Be Different or be dead

July 7, 2014

Why ‘serving’ customers is way better than ‘servicing’ them

Source: Pexels

Why ‘serving’ customers is way better than ‘servicing’ them.

What promise do you have in your service strategy?

“I promise to service you.” or “I promise to serve you.”

Which sounds more appealing? Which sounds more sensitive to your wants, desires and expectations?

Do you really want to be ‘serviced’?

Customer service in most organizations involves the application of the company’s service structure to people. It subjects them to the rules, policies and practices the company has created to control the customer engagement process.

It boils down to a set of policies being applied to everyone regardless of circumstance.

How often have you heard: (even though we all know it’s ridiculous) ’I’m sorry you can’t do that because it’s company policy.’

And yes, control.

Policies for the most part are intended to minimize risk (for the company), increase efficiency (for the company), maintain or reduce operating costs (for the company) and create consistency (for the company).

What’s missing?

Service is all about the company yet it implies that it is all for the customer. Nonsense!

If you REALLY want the customer to come first, you need to subordinate the company to a serving role. And you need to start talking about ‘serving customers’ not providing customer ‘service’

What it means to serve:

▪️ The customer is engaged to determine what the company’s rules, policies and procedures look like;

▪️ Employees try to find a way to say yes to every customer request whether it satisfies a policy or not;

▪️ Frontline conversations with customers always include the question “How can I help you?”;

▪️ The measure of the customer engagement is whether or not they were dazzled by the service experience they had, not how proficiently the rules were applied.

Do you service or do you serve?

Should you be trying to improve your customer service, or should you be trying to serve customers in a more warm and caring manner?

What do you think is the winning approach?

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

• Posted 7.7.14 at 03:01 am by Roy Osing
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April 28, 2014

Effective leaders hate problems; they expect solutions

Source: Unsplash

Don’t bring me the problem; bring me the solution — Roy, on the receiving end

My best boss and mentor declared this whenever someone tried to pass a problem to him; he would have nothing of it.

He was different from many of his peers who felt obligated to be the problem solver and therefore “force” his direct reports to depend on him.

As a direct report, I wanted to learn about the business and solving problems was THE best way to do it. Having my boss provide all the answers didn’t help teach me the business and it certainly didn’t enable me to grow.

This was his approach.

1. He would insist that our problem discussion was focused on the solution I thought would work.

2. He insisted that I identify a number of potential options with pros and cons of each.

3. He expected I did my homework in terms of the customer value each option would create. This was the number one criteria he used to judge the ranking of the options I presented.

4. He probed each option; asked me tons of questions; took a copious amount of notes.

5. He asked me to consider our discussion for 24 hours before deciding on the solution I thought was best.

6, He directed me to advise him the direction I was taking.

7. I was held accountable for the impact of my decision. I had to report back to him in 30-60 days on the results.

That was it. I defined the problem; outlined a range of potential solutions with the pros and cons of each; he added value through his questions; I made the call and was held accountable.

I learned, felt respected; developed leadership skills and mentored others on the same approach.

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

• Posted 4.28.14 at 03:13 am by Roy Osing
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April 21, 2014

Great leaders look for the pony that created the dump

Source: Unsplash

The best leaders I knew in my 30+ years running businesses always looked for opportunity in the face of adversity.

When looking down the barrel of a gun, many traditional leaders respond in one of the following ways. They:

- throw up their hands and claim unfair
- make excuses due to a lack of resources and budget
- shout foul play due to a competitor’a price reduction
- blame the inability to execute for the mis-step
- denigrate the economy for the unplanned turn of events
- blame sudden environmental changes

Great leaders don’t spend much time whining about the fact the target was missed. They are more concerned about learning from the result and recovering from it.

Their energy is spent into finding the pony that created the excrement they are buried in

Failure teaches the leader that:

- virtually nothing happens as planned
- a thoughtful response to the unexpected is a real competitive advantage
- “Plan B” is more important than Plan A
- the dynamics around execution are critical to success
- customers haven’t been satisfied in some way; a deeper understanding of what’s going on with them is vital to finding the pony.

Find the pony buried in your failure and act FAST to recover and build value.

The market will remember how you found and leveraged the pony, not that you underachieved.

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

• Posted 4.21.14 at 03:55 am by Roy Osing
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April 14, 2014

This is why you shouldn’t worry about your competition

Source: Pexels

This is why you shouldn’t worry about your competition.

