"Nice Business!" Podcast

This Is a Leadership Problem - The Fix Comes From the Top

• Richard Train • Season 1 • Episode 22

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0:00 | 11:39

A business can answer every question correctly, move calls quickly, and still lose the customer without ever realizing why.

 In this episode of the “Nice Business!” Podcast™, hosts Richard Train and Jim Bob Howard unpack what’s really happening on the other end of a customer call and why most businesses are measuring the wrong things. While many teams focus on speed, efficiency, and call resolution, this conversation reveals how those metrics can quietly undermine trust and drive customers away.

Drawing from real-world experience, they break down how even “successful” calls can fail when they become transactional. From rushed responses to distracted tone, small moments can signal to a caller that they don’t matter. The conversation also highlights why frustrated callers are often easier to help, and why the calm, polite ones may already be quietly deciding against you.

This episode challenges business owners, leaders, and customer-facing teams to rethink how they define success on a call. It is a clear reminder that accuracy alone is not enough, listening is a skill that must be developed, and that the way a customer feels in a conversation will always matter more than how quickly it ends.

Topics Covered:

 00:00 – Episode snippet

 00:19 – Welcome to the “Nice Business!” Podcast™

 00:50 – Understanding why customers call

 02:33 – Two unspoken customer questions

 03:22 – Why correct answers can still fail

 05:33 – You can fix facts, not feelings 

06:01 – Responding to frustration with empathy

07:22 – The challenge of “polite but undecided” callers

08:36 – Simple rapport signals value and trust 

10:24 – Why call metrics can be misleading

11:09 – Closing

About Your Hosts: 

Richard Train is a Leadership Coach, Culture Consultant, and the Creator of the “Nice Business!” PodcastTM. He has spent more than 30 years helping leaders uncover the real issues behind performance, often the hidden “drama problems” that do not always show up in the numbers.

Connect with Richard Train:

Jim Bob Howard is a speaker, author, connector, and collaboration expert specializing in SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, and Microsoft 365. He helps teams and organizations communicate clearly, collaborate effectively, and connect ideas to solve real business challenges. From teaching basic tech skills to leading global events, speaking to large audiences, and coaching teams, Jim Bob is passionate about using technology to bring people and ideas together.

Connect with Jim Bob Howard:

SPEAKER_00

These are false metrics. The frustrated caller is actually the easier takes to at least know something's wrong. This is a skill that needs a listen for meaning, not just requested. And it can be taught. And so that's an important thing that can be done to do it right. Welcome to the Night's Business Podcast. I'm your host, Richard Train, executive coach, leadership and culture consultant, and I'm joined by my good friend Jim Bob Howard, veteran technical consultant. Together we have more than 60 years combined of business and organizational experience. The purpose of this podcast is to have short but meaningful discussions about the people and culture side of business and how owners and executives can be both kind and successful.

SPEAKER_01

So last episode, talking about Answer Me, we talked about a couple of things. We talked about who's actually answering the calls and why the stakes have changed. But really where we start is the caller, right? Why is the caller calling in? So let's get inside their head a little bit. What is it that they're looking for?

SPEAKER_00

You know, the interesting thing about this is that the callers, ironically, never really say exactly what it is that they're what they're doing and what they mean. They're kind of testing. Because when you think about it, I mean, the examples that we gave before is that just for ourselves, that when most typical callers actually make the call, they've already done all their research. They already kind of know. So what they're doing now is they're just testing the waters because they're still kind of uncertain about whatever it is that they were looking up to figure out if they want to do business with you or your business. Right. Right. So they're not trying to start the process, they're trying to finish it. So they'll ask these questions, even if it's just, I'm just looking for a price. Yeah. But what they generally, these are asking for a price is one kind of a protective question. What they might mean is something more like, I'm not really sure if this is worth my investment. You and I will find a way to justify paying for something that we can justify, that we can that we agree with, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00

But if I'm calling a business and I'm asking a price, it's because I'm still uncertain. Right. So price may be the protective question. It could also be something else. But here's the thing there are two questions that everybody calling a business is looking to answer whether they realize it or not.

SPEAKER_01

What are those?

SPEAKER_00

And the two internal questions that everybody asks as a customer is something that I had an old sales trainer, one of my earliest sales trainers, back when I got right out of college. He would say, Everybody walks around with this invisible sign that says, Will you make me feel important? So that's the question number one. Will you make me feel important? And the second one is, will you be easy to do business with? And if I'm calling a business, those are two questions that are going to be answered in my gut. These are emotional questions, these are not logical questions. It's how are you going to make me feel? And whether I realize it or not, I'm going to answer these questions by how you treat me.

SPEAKER_01

So you could answer my informational questions correctly and not answer them directly. So how does that go wrong? So I call in, I ask for a price, you give me a price. How do we fail doing that?

