Dear Employer –

Customer Experience Management has been a hot topic around our company lately.  You have been giving us many motivational talks about it, and there have a been a few “Customer Appreciation” programs, but there is something that would really help us out – leading by example.

My coauthor and I were incredibly fortunate to spend a year interviewing customer service superstars – the leaders and front line staff of ten highly successful companies who excel in customer care – when we were writing “Who’s Your Gladys?” After writing our book, I was invited to assist with and participate in a spectacular train-the-trainer program run by America’s “Number #1 Success Coach” Jack Canfield. This year-long intense training is allowing me to learn and teach the success principles developed by Jack over the last 30+ years. It’s exciting to notice how the lessons I’m learning from Jack parallel the interviews from the company leaders featured in ”Who’s Your Gladys?”

As I work with companies to help them improve their customer service, some things stand out. These are things a lot of organizations don’t do consistently. Yet if they did they’d find the quality of their customer service would improve and their customer loyalty would increase.

1. Know what your customers want.

The first thing is to make sure you really know what your customers want. I know this sounds too basic to even talk about. But I’m continually amazed at how many organizations make assumptions about what their customers want without asking them.

In most organizations there is at least one person who believes in the importance of delivering Amazing customer service. But for it to work, it takes a whole team. So a customer service champion needs to get others on the team to make it a priority.

There are a couple ways to do this. The two I like best are fundamental, not overly complicated. I call the first one: “Show me the money!”

When I was a kid, a local car dealer had long-running advertising campaign centered on the tagline: “A better car deal – we wrote the book!”

Recently, another Minnesota car dealer made a good start writing a different kind of book. This one might be called: “How to drive customers away by the busload.”

Sometimes people who focus on improving customer service forget that the lessons apply to everyone. This includes when we are customers. Here’s what I mean.

Remember, the three requirements of an Amazing customer experience are:

1. Treat me well
2. Help me accomplish what I want
3. Offer me value

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Don’t let automatic customers become invisible customers

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

At some point we are all automatic customers. Whether it’s a fitness club membership, an insurance policy, a banking relationship or a cell phone account, we all have companies that expect us to show up every month.  Whether by contract or inertia, we continue to do business with them every month until we take action to stop.

Recently, after two full days of training, I met a few friends in the female shopping wonderland called Chicago. Boy, that Magnificent Mile sure is named appropriately!

After sharing my “wealth” with lots of different retail stores, I found a neat little boutique.

I tried on several pairs of pants (because god knows I need more) and found a fabulous pair that fit me like a glove. After I bought them, my friends and I quickly realized that we had overextended our stay and needed to hightail it to the airport – or we would be staying yet another day in “the wonderland.” Neither my pocketbook – nor, for that matter, my marriage – could sustain another day of that. We made it, and the rest, as they say, is history. I woke up the next day and put on my new fabulous pants, only to discover that the security tag was left on the leg of them. To say I was angry was an understatement!

What is the big deal around customer service? It’s easy right? There are 4 steps:

1. Be personable and gracious toward all customers
2. Treat every person with dignity and respect.
3. Listen to the customers’ needs and point of view.
4. Provide customers with everything they expect and more.

Then implement these principles in corporate missions and goals. Train people for a day on how it works and BAM! Instant happy customers, right? Well no.

Customer service is so hard because we run our companies by customer service myths we do not question and are not true:

Yesterday evening my anti-virus software went crazy. It started finding viruses all over my netbook. After several hours of banging my head against our kitchen table, with no success in cleaning up the problem, I turned to my good friend Google for help. There I discovered (to my great relief) that there was no virus on my computer. Instead, my anti-virus software had a problem.

I learned this because millions of others were having the same experience. Because many of them were discussing it online I was able to conclude that it was a software malfunction that would soon be fixed by the software vendor.

What I find shockingly sad is

“Anything that we can do to help foster the intellect and spirit and emotional growth of our fellow human beings, that is our job…Life is for service.”

-Fred Rogers

The last time I got an email from my library it was about an overdue book. The email arrived a couple days AFTER the book was overdue. It also explained how I owed a fine for not returning the book by its due date.

Every month, about 3 days BEFORE my payment is due, my credit card company sends me a reminder of my due date.