'Customer service is all about acting sometimes' – Yvonne MacCarthy

For the sake of quality customer service delivery, one must act, “sometimes,” learning to put on a smile, being pleasant despite one’s temperament, or zigging where one’s emotions may zag, an expert and trainer has highlighted.

In an exclusive interview on Class 91.3 FM’s Class Morning Show, Yvonne Ohui MacCarthy spoke to Prince Benjamin (PB).

The lead consultant at the Institute of Customer Service Professionals (ICSP) premised her perspective on the assertion “customers are situational,” and should not be seen as “difficult” as popular opinion suggests.

To help, she advocated emotional intelligence (EQ), which she explained covered not only learning to manage one's own emotions but also learning to positively regulate the emotions of others – customers, in this instance.

“Just like you wake up in the morning and have some bad news [or] you’re not feeling too well, customers are going through the same, if not worse, sometimes – they’ve been told they have a terminal illness, they’re going through a divorce, they just lost somebody – you never know what the issue is,” Yvonne said.

She emphasised the need to have a “mindset shift” the moment one got to their post, so as to “create the [right] experience” for the customer as “the service provider”.

“Take off your old emotions like a dress when you enter your place of work,” she added, asserting: “When you enter your place of work, it’s lights, camera, action!”

The Board Chair of the West African Association of Customer Service Professionals categorically said: “Customer service is all about acting, sometimes. You have to put on an act to make the customer happy.”

The customer service thought leader said it was professionally acceptable for a service agent dealing with a heavy personal issue to seek to be excused from duty by their supervisor. Another option, she added, would be to ask to be positioned where one would not deal with customers directly and or for prolonged periods.

Yvonne MacCarthy has trained representatives of diverse organisations including banks, embassies, etc. She is the creator of the revolutionary Ghana Customer Service Index (GCSI).