All good customer service starts with a smile. A smile relaxes people. It also lets customers know you are there to help. It will make your job a lot easier too.

A smile puts you and your customer in a better frame of mind. Have you ever come to work not feeling well, frustrated with your job, tired, or worse, hungover? If you project those feelings to your customers, you just made your rough day 100 times harder.

Imagine the last time you went to buy lunch and the person behind the counter just didn’t seem to care. What happened? Did you instantly start thinking, “this isn’t going to go well, they obviously don’t want to be here.” Most likely because of the way they appeared, you might have been critical of their service before they even started. Did they get your order right? Did they do it as fast as you would have liked?  Do you want your customer starting off critical of you? Nope!

Now think of the time you were greeted with a warm genuine smile. I’m sure you felt much more comfortable. So make your life easier, as a person is walking up to you or before you pick up the phone, relax and smile. Yes, a smile can be felt across the phone, it comes across to the customer in the tone of your voice. Not really into it that day, well I am going to use the old cliché “fake ‘till you make it.”  Try it and let me know in the comments how much easier things go.