Wired and Dangerous

Sign Your Service!

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Chip&John

Warning! This is a proud granddaddy blog! At three, Cassie can write her name as you can plainly see! My granddaughter has always been a champion scribbler! Plus, she has two older sisters who can write their names! Not ever wanting to be last in any activity that even remotely could have competitive overtones, she announced to her mother, “I am going to write my name.” Without parental coaching or a model to copy, she proudly displayed her penmanship! And, her mother widely propelled this proof into cyberspace!

Customers are a lot like my daughter-in-law! Signature service can make them swell with pleasure and willingly tell the whole world! They can turn a ho hum okay reputation into the stuff fan clubs are made of.

Signature service is different from regular service. Regular service is functional, perfunctory and dutiful. It is service as requirement and obligation; not service as theatre, flair and style. It is the rental car courtesy bus driver who entertains you as if you’re at a wonderful theme park or the receptionist who asks you neighborly questions while speedily ringing up your sale or the auto service tech who programs your new car’s radio stations from your trade-in and just lets you discover it!

Signature service takes more effort than regular service. A robot can do regular service; and, many do! There is nothing signature about express check-outs, ATM’s or kiosks. A half-asleep, ready-to-clock-out employee can do regular service, and some do! But, signature means adding your special ingredient to the service experience you concoct and serve. It requires focusing on the customer’s pleasure, not just the customer’s request. It means bringing the best you are to what you do. So, grab your service pen and write your name on your customer’s memory bank!

Posted in Customer Delight, Customer Loyalty, Customer Relationship | Tagged Customer loyalty, signature service | Leave a comment

Champagne Service

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Chip&John

We were working with a client in Nicaragua. One evening we elected to skip the hotel grill and try the hotel’s upscale restaurant—Factory Steak and Lobster. We were in for a special treat. I ordered my usual Jack Daniels on the rocks. Now in every restaurant in America such a request would yield a highball glass brought to the table already filled with ice plus the special adult beverage ready to drink. Because of that practice, I have gotten Jack poorly disguised as cheap bourbon as well as a drink the bartender apparently measured with a thimble instead of a jigger.

But at the Real Metrocentro InterContinental in Managua, I was not served Jack Daniels, it was presented to me! The waiter brought a tray containing a full bottle of Jack, an empty chilled glass, a container of ice, and a tall shot glass. The glass was then filled with ice—one cube at a time–and placed before me. The bottle was presented much like a wine steward might present a chosen bottle of wine. Assuming approval, the Tennessee whiskey was poured into the shot glass which was then lovingly poured into the ice-filled highball glass! A simple shot of whiskey was treated like pricey Dom Perignon champagne.

What if service providers made the mundane magical? What if every service moment was treated as an extraordinary event for a cherished customer? The check-in hotel clerk would come from behind the desk to give you your room key along with a warm handshake, the taxi driver would take your luggage all the way into the hotel lobby, and the service tech would explain your auto repair kneeling eye level with you as you sat comfortably in the reception area. Customers are not interested in being treated as royalty served by a slave. But, they do notice when the service they receive clearly indicates they are treasured. Customer growth comes from special care. If you want something to grow, pour champagne on it!

Posted in Customer Delight, Customer Experience, Great Service is ... | Tagged Customer Experience, great service is | Leave a comment

Read Your Customer’s Mind

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Chip&John

It all started at one of those traveling fairs…the ones that set up in the parking lot of a shopping center with a few rides and attractions. She boasted she could guess your age for a dollar. If she got it wrong, you got to pick out a stuffed toy. Here talent lay in her ability to ask you a few questions and attentively read your reactions. If you were clueless on how the trick was done, it seemed like a miracle! Like patrons at a fair, customers love it when you surprise them with what you know about them.

Kauffman Tire in Woodstock, GA enjoys taking their customers’ breath away with their own special form of Clairvoyance. When Steve Holloran walked in the store to purchase a tire, he was greeted with, “Welcome back, Mr. Steve.” He was blown away since he not visited the store in long time. Pressing the clerk a bit closer on the secret of his incredible memory, the clerk reluctantly admitted how the magic was performed. “When you pulled in the parking lot, we plugged in your license plate number into the computer and then cross referenced the name with our records. We knew you were a prior customer by the time you got to our front door!” Advocate Steve has repeated his special story over and over. How can you take your customers breath away?

