How To Wow Customer Service: 5 Techniques to Build Confidence

Published on: Fri 27 March 2015 by Admin

5 Techniques to Build Confidence

Further to Blog No1. in the How to Wow Customer Service series: Build a ‘Me Brand’; Build Confidence it seemed timely to offer a few extra pointers and techniques to build confidence, thinking about it for a moment from a more personal perspective rather than a business one.

Confidence is one of those things that can often seem only a few steps away, yet taking those steps isn’t always so easy! But finding ways to improve self-confidence is crucial to so many aspects of your personal and professional life. Here are a few suggestions on confidence building techniques that are worth trying:

  1. Become aware of your inner dialogue

Nothing is quicker at destroying confidence than negative self-talk. This can start as a whisper, the odd thought that skates across the mind. If left unchecked, it can result in a complete downward spiral to the point that the individual feels they cannot do anything right. Inner dialogue is often driven by looking too often to the past and thinking about what didn’t go right. Or too much of looking to the future and worrying about what might happen.

We can do much to help ourselves by keeping our thoughts in the present. We can only learn from the past, we cannot change it. And the future, why worry about something that may not ever happen anyway! The Power of Now is an excellent book to help understand this better.

  1. Create a personal positive statement

Unconfident people often dwell on the few tiny things they are not so hot on and forget all about the talents, or skills they do have. So make a list of the things you are good at, be as realistic as possible, and include everything you can think of including skills, achievements, experiences and interests.

Then prepare a statement, weaving in the things you feel are your strongest points and build an affirmative picture of yourself. When ready, read it out aloud to yourself, repeating it daily. (I know it might sound silly, but trust me this is a technique that can really work!)

  1. Train the brain with visualisation techniques

Once you have created a more positive self-image, then start to visualise yourself as a confident individual. You can do this by sitting relaxed and visualising yourself walking with your shoulders back, head up, with good eye contact, having conversations with customers or colleagues. Try this once a day to reinforce the message. There is a lot of evidence that visualisation techniques work; they are definitely worth experimenting with.

  1. Don’t compare yourself to others

Everyone is unique. When we compare ourselves with other people, we are comparing how we feel on the inside, with how other people appear on the outside. For all you know they might be following these same, or other similar techniques for improving confidence!

Be you and be proud of being you!

  1. Surround yourself with positive people

Every time your mind goes into downward spiral, or you find yourself being negative about yourself, remember you are in full control to bring yourself back on track with reaffirming positive messages. However, this can be tough if you have negative, criticising, or overpowering people surrounding you.

Make a conscious effort to surround yourself with the types of people that reaffirm the happy, confident person that you want to be. However, in reality there will always be family members or colleagues, for example, that you just can’t avoid. In this case, Transactional Analysis might be a good theory to read about in order to learn more about behaviours and how best to respond.

There are so many more techniques to build confidence but I will leave it there for now. Please share other tried and tested approaches in the comments section below.

Remember: believe in yourself; believe in your ability to succeed.