Be Different or be dead

July 2, 2012

8 essential things to know to be original and authentic

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Want to be original in your business plan instead of a tired old copycat?

Here are some things you can do to begin your quest.

▪️ Choose weird customers to serve. Likely they will force you out of your comfort zone to try something outrageous.

▪️ Play the packaging game rather than sell individual products and services like everyone else. Add value elements to your basic product or service. Broaden your value proposition to reflect the more holistic desires of your customers.

▪️ Observe your competitors and go in the opposite direction. Masters of originality love to buck a trend — any trend — and break away with a surprising tactic.

▪️ Change the performance expectations of your marketing organization to focus on marketing solutions that create memorable experiences for customers. Shift away from a product emphasis and technology that drives them.

▪️ Find people who are naturals at serving others. This will enable better and faster execution of your strategy allowing you to out-hustle others in your markets and brand you as an amazing go to market player.

▪️ Recruit your top 10 customers to form your a Fan Advocate Panel. Engage with them every month. Ask them what their unsatisfied wants and desires are. Do whatever they say.

▪️ Look at what value you provide to your customers but don’t charge for. Could be training or free testing of new stuff. Define what you do. Brand it. Proactively market it.

▪️ Try stuff and fail actively. The only way to learn. It’s a mistake NOT to make mistakes. The more you try things the more likely you will be to land on something original and mind-blowing.

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

• Posted 7.2.12 at 10:40 am by Roy Osing
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June 28, 2012

Why ‘human being lovers’ are needed for amazing customer service

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Why ‘human being lovers’ are needed for amazing customer service.

Organizations that have a business plan and mission to delight their customers need to recruit people who like to deal with other people.

How can any organization provide amazing service if their people don’t like homo sapiens?

The most critical step if you want to amaze your customers is to hire people with the innate desire and ability to serve and please others

Why is it that we run into service people who obviously hate their job and would rather be taking inventory or working with technology rather than real people?

Why is it that frontline positions are filled with people who have a lot of seniority in an organization but basically don’t like working with other people?
Ever been in a restaurant and have been afraid that the server would either throw something at you or subject your underdone steak to the germ population residing on the floor of the kitchen?

First of all, there is no more important position in any organization that one that deals directly with the public.

These people should be called, as Tom Peters once called them, ‘Supreme Commanders’. They literally control all aspects of an organization that involve its brand: honesty, integrity, caring attitude, responsiveness and overall service quality.

In any call center operations, reps handle thousands of ‘moments of truth’ every single day! Do you think they could influence customer perception toward the company and subsequent decisions to buy a product or service?. No question.

Second, why would the leadership of the organization put anyone into such an important job if they didn’t have the requisite skills and attitude to serve other people? Beats me but they do.

I believe this dysfunctional behavior is due to the fact that they look at these positions as entry level junior jobs rather than a career destination responsible for influencing customer loyalty and long term profitability.

These actions can be taken to make sure you get people obsessed with serving people in frontline positions.

Recruitment — Ensure the recruitment guide asks the right questions to expose this virtue. I find that there are many of what I would call hygiene questions asked, but rarely do I find that the ‘love’ questions are absent to any significant degree.

The right question — Come right out and ask the candidate ‘Do you love people?’ and then ask them to describe 3 situations that proved it. You can tell quickly if the person is suitable to turn loose on your most valuable assets (customers) or not.

The ‘lover’ will tell you a story that makes you tingle; the rest will tell stories that leave you cold. Hire the ‘tinglers’.

Leadership present and accounted for — Have a senior person (an executive leader is the best choice) in the organization to participate in the panel interview process — I did this all the time.

This achieves three purposes:
— it shows people in the organization that hiring frontliners is a critically important matter;
— the candidate understands how serious the organization is about getting ‘people lovers’ in these positions;
— it enhances the richness of the interview itself in terms of the questions senior people bring to the table.