Posted in Service Innovation, Service Magic, Take Their Breath Away | Tagged Service Magic; Take Their Breath Away; Service Innovation | Leave a comment

What’s On Your Calendar?

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Chip&John

We have been noticing how almost anyone in organizations these days can check everyone else’s calendar on their intranet. It might be contributing to the meeting mania that seems to be mushrooming; “number of meetings” booked has emerged as the new status symbol. Having a meeting to plan another meeting is now trumped by having a meeting to plan the meeting that is aimed at planning a meeting! But, we recently had one refreshing deviation from the paralysis from analysis method of avoiding a responsible, take-a-stand decision.

We were trying to schedule an hour phone conversation with a very senior leader of a large manufacturing company. His on-the-ball assistant looked at the leader’s calendar for his availability at a requested time and said, “I know he wants get some time with you, but he has that entire morning blocked out to meet with a group of customers. He wants to get their participation in planning a new product launch.” We later learned it was not a board room meeting; it was an off-site candid discussion. And, he took with him a blank note pad, not a slick PowerPoint deck or sanitized report.

Customers learn your priority and their importance, not by what you say, but by where you spend your time. What would your customers learn if they could see your calendar?

Posted in Customer Centric, Customer Devotion, Customer Intelligence | Tagged Customer devotion; Customer-centric; customer intelligence | Leave a comment

Winning the Service Masters

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Chip&John

The concept of the Leader Board got me thinking. The traditional use of a leader board is a large billboard showing the scores in descending order of the players in a golf tournament. What would a Service Leader Board be like? And, what does it take to make to the top? Unlike golf, where the person at the business end of the club determines the score, in service only the customer can tell you whether you are in the rough, on the green, or in the hole. And, their criteria for a hole-in-one are well documented.

First, customers want their needs met—the fundamental expectation that drove them to you in the first place. And, they want their need met with minimal effort on their part and with a keen sensitivity to their precious time. They want an offering delivered at a fair cost—time, price, fee, etc. Do all these things well, and you shot a par—the minimum. Par rarely gets you at the top of the Leader Board.

What lands you the recipient of their cheers is creating an experience that stays in their memory like a getting green jacket at Augusta National. The more the customer experiences personalized service that leaves them confident, the higher your score. Make a mistake and they evaluate you on how quickly and smoothly you got out of the service sand trap. What is your service handicap? How can you win the service masters tournament?

Posted in Customer Centric, Customer Delight, Customer Devotion, Customer Experience, Service Recovery | Tagged Customer devotion, Customer Experience, Service recovery | Leave a comment

Service as Transportation

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Chip&John

It all started with a party game…those funny “what if” social games that get sillier with late night exuberance and adult beverages. “What fruit would they be if all pharmacists were a fruit?” asked one guest, a deeply serious pharmacist. “If lawyers were farm animals, which one would they be?” teased another guest, targeting his attorney friend. I popped the obvious question–if customer service was a mode of transportation, what would it be? It yielded a few interesting, yet provocative, answers.

“Service should be a limousine,” one guest commented, “helping important people get what and where they want.” “I think a jeep,” said another, “since today’s customers have to traverse some challenging emotional terrain with all the self-service to which they are subjugated.” There were wild suggestions of golf carts, jet planes, and motorcycles. But, the one that prompted the most interesting discussion was the idea that service should be a tank to protect customers from bad attitudes, indifferent service and user-hostile processes.

If you asked your customers to characterize the service they receive from you as a mode of transportation, what would they choose? And, what would their choice communicate about how you deliver customer service? Do your customers need a tank to be protected from their experience with your organization?

Check out this great customer service article in the New Yorker: http://tinyurl.com/6o8lcpz

Posted in Customer Delight, Customer Experience, Service Recovery | Tagged Customer Service, great service is, service attitude | Leave a comment

Air Conditioned Service

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Chip&John

The air conditioning system broke in the little country church we attend when we have a getaway weekend to our North Georgia river house. It was a hotter than normal day, even for the normally cool mountain area. So, the church ceiling fans were turned on! It was an improvement, but clearly not the same. It reminded me of customer service…but, then most things do!!

