Frontline personnel need a variety of talents to work successfully with home buyers. Many of these are well known and frequently discussed: good communication skills, a sense of humor, the ability to be firm yet friendly, organizational and time management skills, attention to detail, rigorous follow-through, and so on.
However, if you look beyond these required and well-recognized traits you will find a few others that are useful. These characteristics are not discussed as often, and information about them cannot be found in a training manual. But without them, you are in for stress, unpleasantness, and career derailment.
The Perky Button. Let’s face it, we all have days when we are not at our best. Yet customers expect a cheerful greeting and enthusiastic response when they come to us with a question or concern. Some days you simply have to fake it. Think of it this way: You are on stage and the customer is your audience. Your role in the play is to be lively, interested, caring, motivated, and responsive.
It helps if you smile at the same time. This last bit of stage business actually helps you feel better. If you smile when you are feeling tired or a bit down, your brain doesn’t know the difference—it thinks you’re happy. It’s one of the results of hitting your Perky Button, along with the zip to see a creative solution and follow through on it. Where do you go to have a Perky Button installed? Just go to work and practice believing you have one.
This type of positive attitude on demand prevents service failures that might otherwise be caused by your low energy level.
Thick Skin. Sometimes things go wrong. The difficulty may be caused by factors outside of your control (say, weather, for instance). Such situations are not your fault but they become your problem. Possibly a customer wants to dictate how your company will do business, what costs should be, or the level of quality he believes he deserves. (Never mind all the information you’ve provided on these topics.) Or maybe you just screwed up—it happens to all of us.
Whether the matter under discussion was your doing or not, customers sometimes express their aggravation in emotional words or tones that can offend the most resilient professional. This is where your Thick Skin becomes useful. Having Thick Skin means you resist the natural inclination of taking things personally. Practice healthy detachment—you certainly care, but your soul is not on the line.
When something goes wrong, express your regret and describe how you intend to make good. In the process ask yourself whether the issue deserves your emotional energy; in all likelihood you will discover that the issue needs your intellectual attention instead. Hold your self esteem outside the damage zone.
One caution: Do not confuse Thick Skin with a Thick Head. The former allows you to serve customers without taking things personally. The latter allows you to make decisions without listening to the customer’s side of things—a condition to be avoided.
Instant Shift. Once you’ve got your Perky Button and your Thick Skin in place and functioning, go for the ability to perform the Instant Shift. This means you can move from a tense conversation with one customer, colleague, or trade to a friendly conversation with another customer, colleague, or trade without revealing carry-over tension.