Traditional marketing strategy spends a copious amount of time focusing on how to erect barriers to competitive entry.
Unfortunately in my experience this doctrine doesn’t go far enough and it certainly doesn’t create a sustainable competitive position for an organization.

Worrying about the competition is not where energies should be spent.

Worrying about the competition is misplaced — Here are 7 reasons why this traditional business approach doesn’t work:

It’s not a particularly unique approach to the market — Most organizations seem to follow this approach to minimize competition in their business; if everyone pursues the same strategy, how can it result in a differential advantage for any one of them? The truth is, it’s a business school course and every student takes it and typically tries to apply IT when there are other strategies that work much better.

The notion is rooted in a more theoretical perspective and falls short of the practical need to show business people how to do it. It’s all very well to salute a strategy that is rooted in strong theory, but if it can’t be practically implemented in the real world, it’s of little value.

It’s a distraction — While an organization is consumed with trying to find ways to keep the competition out, it’s not spending enough time to ensure their existing base of loyal customers are taken care of.

And it spawns an unhealthy culture that is preoccupied with preventing market activity rather than doing whatever is required to beat the competition in the trenches where the customers are. Earning their business everyday should be the priority rather than erecting barriers to others coming in to compete with you.

It diverts marketing attention — Away from investing in value based offers for the existing customer base. Rather, marketing resources are employed on other activities — regulations, patents and government restrictions — designed to keep competition away.

It creates an illusion — That competition can be restricted. It’s futile in the long run because a hungry competitor will always find a way to gain access to your markets and your customers. You will never keep them out or restrict their natural market activities.

It tends to focus on artificial non-market tactics — To prevent more competition such as regulation and law rather than beating them by providing amazing customer service and unmatched value.

It’s an ineffective use of valuable resources — With an outcome that is inevitable. Back in the day, the incumbent telecom carriers spent an enormous amount of money trying to prevent competitive entry into traditional monopoly markets through a time-consuming and expensive regulatory process.

The competitive tsunami wasn’t deterred, however, and they should have been paying more attention to creating better customer service and a marketing engine that provided compelling and unique value.

I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t pay attention to the competition, existing and potential.

But don’t get obsessed about preventing them from doing what is reasonable given free market conditions.
If they have an opportunity with your customers, expect them to make a play and respond by shielding your loyal customers from the onslaught of their competitive value proposition.

If you feel that a certain non-market response is necessary, go ahead and do it. But don’t let it be all-consuming. Don’t let it gobble up all of your resources. And don’t let it drain the effort in executing a customer response to the threat.

Observe your competitors but ACT for your customers.

Make it so difficult for your competition to attract your customers away from you - by providing them with constant unmatched value - they will be frustrated and will have to endure so much pain, they will decide it’s not worth it. And they will retreat.

How can you hold them? — What are some of the actions you can take to keep your customers close to you and prevent them from leaving?

Music is a great teacher.

The Grateful Dead informed us on how to create a unique competitive claim.

You don’t want merely to be the best of the best. You want to be the ONLY ones who do what you do — Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead

And The Eagles’ Hotel California declares the impossibility of patrons leaving.

You can checkout anytime but you can never leave — The Eagles

The message is cool. It’s mysterious. It’s haunting. It’s foreboding. It’s dramatic. It’s scary. It’s suggestive of a clandestine move.

Here are 8 actions you can take to prevent customers from ‘leaving your hotel’:

▪️Don’t be concerned about what the competition is doing; focus on the action that YOU need to take to enrich the stickiness of your products or services;

▪️Action to prevent leaving must be taken quickly. The time it takes to get to check-out and leave the building is short; rapid innovation of offerings your customers love is mandatory;

▪️Abandon the conventional; take risks with out there solutions;

▪️Give ‘em something more. Move ‘em to ‘another room’ with added value. Transform them into another world where a new reality intrigues them to stay;

▪️Intercept them as they make their way to check-out. Don’t follow up after they have left. Have your spider senses ready to know they intend to leave and disrupt their intentions;

▪️Give them a new experience that makes them want to stay. Give them something so dramatic that it will take their emotions to a new level;

▪️Make it personal Speak to them specifically. What works for Mr. Smith won’t work for Mr. Jones;

▪️SURPRISE! SHOCK! JOLT! AMAZE! FRIGHTEN! them to stay. Do whatever it takes.

Too much attention is given to the threat of others taking guests from our hotel.

If you want to worry about something, worry about the door closing behind them.

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

• Posted 4.14.14 at 01:39 am by Roy Osing
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