety of industries and circumstances. At the core they are all essentially the same!
Each approach relies on an underlying logical flow that goes like this: [a] make sure the problem is clearly defined; [b] be open to all sources of information; [c] vet the information for relevance and accuracy; [d] use the process of elimination to narrow down all possible causes to the most likely few; [e] prove which of the suspects is really the cause of the issue; [f] generate a number of potential solutions; [g] evaluate the effectiveness, feasibility and risk of the potential solutions; [h] implement the winning solution(s); and [i] take steps to make sure your solution(s) don’t unravel in the future.
The differences between the paradigms resides in supplementary steps and toolkits. For example, 8D contains the important “In
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