January 20, 2020

How a service mistake can turn into to a colossal service delight

Source: Pexels

How a service mistake can turn into to a colossal service delight.

An astonishing source of customer amazement — and customer loyalty — is how service breakdowns are handled.

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.

The solution to these missteps is called service recovery and it’s formula is simple:

Service recovery = fix the screw-up and do the unexpected.

Let’s face it when you screw a customer over, they expect you to fix it. But they’re not particularly blown away 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.

The rule of recovery: fix the mistake fast and then blow the customer away by surprising them with something they don’t expect.

If your goal is merely to satisfy a customer, you may be content with having a fix it capability that is incredibly efficient. But if you want to create the ability to consistently build customer loyalty and earn their lifelong trust you need to go further.

You need to move from a positive response to ‘Were you satisfied with what we did to fix our service screw up?’ to ‘Did we blow you away with what we did to recover from our mistake?’

The surprise factor

If you choose the path of wanting to delight your customers and create memorable service experiences for them, you need to understand that the source of of an amazing experience is doing what the customer doesn’t expect.

The challenge, therefore is to discover exactly what that little bit extra is and for them to do it in a way that makes their eyes bulge out with amazement.

And the key is that the surprise act must 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’s not about coming up with a boilerplate trash-and-trinket program that provides the same bland response to every customer — you’re wasting your money.
The surprise must have personal meaning to the customer otherwise it will be ineffective — in fact could make matters worse!

The surprise must also be extremely compelling to the customer; it must be a high priority with them if you want to impress them.
This is the emotional component of recovery. A compelling act will stir the emotions and make the customer believe you actually care about them.

Customer secrets and speed

The successful surprise requires that you need to understand what makes the person screwed over tick; what turns them on and what action on your part would most likely trigger an emphatic emotional response. You need to know their secrets — reread the ‘How to build an amazing marketing machine’.

You can be relevant and compelling in your recovery act, but if you take a week to get it done, forget it. Your investment will be worthless.
Studies have found that you have about 24 hours to get it done; after that, the ability to capitalize on the screwup and build stronger customer loyalty goes down the tube.

If you make a mistake and recover in a dazzling way, the customer is more loyal to the organization than they were prior to the screw up.

If recovery is such a critical element in building customer loyalty, why are there very few organizations that have a recovery service strategy? I suspect it’s because no one likes to admit that they will have a service OOPS! from time to time; they pride themselves on trying to get it right the first time.

But if you know that mistakes will happen from time to time — and they will — and that there is tremendous strategic value in recovering well — and there is — why wouldn’t you have a plan on the actions to take when the event happens?

In my past role as Business Services VP with a major telecommunications company, one of the elements of our service strategy was: ‘If we fail, Recovery will be our #1 priority’.

We had a specific recovery plan that, for each customer segment, provided the range of recovery actions that could be considered to respond to an OOPS! and the level of recovery investment necessary given the value customers represented to the company — the higher the value, the more robust the recovery actions requiring greater investments.

And substantial training was given to all employees to ensure they understood the power of the strategy and what to do when a screwup occurred.

5 key takeaways

▪️Recovery = fix it and do the unexpected.
▪️Do something personal; make it relevant and compelling.
▪️Know your customers’ secrets.
▪️Execute the recovery process in less than 24 hours.
▪️Build a detailed recovery strategy.

Cheers
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 1.20.20 at 12:29 am by Roy Osing
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January 16, 2020

Stand Alone: Why “Belonging” Is a Really Preposterous Notion

Stand Alone: Why “Belonging” Is a Really Preposterous Notion

Let’s get real for a second. 😏

We’ve all heard it: “Find your tribe,” “Belonging is everything,” “You just need to find your people.”

Well, here’s a hot take—belonging is absolute nonsense. 🙄

Seriously, who came up with this idea that we all need to fit neatly into some pre-packaged box of like-minded souls?

It’s exhausting.

The pressure to belong is like trying to shove a square peg into a round hole while someone yells, “Just be yourself!”

Yeah, right. Be yourself… but also, make sure that self is acceptable to everyone else.

How convenient.

Let’s talk about “finding your tribe.”

Sounds magical 🧙, doesn’t it?

