KateNasser.com

As we work tirelessly to deliver super customer experience, I find and fix common everyday mistakes that drive customers away.

Recent experiences focus me today on ways we imprison customers which do everything but build loyalty. You might think imprisonment is too strong a word. Yet that is what customers report.

Give customers a get out of jail free card — fix these mistakes!

Ways We Imprison Customers!

1. Endless Loops. This is definitely #1 on the customers list. Beyond the endless unclear phone menus (voice response units – VRUs, IVRs), customers also feel imprisoned by agents, reps, and CSRs with poor skills.

   The Story: A business owner needed to become a credit card merchant. The sales rep was clear, focused, and offered a great deal. The business owner signed up. The sales rep reported that the support team would send an email with account # and temporary password. Support would then call to finalize everything.
   

   

   Super Customer Experience: Loyalty Not Imprisonment! Image: iStock for Editorial Use.

   
   The business owner received a phone message from support saying “By now you have received your email with account # and password. Please call me, Mindy, at this phone number and extension.” The business owner left Mindy a message saying “We never received the email. Please let us know what to do now.”

   Mindy left a second, third, and fourth message saying the exact same thing as her first message! When the business owner finally spoke on the phone with Mindy, she continued to say “you should have received the email by now.”

   Imprisonment: The business owner finally said, “Time is money. Move me forward or I will cancel my account.”

   Customer service is forward not stagnant. To customers, stagnant feels like imprisonment.

   Release customers from status quo prison! For a super customer experience, move them forward to the solution.

   Question: Where in your organization do customers get stuck in the status quo?




2. Lack of teamwork. Multiple teams engaged in service with little or no teamwork leave customers trapped in a maze. Customers must jump between teams to get a solution or jump out of the maze and choose freedom. That’s not conducive to customer loyalty.

   For super customer experience, deliver a single point of solution not multiple points of failure. Build teamwork with shared technology, mutual service level targets, and one service culture.

   Question: How many teams in your organization must work together to deliver a super customer experience? Do they all give it the same priority? If not, customers end up imprisoned in the maze.




3. Tunnel vision. A less evident yet still common mistake, thinking only from the company or agent perspective. Super customer experience requires seeing things from the customer’s view. Else the customers feel ignored and overlooked — imprisoned in solitary confinement.
   Cultural tunnel vision in global service leaves customers in the dark.
   Rigid script reading and poor listening slam the door shut.
   Websites with poor e-commerce design drive customers away — to well-designed easy-to-use sites.

   Shine the light of customer awareness throughout your organization to free customers from solitary confinement and to value them in your organization.

   Question: Where in your organization is tunnel vision blocking super customer experience? Expand the vision. Replace the tunnel with bridges to the customers and to your success.

Customers want information and solutions that meet their needs. Online, in person, or on the phone, they seek positive easy experiences to get what they want. Imprisonment is not positive nor easy. It makes them want to break out, run away from the stress and find success elsewhere.

Think customer care not customer control. Think bonding not bondage. Think customer!

I look forward to working with you, leaders, and your teams to create super customer experience.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Related Posts:
Super Opportunity to Improve Every Customer Experience
Simply Great Choices Create Super Customer Experience

©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please first email info@katenasser.com for terms of use. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service, customer experience, teamwork, and leading change. For 23 years, she has turned interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer testimonials and results.

Ever ask your customer service reps what do the customers think is a great experience? Regardless of your industry, the CSRs are close to the customers’ honest opinions. If you give them a chance, they could answer the question:

What’s Our Super Glue of Customer Experience? 

Here is some of the super glue of customer experience …

1. Being remembered beyond the name. When customers’ preferences are recalled in real time — not just noted in a database that the customers completed themselves — there is a sense of belonging.




2. Easy to do business with. The definition of easy varies by customer base including generations, occupational focus, educational background. Everything online may seem easy to one generation and maddening to another. Nonetheless, easy will always be at the top of the list.




3. Flexibility! When company procedures can flex and bend to the customers’ needs, customers experience the ultimate in care. Why? Because it fits them, their lives, and their businesses. It’s obstacle free.




4. Be top notch! Know your customer base and deliver the best product or service in their eyes. There is debate on this in light of Steve Jobs’ alternate approach to product development. I see both approaches working. Consider how people rebelled when new Coke was introduced — and they brought back Coke classic.




5. Prevent disasters. Customers are glad when you don’t have problems in delivering service. They are elated when your knowledge, experience, and foresight, prevent disasters in their business or life.
   
   

6. Deliver welcome surprises. In everyday life, customers rely on themselves. When they must reach out, they wonder what will happen. When the happening is beyond their expectations, the experience shines.




7. Memorable in uncommon ways. Quick story: I go for a yearly mammogram. I ask for the same technician each time because her interpersonal skills and sense of humor turn a stressful dreaded ritual into a memorable experience. She makes a difference. I could go to a center closer to my house yet I might end up with Rhonda the compression robot. I’ll pass on that thanks. (See you next year Flo!)

Do you know what your customers think? Would you get the same answers from all your teams? From the customers?


