Podcast 12: Interview on How Everyone Has a Customer-Service Job

The soft skill of customer service is often misunderstood. Serious
Soft Skills Cohost Bob Graham interviews Neal Woodson, a customer
service expert, in the first part of a two-part interview on the
topic.
Neal's view is that customer service is the most important aspect
of what organizations provide, and it ultimately is what is
necessary to find any success.
Introduction
Dr. Tobin Porterfield (‘0:21'): Welcome to Episode 12 of Serious
Soft Skills. I am your host, Dr. Tobin Porterfield. Today we will
have the first of a two-part interview, where my cohost, the sultan
of soft skills, Bob Graham, talks to Neal Woodson about how he
develops soft skills related to customer service. Neal has 35 years
of experience across a range of environments, including 19 years in
the event technology industry. Neal currently serves as director of
service excellence for PSAV, where he helps management and
line-level team members collaborate in driving service excellence
by analyzing customer experience, coaching the development of
actionable strategies, and creating education and training
techniques that ensure consistent delivery.
Soft Skills at Core of Customer Service
Bob Graham (‘1:11'): It's great to be here with Neal Woodson. I am
really looking forward to the discussion….I hope for our listeners
and our viewers that the weather is good for them. Let's get right
to it.
Graham (‘1:29'): You are an expert on customer service. Beyond
being a great golfer and great friend, and I want to talk today
with you about soft skills and how they apply to customer service
because believe it or not customer or client focus is one of the
soft skills we uncovered in our research. You're someone who really
spends your days working on it. Give us an overview of what it
means.
 
Neal Woodson (‘2:01'): As far as customer service, I don't know if
I am an expert, but it is something I work with all day every day.
It's always on my mind. I don't like that term “soft skills.” I
know that is a popular phrase. I prefer to say they are any number
of things: social skills, collaborative skills. That doesn't even
cover it all, obviously.
Soft skills have gotten shunted to a second-class citizenship. They
have been pushed to the back of the bus.
Importance of Customer Service
Woodson (‘2:57'}: I don't think people realize how important they
are. I deal with business and how business works with customers.
Everybody thinks that soft skills are what customer service people
do. it's not really necessary for what anyone else does in the
business. So when it comes to like a soft skills training, they
will send all of their customer service people or call center
people to soft skills training. one of the things we forget about
in business is that everybody in business deals with somebody. You
deal with people no matter what. In my role, you would think that
all I deal with is customer-facing folks. That's not true. I'm a
big believer that what we do all throughout a business affects the
customer. In other words, the way the CEO operates and the manager
treat the workers — all of that affects how the company treats the
customer. The best way I can put that is that if you are a parent
and you come home every day and you scream and yell at your kids.
Would it be any surprise to you at all to see your kids screaming
and yelling at other kids?
What we do with others inside the house impacts what we do outside
the house.
Need to Keep Improving Soft Skills
Woodson {‘4:26'}: To me, it's crucial that everybody in an
organization works on continuously improves their soft skills. How
does my job role connect to the end user customer. Say you're in
accounts payable. You say that your job doesn't connect with
custome...

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