Like there’s some secret society out there waiting to welcome you with open arms.

In reality, it’s more like awkward small talk at a networking event where everyone is pretending to care about each other’s hobbies.

Spoiler alert: most people are just as lost as you are.

They’re just better at faking it.

And don’t even get me started on the whole “community” obsession.

We’re told that being part of something bigger gives our lives meaning.

But honestly, sometimes the most meaningful moments happen when you’re alone, eating cereal straight from the box at 2 AM, with zero judgment.

That’s freedom.

That’s authenticity.

Not some forced group hug with people you barely tolerate.

The truth is—the crowd doesn’t lift you up. It drags you down.

Conformity is a creativity killer.

Standing Alone? That’s where the magic happens. 💥

You don’t need to belong anywhere.

You just need to belong to yourself.

Stop trying to mold yourself into what others want.

Embrace your weird, your quirks, your glorious mess.

The right people—if they’re even out there—will stick around precisely because you’re not trying to fit in.

So next time someone tells you to “find your people,” tell them you’re too busy being your own person.

Belonging is overrated.

Being unapologetically you?

Now that’s how you stand out. 🔥

Subscribe to my blog for more uncomfortable truths (and less comfortable lies).

Cheers,
Roy
My Podcast Show Audacious Moves to A BILLION shares the specific Moves I made to achieve jaw-dropping growth in an insanely competitive internet business.

”The Audacious Unheard of Ways I Took a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES” is the latest in my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series.

• Posted 1.16.20 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
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January 13, 2020

Why business process change should come before spending more money

Why business process change should come before spending more money.

Politicians are the most egregious offenders of believing a problem can be solved by simply throwing more money at it.

Their strategy is to capture the hearts of voters by promising to throw billions at a problem they feel is important. If the number one voter priority is health care, for example, the candidate-in-waiting promises to double spending on it as the solution.
Obviously, if you double down on health care spending you’re going to make epic improvements, right?

Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.

Most difficult problems can rarely be solved by more spending; they’re systemic issues at play that need to be fixed before deciding how much resource to apply.

Throwing $250 billion at health care for example, without changing the way it is practiced and delivered, won’t solve the essential problems.
Nor will doubling the annual budget on billing eradicate the errors made on customers’ bills — in fact it will only multiply the number of mistakes made.

Rewarding ineffectiveness with additional resources is crazy — may as well put your money into a boat.

And the craziness isn’t limited to the world of politics; most organizations have a tough time avoiding the trap of trying to spend their way out of a problem.

Rather than creating a new system for some reason some people think that increasing intensity or muscle power will somehow make things right.

It won’t.

A current system that doesn’t deliver what is expected must be replaced with one that does and should never be the recipient of lavish spending.

Re-creation, rather than making incremental changes to an existing system, is vital and is the only real solution when it comes to problems that have persisted for many years.

The process involves these seven steps.

1. Dedicate ONE person to be accountable

System problems are not solved by committee; there must be single finger accountability assigned and it should be to a senior leader in the organization who has a reputation of getting tough things done.

Far too often a mid-level process or systems manager is charged with the role of making the required changes and they fail because they don’t have the influence and currency in the organization that’s needed to sell the change to all the people with a vested interest in not seeing any change through.

2. Ask the customer how THEY want it to look

What? What do they know about systems re-engineering; about what an efficient system looks like?

Well, they may not have specific academic credentials, but they definitely know how they want to be engaged with an organization.

THEY know how the systems should “feel” so if you care about making it easy to engage with customers, listen up.
Informal focus groups are great ways to get input to help shape your approach to reinventing systems and processes.

Ask the customer how they want to be treated and follow their answer — keep the systems analysts away until you have squeezed out all the customer advice that you can.

3. Define the desired outcomes

What does “perfection” look like in terms of the results that the system must produce? Define the key outputs — a hip surgery in 2 weeks; a product delivery in 24 hours; same day service repair.

Start anew and build the system with no preconceived notions that come from the way things are currently done.

And be cautious about benchmarking best in class and copying their solution to the problem you are experiencing.

Whereas their approach might have some applicability and thus redeeming value, make sure you are responding to what your customers are telling you and not a best practise that worked for someone else.