Training — Can you train people to like people?
My experience is a resounding NO! You either have an innate proclivity to like humans or you don’t; no amount of training will change that.
Training might influence how you behave — talk with a smile in your voice for example — and as long as the customer interaction is scripted you might get away with it.

The reality is, however that customers can’t always be scripted and sooner or later the trained frontliner will have to rely on their natural abilities to handle a challenging customer in an elegant and memorable way.

Where do human lovers hang out?

You should always have a frontline recruitment program underway to ensure that you are gathering the best people lovers you can to fuel the funnel created by employee turnover.

Tag ‘em early by going to schools at all levels and spotting the chosen ones.

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

• Posted 6.28.12 at 07:08 am by Roy Osing
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June 25, 2012

Why the surprise element makes the best customer service experience

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Why the surprise element makes the best customer service experience.

A mind-blowing service experience is never created when people get what they expect.

Give ‘em what you have led them to expect; they will be satisfied and will give you a “C"on your service report card.

— A household move from Vancouver to Toronto on-time, on-budget with nothing damaged.
— A friendly server at your favourite restaurant.
— Food that is ok.
— A clean hotel room.
— A return telephone call that was promised.
— A flight that leaves at the promised time and lands with your baggage.
— A financial plan that delivers the promised financial benefits.
— Fixing a service blunder made by your local retailer.
— An online purchase delivered when promised.

No big deal. After all, you expect these things. And when they are delivered you are probably more relieved than anything else.

Iff you want to dazzle someone, blow them away, leave them breathless or WOW! them, you have to do something they DON’T expect.

You must surprise them with a spontaneous act.

A random act of caring.

It’s not about exceeding expectations. Trying to do more of what a person expects is not a good investment of resources. All it does is earn you a stronger “C” on your report card.

Earning an “A” on your service report card in fact has nothing to do with meeting expectations whatsoever.

Deliver what you promise and add the surprise element if you want incredibly loyal fans who will tell everyone they know how great you are.

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

• Posted 6.25.12 at 11:22 am by Roy Osing
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June 18, 2012

10 powerful ways your organization can improve its performance

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10 powerful ways your organization can improve its performance.

If you feel your organization is hovering above the same level of performance year after year, try these 10 breakaway actions.

They will give you new life.

▪️ Renew your business plan every year if you want to avoid it becoming stale. Never assume that what got you to your present point will work going forward. Environmental conditions change; an organization’s strategy must as well.

▪️ Focus your time and attention on the 3 things that will deliver 80% of your results. The biggest impediment to progress is trying to take on too much; to chase possibilities which of course are too numerous to handle with limited resources. Be clear on the few objectives that must be achieved if real progress is to be achieved.

▪️ Modify your business processes to enhance the service experience for your customers. Being easier to do business with has significant payback from increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

▪️ Cut the crap and grunge that gets in the way of achieving progress. Let go of the old stuff that is no longer relevant in order to have sufficient resources to meet tomorrow’s challenges.

▪️ Put the priority on executing your plan. Don’t spend all of your time on trying to get your plan perfect — it will never happen. Perfection doesn’t exist. Get your plan just about right and apply your energy to executing it.

▪️ Set cost objectives. Define the cost envelope that you can afford. Build your organization within this envelope. Cost should be an input to your organizational planning, not an output.

▪️ Adjust your strategy as you learn from execution. Execute — learn — adjust. A viable strategy is the result of paying attention to how well you implement it.

▪️ Target your current customers to achieve your sales objectives as opposed to putting all your eggs in the new customer acquisition basket. Create personal solutions for them. Give the special deals to them. If you don’t keep your loyal base, there won’t be a higher level to climb to.

▪️ Start building a culture based on creating memorable experiences for people. Lose the product flogging mentality. The secret to loyalty is surprising your customers with what they DON’T expect.

▪️ Sell intimate relationships, Don’t flog products and services. Trust that deep relationships will spawn a healthy long term revenue stream.

A tough journey. But well worth the time, effort — and pain.

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

• Posted 6.18.12 at 10:37 am by Roy Osing
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