I was just reading a recent post at Dennis Snow’s blog in which he asks if Training is the Answer when an employee exhibits customer service issues. He states:
When employee performance doesn’t match expectations, it’s important to look at what factors may be involved. Lack of training may be the issue, but it’s just as likely that something else is afoot. Are the right people being hired? Do employees have the tools they need to do the job well? Is substandard performance corrected when it occurs? Is strong performance recognized and rewarded?
I too am a fan of training, however, if the training isn’t reinforced by management, the “feel good, customer-focused” attitude one gets from a rousing training seminar will soon fade.
As Dennis states further in his blog – if you ask an associate to be nicer to customers and they do, then motivation for consistent behavior is the issue. If you ask them to be nicer and they aren’t – then perhaps training is needed.
But what about the assoicates who WANTS to be customer-focused but the tasks and messages they receive from their boss lead them in a different direction?
I once had a boss who would holler from the roof tops that “superior customer service is our number one goal.” Yet he would follow that up with detailed reporting on numbers of customers serviced in an hour, seemingly impossible sales goals and extra community out reach tasks that forced our customer experience to be one of “order taker” rather than relationship builder.
For a company to truly exhibit a focus on the customer – that belief needs to start at the top. The mission, vision and values of the organization need to support a focus on the customer. Then if each layer of management’s roles and responsibilities support the customer-focus that will translate to the hourly employee who has to actually execute the customer-focused behavior.
Do we have employees who could be better listeners and more empathetic to their customers? Yes. Could training help? Absolutely!
However, as managers we also need to ensure that the messages we send to our team keep the customer in the forefront of everyone’s mind rather than as an after thought.
I recently heard Whoopi Goldberg talk about Splash Life, an organization focused on reaching young adults, similar to how AARP reaches the rest of us old folks.
The founder Melissa Helmbrecht Martin started the organization to help youth who are scared about the economic struggles our country is facing and who are directly impacted or want to reach out and help those in need.
One of the ways you can help is with EDAR – everyone deserves a roof. Portable canvas “homes” have been developed to ensure that those who are homeless have shelter to keep out the elements. You can make a donation or sponsor a portion of the portable home by purchasing a roof, frame, mattress or other elements of the unit. It is a tangible way you can give back to the growing number of Americas who are on the street without a roof.
Check out SplashLife, follow them on Twitter and learn how you can take part to help your neighbors who are less fortunate.
I was at dinner with Mom and her friend, Terry a few weeks ago. Terry said that she was following me on Twitter. Thus began a really silly conversation about the funny name Twitter and the equally silly “tweet” verb. I tried to explain the benefits in connecting with customers and like-minded individuals. They listened patiently and I know that Terry was ready to start right that minute, but Mom was a little hesitant.
Well, Mom, the celebs we love to watch in the morning on the Today Show and on The View are on Twitter. The Today show has over 30,000 followers!
Twitter may still be a silly name. It may still be difficult to understand why anyone would want to know what you are doing (the question Twitter asks all its users) but it is a phenomena we need to learn about whether we think the name is funny or not.
Are you connecting through Twitter? How have you used it to reach out to your customers?
I’m on vacation.I’ve been looking forward to this week for more than half a year.A cabin in the Smokey Mountains of Gatlinburg, TN.Reconnecting with nature that fuels my creative juices so that I can write my next book: Make or Break Moments: Revolutionizing Customer Relationships.
The website pictures look enticing – log buildings built into the side of the mountain, sun streaming down and you can almost hear the robins singing in the spring air. Ahhhh.
I arrived on Saturday to discover quite a different experience.
The largest waterpark in the South is just seven steps outside my room.Instead of robins chirping I hear Robin and Robert and Rita screaming at Mommy and Daddy, “But I don’t want to go to bed!”
Instead of a log cabin I’m in a room connected to the two most restless people in the world.If they slam their door one more time I’M GOING TO GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO SLAM THE DOOR ABOUT!
Truthfully, the Westgate Smokey Mountains Resort is beautiful, clean, upscale and a wonderful place to bring your family for a week of fun. I have found every staff member to be extremely helpful and friendly.
Just a few miles away (allow about an hour to drive four miles) is Dollywood, Elvis impersonators, a Jurassic Park ride, mini-golf, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, haunted fun houses and some upside down building called the Wonder Works.Lots to see and do for a family.If there is a recession going on, no one has told this part of Tennessee because it is packed with people spending money and having a great time.
Unless you EXPECTED a quiet, solitary connection with nature to write and reflect and rest.
