The Likeability Guy

The Essence of Likeability

August 21st, 2008 Posted in Creating Success, Likeability Factor

I have written numerous articles about the subject of Likeability and the many benefits of improving your Likeability Rating.  However, I have not yet broached probably the most important, the most difficult, but also the most rewarding aspect of Likeability.

The ability to maintain a stance that is somewhat conflicting with what your customer desires AND still have them walk away excited is one of the BEST barometers of Likeability!

Everyone that has ever been involved in any aspect of customer interaction has been in the situation where an upset or marginally angry customer has complained.  Often times, the situation escalates to the point of creating greater customer dissatisfaction because the person feeling the customer’s wrath adopts the conflicting attitude of that customer.

This approach solves nothing and benefits nobody.

Being Likeable is not about being passive and agreeable.  It is about the following:

• Expertise-Being an expert means that you know what you are talking about.  It does NOT mean that you THINK that you know what you are talking about.  There is a BIG difference.  Know your product, know your customer, and know yourself well enough so that you know what you don’t know.

• Confidence-Confidence will come from being an expert.  The more you know about something, the more confident you will be which will make your customers more confident in you.

• Conviction-Conviction is vastly underrated.  It is the ability to believe what you are saying beyond a shadow of a doubt.  If you show doubt in your message, customers will prey on that weakness and try to exploit it.  This is why Expertise is crucial and “knowing” what you don’t know.  All great leaders speak with conviction in their voice.

• Attitude-This refers to staying positive and optimistic during the ENTIRE communication exchange of the conflict.  Don’t sound condescending but rather hopeful of providing a beneficial solution.  The goal here is to try and take the customers attitude from negative to positive.  Bring them up to your level, don‘t allow yourself to be brought down to their level.

• Understanding-This is big.  The ability to understand what the customer is saying without agreeing with them.  Understanding is about listening and being receptive to the fact that the customer is upset about something; it is NOT about agreeing with their position. 

• Integrity-If a promise is made to a customer, it is paramount that promise is upheld…even if you should not have made the commitment in the first place.  Integrity is about upholding your commitments and the expectations that you set for the customer.  This includes commitments that you make that are beyond your normal scope of influence.  If you are not capable of certain actions, do not commit to them in the future just to make a sale or to create short term customer appeasement.

Everyone has heard the old adage of the “Customer is always right,” but it doesn’t always mesh with reality.   The saying needs to be modified to “The Customer always thinks they are right.”  

I don’t make the statement to demean the customer.  After all, we are ALL customers at some point or another.  I bring this up because it is real life and people need to have real strategies for real scenarios. 

Clearly this is a different dynamic.  In the real world, we know that miscommunications happen every single day.  The ability to handle those misunderstandings while maintaining your scope of ability within the parameters of your company philosophy is important.

This is where the 6 Key Likeability Skills come in to play. 

I recently listened to a “trainer” give a message on a subject similar to this.  His philosophy was basically to not budge and maintain the company line no matter what.  I can’t say I was surprised to hear this ridiculously unhelpful advice because some trainers receive the bulk of their income from company management not individuals.

Yes, that’s right.  If you polled an audience at any typical seminar and asked who paid for their ticket, most often it is the company that pays for its employees.  I only bring this up, because there are many so-called experts out there giving terrible advice that does not translate to any success in the real world.  They base their strategies not to really help anyone, but to maintain their income stream.

In sales, it is very common to hear salespeople make false promises, over commitments, and over exaggerate their products and services.  This is where your company may not be able to back you up, so you MUST make the right decision for the customer on your own.  Don’t promise anything if you can’t deliver it.   If you lose your Integrity then you have lost everything.

There are all sorts of reasons that many sales people over estimate or over promise things.  The essence of Likeability and future success in most scenarios lies in the ability to have a balance of the six traits that have been outlined.  When you can consistently overcome miscommunications with customers by taking them from angry back to being a raving fan, you have achieved the upper tier of Likeability.