A while back I attended a seminar geared toward helping us manage change better in our organizations. One of the many things worth remembering from that day is a phrase from Larry Wilson: The natural state of communication is misunderstanding. At first I didn’t understand what Larry meant. Lucky for me he continued to explain. What he said was we typically misunderstand more of what we hear than we actually understand. We might think we know what the other person meant but often we don’t. An example: A friend of mine works at a manufacturer where the boss let it [...]
communication
Last night I had a fun (and lengthy) text conversation with one of my nieces. She’s in college and 5 hours away so we don’t see her as much as we’d like. And being a busy college kid, phone conversations with her are not very common. In fact, our “kids” (12 nieces and nephews) are the primary reason my wife and I both upgraded our cell phones and plans to make it easier (and affordable) to do a lot of texting. Other than live visits, text message conversations are the most common way we can stay in touch with them. [...]
Communication is the surest path to delivering Amazing service to our customers. But it’s often harder than we realize to be on the same page with our customers. Here’s a funny (and true) example of how something can seem so clear to an employee but not their customers. Thanks to the good people at NotAlwaysRight.com for this. Me: “Hi, [pizza place].” Customer: “Hi, it says you have a nine inch small pizza. How big is that?” Me: “Nine inches, six slices.” Customer: “But how big is it?” Me: “The diameter of the pizza is approximately nine inches. There are six [...]
Recently I submitted a help ticket to a company about a problem with their product. It was not a critical issue but one that needed fixing. After reviewing the issue they marked it as “resolved”. But they never told me it was resolved. And they didn’t tell me how to apply the fix. So, from where I stood, the problem was not resolved. Not even close. The problem was, they focused solely on fixing the problem. They forgot about communicating with their customer. Sure, they fixed the problem. But they never told anyone it was fixed or how to apply [...]
Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service: Be easy to talk to And here are some additional thoughts on this topic… As a customer it’s frustrating enough when we get bad service. Too often we get less than we expect or want. So when we have a customer experience that thrills us, we usually want to share it. We have a psychological need to do so. The same is true when we have a lousy customer experience. In either case, our customers
Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service: Be aware of language differences And here are some additional thoughts on this topic… A friend of mine who grew up in New York City shared with me his first coffee experience in mild-mannered Minnesota. In a popular coffee shop near his home he asked for a “regular coffee”. When he took his first sip he almost spit it out. “This is NOT a regular coffee” he
Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service: Educate your customers And here are some additional thoughts on this topic… If you offer quality products and services you probably have a well-run business. And to your customers, you make things look easy. This is good and necessary to be successful. But there’s also a downside. Take cars for example. They have become
Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service: Don’t assume anything And here are some additional thoughts on this topic… As we help our customers it’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming we know what they want. It’s even easier, if we have a good relationship with them. But when we assume, we’re not always right. And this can inconvenience our customers more than it helps them. Recently I had my car in to the dealer for some routine maintenance. The people there are very helpful. And they’re serious about cars (which I like). While they serviced my [...]
Think of the last time you had your eyes examined. At some point, your eye doctor (or optometrist) probably asked you to read some letters on an eye chart. If you wear glasses or contacts, you got to look through a lot of different lenses. This typically involves you comparing two different lenses against each other. He or she asks you which of the two is clearer. For this process to work, you get asked a lot of questions. And you give a lot of feedback. Without your feedback there is no way your eye doctor can give you a [...]