Then it is just pure hell.
Last night there was a Patsy Cline tribute concert.I walked over to the concert from dinner (food here is wonderful, by the way) and sat with a couple from out west.They’d arrived a day before me and I asked what they thought.They exchanged looks and the husband said “I’ll never be back.”
“We expected a lovely, quiet cabin in the woods,” explained the wife.
“And this place is anything but quiet,” he added.
The Westgate is highly rated by Interval International, the company I have an account with so that I can trade my Cancun time share for other vacation spots.Please know – this is a great place to vacation – if you are looking for a family spot and indoor water adventures.
Yet the couple I sat with last night is having a miserable vacation and plan to leave early.Why?Their expectations were missed by a mile.
So whose fault is that?
This morning I decided to make the best of it.I had brought all my office equipment and food for a week (there is a mini kitchen in my room) and I set about the business of being creative.However after two hours the outdoors beckoned.
I went in search of a quiet spot – surely there was a porch or balcony, a chair or a bench that I could call my own.I asked the security guard greeting new arrivals in the parking lot.I asked the shuttle drivers.I asked at the concierge.
“Hmmm,” they all pondered.“Nope.Don’t think we have anything like that.You can sit here in the lobby if you want.”I looked around at the people waiting to check in, the kids running through from the gift shop and wondered if my iPod ear-buds would block out the chaos enough so that I could write.
But what about the fresh air?
“Oh, there is a picnic table on the other side of that building,” the woman at the concierge suggested.“No one ever uses it because I don’t think they know it’s there.”
I rolled my office over to the other side of the building to discover a picnic table nestled between the parked cars and the trash dumpster.Perhaps a little too much outdoors for my creative juices.
So here I sit, in the game room which is surprisingly empty.My view is the soda pop vending machine and the water cooler.
Gotta tell you: the view from my porch at home is a lot more appealing.
Expectations.
If we miss our customer’s expectations; we miss the opportunity to build a relationship, to earn their loyalty and ensure their return.
How can you gauge expectation?It requires conversation.It requires active listening.
Will this resort care that the couple I met are unhappy with their experience or that I’m struggling to find my piece of outdoors in which to write?
No.Why?We aren’t their target customer.
Exceeding expectations isn’t always the responsibility of the company.We as consumers also share a bit of the responsibility.If we have certain expectations, we need to ask the right questions and do our homework to ensure we aren’t setting ourselves up for disappointment.
Will I recommend Westgate Resortshere in Gatlinburg?Actually, YES.It is a wonderful place for fun and family.Will I return?I just might but next time I’ll leave the computer at home, bring my kids and our bathing suits!
p.s. After writing this I set my computer aside and hiked the trails on property to the top of the nearby mountain. Glorious! Nature abounds.
The country is made up of Democrats and Republicans, Independents and those that don’t care. Voters switch between parties, vote across party lines and sometime just don’t have an opinion.
But there is one thing the American public definitely knows: which is better – Coke or Pepsi.
I’m not here to debate taste – for of course Coke is best – no, I’m here to talk about which company understands their customer. More directly: which marketing department’s graphic designer understands their customer.
I was just at the store stocking up on my favorite beverage. They had a sale on the 24-packs and I had two: one diet Coke and one regular. The packages are heavy. I emptied my groceries onto the counter and lifted up the heavy carton of 24 cans of Coke. I lifted it by the pop-out handle which meant the case stood upright on the counter.
The clerk pulled out her handy dandy wand but couldn’t find the UPC label. Ah, it was on the bottom. We had to turn the case over on its side. To keep their inventory accurate I now had to pull out the diet Coke case, again hefting the weight and turning it on its side.
“The Pepsi cases are much easier to scan,” the clerk informed me. “You don’t have to pick it up out of the cart. They have the UPC labels on the side so I can just zap it with my handy wand.”
Interesting.
“Pepsi is much better. Coke just doesn’t care,” she told me.
I said, “Perhaps the person that designed the packaging didn’t think about how the product would be scanned. It isn’t like they don’t like cash register clerks, they just didn’t take the time to think it through.”
Hrrumf, she grunted. “Pepsi used to have their code on the bottom, but they changed their packaging.” She clearly wasn’t convinced that Coke was just as good as Pepsi.
I can see that the Coke packaging would easily slide over the register’s scanner to pick up the UPC information but that requires lifting the 10 pound package.
So who has put themselves in the shoes of the customer? Although I prefer the taste of Coke – I would have to say that Pepsi did a little more research.
