They sound similar but do they mean the same thing? I asked the question of the Build Customer Relationships group on LinkedIn this week and overwhelmingly the answer was NO. Everyone agrees that customer service is the foundation – what gets customers in the door the first time and turns them from prospects to customers but it is only when we work to build customer relationships that we enjoy a long term – REPEAT – business with our customers.
Actually knowing and ensuring each customer receives the type of service they want, not what we THINK they want. This can take any number of forms beyond the obvious such as prompt, informed attention by capable associates, the right products available when needed, etc. The best overall customer service usually comes down to some very basic requirements that most customers want ~ genuine, not scripted or “forced / manufactured” service, help available when it’s desired and not being offered or having products pushed that are of no real need to the customer. Making sure the customer feels and IS valued and always treated as such.
If you were to create a Customer Relationship Experience rather than a Customer Service Experience – how would they look different? Or would they? Do your employees understand the concept of building relationships with each person that comes in the door or calls on the phone? Share your tips for success here.
In his sermon this morning he had a quote that made the congregation chuckle but perhaps the laughter was a little uncomfortable because of the truth of his statement:
“I know that I’m nothing but I’m all that I can think about.”
Just think about that for a moment.
I have a house full of 13 year old giggly, girls today (remnants from the Twilight trilogy all nighter) and I shared the quote with them. Their response? “That’s SO TRUE.” OMG
It really doesn’t matter who we are or how old we are – bottom line – we think about ourselves an awful lot. That’s where the “what’s in it for me” and “what have you done for me lately” phrases come from.
So what does that mean for our customers? Or for our employees? Or our boss?
When I was a teen and obsessed over a new pimple, my Mom would say “No one will notice because they are all worried about their own pimples.”
That is still true as adults. Our customers, our employees, our vendors, our competition, our boss – they are thinking about themselves. So if we keep that in mind – it should help us in a variety of ways:
Putting ourselves in our customer’s shoes all of a sudden has new value
If the competition is thinking about themselves and their success and you think about the customer – how will that change the experience from the customer’s point of view?
If you remember your employees are thinking about themselves - might that change how you manage and respond to their opportunities for improvement?
If we put the customer first – understanding that they are really just thinking about themselves, their own needs, their own budget, their own problem that needs a solution – if we think like they do and recognize and respond to them – won’t we stand out in their minds as being sympathetic, empathetic, understanding and the only business they want to do business with?
I think so.
Think about this. Have you had a conversation that just dominates your time together? You barely have a chance to get a word in edgewise except for “oh my” or “tell me more” or “how did that make you feel?” We share nothing of ourselves. We say almost nothing. Yet what is their memory of your time together?
“That Debbie is the best conversationalist. I just love talking with her!”
I know I’m nothing but I’m all I can think about.
How can you use that truth to stand out from the competition today?
I used to have a little cartoon from the paper that said “Shrug off Apathy.” How ironic, I’d chuckled, as I snipped it from the paper, and yet so many of today’s workers in the retail and food service environments have an attitude that is just this side of apathetic. Some would call it “indifference.” My dad would have quipped, “You seem to have mistaken me for someone who cares.”
In reading a recent post by Steve Curtin, I am reminded of the impression an indifferent or apathetic employee leaves with customers. Steve tells the tale of taking his young family to Dairy Queen for a much anticipated special treat. The employee’s face, in constrast to that of his young children, is serious to the point of sour.
After we placed our order, my son Cole (age 9) and I waited off to the side for our order while the rest of the family found a place for us to sit on the patio.
I asked Cole, “On a zero to ten scale with zero being rude and ten being very friendly, how would you rate the girl who took our order?”
He said, “Six.”
I asked him why he rated her a six and he said, “Because she didn’t smile.”
I then asked him, “Was there anything else?”
And he said, “Yes, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
What Cole couldn’t put his finger on (because he’s only in third grade) is the leading cause of customer dissatisfaction: indifference.
People buy from those they like and trust – not those who sneer or seem to reject them with their lack of interest. How can we ever hope to build relationships with our customers if our front-line employees shower them with a full dose of indifference?
