My Name Is Not Sir or Ma’am
By Terence Lee

Every product has its price. Every customer has a name.

It is not surprising many customer service and sales representatives still fail to acknowledge or recognize the warm body they are speaking to on the other end of the conversation. To be more precise, they fail to know the name of the customers or prospects.

Every customer service and sales professionals knows the importance and benefits of rapport building, but there are many who still perceive the effort of enquiring names as unnecessary. Otherwise, it is amongst the last ‘task’ on the checklist.

Is it really difficult to acquire the name of your customers? “Customers do not mind telling their name to us if it helps us to serve them better,” a Customer Service Representative once expressed. “Amidst the excitement to sell a product to a prospect, we tend to skip the name issue to save time,” confessed a sales person.

On the onset, we do not enquire or perhaps we forget, as it is neither a practice nor a requirement. Here are useful tips we all may find beneficial:

Ask for it politely
Firstly, we give before we receive. We should introduce ourselves prior asking the person on the other end to furnish us their name. Everyone in an organization should practice a standard greeting. This helps to build rapport.

Get it correct
There is no bigger blunder in getting a customer’s name than getting it wrong. Confirm both the pronunciation and spelling. This will also demonstrate we are interested to know the customer, personally.

Use it frequently
Once we have it, we should be using it. That is the initial purpose we asked for it. We may use the customer’s name to acquire attention during a conversation. Using the customer’s name frequently will also assist us in remembering them.

Ultimately, as customer, we love to hear our own name being uttered. It commands favorable attention from us every time we hear our name being called. Most of all, we love to be remembered, by our name.

Last updated - 30 September 2004