Any Coke or Pepsi executives out there who can enlighten us as to the reasoning for the UPC label positioning?
It’s a little thing. But it is a little thing that impacts customers and cashiers across the country – the world - and requires them to lift the heavy cases out of the carts or bend them over side ways.
Sometimes it isn’t about the quality of the product. Sometimes it is something as simple as a label. Have you looked at your products/services from every angle and thought through how the customer will use it? Is there something you can change that would make the life of your customer just a little bit easier?
I have bushy eyebrows. Always have. Before Brook Shields made them popular, my one big eyebrow was the reason for many tearful, middle school nights. I wore long bangs to cover my hairy forehead.
And then some brilliant person invented eyebrow waxing! Gotta love it. A little pain and it looks like I’ve had a facelift for under $20!
At the Tallmadge Chamber lunch today I met Carol Martin who owns Carol Martin Salon Day Spa. Having checked my eyebrows in the mirror this morning, I knew I was over due for a waxing.
“Sure – we can get you in after the luncheon,” Carol told me. So I zipped across the street to her location. I was cheerfully greeted, asked to sign in and then MAGIC happened.
I have to back up for just a minute.
A friend of mine, who is a professional coach, told the sad tale of a conversation she had with a prior customer.She likes to take her customers out for a thank you lunch once a year with no hidden agenda, just a nice opportunity to sit and chat about business and life.It was on one such occasion that she learned a hard lesson.
“He was talking about a recent challenge he’d had with his business,” she told me.“He needed a speech writer for a corporate function and he didn’t have anyone on staff who could adequately complete the task.”She shook her head sadly as she continued the story.
“He moaned about going from one writer to another and the struggle he’d endured to find someone who could not only write a satisfactory speech but who would quickly learn enough about the business to sound authentic.”
The reason the story is so sad for my friend?She is a professional speech writer.She’d known the customer for over five years and understands his business, the company’s goals and objectives and enough of the corporate culture to have written a brilliant speech in a relatively short period of time.
“I asked him why did just didn’t call me?I worried that he’d been secretly dissatisfied with my work thus far but his answer was much more disturbing to me,” she said.
“He had no idea I wrote speeches.”
My friend had successfully created a brand for herself in the professional coaching arena but never bothered to effectively communicate the other products and services she offered to her customers.
Do customer know ALL you offer?
How often does it happen that a customer thinks of you in association with one product or service and doesn’t have a clue all of the services you offer?
Now back to Carol Martin’s Salon and Day Spa.
Before being led to the room for the surgery to separate my eyebrow into two reasonably sized brows, I was given a complete tour.
“Here’s where we offer pedicures and manicures, and we have two rooms for body services like body wraps, massages and facials.Here’s the room with the shampoo bowls and the make up area where we can do make up for prom parties and wedding parties.”
In less than two minutes, I had the opportunity to clearly see all of the services offered at Carol Martin’s.
It was a great exercise in helping a new customer understand the full scope of solutions available.I walked out a short while later – freshly waxed and feeling great!
Do your customers know about all of your products and services?How can you quickly and concisely let knew customers know all you offer?
Picture in your mind your favorite shopping experience.It might have been the look of the store, the merchandise, the sales person or the fact that you finally fit into that smaller size.Whatever the reason, you look back on that experience and it puts a smile on your face.In fact, you enjoyed spending your money there so much, that you plan to go back again.
Now think about the worst experience you’ve ever had:never acknowledged in the store, a missed deadline, product or service wasn’t what you expected.I’ll bet you felt you spent too much money, right?The value wasn’t there.
Now think about your customers.Which experience do you want them to have in your place of business?
Whether you work in a retail store, or provide financial, legal, or real estate services, you sell exercise equipment, piece of mind or makeup – we can all point to a client or customer that we’ve worked with that everything just clicked.Am I right?
They say things like:that was the best ever.Or – you were a life saver.Or – you made it seem so easy.
That is the beginning of customer loyalty.Just the beginning.
You see we all have competition vying for that customer that we so desperately want to help.Depending on your customer’s buying cycle, it may be two weeks or two years before they require your help again.In the meantime, they may have forgotten your name or even get your location confused with another similar business.
What do you do to stand out in your customer’s mind so they remember the experience, refer you to their friends and then they return for more?
My kids are sick. One has a sore throat and dry cough and the other has a bad head cold. No fevers, no stomach flu, no need for a prescription, but they are both miserable.
I went to Giant Eagle to check out the over-the-counter options. So many choices, flavors, pills, liquids and messages that promise symptom relief. I went up to the Pharmacy counter. It was busy but the Pharmacist caught my eye and said “We’ll be right with you.” I love that. I’ll wait indefinitely as long as someone just acknowledges my presence.
I had two different boxes in my hand and the Pharmacist came over and said “trying to decide what to buy?”
I said yes and then explained my kid’s symptoms. One of the choices I had retailed for over $12. He pointed to the box and said “you can use that but I’d recommend something a little different.”
He walked with me to the medicine aisle and took the time to explain the different options and pointed out the important ingredients. He showed me how some of the marketing messages were used to encourage you to buy more than you need. He helped me pick out something to help each of my children and when I thanked him he said:
“Not a problem. I’d rather be honest and tell you what you need rather than have you buy more than is necessary.”
It was an eye opening experience. Not only was he honest but he also took the time to teach me why he was making the recommendations he did. He helped me for future purchases. It was a great experience. I’ll be back – although hopefully not for medicine.
Sometimes we think we are supposed to tell the customer what we think they want to hear. However, customers are smart. They know when we say “Oh, that looks great on you – it was just made for you!” that we aren’t always being sincere. Honestly and sincerity go a long way toward building customer loyalty. And customer loyalty leads to repeat business and referrals.
I was at a chamber lunch the other day and got to chatting with one of my seat mates about my favorite subject. Customer Service. He told me about an experience his son had while working as the assistant manager of a national shoe retailer.
“He was waiting on a woman who really fell in love with a particular shoe. He didn’t have the shoe in her size in the right color. Rather then talk her into something else or just send her on her way, he got on the phone and called around until he found a store – on the other side of the country – that had exactly what she wanted.”
Going the extra mile or just meeting the customer needs? So what happened?
“She was so pleased with his efforts that she came back and brought several of her friends.”
That’s what customer service is all about. If you keep your eye on exceeding customer expectations it pays you in the dividends of referrals and repeat business.
But there is a kicker to this story.
“Yeah, my son did a great job but his boss yelled at him. He said: You can’t devote that kind of time to a customer. We need to just sell shoes and get on to the next customer.”
My lunch partner explained that eventually his son moved on to take on other stores and then regions and now he is a key executive in the retail world. The secret to his success? Putting the customer first. Focusing on exceeding the customer’s expectations.
I like that story. Great success all based on the foundation of putting the customer first. Do you have a story to share?
My Mom refuses to return to a spa that is right by her house. She hates it. Strong word. What’s the reason for her strong feelings?
“Every time I’ve been there, the staff is so focused on their precious computer they don’t have time to even acknowledge my presence.”
Technology is a wonderful thing except when it isn’t. You’ve had the same experience – right? The employee is so focused on filling in the required information that they forget you are even standing there. Their frustration translates to you and the experience is unpleasant, uncomfortable.
Not long ago I had a frustrating experience trying to connect a new printer to my computer. After many failed attempts I called the Customer Service Line. The automated system increased my frustration level to a fevered pitch and by the time I was talking to a real person I was close to jumping off the ledge.
I started our conversation like this:
“Okay – I have been hung up on and have had three days of frustration trying to install a $55 printer. I’m NOT stupid. There is a problem and you need to fix it. You are going to stay on this phone and insure that I get connected with someone who can help me.”
“Okay, miss. Can I first have your email?”
“Your phone number?”
“And how would you like us to reach you in the future?”
“You don’t seem to get the fact that I don’t want you to reach me in the future I want help now!”
He was so focused on filling in the required blanks in his computer screen he didn’t seem to hear how upset I was.
Had he abandoned his computer for a moment and listened – really listened – to me, he could have gone a long way in fixing the problem by just saying “Gosh – I’m sorry. It sounds like you’ve had a really frustrating time. Not to worry, I’m sure I can help. Before we get started can I just get a little information from you so that in case we get disconnected I have a way of reaching you?”
Sales scripts and computer forms have a purpose but they shouldn’t take precedence over the actual customer in front of us.
Do your employees stick to the script? Are they so focused on their computer that they forget to look up and make eye contact with the customer?
How can you combine technology with the actual customer? Be on the look out today to see the interaction between your staff and the customer. Which seems to get more attention: the computer or the customer?
Read the First Comment 
My kids are sick. One has a sore throat and dry cough and the other has a bad head cold. No fevers, no stomach flu, no need for a prescription, but they are both miserable. 
I was at a chamber lunch the other day and got to chatting with one of my seat mates about my favorite subject. Customer Service. He told me about an experience his son had while working as the assistant manager of a national shoe retailer. 