Steve goes on to say:
In one survey, 68 percent of customers said they quit doing business with a company because of perceived indifference towards them as customers.
And here’s what is really scary: Most customer service providers are blissfully unaware of their own indifference. From their perspectives, they are efficiently executing customer transactions.
So what’s a business to do? Three things immediately come to mind:
Listen. Listen. Listen.
Listen to your customers. Listen to your employees. Listen to your gut instinct. Conduct random customer calls to see how they’d rate the service. Really listen to what they have to say. When a customer complains – don’t assume they were in the wrong – really listen to what they have to say. Like Steve’s son Cole, they might not be able to articulate the problem but they just know that your company won’t be able to meet their needs based on the fact that they didn’t feel cared for or valued or even visible!
Do your employees have an attitude of indifference?
I am always focused on the customer and our relationship with them but the other key component to successfully building a reputationfor putting customers first is how your employees feel about the whole thing. Happy employees equal happy customers. “If mamma hate happy, ain’t nobody happy.”
“They don’t tell me what I need to know to do my job”
I love the irony of the first two – you are afraid to speak up, but if you conquer your fears and speak up it doesn’t matter because they aren’t listening anyway.
Today’s quote in my Leadership widget that provides a quote to my iGoogle page each morning said this:
Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results. ~ George S. Patton
Imagine if we did four things differently:
Provided the whys and wherefores of the task at hand with all of the information necessary or information about who they need to go to for more clarification
Asked employees for their thoughts
Listened with interest
Then let them have at it!
I wonder what impact that would have on our success and on the morale of our staff?
Being treated with the attitude of indifference is as bad if not worse than being treated with rudeness.
Now usually someone will post a discussion point and there will be comments for a few days and then people move on to the next topic but this discussion has been continuing as one of the top items in the group for the entire three months. Everyone agrees that indifference is just as bad as outright rudeness. The discussions have talked more about the root of the problem. Some blame the economy or a lack of training or a lack of motivation or hiring the wrong people or bottom line management but the general consensus is that there is a growing problem with the attitude of our nation’s employees and how they treat customers.
My take? It is a culture thing. If the company culture is one that focuses on sales and profitability before customers – then sooner or later the customer becomes a distraction or an interruption in the day rather than our reason for being.
However, if everyone is dedicated to uncovering and resolving the customer’s needs then the sales and profitablity will take care of itself. Customers remember when they’ve truly been seen as important rather than cash in the register.
So I ask you – what do you think? Is it just this younger generation that doesn’t understand the value of the customer? Is it a lack of training and focus? Are we hiring indifferent people?
I normally focus on the customer at Make or Break Moments, but today I’d like to shine the spotlight on our NUMBER ONE ASSET – our employees.
How we treat our employees and how we make them feel directly impacts how they treat our customers.
I remember a store visit I once conducted with Pearle Vision. The franchisee owned three stores but worked primarily out of one of them. This store visit was to a store he rarely visited. It was a small store in size and sales volume and only had three employees. On this particular day there were two associates working. As was my practice during my visit, I kept an open ear to the customer conversations to see how the customers were treated and to critique the sales conversation.
Were they asking questions about lifestyle?
Were they making recommendations based on those facts?
Were they suggesting a second pair purchase?
Did they recommend lens treatments like scratch protection, tinting and ultraviolet ray protection?
During a lull in the afternoon, I mentioned the fact that they really just filled out order forms. They didn’t ask any questions and they made no recommendations. For me it was an “ah – ha” moment. This is why sales are so low in this store. The opportunities were incredible. Until I heard the associates response.
“Oh sure, we know what we could be doing to improve sales but why should we bother? The owner clearly doesn’t care about this store or these customers. He certainly doesn’t care about us – he never visits or calls or asks us questions or allows us to attend training. If he doesn’t care – why should we? We get paid either way.”
Talk about the real “ah – ha” moment in this store visit.