4. Flow chart it in a simple form

What is needed is an extremely dumbed down version of the new system; simple is good, simpler is better.

And the main criteria to follow is to minimize the number of handoffs as possible.

Obviously, the greater the number of handoffs, the greater the likelihood that mistakes will happen and desired outcomes jeopardized.
Systems experts sometimes overly complicate their work, so be prepared to hold them back.

5. Examine how components of the current system could play into the new one

Even though you are starting with a clean slate and building something new, look to salvage pieces of the existing system(s) that can be integrated and not lose sight of what your customer wants.

Where you can avoid reinventing the wheel do it. But be careful to not be guided by the way things are currently done; replicating components of the current system that may not be particularly effective wont solve your overall problem.

6. Create a ‘straw dog’ version of the new system

Synthesize the brand new elements you have created for the new system with the keeper elements of the current one to produce a draft version of the new system.

Rigorously evaluate what you have created. Beat it up and try to expose weaknesses using customer input and the desired outcomes as criteria.
If the customer satisfaction criteria is less than 10/10, go back to the drawing board to make system revisions until it’s 100% perfect.

7. Get customer approval

Finally, when you think you’ve got it right, take the new system back first to your frontline teams and to the customer for their sign-off and approval.

How many organizations would even think to get customer acceptance? Right. Very few if any.

Internal stakeholders are usually consulted as the system acceptors and are expected to speak on behalf of customers, and whereas they might have a useful opinion on whether customer expectations would be satisfied by the new design, there is only one way to know for sure.

Engage them in the decision making process and ask them point blank if they approve the work; if it’s a “NO!” go back and revise it again.

Systems that don’t work should never be candidates for additional funding, they should be put on the chopping block and axed in favour of new vibrant approaches with a heavy dose of customer input and control of the outcome.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 1.13.20 at 04:09 am by Roy Osing
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January 6, 2020

Wacky Wednesday: Why Customer “Cravings” Are Better Than “Needs”

Wacky Wednesday: Why Customer “Cravings” Are Better Than “Needs”

Meeting customer “needs” is an out-of-date business notion.

Satisfying expectations? Yawn. 🥱

That’s like serving plain toast when everyone is craving a Eggs 🥚 Benny with chipotle.

Needs are table stakes.

Cravings? That’s where the magic happens.

A Craving isn’t logical—it’s emotional.

It’s that deep, sometimes irrational desire people lust after, covet, and absolutely must have.

It’s the feeling that turns “maybe someday” into “take my money now.” 💸❤️

Think about it. Nobody needs a limited-edition sneaker that glows in the dark.

But oh, do some people crave it.

Nobody needs a coffee delivered by drone in under seven minutes. But when they’re running late and stressed? They’ll pay triple for that kind of magic. ☕🚁

While your competitors are stuck in the muddy trenches of price wars and feature comparisons, you could be soaring in the wide-open blue sky of Crave Marketing.

This space has virtually no competition because most businesses are still playing checkers while you could be playing 4D emotional chess. ♟️🌌

Craving-driven customers aren’t price-sensitive.

They’re experience-sensitive, status-sensitive, FOMO-sensitive.

They don’t buy products—they buy feelings.

They buy identity. They buy stories. 📖✨

So how do you tap into Cravings?
💥Listen beyond what people say.
💥Watch what they do.
💥What gets them excited?
💥What do they brag about?
💥What keeps them scrolling, clicking, dreaming?

That’s your goldmine. ⛏️💎

Forget selling solutions. Start selling desires.

Be the brand that doesn’t just fill a gap—it lights a fire. 🔥

Your move, innovators.

The Craving economy is waiting.

Will you play?

Happy Wacky Wednesday. Go make them crave you. 😏🍋

If you’re tired of the coddling and crave more unfiltered takes, subscribe for weekly doses of uncomfortable truths.

Cheers,
Roy
My Podcast Show Audacious Moves to A BILLION shares the specific Moves I made to achieve jaw-dropping growth in an insanely competitive internet business.

”The Audacious Unheard of Ways I Took a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES” is the latest in my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series.

• Posted 1.6.20 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink