Customer Experience – Page 14 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

December 3, 2021

It’s me they want

It’s a trap many founders of service businesses fall into. You start off as the technician, doing everything, and at first you love it.

Then you grow your client base, and with it a team to help you serve them. Yet it seems, no matter how much you reassure them that your team is capable, no matter how much extra you charge them for the privilege, clients insist that you are the one that looks after them. Or, they insist that it’s a particular member of your team that looks after them. You get overloaded, and your team lose out on the chance to grow.

The answer is to make sure a new client or a new project starts with one of your team, not you. Perhaps random, perhaps thoughtfully matched to each others’ working styles. That means making sure everyone knows how to make and keep your business promise as well as or better than you, from start to finish. And that means articulating what that experience looks like.

There’s nothing wrong with being relationship-based – I’m all for connection between people – but the deepest relationship you want to forge is one between the client and your business, where the client’s experience will be consistently outstanding, no matter who delivers it. Not identical, consistent.

The more you enable your team to stand up and say “I am Spartacus!“, the more clients you’ll be able to delight, without killing yourself or your team in the process.

December 2, 2021

Saying it better than I can

This post from Seth is so good, I have to give it to you in full:

“Customer service is free

Most large organizations would disagree.

They hire cheap labor to answer the phone. They install recordings to mollify people who are on hold for hours. They measure the cost of the call center and put loopholes in the warranty.

When you see customer service as a cost center, all of these steps make sense. Any money spent lowering costs seems to raise profits.

But customer service is actually a profit center, for four reasons:

First, because the customer who calls you or shows up at the adjustments window is fully enrolled. Unlike just about every other moment you’ve had with them, in this moment, they are paying attention, leaning into the situation and on high alert. Everything you do here, unlike just about every other marketing interaction you have, will go on your permanent record.

Second, because your competitors have foolishly decided to treat this interaction as a cost, the chances that you can dramatically overdeliver are pretty good. You can’t make a car that’s ten times better, but you can easily produce customer service for your car customers that’s ten times better than what most manufacturers deliver.

And third, because in our industrialized economy, people love to tell stories about service. And so the word spreads (or doesn’t) based on what you’re about to do.

Finally, it’s been demonstrated again and again that the most valuable customers are the loyal ones. While your promotional team is out there making noise to get you new customers, you’d be much better off turning your existing customers into repeat customers and ambassadors.

And so, the money you spend on customer service isn’t simply free. It actually repays you many times over.”

Customer service is an opportunity to play a different game, an infinite game of connection.

The irony is that when it’s genuine, it leads to more profit, not less.

PS it’s not so different when governments spend money on people at the bottom of the pile instead of the top. They get more back than they spend. And their people flourish.

November 29, 2021

I knew that would happen

“I knew that would happen.”

If you knew, why didn’t you do something to prevent it?

Probably because while you knew it was possible or even likely, you hoped it wouldn’t happen.

It would be much better to have a process that deals not only with the 80% of cases where nothing untoward happens, but also with the 20% of cases that don’t work like that. Or even better, one that pre-empts their occurrence.

Let’s say you’re a coffee roaster. You sell beans to lots of small independent coffee shops. It bugs you that they never plan their orders properly, often ringing up to ask for an urgent delivery at a timescale that’s impossible for you to make money on. You’ve made things clear – ‘Order before 6pm for next-day delivery’ – but still they ring at 8pm for an urgent delivery by 8am the next day. What should be exceptional is turning into the norm.

How could you pre-empt this?

You could accept that’s how they work, and find a way to deliver coffee overnight as your default. That might involve putting prices up of course, which might annoy the more forward-thinking of your customers.

You could make them order more each time, so they never run out. That would cost them more of course, and might end up in a stockpile they don’t want to carry.

You could put re-order prompts in or on your packaging, or give them the means to prompt themselves – stickers, or ‘re-order now’ cards.

You could recognise that the people using the coffee may not be the people ordering it, and make it easy for them to start an order – with a QR code on a bag, for instance – that gets confirmed with the person responsible before it’s sent out.

You could find ways to prompt them to re-order, based on how they work. That would involve asking them how they work (or even observing them as a mystery shopper?). That would cost you more up -front, but might make for a closer relationship. There probably aren’t that many different ways to run a coffee-shop, so you would quickly identify most cases. Then you could offer ordering options to new clients, knowing you have a process for dealing with them smoothly

There isn’t a right answer here, except that whenever you say “I knew that would happen”, realise that what you’ve identified isn’t just a pain for you. It’s an opportunity to cement your relationships and differentate yourself from your competitors, just by making your client’s life easier.

November 24, 2021

Transactions

Transactions are meant to be purely functional and impersonal. We don’t have to worry about how the person on the other side feels – or even whether they are a person. They don’t have to worry about us either. We both do our business and move on.

All very convenient, but not terribly satisfying.

We humans crave connection and recognition. We love to be seen by others, and we know that the only way to be seen is to see. We’re constantly trying to turn transactions into relationships, however brief (did you speak to the person who gave you your COVID-19 vaccine? I expect so), and especially around the things we value.

