When we speak, our message is heard this way:
Words make up 7% of our message
Voice makes up 38% of our message
Body Language makes up a whopping 55% of our message!

Often, we send out mixed messages between what our words are saying and what our body is saying. And that's confusing to our customers.

Here are some basic points to remember about using body language.

1. Your face reflects your mood – avoiding eye contact, smiling with only your mouth, turning your mouth down, frowning – these are all negative clues and will never match a positive message
2. Your posture reflects your mood – we show confidence by standing tall, with a bounce in our step; slumping, dragging our feet reflects shows our message as negative
3. Your tone of voice reflects your mood – an animated, moderately-paced, well modulated tone of voice is positive; a dull mumbled monotone is negative
4. Your hands – wringing, clasping, unclasping, fidgeting – all these hand movements are negative.
5. Your handshake – it needs to be firm, not limp, to give a positive spin to your words
6. Your mannerisms --playing with your hair, biting your lips, tapping your feet, drumming your fingers – all these mannerisms send a message of distraction.

Think about these specific body language movements the next time you're sending a message:

1. Hands on hips – aggression
2. Sitting with your legs apart – open and relaxed
3. Arms crossed on chest – defensiveness
4. Open palms – sincerity, openness, innocence
5. Tapping fingers, feet – impatience
6. Brisk, erect walk – confidence
7. Sitting with legs crossed, foot kicking slightly – boredom
8. Hand to cheek – evaluating, thinking
9. Hands behind back – frustration, apprehension, anger
10. Head resting on hands – boredom

If our customer is fluent in body language, she'll be easily able to tell if we're lying by observing the following clues:

1. Stiff and limited movements which take up less personal space
2. Avoiding eye contact, looking in several different places
3. Timing and duration of emotional gestures is delayed, stops suddenly, doesn't match your words
4. Expressions are limited to mouth movements rather than covering the whole face
5. Turning your head sideways from your customer- it indicates that you're uncomfortable facing him
6. Putting objects like coffee cups or books between you and your customer
7. Statements with a contraction ('I didn't do it', instead of 'I did not do it') often indicate lying
8. Grammar and syntax, monotonous tone, garbled words, soft volume of voice
9. Even using humour or sarcasm to avoid a subject

The good news is that there's a wonderful trick to putting a very positive spin on body language.

It's called 'mirroring', it creates tremendous rapport between you and your customer, it makes you much more attractive to your customer and it solidifies the perception your customer has of your credibility.

Mirroring is done by matching, mirroring, your customer's own body language.

1. Match their breathing pattern – in and out at the same pace
2. Match their posture – whether sitting or standing
3. Match their gesture and movements – tilted head, hand movements
4. Match their voice patterns – speed, volume, tone, even the size of words they use

Mirroring works on a subconscious level. The person we're speaking with perceives that because our body language matches theirs, then we are just like them. And we all like to be with people who are similar, like we are.

Mirroring is a great technique to convince your customer that you're really like she is, that you're totally listening to her, that she's the most important person in your world right now.

Like all great customer service, it's that simple.