The Three Faces of Customer Service

Many small business owners (not to mention the big businesses…) think of Customer Service as a discrete, sometimes separate activity that goes on at the call center or on the sales floor. If necessary, it might carry over to the “complaint” department, now renamed, “Customer Service.” 

That view both oversimplifies and “undercomplicates” a more accurate description of an enterprise-wide perspective on the Customer-focused design of a consistently remarkable Customer Experience.

 Think of overall Customer Service involving three areas: Before the Customer engages with the Company, during and after the shopping/purchase engagement, and if needed a “service failure recovery” effort. 

First, what you might call Expectations Management. This includes messages and other communications from the service provider that inform the Client/Customer what to expect. Obviously you want to avoid over-promising / under-delivering. (This is “Gap 4” in the Conceptual Model of Service Quality found in Delivering Quality Service (Zeithaml et al).

 Second is the “real-time” delivery of service — what's done (or not done) at the point(s) of contact(s) and after the sale in terms of follow-up, warranty claims and referrals. These can be evaluated and designed through a Cycle of Service and Moments of Truth (MOT) (touchpoints) analysis. Each MOT can be broken down into a) what the Customer expects; b) what might go wrong (consider a Failure Mode & Effects Analysis [FMEA] here), and c) our brand identity: what this contact should look like to reinforce our brand image.

 Third is contingency planning: What to do if something goes wrong – i.e., “service (failure) recovery.” Probably the best treatment I know of is Knock Your Socks Off Service Recovery by Zemke & Bell. If you haven't seen this one yet, get it!

 So what do Customers expect? Here are some interesting findings from a British Airways study:

 1. Care and Concern – Treat individuals as important people. (Listen to understand their needs, wants and concerns.)

2. Problem Solving – People should be skilled at working their job. (I would add that they should also have the tools, equipment and support they need to do it well at the first contact.)

3. Spontaneity – Are frontline people are authorized to think? When a problem arises that doesn’t fit the procedure book, can the service person use some discretion –– find a way to jockey the system on the Customer’s behalf? (We probably call this being Customer-centric today...)

4. Recovery – If something does go wrong, will someone go out of his / her way to make a special effort to set it right? Does anyone even know how to deliver a simple apology?

 In short, in the words of Pine & Gilmore (The Experience Economy), “Work is theatre and every business a stage.” I would add that Customer Service is the scripted performance art designed in advance to delight and amaze the audience (Customer) with the intended outcome that they 1) rave about the performance and 2) encourage or insist that others come to the show!

 //Richard

Are You "In Control"?

I'm just learning to "trust the tribe" through social media. From my point of view, as well as that of my Clients, the issue is one of control. In traditional "push/interruption" marketing, we were in total control of the output (or at least, that's what we thought...). We controlled the message and the media. We controlled the timing, frequency and intensity. Then we measured our results and adjusted the mix to try to improve the outcomes. Then we SOLD, SOLD, SOLD! Features, Advantages, BENEFITS! Again, we controlled the message and delivery.

How did today’s managers rise to the top? Through exercising control over people, resources and processes to achieve results. Control has been learned and consistently reinforced. It’s internalized and “known.” We all want to “be in control.” In fact, don’t we demean someone who’s “out of control”?

Now, it seems to me, the "new" social/community architecture reverses the locus of control. The implications are clear: You (your brand, your offer) has to be relevant and meaningful to somebody. You have to matter in some way to someone. If you don't, you'll be ignored. If you try to push your message through, you'll be ignored.

In other words, you have to give up control to the tribe (thanks to Seth Godin for the metaphor). Today it’s necessary to be proactively reactive.

To be relevant and meaningful, it's critical to understand in detail and depth your intended user, their life, and the "job" they're trying to do (i.e., be customer-centric). There's an excellent (if somewhat dated now) article "Get Inside the Lives of Your Customers" by Patricia Seybold at Harvard Business Review (I found it on Amazon) that helps describe this process.

It's a new (marketing) world today — one where the community has control and the supplier has to work very hard to tune in and satisfy Customer needs, wants and demands. It’s marketing’s version of the old Trust exercise: “fall back into your partner’s arms — they’ll catch you…” No more "push" — hello "pull."

//Richard Randolph

Florida Customer Service Institute

"Customer" is a Proper Noun

Let's agree right at the top that words have meaning — they communicate ideas and concepts. They can inspire, motivate and stimulate. They frame meaning and context. 

Let's also agree that in today's economically shattered world, Customers matter. Without them (and many businesses today are learning exactly what that means!), we have nothing but walls and inventory. Today, the Customer is king; the Customer rules!

If we agree to these two stipulations, then it makes sense that we communicate the prime importance and critical value of our Customers in all forms of our communication, including our writing.

Recognize a proper noun when you see one. 

Nouns name people, places, and things. Every noun can further be classified as common or proper.

A proper noun is a noun that is the name of a specific individual, place, or object. A proper noun has two distinctive features: 1) it names a specific item, and 2) it begins with a capital letter no matter where it occurs in a sentence.

