Be Different or be dead

August 5, 2013

One simple reason why an organization can’t be customer focused

Source: Unsplash

One simple reason why an organization can’t be customer focused.

Can an organization be passionately engaged in serving its customers?

I don’t think so.

Organizations are a collective.

They are pluralistic.

They are an amalgamation of individuals that comprise it.

If the people within the organization don’t have an innate desire to serve another human being, the organization will (despite declaring its aspirations) never be customer focused.

For organizations who truly want to ‘be one’ with their customers, the imperative is to recruit people that “love” people.

Education is ok. But it is table stakes to playing the customer loyalty game

Serving isn’t an intellectual activity. It’s an emotional one.

It’s not based on an algorithm or formula.

It’s based on an attitude and drive to take care of someones’s needs, desires and cravings.

You can’t teach people to do it. You can’t train people to do it.

You have to recruit people who are born with it.

And if you recruit enough people with the serving ethic you can become the customer-centric organization that you aspire to be.

Check out your recruitment program. Look at the questions you ask a prospective employee. Examine the experience they have in serving others; ask for their stories.

Hire for goosebumps.

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

• Posted 8.5.13 at 06:15 am by Roy Osing
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June 3, 2013

Why are company policies set to control customers who cheat the system?

Source: Pexels

Why are company policies set to control customers who cheat the system?

One of the things missing in most customer service plans is how to architect a rules and policies system that favours the customer.

The customer experience with any organization is destroyed when internal rules and policies are designed to prevent ‘cheaters’.

One of the main drivers of policy setting in organizations is to stop cheaters

Dishonest people who will try to beat the system for their own gain.

▪️ People who will steal from you — hence the policy of limiting the number of pieces of clothing you can take into a change room in a retail store.

▪️ People who will leave an outside serving area without paying their bill — hence the policy of requiring you to provide a credit card before being served. But it’s ok to be inside and be served without brandishing your card and having it retained.

▪️ People who will not spend enough money with you — hence the policy of refusing a booth for two people because booths are reserved for parties of 4 or more, who will generate more revenue per serving.

▪️ People who will not tip the server enough to compensate them for their hard work — hence the policy of automatically applying a 20% gratuity for parties of 6 or more.

How many more cheater policies can you name?

The truth is: people who want to screw you over wIll screw you over regardless of your policies and to the honest person the customer experience is ugly..

The problem is: while you go about implementing these cheater-policies, you infuriate all of your honest loyal customers who feel they are assumed guilty with unsavory motives.

That they are part of the cheater herd.

Here’s the distribution: cheaters = 2%; honest folks = 98%.

Which crowd do you think should determine your policies?

if you want to provide an amazing customer experience, create rules for honest people, not cheaters.

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

• Posted 6.3.13 at 06:12 am by Roy Osing
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April 22, 2013

Amazing customer experiences can happen by doing these simple things

Source: Unsplash

How do you create a customer experience that blows a customer away and can’t be boxed?

Amazing customer experiences can happen by doing these simple things.

It can’t be time-bound. It can’t be created with an employee trying to get a customer on and off the phone in 20 seconds or less.

It can’t be engineered or architected. It can’t be manufactured from a blueprint. It doesn’t come from a can.

A magic moment is created when someone ‘puts in the time’ with another person, showing caring and thoughtful behavior.

It’s created through a process of listening, asking questions and responding with a serving attitude.

The spellbound customer experience cannot be managed with efficiency in mind.

This is how to create a customer experience with magic moments:

▪️Remove time restrictions on people who deal with customers. Let them take as much time as they need to serve them well and deliver the magic.

▪️Establish loyalty- building outcomes as the prime objective of any customer contact not how long it takes to unload a customer.

▪️Redefine how you use ‘work force management’ to manage your call center. These are useful tools to diagnose problems and issues but they shouldn’t be used to drive behavior of the call center rep.

▪️Hire employees with a proven track record of taking care of others. You can teach them your business but you can’t teach them to be customer experience moment magicians.

▪️Empower people to do the right thing for a customer, not enforce organizational rules and policies that do nothing but piss them off.

▪️Encourage the surprise element in your customer service strategy. What can be done to surprise a customer in a moment?

▪️Recognize and reward moment magicians. Make a big deal of treating them as heroes.

▪️Talk to customers. Mechanized touch points are limiting in their ability to create magic. They are designed to minimize engagement time and simply cannot replicate the experience humans can create for other humans.

The customer experience riddled with magic moments will propel your organization to the top because your customers will never leave you.

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

• Posted 4.22.13 at 06:29 am by Roy Osing
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March 11, 2013

What stupid words should never be uttered in customer service?

What stupid words should never be uttered in customer service?

There are certain things you should never say if your intention is to create an amazing and memorable customer experience.

How many times have you heard people in customer service jobs make comments like these?

— It’s not in my area
— You can’t sit here, this section is closed
— Booths are only for parties of 4
— I already told you
— I’m going on my break
— It’s our policy
— You can’t do that
— I’m new here
— I have no idea
— It’s over there
— We can’t do that
— No
— The special deal doesn’t apply to you
— The sale is over
— I’ll have to talk to my supervisor
— The clothes in the Mannequin not for sale. They are are for display purposes only
— Can you eat that much? (actually asked of me at The Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore)

I am sure you can add to the list from your own experiences.

A successful customer service culture has its own vocabulary, and the above utterances are not included. Customer service leaders must seek out and eliminate any of them that are spoken.

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

• Posted 3.11.13 at 07:48 am by Roy Osing
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