What is our super glue of customer experience? This one simple question can begin the discussion that will unite understanding and produce outstanding customer experience.


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

The rule, the customer is always right, has survived over a century as a quick way to instill a strong sense of customer in all employees.

Despite its detractors, it has breathed life into customer service and sales and filled the gaps during uncertain moments.

As new graduates enter the workforce, many will be glad to know that customers’ views breathe life into this old being right rule.

The customers’ views about the following are always right — always count:

1. Urgency. – Theirs not ours.
2. Business or personal impact. – To them before us.
3. Critical factors. – From their perspective over ours when there is disagreement.
4. What they expect of us. – Work hard and smart to achieve it.
5. How they want to be treated as people. – Completely right.

The key to living this old rule in today’s world is to remember that we may disagree or say no even when the customer’s view is right for them.

Whether we say no for ethical reasons, legal restrictions, limited capabilities, or strategic mission, we must still treat the customers’ views with respect. They have insider insight we will never have regardless of how well or how long we know them. The decision of where to buy is theirs.

Their views are the lifeline for our success. Respecting their views preserves that lifeline for the long term. Acting as if we always know better, suffocates the customers’ views and could forever sever our lifeline of insider insight.


Benefits of The Customer Is Always Right Rule

It helps establish a customer centric culture.

Guides all employees to sell to and serve the customer well within the strategic mission of the business.

Increases our listening especially when our experience tries to drown it out.

Keeps us in service mode even when business is booming.

Fills the gaps during uncertain moments.

Shows constant gratitude and desire for future business.

Expresses respect for the customers’ insight and perspective.

Builds trust for current and future business and often with more openness for our views and expertise.

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Basically, it keeps customers coming back and interested in what we have to offer. Not a bad payoff for one old rule.

Yours in service,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times. See this site for customer service workshop outlines and business results. Fill the gaps in customer service and teamwork with business wins – book Kate now.

Recent studies show that loyal customers are the ones that find your service easy.  For hotels and the hospitality and travel industry, this has morphed into frequent guest profiles on room type, or rental car preference, or aisle/window choice on an airplane.

They have created a standard process on certain service items to earn customer loyalty. It’s just a beginning.

Hotels must go far beyond that and rewards programs to earn the customer loyalty especially of frequent business travelers. They must:

Make it easy for customers to get exceptions to the standard process and sustain those exceptions throughout each stay.

Most hotels don’t sustain customers’ exceptions. The hotels are driven by standard processes and handle each exception as a transaction. You can make a special request and hopefully they deliver on that exception. Yet if it’s something you want every day during the stay or for every stay, you must request it each time.

A recent example: Sheraton hotel provided two bath towels, two hand towels, and two wash cloths in the room. I asked for two additional bath towels. They delivered. The next day housekeeping gave me — you guessed it — just two bath towels, two hand towels etc… Each day I had to request the same exception to their standard process.

Delivering great customer service when requested may get you high customer satisfaction scores. Delivering pro-active customer service may win you great acclaim.

But to earn customer loyalty, deliver easy exceptions and sustain those exceptions. Why? In this example, it’s just one easy phone call each day for some towels right? Easy maybe. Loyalty building it isn’t.

Customer loyalty is earned from easy exceptions that you remember to deliver each time. When you sustain the customers’ exceptions, you are telling them you remember their needs. Being remembered and cared for creates psychological comfort. That earns you the customers’ trust and thus their loyalty.

Picture yourself as a customer. Think about the diner waitress who remembers exactly how you want your eggs. The dry cleaner who knows your name and remembers your preferences. The consultant who already knows your hot buttons and key concerns. The dentist who knows your pain tolerance and how to ease it. The florist who remembers what flowers you send your mother even when you don’t!

This type of customer service becomes more than service. To the customer, you become an essential part of their easy life. If a hotel makes my life easy, I don’t even consider a different hotel for my next trip. You prevent the question mark from forming in my mind. Your hotel becomes my sanctuary when you sustain my exceptions to your standard processes.

This is a challenge for large scale operations yet it is feasible with modern technology. How about easy online portals for all customers to send in their exception requests in advance — without having to call? Or even when they are on site? How about special request kiosks on each floor? Perhaps hand held devices on housekeeping carts that give the staff just in time info on what each customer wants?

Capitalize on the fact that most people don’t like change. They like comfortable easy situations that they can rely on especially when far from home. Following your standard process is a change. You earn their loyalty by making exceptions easy to get and remembering to deliver them each time.


Will it be your brand? If yes, let me know and I will be a regular at your hotel!


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please first email info@katenasser.com for terms of use. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers actionable customer service insights through workshops, keynotes, consultations, and DVDs. Now in her 21st year in business, her stellar results are well known in the customer service industry. See this site for more information.

Esther Denn, eDenn Property Management, recently asked me to pen a blog post on delivering great customer service to increase customer loyalty. Property management is a fast paced field and you need more than occupational knowledge to succeed. Entire teams must truly understand the value of the customer and deliver every aspect of daily customer service from that mindset. As I wrote the post, one thought kept recurring – easy does it for customer loyalty! Every customer celebrates, remembers, returns, and refers when the experience with you was easy.

