Eight reasons why Coaching Customer Service isn’t like other Customer Service

I’ve been coaching business owners and just plain individuals for almost 8 years through my business, Nead Inspiration. It’s been an interesting year of coaching, one that has pushed me to grow, change and develop my coaching and speaking content and style. I’ve always said I attract a “spunky” type of client, people who have big dreams, bigger egos and the biggest dreams. No matter what the struggle, the opportunity to connect, to be part of someone’s success story is absolutely worth every minute.

As we come up on the Super Bowl of self-improvement at the first of the year, I wanted to offer you a few tips on what you should be looking for with COACHING Customer Service and why COACHING Customer Service isn’t like the other customer service you enjoy (or not) every day.

Coaching Customer Service Tip #1: Your coach should not be a “1-stop shop”.

I get it. You go to a full-service grocery store, for instance and you can purchase everything but BREAD, you aren’t going to be a happy customer.  It’s a big, fat fail to have to go somewhere else. A lingerie store without every kind of bra possible is truly a disappointment.

If a good coach tells you they have everything you could want for anything you need, run like the wind. Good coaches can provide you with strategies to raise your performance and awareness in specific areas in your life. They should proudly claim expertise in part of the process of the big beautiful thing we call life. And, if they provide you with the service you deserve, you will be encouraged to make those strategies your own and even make them better. In fact, you should be showing them things they may have never seen and they will respond with excitement, wanting to learn more and incorporating the good stuff into their work.

Coaching Customer Service Tip #2:  Your coach shouldn’t want to be your last coach or your only coach.

If you have ever had the privilege of going to an Apple Store, you know they want you

to stick with their product forever. You will be hard pressed to hear an Apple representative offer you a product from another provider. Being the best in technology means you embrace specific products with cult-like insistency.

Not the same with coaching. I encourage you to switch coaches. Have more than one coach. Whatever you do, don’t put that coach on a pedestal and follow them around like the runners who followed Forrest Gump in his run across the country. When you find another coach, don’t tear down your experience with the previous coach. Good coaching experiences are about the opportunity and timing of your season. You didn’t have one teacher for Kindergarten through your PhD, and you shouldn’t have one coach either.

Coaching Customer Service Tip #3: Your coach shouldn’t bargain with you.

The first step of coaching should be the payment. A good, strong coach will not negotiate with you about their contract or their payment cycle. They will be priced to attract individuals who want to invest in themselves at that level. Trust me, haggling doesn’t belong in the first steps of life-change. Accept your coach’s work has a value, and believe he or she will provide amazing options for you to grow and play. If they are right for you, they will provide alternatives that work for your needs. And, if this moment is the right moment, you will make space financially to accept the opportunity. Besides, you don’t want someone who breaks their word to themselves or you.

Coaching Customer Service Tip #4. Your coach should NOT agree with you all the time.

We’ve all heard what has to be the most famous customer service quote ever; “the customer is always right”. Before I worked as a coach and speaker, I was employed in the financial services industry as a customer service manager. Good customer service involved never blaming the customer, rarely disagreeing with their take on their circumstances, and never, ever making them angry.

An awesome coach should be trying to get to you, to push past your barriers and protective layers to get under your skin, to truly understand you and challenge you. If you want agreement, find a friend. Coaches are for challenges and growth. Your coach should be showing you what you can do differently, not tiptoeing around you hoping you don’t get mad.

Coaching Customer Service Tip #5. Your coach should not be following up with you (more than you, anyway).

I truly believe it is a shame when your financial planner takes your money and doesn’t follow up with you. I think it’s charming when the place you shop for fancy clothes reaches out to you with the super-special VIP to give you a good deal. You bought a product, and if they want you to buy more products, they had better follow up.

When you signed on for a coaching agreement with your coach, you purchased a relationship, a connection that should be designed to build your skills and beliefs in those skills. A good coach will do this by helping you create new ways to think about the situations you face, guiding you to keep your word to yourself (most important person in my humble opinion) and challenging you to new situations that will reflect your magnificent capacity. While most coaches engage in some followup, they should be encouraging you to take the wheel of your own life- and take responsibility for what you want to change. When it’s your thing, it sticks.

Coaching Customer Service Tip #6.  Your coach does not have to be the most popular and should not be the best liked.

I do not believe there is a being that has walked this earth besides the Son of God that can guarantee results every time. If your coach is pursuing excellence, you will see a healthy number of people who don’t make it to the finish line. Coaching is not solely about the end game, but rather about elevating humans to reach just a bit more of their potential. Last time I checked, we live in a culture that made a size 8, a 6 and a size 6, a 4 so that we didn’t have to face we are getting just a little bigger every year. Remember, the truth is not always our favorite.

Good coaches are good FOR YOU. You get them. They get you. You somehow speak the same language. You are willing to trust they know what they are doing. You can see your best self through their vision.

Coaching Customer Service Tip #7. Your coach should be helping you fail, regularly.

Most people don’t think failing is part of customer service. No one wants to look like a failure, particularly in the western world. You will never see a weight loss company use the still-overweight people who realized losing weight was never the point. They show the super skinny people who were genetically and emotionally pre-disposed to succeeding on their plan with a little post-note at the bottom that this person is not an indication that you will have the same success. I would like to think we all learn through our successes. You win at losing weight or getting a promotion or being married and this bit of good fortune helps you see the wild and amazing vision of your best future. Usually what happens is you enjoy your success, get comfortable with your new normal and hang on to it for dear life.

True confidence is built when you fall, dust yourself off, and realize the world didn’t end. The winners understand failure (not achieving what you hoped at that moment) is part of the learning process. What NOT to do is as important as what to do. Your coach should ask you to do things that create resistance (I’m confused, I’m overwhelmed, I’m afraid) so you can build strength and a realization of your personal power.

Coaching Customer Service Tip #8. Your coach should be failing regularly too.

You show me a coach who has arrived and I will show you a complete and total fraud. The concept of coaching is that it is a learning process that will never end. Coaches shouldn’t provide all the answers, they should be experts in learning the lessons of the moment. Don’t watch for typos and imperfectly packaged products. Watch for a coach who craves feedback, who learns as much from you as you do from them, and is ready to grow and change with each challenge.

Just One More Note: Where Coaching Customer Service is really like other Customer Service.

I believe your coach should genuinely care about your life. Your awesome coach should be engaged truly proud of your outcomes. Your fantastic coach should not have to be reminded of the important details of your life. Your coach should miss you when you haven’t talked for a while. Your coach should be willing to go the extra mile, go over the allotted time once in a while and be more interested in making you better than taking your money.  Your coach should expect positive results from the work you do together.

Of course, since humans are the only coaches available, there isn’t any way you will find a PERFECT COACH. But this moment might be the PERFECT TIME for you to have a coach. Happy New Year!