Yesterday during the sermon, our minister, Rev. Dr. Peter Wiley, shared a letter Paul wrote to the Corinthians in which he likened our body to that of the Body of Christ – each part has a role, each role no more important than any other but without the whole – we don’t function. As part of the sermon he talks about how people each carry a bucket. And we can respond to each other’s bucket in one of two ways:
1. We can fill each other’s bucket with words of praise, recognition and encouragement.
2. We can drain their bucket with criticism, negativity and judgemental comments.
That really hit home for me. At the end of the day, Peter asked, can we look back and say we spent more time filling buckets or emptying them? On any given day, for me, it could go either way. I find that the people I am closest too, the ones who mean the most, I spend more time being critical. I assume they know their value and how important they are to me and how proud I am of their accomplishments.
Do we do the same with our employees? Do we assume they know their value and therefore, we spend the most time finding things wrong that they could be doing better/differently? Or do we ignore them entirely which is another way of emptying their bucket?
How our employees feel is directly related to how they treat our customers. If they were asked – would they say you spend more time FILLING their bucket or EMPTYING it?
p.s. we need to ask the same question of ourselves with all our relationships.
CBS just announced a new reality television show scheduled to hit February 7, 2010 called Undercover Boss. The premise is a series of high level bosses donning their regular duds and rubbing elbows with front line employees.
Let’s hope that means we’ll see CEOs interacting with customers. In the recent edition of Entertainment Weekly, the article shared what we can expect to see:
“Each week the boss of a big American company goes undercover on the front line of their business,” says Stephen Lambert, who was also behind the similar-themed reality show Secret Millionaire. “Because the companies are large enough, the workers don’t know what the boss actually looks like. They’re not dressed in a suite-they’re dressed like all the other workers.”
In the first episode an executive from Waste Management works on the front line, picking up trash, cleaning toilets and may even end up getting fired!
The premise is a good one, my hope is that in future weeks we’ll see executives meeting their actual customer face-to-face. Set your TEVO (or in my case, VCR) to February 7 to see how executives do when they come face to face with the customers that support their business.
I’m shopping for a new refrigerator and stove – have I told you? Two really big expense items. Last year it was the dryer and dishwasher – man, it is expensive owning a home.
So after researching on the Internet, I decide that Best Buy has the best prices. I walked in the other day and was greeted by a smile. He says “What can I help you with?” I told him and he said “So what color do you want?”
Of all of the features and decisions when appliance shopping, I thought that was an odd place to start. It made me smile – it was so unexpected. So I laughed and said “That’s where you want to start?”
He said – “No – how about we start by saying, I’m Paul and you are?”
He reached out his hand and smiled.
I was immediately won over. I’m going to be spending a lot of money. It’s nice to know that I will be buying from someone who knows my name and begins to use it.
It turns out there is a question as to whether or not I have a drop in stove and he recommends that before I spend a bunch of money, I should have a professional come measure and check out the situation and he can take care of that for me. We get to talking and learning more about each other and he learns that I will be giving a speech on Customer Service and he says:
“So how am I doing?”
“You’re doing great,” I assure him.
Paul Has Ideas For Customer Service
He proceeds to tell me that he has all these ideas for improving customer service above and beyond. He wants to take a sign language class so he can communicate with those who have a hearing disability. He wants to create an “in home” shopping program for those who are unable to leave their home but want a more personal shopping experience than just shopping on the Internet and he wants to start a blog about shopping for appliances.
Now Paul is not the owner of Best Buy. He isn’t the Manager of the Macedonia, Ohio Best Buy. Paul isn’t the Department Manager. Paul is a hard working sales person in the appliance section with dreams and ideas for how to make Best Buy better.
When was the last time you ASKED your employees what ideas they have for making your business better? The employees that actually talk every day to the customers are probably your greatest source for ideas on marketing, sales techniques, customer service, merchandising and purchasing. Have you solicited their ideas? Have you listened to what they have to say?
I hope someone within Best Buy has a Google Alert set up so they see this post and then follow through and talk to Paul about his ideas. He’s got a lot of them and they are all good.
I bet your employees have a lot of great ideas too.
Have you shopped Wal-Mart? When you check out, the credit card machine asks one of a series of random questions. “Was the store clean today?” “Was your cashier friendly?”
