Your Critical Soft Skills CRM

The Gift of GAB (Goals, Attitude, Behavior)

CRM and critical soft skills might seem paradoxical but stay with me. Saleforce defines CRM (Customer Relationship Management) as a system that “allows businesses to manage business relationships and the data and information associated with them.” 

When people refer to CRM it generates visions of sometimes complicated software to help you keep track of your customers and your interaction with them. 

CRM as a software is important but I would posit that CRM as “Soft Skills” can have just as big an impact on your business as any expensive software, software, that – let’s be honest – you generally have to shoehorn your business processes around. 

The Gift of GAB (Goals, Attitude, Behavior)

The CRM that can enhance critical soft skills is based around the Gift of GAB. Now, it might not surprise you that a Chicago based motivational business speaker refers to the Gift of GAB, but in this case I’m not speaking about my fellow Irish colleagues ability to spew out voluminous torrents of words without pausing for breath! 

No, here GAB is an acronym for Goals, Attitude, Behavior which should be of interest to all business owners and employers. I suggest to my audiences that implementation of a program around this Gift of GAB will improve employee engagement which will result in a better and more fulfilling customer experience. 

Let’s briefly look at how critical soft skills based around Goals, Attitude, Behavior can be in creating a great Brand Experience. 

Goals and Vision

To create a great customer experience, you need to know what that great customer experience will look like. In my experience not every business owner or leader can clearly and immediately articulate that. And even when the leadership can visualize what a great customer experience looks like, not everyone in the organization does. 

So step I to world class Customer Relationship Management is to ask yourself / leadership and your team ‘What do we want to be famous for?” 

In other words, what is it we want customers to say about our product, our service after they have dealt with us. Once you and your team are clear on this Goal and Vision, you can then set about implementing it and making sure you do it by implementing concept II in the Gift of GAB – Attitude 

Attitude

What do I want my Attitude to be? 

When things go wrong, it is natural to be upset and frustrated. However, if you wish to create that great customer relationship, you can’t be frustrated and annoyed when dealing with someone who want to pay you for your services. 

The best way to address frustration and disappointment is to ask yourself “What do I want my Attitude to be?” It is a powerful question what will help create better Customer Relationship Management.  

Let’s assume the morning has not gone well. A vendor has let you down for a critical component and just before you go into an important sales call, you hear news that a major client is switching to a competitor. It’s tough to have the right Attitude at this stage as you walk into your next meeting. 

However, if you ask yourself the question, “What do I WANT my Attitude to be, you are not going to say, “I want to be angry, I want to be frustrated, I want to be annoyed.” 

No, when you ask yourself the very powerful and introspective question “What do I WANT my Attitude to be?” you are much more likely to say “I don’t want to be frustrated and annoyed and I do want to get something positive out of this next meeting. I want my Attitude to be upbeat, positive and a major benefit in building that enhanced Customer Relationship Management.” 

Behavior Creates Brand

Your Behavior Creates your Brand. 

The final element of the Gift of GAB as a CRM tool is appreciating that your Behavior creates your Brand. Your Behavior determines what customers think about you and what customers think about you is your Brand. 

The exercise that will help you here is to think about the THREE WORDS you would like customers to say about your business and their experience with you and your staff. What are the three attributes you would like them to reference when lauding your business to their friends. As with the question “What do we want to be famous for?” this is not just an exercise for leadership but for every single person in the organization.  

The Gift of GAB will create world class Customer Relationship Management when: 

Each person has a clear Goal and Vision as to what the customer experience should be; 

Appreciates what the right Attitude should be and the question that can elicit that Attitude and finally: 

Everyone understands that your Brand is not what your ads say, your Brand is what customers say about you and that Brand is determined by the Behavior of you and your team. 

For more on this topic see Employee Engagement Tips and the Power of Micro-Goals

For more Employee Engagement Tips to help you grow business and employee morale See Employee Engagement Tips and Micro-Goals

See Also: Best Employee Engagement Speakers

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