4. The Customer Service Revolution

"There is no such thing as a difficult or disloyal customer...only a customer seeking to be understood"

Okay...so I know some of us who are not entrepreneurs, customer representatives, or employees working in the services & hospitality businesses, might look at this title and think nope... not for me, but I promise you'll be pleasantly surprised by the message in this book. It cuts across all works of life including just being a person who comes in contact with others, not for the purpose of any profit per say but as a way of life. In that case  I think its only right that we start by 1st agreeing on who a customer is.

A customer is any person you communicate with directly on any given day, who is affected by what you do and depends on you for certain expectations to be met.

Going by above definition...even my 1 year old is my customer, my Husband is a major customer, my colleagues at work are my customers and you (yes you) are my customer. What do all these persons have in common? they all have "expectations" of me that I am capable of and have committed to meeting.

Therefore, how can we make the experience we offer to our customers one of the best aspects of their lives. This book gives great pointers on how to maximize the customer experience and I will try to capture as much of it as I can without being too lengthy...starting with "you".

What is your brand and what do you have to offer?

Its amazing how the purpose question comes up here again, but if you're offering something then it should have a purpose right? Right!

Therefore our starting point is to...

i. Clarify the objectives behind why we offer the services we offer and be sure its something we can commit to for the long term. 

ii. Develop our own values that will serve as the standard for offering this service.

iii. Equip  ourselves with the necessary tools/skill set to enable the brand thrive.

 ...and then of course "serve it".

Now that's a great starting point, and wouldn't life be awesome if that was all it took to make you the "go-to" brand? but nothing is really that simple because in most cases, there are other brands offering nearly the exact same service you offer, so why should the customer choose your brand/product as the preferred. What makes you stand out?

This book explores some powerful concepts for ensuring you give your customers a revolutionary experience every single time.

Beyond Customers Expectations!

Hmmm...I was particularly excited to come across a novel concept in the book which indicates that for exceptional customer service, the Golden Rule of "Treat others the way you would like to be treated" is a dangerous compass, because the way "you" want to be treated is not necessarily the way your customer wants to be treated. You may even have 80% of your customers who want to be treated same, but another 20% who are radically different. Therefore learn the Platinum Rule of "Personalization" and "Treat others how they enjoy being treated" without compromising any of your own core values.

Also...its good to deliver on the customers expectations but how about going beyond their expectations, giving them something they didn't even know they wanted until you provided it and suddenly its the trend and no one seems to remember a time when that didn't exist. (Think mobile phones and the gigantic strides made in that technology space which never existed just few years ago). What radical new approaches can you introduce that will change your service space forever. Think about that for a few minutes.

Brand Ambassador vs. Brand Terrorist

A mere look at the above heading would have one thinking this must be focusing on my customers perception of the brand and how they react either positively or negatively to the services received...because as we know one positive or negative word from a customer can make a huge impact on your brand particularly as word travels so fast these days with the help of technology. True! however there's a new twist, because it turns out that we or in some cases our staff are our own biggest ambassadors or terrorist. How do we mean? Well...sometimes brands with staff make the mistake of assuming that the staff do not deserve the same courtesy that the customers do and that's where we're wrong because staff also have contacts who they can bad mouth the brand all they want to, or can become so disgruntled that their approach in attending to customers sends the customer right out the door. So pls treat /train staff right so they can treat customers right.

In addition, has it occurred to us that we could also be our brand's biggest terrorist due to some negative cues/attitudes which we proudly display? Here are some examples of situations where we sabotage our own brands

• Negatively worded  or threatening toned policy statements: For e.g. "We are not responsible for lost or stolen property" or "Parking at owners risk". Such statements already indicate to the customer that they are on their own there, if anything goes wrong, no one cares. Simply re-wording the message can serve the same purpose without making the customer feel bad. e.g. "This is a common area, customers are encouraged to protect their valuables"

So next time you're making that communication, think how will this be interpreted and see if you can re-word it to mean something positive.

