Most people feel that the skills of excellent customer service are obvious: Be a nice person. Have a great attitude. Think nice thoughts. Etcetera. But in my experience, training thousands of people and “turning around” the performance of service teams, great service goes much deeper than that, into the mechanics of what we say to customers.

When you master these mechanics, the difference in customer satisfaction, profitability, and your own personal level of success can be nothing short of amazing. Let’s take a look at three simple, real-world techniques – based on known principles of psychology – that will not only please your customers, but change your life:

1. Delivering bad news: Speak to the other person’s interest

Let’s say that you answer the phones for a parking and traffic bureau – which means that, among other things, you tow people’s cars away. So what do you say to someone after you’ve just towed their car away?

I actually got to ask this question to one team who did this for a living. Their answer was basically to tell the person that they had done something wrong, and would have to pay to resolve it – and then usually duck for cover! But when I challenged them to think of things to say that would benefit the other person, the ideas soon started to flow:

“Your car is in a safe place.”
“I can help you get your car back.”
“I get really frustrated when things like that happen to me, so I know how you feel.”

When people started using phrases like this, the difference was amazing – no one could stay angry at them! The reason is that we all have what psychologists call social cognition, where we instinctively detect whether we are dealing with a “friend” or a “foe” within the first few seconds of a conversation, and react accordingly.

Of course, most of us react to problems by defending ourselves, which triggers the “foe” reflex and starts a fight. But when you say things that trigger the “friend” reflex, the results are almost always completely different. And whenever I teach this exercise to people who have the very toughest customer situations – like store security, collections agents, and even prison guards – they learn that literally any situation can change dramatically when they change the words they use. So imagine what it can do for you!

2. Defusing anger: Ask lots of questions

When someone is upset and confronts you with a customer problem, let’s face it – it’s uncomfortable. And we often react to this discomfort with our normal survival instincts, like withdrawing emotionally, or breathlessly suggesting what we think should fix the problem. But a deceptively simple technique can quickly turn this anger around: ask questions.

If you have ever dealt with a police office after a traffic accident or break-in, you probably remember one thing about the encounter – they ask lots of questions. There are two important reasons that they do this. One is the obvious reason of gathering information to solve your problem. But the other reason is equally important: they are engaging your attention to divert you from the emotions of the situation.

The reason this technique works is that when someone is upset, most of us instinctively want to withdraw. This is why many customer support professionals revert to a robotic monotone when someone has a problem, which in turn only makes the other person angrier! By comparison, asking questions moves you towards the other person’s pain, which both shows interest and quickly defuses their anger.

3. Silencing the chatterbox: Give ‘em the spotlight

Do you want to take back control of a conversation from someone who talks too much? It’s easier than you think – just enthusiastically acknowledge the last thing they say, and then jump in with your own short, focused questions. Compare these two approaches:

Not so good:
Chatty Charlie: What a great vacation I had! The weather was incredible. You should see the hunting, the fishing …
You: Excuse me sir, I’d like to get back to your computer problem.

Better:
Chatty Charlie: What a great vacation I had! The weather was incredible. You should see the hunting, the fishing …
You: Lucky you – it seems like the fish are never biting when I go on vacation! By the way, I think I see a possible solution for your computer problem. Could you press F2 and tell me what you see?

This works because talkative people aren’t motivated by talking, but rather by getting attention. When you use a little reverse psychology and lavish this attention on the other person, you give them exactly what they want – while you take control of the conversation.

These three techniques are just the tip of the iceberg of what we can learn from classic behavioral psychology. And they don’t just make us quote-unquote “nicer people” – in my experience, they make dramatic and measurable changes in things like service metrics, customer satisfaction, morale and performance. Try them at work this week, and see what good things start to happen!