I’ve shopped there enough to be aware of the question. I am assuming the answer ties to the person at the register and with today’s automation, I imagine a report is published with the results for the manager to peruse. Being a friendly sort myself, I’m usually quick to say hello as I put my purchases on the conveyor belt and today was no exception.
However, I was greeted with…
NOTHING.
No eye contact. No smile. No response to my opening comments. I was surprised as this is not the norm for my local Wal-Mart staff. As I approached the machine to swipe my debit card I noticed the question was about the friendliness of my cashier.
Sadly, I pushed the “no” button. She continued to ring and bag my purchases and I transferred the bags to my cart – all in silence. Until the transaction was complete.
She looked up – handed me my receipt and became Chatty Cathy!
“So how are you today? Enjoying the wonderful weather?
“umm, yes and how are you?” I responded, taken back by her spirit.
“Fine but I’m looking forward to my break.” ahhhh – understanding dawns.
However, I had already pressed the button labeling her as unfriendly. I wanted to take back my vote – get a second chance. But then I thought – she must know about the button on the cash machine. She must know she is being measured. Is a customer friendly attitude only required some of the time? Sadly, her friendly, welcoming spirit came too late. Timing was everything and today she was found lacking when it counted.
Are your employees customer friend consistently? Are you? It is a hard task to take on. We all come to a point in our day when we are counting the minutes until we can put our feet up and take a break. In those few moments our smile may falter. And yet the customers we encountered during those tired moments may be visiting us for the first time. They may get the impression that the tired, non-engaged attitude is how all customers are treated.
Can we afford to let our guard down? Whew. It is exhausting.
I was just reading the latest newsletter from John Tschohl, customer service trainer, who talked about the fact that the need for customer service training is just as prevelent today as it was thirty years ago when he wrote his first training program:
Customer service frankly is not much better today than it was 30 years ago. The objections are still the same. If I train my employees they might leave. The solution is to put a big sign on each door to your business that says, “None of our employees have been trained”. In realty, that is what most organizations do.
Companies still have unlimited marketing money. Very few organizations understand it is 10 times cheaper to keep a customer than get a new one. Empowerment does not exist. Employees are NOT allowed to make decisions that might keep a customer. Their decision might be wrong. Waiving a $39 late fee is too expensive, but the same organization will spend $300 to acquire a new customer. Few companies know the lifetime value of their customers.
There are two great points in that short portion of his newsletter:
1. The fear of losing employees keeps some employers from providing training
2. Employers fail to understand the value of their existing customer base
In my most recent newsletter I ask the question Do you build marketing plans or customer relationships. Nurturing our existing customer relationships is a critical component to growing our business in today’s competitive environment. Failing to recognize the value of those who have done business with us – adopting an attitude of “Oh – WE HAVE THEM – must move on to gaining new faces” is setting us up for failure.
Customers can tell when we assume that they will stay loyal. They can tell when we’ve lost interest in wooing them. How many marriages fail because the couple fails to look their best, act their best and put their best foot forward. Is it so different with our existing customers?
Now compound the problem by not training and TRUSTING our employees to do the best for the customer.
One of the reasons people point to the Ritz as an example of customer service is because they:
Train their people
Give them the tools to ensure a great customer experience
Trust their employees to do what is necessary to fix a problem
Empower their employees to represent the brand in a positive way
Do the powers that be worry about losing their staff? Maybe. But that doesn’t stop them from doing what’s right with respect to their customer.
Here’s a wacky thought:
What if every employer trained their employees to treat every customer as they’d like to be treated.
What if we treated our existing customers like a new love interest – doing everything we can to be the one they keeping choosing year after year?
Read the First Comment 
All this week the preacher at the 
I used to have a little cartoon from the paper that said “Shrug off Apathy.” How ironic, I’d chuckled, as I snipped it from the paper, and yet so many of today’s workers in the retail and food service environments have an attitude that is just this side of apathetic. Some would call it “indifference.” My dad would have quipped, “You seem to have mistaken me for someone who cares.”
I am always focused on the customer and our relationship with them but the other key component to successfully building a reputationfor putting customers first is how your employees feel about the whole thing. Happy employees equal happy customers. “If mamma hate happy, ain’t nobody happy.”
