The Customer Experience (PART 2)

The Customer Experience: How To Wow Your Customers (PART 2)

TRANSCRIPT: Let’s jump into part two, let’s talk about what is good customer service. What is good customer service? First, let’s talk about what it’s not. Good customer service is not staffing a large customer service department or answering customer complaints quickly. In fact, good customer service is not even solving a customer’s issue. It really isn’t. See, customer service departments in solving customer issues, this implies a reactive approach to the customer experience.

See, lifelong raving fans are created by proactively managing the customer experience, meaning that they never have issues at all. It’s about touchpoints, it’s about managing these touchpoints from their perspective though and not yours. It’s also not about social media management. The very thought that you can create raving fans for life by posting to Facebook, that’s ludicrous, it’s naïve. Touchpoint management is about honesty.

Getting pictures in caption contests on your Facebook page, this is not honesty. There are no shortcuts to honesty. It’s about getting it right the first time. See, it’s not about reactively solving issues, though we will cover that in part four today. It’s about never having issues in the first place. Good customer service means never having to say you are sorry.

Think about Chick-fil-A or Ritz-Carlton or Disney, these brands aren’t known for solving customer issues, right? They are not. They are known for creating great experiences. In other words, they are known for never having issues in the first place. They are controlling the touchpoints, but more importantly they are controlling the real-life touchpoints. They may have great online efforts, in fact all three of them do a good job online, but those are meaningless and those are secondary to how they manage the everyday customer interactions.

Real-life touchpoints, that’s reality. See, every real-life touchpoint matters, and it’s important to understand and all three of these companies understand that the customer or that the person who works for them who is closest to the customer, they control the real-life touchpoint. They also understand that those closest to the customer reflect how they feel they are being treated, meaning if I’m a frontline employee and I’m being treated great, I’m going to reflect that.

If I feel like I’m being treated poorly, I’m going to reflect that as well. All three of these companies also understand that those people who are closest to our customers, they have all the answers, all three of these companies get that and they understand that. By the way, good customer service is enough, it really is good … Good customer service is all we really need.

See, we don’t have to blow their minds with delight, you just have to get things right the first time. There is a really great Harvard Business Review study that showed only 23% of consumers said they had a relationship with a brand, any brand. Only 23% of consumers feel this way about their brands. Of the 77% of consumers who say they don’t have relationship with brands, they say things like, you know what, “It’s just a tire,” “It’s just a car,” “It’s just a fast food restaurant.” “It’s not a member of my family.”

Most customers don’t have these relationships with brands. Who you are is what defines your brand. You can’t artificially tell the customer what your brand is, you need to live it. See, customer service is not about relationships with your brand, customer service is about simplicity. In fact when we think about Chick-fil-A, it’s about good service and manners. If I’m at Chick-fil-A, they give free refills on pop, soda, coke, whatever part of the country you are from, you call it something different, they give free refills on pop, but they don’t have a soda machine over to the side that you can fill them up yourself, you have to go to the counter.

When I take my pop back to the counter to get a free refill and I hand it to him, I tell him what kind of pop it is, and they refill it for free and they bring it back to me, I say, “Thank you,” what do they say? They say, “My pleasure.” They have good service and they have manners. They say, “My pleasure.” See, people often think that Chick-fil-A provides this mind-blowingly great service, they really don’t. They just eagerly provide fast food with manners. That’s it.

It’s about being eager by the way. Ask yourself, are you eager? “Am I eager?” See, eagerness more than any other trait determines whether or not your customer will feel like you care. That sticky sweetness that we sometimes hear from hotel clerks and waiters and waitresses that lacks that genuine eagerness, that’s easy to spot. It’s almost like nails on a chalkboard sometimes. It’d be better off if you are just your boring, miserable honest self if you can’t be eager, but let’s be eager. Let’s realize this that its quality plus attitude that matters, not speed.

See, customers care more about service quality and attitude than about service speed. In fact, the top reasons that customers abandon a company are poor quality and rude customer service, not slow service. Think about Chick-fil-A for a minute. They provide a good quality chicken sandwich. Some people think it’s the best. I think it’s pretty good, I think it’s definitely in top 10, but they do it with good service. See, they are not rude, it’s good quality, its good service, but they are definitely not fast. You order and then you go stand off to the side till your order is ready. It’s not this instant thing.