I’m happy to pay my car tax through a faceless, characterless portal and my council tax via direct debit, but I prefer to buy my groceries in person, having a chat at the checkout as I do. I buy my books online, from a small independent bookshop. We are both very aware that there are people on the other side of the transaction, and often go out of our way to remind ourselves of that.

Transactions are exchanges that take place between strangers. Or between people who want to treat each other as if they are strangers.

The danger is that by treating each other as strangers, we become strangers. Blind to the needs of others. Blind even to our own need to be valued as a human being. Sublimating that need into a desire for things, or even selling our data in return for a taste of it.

We can’t escape transactions. Our society is increasingly built around them. But as businesses, we can do our best to deliver the relationships our clients really want.

On top of the transaction, as a bonus.

As a gift.

November 10, 2021

Seeing straight

I’m lucky, my eyesight has always been good. Apart from one little thing. I don’t always see straight.

Sometimes, I reach for a book on the bookshelf, and come back with the one that was next to it. I’ve got used to this, so now I purposely reach for the book next to the one I really want. It works every time.

You don’t need dodgy eyes to take advantage of this simple technique. As John Kay writes in ‘Obliquity: why our goals are best achieved indirectly‘ aiming for something next to the thing we want is actually the best way to get the thing we want.

What do you really want for your business? What could you focus on that might actually deliver it?

October 27, 2021

Rotations

Circles are an interesting form of organisation. Like King Arthur’s famous Round Table, nobody is ‘above’ or ‘below’ anyone else. All are on a level.

A circle can be the basis of useful mechanisms for sharing work fairly, without the need for discussion, consensus building or command.

For instance, if you all work in an office, someone has to open up each day. Often it’s one person’s job. What happens when they don’t turn up?

You could decide to give everyone a key, and it’s simply the first to arrive that opens up. But if you are the habitually early one, you might start to resent being the only one who has to do this in practice.

Or you could create an ‘opening up ‘ circle (which could include everyone) and do it by rotation. You might even use a single set of special keys to make the mechanism visible, perhaps even more like a game.

There are probably more jobs that could be organised in this way. You could rotate delivery drivers through different routes or rounds, to give them a change and to introduce customers to more of your team. You could rotate people through networking events in the same way. You could even rotate people through Roles to expand their experience and get clients used to the idea that anyone in your business can help them equally well.

The beauty of a circle is that you can start anywhere, and go clockwise or anti-clockwise. You can choose whatever frequency you like for the rotation. It can even accommodate absences – you just jump the gap if today’s person is missing. Best of all, there’s no room for argument. Everyone takes their turn, then forgets about the job until it comes round again.

No need to write up complex rotas, just draw up your circles, put them somewhere visible, and set them going.

How powerful a signal it would be if everyone, including the boss, took their spot?

October 25, 2021

Our greatest tool

Following nicely on from the last post, I recommend this series of posts from my friend Mary Jane Copps – The Phone Lady.

You’re probably familiar with the idea that as humans we are wired to look for stories, which means that telling them is a great form of marketing.

What Mary Jane makes us realise is that before you can tell your own story effectively, you have to first find the story of the person you are talking to. Not the story of the avatar you’ve created to ‘represent’ them, but the actual story of the actual person you are speaking to right now.

Why?

Because “It’s within their story that your value takes root.“

That means that whatever your process for communicating one-to-one with prospects or clients is, it must have room for curiosity, and enough flex to accommodate the learning you gain by exercising that curiosity.

October 22, 2021

Seeing ourselves

We humans are used to thinking of ourselves as self-aware, or self-conscious.

Except that most of the time we aren’t. We work on auto-pilot, following our habitual paths, working through habitual behaviours without consciously reflecting at all.

We do have moments of conscious awareness – when we’re thinking, or working out a problem – but these really are moments. 7 seconds on average.

Except when we are in conversation with other humans. In conversation, we think, we reflect, we are fully self-conscious. Sometimes for hours on end. You might even say that conversations with other people are where we fully realise ourselves.

And of course, you can’t have a proper conversation without being fully conscious of the other participants too.

You can’t be seen until you learn to see. Not even by yourself.

October 7, 2021

Cheating on your best clients

Turning clients into fans, champions and advocates of your business is brilliant. And not without ongoing cost. If you want to keep them as fans, you have to pay more attention to them than you might think.

For example if your loyal clients have been among the first to buy your ‘one-off, limited edition, short-run, never-to-be-repeated’ thing, don’t give them a free copy in the goody-bag at the next live event they attend. And certainly don’t repeat that mistake at the next one.

As you know, I’m a big fan of consistency, but consistency doesn’t have to mean treating everyone the same. If you have the data – who bought the thing, who’s attending previous events, who’s attending this one, it doesn’t take much effort to find the intersections and tailor your goody-bags accordingly. In fact, giving everyone a named goody-bag only makes things better.

Another example. It’s good to repackage and repurpose content to reach a slightly different segment of your community. Perhaps not so good to sell it to everyone, including those who’ve seen it before. Removing them from your mailout is not hard. Creating an experience that rhymes and reinforces is an even better solution.

Loving your loyal clients back has to be genuine, or the illusion perfectly maintained.

Otherwise, your best fans will feel cheated. And that doesn’t end well for the cheater.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

Musings from The Disappearing Boss on People, Process and Responsible Autonomy for small-business employers.

Category: Customer Experience