April 28, 2009

Dazzle your Customers #2 - Recover from your Blunders

Rule #2 of the four step process to dazzle customers deals with how you respond to a service breakdown in your organization.

Typically service breakdowns include such things as a broken promise made to a customer, a product or service that doesn’t work the way the manual says it should, billing mistakes or service repairs that need to be redone because they weren’t completed right the first time. Section Four of my book considers ths topic in detail.

The formula for Recovery is: Service Recovery = Fix it and Do the Unexpected.

Lets face it when you make a service mistake, the customer expects you to fix it. They aren’t dazzled when you correct your error; they don’t say ‘WOW I can’t believe you actually remedied what you screwed up!’. This is where most companies fall short. They actually believe that by merely fixing their mistake the customer will be satisfied and their obligations will have been fulfilled. Well if you are only concerned with satisfying customers that may be true but if you want to dazzle them and earn their lifelong trust and loyalty you need to go further.

The dazzle factor is about doing what they DON’T expect. The challenge is to discover the extra action that will both surprise and delight the customer and blow them away . The dazzle act must first of all be relevant to the customer. Providing something extra for the customer that doesn’t resonate with their needs, wants and desires will leave them scratching their head. And it must be compelling. It must be a high priority with the customer to make them incredibly impressed that you would go to all that trouble. In this regard you really need to know your customer really well.

I talk in the Marketing Section of my book about Customer Secrets, and the need to go deep in your relationship with a customer to get to know them ‘intimately’. This is the major source of the do the unexpected actions intended to dazzle a customer in the service recovery process.

Oh and by the way, you don’t have forever to complete the Recovery process. Studies have found that you have about 24 hours to get it done; after that it turns into a de-dazzling event and customer loyalty goes down the tube. It is counterintuitive, but making a mistake and executing a dazzling recovery results in stronger customer loyalty than if the service breakdown never occurred at all! No, I don’t think it would be wise to make some strategic service errors so you have the opportunity to Recover and enhance loyalty. Since humans and machines are prone to error I think there will be sufficient opportunity to practise Recovery.

Last point: if Recovery is such a critical element in building customer loyalty, why are there very few organizations that have a Recovery Service Strategy? You can’t recover well by ad-hoc action. Recovery must be carefully thought out in terms of the customer group involved, the dazzle actions that should be taken and the level of recovery investment the company feels is necessary given the value of the customers they serve. The dazzle plan and the required investments should reflect the value of the various customer groups served; the higher the customer value, the more robust the Recovery actions and the higher investments that should be acceptable.

Do you have a good Recovery story? Share it with me.

Cheers, Roy Osing

Other blogs in this series
Hire Human Being Lovers
Kill Dumb Rules

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Posted 4.28.09 at 07:29 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 24, 2009

BE DiFFERENT Makeover for your organization

You don’t have unlimited bandwidth so here are a couple of BE DiFFERENT Practices that can get you going.

First, create the only statement for your organization that clearly states how you are different from your competitors. I call this the ultimate manifestation of BEING DiFFERENT and if you can craft the statement you are well on your way to separating yourself from the pack. It goes like this: ‘We are the only ones that…...’ and is a great opportunity for a team of people to do some revolutionary work.

Second, move your marketing efforts from a ‘product push’ approach to the BE DiFFERENT Practice of creating packaged value. Consider that you are in the value creation business as opposed to supplying a particular product or service. Value creation is a liberating notion for marketeers. It asks the question ‘What are the holistic ‘needs plus secrets’ of the chosen customer target group and then ‘How can we package a number of relevant and compelling value elements synergistically that satisfy the overall requirement identified?’ In the value creation context, a product or service suddenly becomes a value element that, when combined with other value elements produces value that is hard for anyone else to copy.

And it can be premium priced! The value package is the salvation to those who are trapped in the bundling world of price discounting. I am getting tired of seeing bundles built around the notion that the more you buy, the greater the discount applied. Price is intended to reflect value. The more the value the higher the price. Pretty simple, but generally not applied in the bundling world.

The BE DiFFERENT only statement and creating value packages for your chosen customers. Two ways to get you going to makeover your organization.
Check it out in my book

Cheers, Roy Osing

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Posted 4.24.09 at 06:55 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 20, 2009

Ford Choosing to BE DiFFERENT

I liked Ford’s advertisement in the National Post April 20, 2009. What a breath of fresh air considering the gloom and doom material one reads (and I blogged about in earlier posts) about the other North American Auto Companies.

The Ford ad is rather unique in that it openly declares that they have ‘Quality Equal to Honda and Toyota’. You don’t see that too often, but If the world class benchmark for automobile quality rests with these cars then I suppose Ford has reasoned that they need to at least claim they are at the same level. The truth is, however, they need to vault beyond ‘best in class’ to BE DiFFERENT, but at least they have taken a good first step.

I liked the value statements they used to try and position themselves as DiFFERENT. They talk about fuel efficient vehicles and hybrid capability and the application of digital technology to provide unique ‘smart’ features. But the piece that I particularly liked was what I would call an indirect use of the only statement claiming something that no other competitor could claim (the ultimate manifestation of uniqueness by the way is the ability to craft an only statement - see the BE DiFFERENT Strategic Imperative of my book).

Under the heading ‘The Safety Leader’ Ford states that they have:
- ‘More top safety ratings than any other automaker’
- ‘The most 5-star safety ratings from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’
- ‘The most top safety picks from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’

Not bad! A decent attempt by Ford to position themselves as truly unique along a value dimension that everyone can relate to.

Keep up the good work Ford; I wish you good luck.

Cheers, Roy Osing
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See my earlier blogs on General Motors

Introduction
Part 1
Part 2

Posted 4.20.09 at 05:56 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 18, 2009

BC Therapeutic Touch Network Looking to BE DiFFERENT

Recently I was asked to present some BE DiFFERENT ideas on how the BC Therapeutic Touch Network (BCTTN) could get some traction and grow its membership. The bottom line was that this group has not had all that much success attracting new members and keeping the ones they have.

What advice did I give them?

First, take a step back and renew their overall strategy since it was clear that the current direction wasn’t working.
Second, decide on a 24-month target for the number of members they wanted. It is critical to set your growth goals first and then develop a strategy to get them. Further, a 24-month time horizon will force the thinking around execution, the unforgotten hero of strategic planning.
Third, be real clear on who they wanted to serve. Choose a target group that enabled them to reach their member growth goals and one that was relatively easy to get at. Ease of access, in this case was related to geography (go after the Vancouver area as opposed to the entire Province) and groups already accepting the value of relaxation techniques (yoga teachers for example).
Fourth, define the value they intended to provide the chosen member group. Declining membership is the result of the perceived lack of value being offered; to turn the trend around it is essential that value be defined clearly and that it be compelling and relevant to the target group.
Value possibilities included:
- regular member practice sessions (to provide the opportunity to practice TT and get real-time feedback on their ‘performance’)
- networking conferences (to build relationships and share experiences)
- learning sessions (to enhance the TT knowledge base)
Fifth, adopt a member learning culture to continuously gather information on their members in order to both monitor the value they provide and create new value as they discover member secrets.

A tough road-map to follow for a volunteer-based group like this one with few resources at their disposal. Maybe I can help.
Cheers, Roy Osing

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Posted 4.18.09 at 05:48 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)