• Shaming of Customers : The book gave an example of a restaurant that tweets at all its customers who fail to show up for their reservations while making mockery of their no show.(Horrifying). Now I know the customer ought to have called to cancel or something, but what if there was a truly genuine reason why the person failed to call to cancel, perhaps there was even no reason, what do you gain by antagonizing/shaming the customer? for one that customer is never ever coming back, and think of all the bad press you'll be getting from the customer in future, or even potential guest who will be turned off by such display of tactlessness. This is an extreme e.g but I've seen cases of brands taking to social media to curse out some annoying customer, or some defaulting customer. No one needs to know the sometimes ugly details of doing business, you can handle those in private like a pro, or advice customers on your preferred way of doing business.

Shaming/punishing/throwing shade at your bad customers publicly, is definitely not a way to make or grow your brand.

• Customer Discrimination: Okay...this I've seen a lot and im sure you have too. There are lots of reasons why brands do classifications, the idea is not to stop classifications, no...but to find an inclusive way of communicating these classifications, the reasons behind them, and then offer alternatives.

"Build your brand's customer experience as though no customer had bad intentions"

A day in the life of a customer

A truly powerful concept which this book advocates is placing yourself in the life of a customer (creating actual scenes or concepts that depict real life scenarios), in order to anticipate their most difficult disposition and prepare yourself to service their needs in a way that transforms their day. There are so many cases of difficult/irrational customers who flare up or act nasty at little or no provocation. Sometimes we get mad also and respond in kind, without taking into consideration the various issues or even life challenges that affect that customer, we should be prepared to handle those rare occasions and channel difficult customer experiences into productive outcomes or at least not let things de-generate into severe conflict space. If you had prior knowledge of the kind of day or life your customer has had, would you treat that difficult customer with more kindness and empathy? Every one has a story! Think about how that might play out for your brand.

Create A Service Vision Statement

A service vision represents the core of what a brand hopes to achieve day in day out, with its product. This is different from the mission which can be achieved over time, the service vision should be such that it can be tracked daily if its achieved or not. A good service vision is actionable, measurable and visible on a daily basis. Bonus points if its trainable too. For E.g. "To put a smile on every face" So what will you need to do to put that smile on every face? tell a joke, sing a song, offer speedy service, offer great prices, ...and when you did that how many smiles did you get, you can count or take pictures, but you should be able to prove daily if you achieved your service vision or not.

Always & Never Lists

The always and never list contains a breakdown of all your must do's and don't do's. This is particularly useful if you have staff so they know the code of conduct for the brand. E.g. Always greet with a smile, never greet with a frown.

Always ask "how can I be of assistance", never ask "what do you want" etc. im sure you get the idea. I recently got a new one myself "Always call back, never not reply".

Customer Secret Service

Hahahaha...I like this one #Stalkeralert.

Okay nothing creepy like that, it's actually a great concept for making your customers feel extra special and valued. Everyone loves a good dose of TLC every now and then, and this is what the Customer secret service hopes to achieve. So what does the CSS do?

The CSS is a database of useful personal information on your customers that help you customize your brand to their needs. A helpful acronym when applying CSS is F.O.R.D which stands for (Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams). Having a little knowledge on above mentioned aspects of your customer will not only boost your interaction with the customer, but will give you a hint on what kind of products to offer them. It could also help you understand their preferred method of service e.g. office deliveries, home deliveries, speed service so they can be on their way, or extra chatty for the one who likes to chat etc.

The basic idea here is to learn something about the customer, that helps you create an experience for them that feels super special.

Attitude vs. Aptitude

This is a great place to end this summary because in the end if you do all the awesome things as outlined above and your attitude sucks, sorry you're not going to have much luck keeping those customers for long. You can be the greatest at what you do but if people continuously experience the genius of your brand with a foul taste in their minds, trust that they will not be coming back or recommending you to anyone else for that matter. One hit wonder? yeah that!

"If you want customer loyalty, be brilliant at the basics and leave no unhappy customers behind"

I hope this was useful🙏...Cheers🍸 to open minds!

You can contact me on aykay80@gmail.com for any enquiries you might have, or just leave a comment and I'll be thrilled to respond.