A fan moves the hot air around much like a sudden breeze on a hot July day. It is temporary and superficial, accomplished through the simple agitation of the air. In the church in which I grew up there were no ceiling fans; ushers passed out individual fans—cardboard stapled to a thin wooden paddle. It was a favorite way for the local funeral home to advertise. Air conditioning pulls the hot air into an appliance, sends it over a built-in refrigeration unit for cooling and then returns it to the room. The heat from the hot air is sent outside, leaving only cool air inside. It literally modifies the condition of the air.

Great service is more like an air conditioner and less like a fan. Fan-like service simply meets the basic needs of customers without leaving a trace of anything in their memory bank. But great service changes the emotion of customers from ho hum to wow; from no memory to a super story they are eager to share. It does that by focusing on an enhanced experience, not a superficial one; on changing, not simply agitating. And, it works because it channels any unpleasantries “outside.” Is your service like a fan or like an air conditioner?

Posted in Customer Expectations, Customer Experience, Customer Loyalty, Great Service is ... | Tagged Customer Expectations, Customer Experience, Customer Service | Leave a comment

Panning for Service Gold

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Chip&John

A fun activity for my grandchildren when they visit my North Georgia weekend home is panning for gold. The sand comes from a sandy river bank near a sight that was a part of the gold rush in the early 1800’s.

Panning for gold is not easy; it works like this. You first put a double hand full of sand in a gold pan and dip it in the water filling it half full of water. Next, you gently move the pan back and forth as you let small amounts of yellow sand wash over the side of the pan.

The objective is to let the black sand sink to the bottom of the gold pan. But, this is the point where panning for gold gets serious. Impatience or strong arming the way the pan is shaken means the black sand escapes over the side with the yellow sand. Once black sand is the only sand left in the pan, you are rewarded with flacks of gold. Gold resides among the black sand.

Customer service is like panning for gold among the sand. But, like sand, service can also come in a black form—those dark, disappointing moments that cause customers to doubt your capacity and/or caring. The way you handle the dark sand can be the difference between losing a customer over the side and turning a customer oops into the opportunity for gold (a.k.a., loyalty). Great service recovery takes patience. It also requires focusing on the gold in the customer…not, their anger on the surface. It means taking time to mine the customer’s needs and expectations so a solution is targeted. How can you find gold in the dark sands of service?

Posted in Customer Expectations, Customer Experience, Service Recovery | Tagged Service Gold, Service recovery | Leave a comment

What I Learned from the Circus

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Chip&John

When I was growing up, the circus coming to town was a super mega-event. We all got to see the animals in pacing in their cages on display long before the big top opened. And, when it was over and the show had left town, we talked about our favorite clown, trapeze performer, or lion tamer for weeks.

A little study on the promotional techniques of P.T. Barnum can reveal a lot about why the circus was such a memorable treat for small town kids. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus were early master event planners. And, their tactics can offer instruction relevant to any event or product launch!

Barnum & Bailey used advance marketing techniques (fondly labeled “ballyhoo” back then!). Advance people went to a local town long before the arrival of the circus to attach colorful signs to telephone poles. They provided materials on wild animals and famous clowns for school teachers to use in their lessons. They networked with the mayor to gain support in getting local merchants to put more signs in their show windows and to offer discounts on “circus day.” And, they worked with the local newspaper to run articles and event publicity all timed to create a snowballing buzz that “The circus was coming.” By the time the circus finally arrived people were so excited school was canceled so everyone could attend.

Promotion is less about blitz and more about orchestration. Think about how it would be to dine at a fancy restaurant and you only got the main entre. It is the aperitif followed by appetizer followed by soup or salad followed by sorbet to clear your palate that makes the presentation of the main event a dining experience, not just another meal. On a more intimate scale, rarely do people meet and get married. Few miss out on all the anticipation garnered through the engagement, announcement, parties, showers, and rehearsals that build up to the special ceremony.

Great service is a lot like the “circus coming to town.” Getting customers ready, prepared and enthused is just as important as meeting their need. Granted, one cannot over-promise and under deliver. If the clowns had not been funny, the trapeze not particularly thrilling, or the popcorn stale, all the advance hoopla would have been wasted. But, if you have a great product or service, thinking about how it is presented through the lens of P.T. Barnum and Company could make a big difference in the memory you create.

Posted in Customer Delight, Customer Expectations, Customer Experience | Tagged Service Promotion; Advance Marketing; Customer Preparation | Leave a comment