SPEAKER_00

Um, do you remember? I know we had some conversation about this so much today with businesses trying to save costs, they have reduced their call centers. And so what happens is most people who are answering the phones, whether they are bona fide customer service or they are just people who are taking the call, they're doing other stuff too, right? So they have a lot of other things on their plate that they're managing, so especially if they're a medium or small-size business. So they have a lot of balls up in the air that they're juggling. And so a call is almost like an interruption. So if that person answers the phone and they're like, What do you want? What do you want? Then thanks for calling XYZ Company. Can I help you? Yeah, that comes across, doesn't it? So that's now you may ask me your question. I'm looking for a price, right? And I give you the price. And you say, okay, thanks. Gotcha. And then you hang up, yeah, and I feel like it was a good call. I answered your question, I was prompt. Yeah. And then you just disappeared. And you said thanks, so we must be good, right? You know, did I answer those two emotional questions positively or negatively?

SPEAKER_01

Probably negatively, at least on the at least on the whether or not I felt important and whether or not you're easy to do business with. I don't know. If I got an answer to my question really quickly, maybe, but did it really solve my problem? Probably not. Here's a way to look at it.

SPEAKER_00

If I gave you the wrong information as far as the answers to your question, I can recover from that. Because I can just correct it. Oh, I'm sorry, Jim Baba. I think I got the wrong bit of information. Let me correct that. But what I can't recover from is making you feel like you don't matter.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Yeah. Okay. So that's a bleak picture. Paint me a picture of how this actually works, how it should work the right way. What's different about it?

SPEAKER_00

So the frustrated caller is actually the easier case. You at least know something's wrong. Okay. So you call up, you're waiting on hold, and I get to you and answer, and I say, Hi, this is Richard. I can help you. And who am I speaking with, please? And you say, My name is Jim Bob, and I've been on hold for 11 minutes, and I'm just trying to find out the price of this particular widget. And if I don't say, I am so sorry for the amount of time that you were on hold, I apologize for that. And I can be quick. So you're asking about this particular widget. We have four different kinds of them. I would love to know a little bit more about how you intend to use it so I can give you the right information. Right. So I immediately changed. Now, this isn't a script. This is me just simply understanding what your needs are. Right. And I'm just asking, we're having a conversation, and I'm trying to do this fast. And I acknowledged your frustration for being on hold. So that made you feel important and it made you feel seen and hopefully easy to that you feel like this, I'm easy to do business with. So I mentioned that the frustrated caller is kind of the easier thing to deal with. The harder ones are when you have callers who seem fine.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You know, but they're quietly deciding against you. And things like I don't want to take up too much of your time, testing whether or not you have the time for them. I'm probably overthinking this, trying to figure out if you know if you're going to take them seriously or not. I'm just calling around, things like that. So none of these are throwaway lines. And that's kind of important to point out. These are invitations. So throwing these things out there to figure out how you can handle them. Whether they're doing this consciously or unconsciously, it's still an invitation to do a little bit of discovery, which is one of the five five parts of a call. This is a skill that needs to be learned, even no matter how new the customer service rep is or not. This is a skill. So you need to listen for meaning, not just for the question. And it can be taught. That's an important thing that can be done to do it.

SPEAKER_01

No, I like that. And I would say too, I mean, if I'm on a call and you know, I'm calling in to someplace and I'm not quite sure that I really feel like I'm valuable to them, or just that they're just trying to get through, you know, they they've got a certain number, you know, the number of calls they got to get through and it's got to be resolved in this amount of time and move on. I get the need for that from a practical standpoint. But again, when I call in, like if they're like, Well, how are you doing this evening? Is your day going okay? Those kinds of things, those are simple things to say, but they also build rapport a little bit, right? And so when you call in and you're asking, or when they call in and they're saying things like, I may be overthinking this, or I'm just calling around, or you know, I don't want to take up too much of your time. Like you said, great invitation to say, nope, that's what I'm here for. I'm here to make sure that you get the answers to your questions and that we make it easy for you to work with us. You know, you I think it's okay to say that type of thing, right? But that's but I feel like, okay, cool. It's like I don't feel like I have to hurry up and get off because somebody's waiting on the other line for them to get on to the next thing, get on to the next thing. That type of way of talking with a CSR. When you get that response back, do you feel like you matter? And this person's gonna be easy to do business with. And I guess I guess that's kind of what it comes down to to me. And we can talk about this further if you'd like, is what does it mean to be easy to do business with? Does it mean, oh, it's really easy for me to buy your product? Not necessarily. It may be easy for me to get the answers to my questions to see if your product is the right one. Because even if it's not, but you still help me figure that out, that's still a win, honestly.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and you may have earned a customer. So or kept one who was on the fence. So which is both very important distinctions. But here's the thing ultimately, the caller. Let me go back to something that you mentioned. You were talking about these call metrics as far as how much time you're spending on the call with people. These are metrics that many businesses focus on. Time to answer, time on the call. They're limited by how much time they're allowed. They get dinged if they allow too much time or have too much conversation with somebody. In my opinion, and in my experience, these are false metrics. Not false. These are unimportant uh metrics. These are all driven, uh, these are all there to drive costs down. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Nice Business Podcast. We hope you got some valuable information and inspiration. We're always looking for great stories that will help your business be more kind and successful. And if you know of one we should hear or someone that would be a great interview, please let us know. To contact me, click the link here to go to my website or use this QR code. I wish you a nice business.