This post is valuable for any business whether you are the CEO or a CSR because: Customers Remember Moments – What Do They Remember About You? Don’t leave it up to chance.

Listening up to the level of your customers’ expectations brings in your customers’ dollars.

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Makes sense yes? A Businessweek article http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_52/b4015405.htm entitled Listening Up – Building a Customer-Based Culture once again highlighted the importance of the ultimate connection with your customers:

1. Listen to your customers.
2. Provide action quickly.
3. Save their day to build customer loyalty.
4. Continuously train your staff to improve these customer focused skills.

Then why do companies put primary focus on uniformity of customer service that breeds non-listening and often unmemorable service? Almost every call center sounds the same, has the same scripted non-caring service, and does not build the customers’ desires to spend dollars.

The lowest cost step to customers’ dollars is to listen up to the level of their expectations and deliver unique and memorable service!

What fears are stopping most leaders from acting on this customer-focused common sense?

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1. Empowerment and creativity as a culture is dangerous. Actually, empowering innovation and creativity throughout the business is critical in this decade.  Customers do not seek uniformity in service.  They want service that matches their individual needs.  GEN Y has grown up with personalized everything. They will not be loyal to cookie cutter call centers, service, or products.
   
2. We cannot measure non-standard interactions and if we can’t measure it we will fail. Metrics do not create success or breed failure.  Metrics measure success that you first create and there are many ways to measure it.  What you should fear is believing that measurement is a key business driver.
3. If we train our people on great listening and creative problem solving, they will leave and work someplace else. Quite the opposite. Study after study shows that employees love working in customer focused organizations that excite their minds, improve their skills, and value their unique talents.
4. It will cost too much. It works for high end services and products but nowhere else. I have one word to answer that — Zappos.
5. We will lose our shirts without standardized approaches to customer service.  Hardly. Listening and communication will actually “save your shirt” and protect you from losing customers. Billions of dollars are lost every year when customers’ leave your business because of how they were treated impersonally. A customer care culture in your company empowers every team member to seize customer loyalty through unique and personalized service.

If you are still unconvinced, keep a journal for one week of all the interactions you have with companies when you are the customer. Which ones are memorable? Why? Which would you give your dollars to, go back to and also recommend to other businesses?

Then get busy creating that culture in the business, department, or team you are leading. “A penny for your thoughts” is a phrase that can remind all your team members to listen to the customers and then deliver memorable service.

I am ready to train your teams to listen up to the level of customer expectations and take the lowest cost step to bringing in their dollars!
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

On a recent Continental ExpressJet flight to  Louisville, KY (USA),  I watched a competent flight attendant service the entire plane of customers by herself.  This is common on these smaller jets and I have had good to superb service on various ExpressJet flights depending on the flight attendant.

This flight attendant’s demeanor during beverage service was cool, distant, and yes a bit impersonal.  After doing beverage service, the flight attendant sat down since the flight was only half-full.  She sat in an empty seat on the aisle across from me.

At one point she started to chat with me and her demeanor became very personable and warm.  The difference was striking.   Later in the flight she arose to do a second beverage service and her demeanor again was cool and distant.   I understood that she couldn’t chat with every customer during beverage service because of time restrictions.  Yet her smile was gone and her tone of voice was much cooler and quite different up in front of all the customers.

Because of my work, this intrigued me.  Had she been given training that told her to be cool and distant?  Or was she an introvert on the personality scale and only felt comfortable when she was speaking one-on-one?  Or is there some ‘behavioral effect’ that kicks in when people perform an official role?

Regardless of the reasons for her cool attitude during service, I offer all service professionals this simple advice:

1. Customers are loyal to great connections; cool and distant doesn’t connect.
2. Even in very formal settings, reserved is not cool and distant.  Know the difference.
3. In less formal settings, shine your warmth on the customers; the connection makes the difference.

Believe it — customers remember moments. What do you want them to remember?

A recent experience brings me to this customer service reminder.  When interacting with the customer, use the customer’s jargon not yours.   Here’s a simple true story …

A financial professional switches from selling to financial advisory firms to giving financial advice to consumers — in this case us.  In his previous job, he was speaking to people who already spoke his financial jargon.  It was daily interaction on financial products under the same regulations.  They spoke with the same jargon using spreadsheets and pie charts.  They communicated in the same way.  A perfect fit.

Now, he is advising non-financial industry professionals on their lifetime savings.  The problem: he still uses financial industry jargon and assumes we understand.  He sends us pie charts, spreadsheets, and big thick books to read.  We ask him “How much did those transactions cost us?”  We want a simple $ amount.  He sends us a paragraph with no numbers in it.

The frustration is overwhelming.  We view him as non-customer focused.  He is making life difficult.   Can you envision what is about to happen? 

What do your customers think of you and your service?   Do you use the customers’ jargon or yours?

Remember:

1. Speak the language of the customer to build trust and loyalty!
2. Ask open-ended questions that unearth what they want to achieve.
3. Listen with their listening-style.
4. Ask creative follow-up questions.
5. Use their jargon — not yours!

©2009 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

908.595.1515 (USA)