To me, "Customer" is a proper noun. There's nothing "common" about them! I think it is important, therefore, that the word Customer be capitalized every time it is written. 

When we acknowledge the primacy of our Customers by taking the simple step of capitalizing the name, we signal that this is something important — it's something to be respected and honored. 

Is this just a silly personal pet peeve? Perhaps. Or maybe there is a deeper importance to the question. It is subtle, no doubt, but that does not diminish the significance of this small but large gesture.

I think it can be especially important when we communicate our honor and respect for Customers to our Employees (BTW, Employee is in the same category as Customer — it's a proper noun, too!), they "get it" and will subtly pass that honor and respect along to the most important audience we will ever face: our Customers.

This is why you will see, in all my writings, the word Customer is capitalized as a proper noun. It's a sign of respect in recognition of the irreplaceable value and importance of the real "owners" of the organization.

So let's start a movement! Customer is a proper noun!

//RR

What Consumers Want: Common Threads Pinpointed

Here's some fascinating news recently published on the Science Daily website.

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ScienceDaily (Mar. 5, 2009) — Michigan State University researchers have identified the common desires of today’s sophisticated consumer – a new study that could help businesses become more competitive in the troubled global economy.

Each customer is seeking a “total experience” – whether they’re staying in a hotel, visiting a bank or shopping at a mall – and that experience consists of four major factors, according to the study in the current issue of Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, an academic and industry journal.

The factors, in order of importance, are:

·      Benefit (i.e., what’s in it for me?)

·      Convenience (the ease and availability of the experience)

·      Price (including both the dollar amount and cost in terms of time – i.e., time is money)

·      Environment (does the shopping environment – online or brick-and-mortar – stimulate, entertain, motivate consumer to buy)

Knowing the threads that make up the experience – and how consumers rank them – can help businesses better allocate resources, said Bonnie Knutson, professor of hospitality business and lead author on the study.

“Before, the belief was, if we can’t define it and measure it, we can’t manage it,” Knutson said. “Well, now we’ve been able to define and measure it.”

“The advantage for the business owner,” she added, “is now that I know what is important to the Customer I can allocate my resources, my strategy and the systems I put in place to enhance that total experience. And that’s your competitive advantage.”

The study was conducted on the hotel industry but cuts across many business sectors, Knutson said. For example, during down economic times a national coffee chain may choose to focus on convenience, the second most important factor. While it may close some free-standing stores to control costs, it may also open kiosks in grocery stores or malls in an effort to offer Customers the convenience they expect, she said.

Consumers’ desire for the total experience does not change in a recession, Knutson added, although they may modify one or more of the factors – such as buying their daily latte from a fast-food restaurant or a convenience store.

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Joining Knutson on the research team were three fellow faculty members from The School of Hospitality Business in MSU’s Eli Broad College of Business: Jeffrey Beck, associate professor, and Jae Min Cha and Seung Hyun Kim, both assistant professors.

Use the Kano Model to Delight Your Customers

On a blog I read regularly, the question was asked, "Is 'Surprise' the only way to drive Customer loyalty?" Here's my response to that timely and provocative question.

“Surprise” can be either good, bad, or neutral – it’s simply the appearance of the unexpected. (That’s why the question in the title is probably more appropriate to the discussion.) It’s rarely a good thing to “surprise” a Customer – especially in today’s economic climate. In general, it’s probably safer and better to be consistent and reliable. Customers today want to know with some certainty what they’re getting into. Being inconsistent (i.e., surprising them) does not signal stability and does not build trust and confidence.

Dr. Noriaki Kano and others published Attractive Quality and Must-Be Quality which outlined the Kano Model. It explains, for the first time, the relationship between physical fulfillment and user satisfaction. (See Diagram)

Kano identifies five distinct categories which affect ultimate user satisfaction. They are:

1.  Must-Be elements – absolutely expected; taken for granted when fulfilled, but which produce dissatisfaction when not fulfilled.

2.  One-Dimensional elements – these result in satisfaction when fulfilled and in dissatisfaction when not fulfilled. These have also been identified as “more is better” or “linear” elements.

3.  Indifferent elements – these result in neither satisfaction nor dissatisfaction, regardless of whether they are fulfilled or not. In other words, the Customer just doesn’t care.

4. Attractive elements – when fulfilled, these provide satisfaction, but when hot fulfilled, are acceptable (or not even noticed). These have been called “Delighters.”

5. Reverse elements – these result in dissatisfaction when fulfilled and satisfaction when not fulfilled.

Strategic Application of the Kano Model

1. Must-Be elements are minimum requirements – the “table stakes” – that any offer must meet to be considered competitive. Strategic implications: As long as the offer meets competitive parity, there’s not much value in improving them. Beyond the entry threshold, Customers are not interested in “better.” 

2. One-Dimensional elements – the strategic aim is to be “slightly better” than the competition in this category. If “more is better,” then Customers will prefer “a little more” than they can get elsewhere. Note that this dimension can also be viewed in the reverse: “Less is better” when it comes to price, for example.

3. Indifferent elements – Don’t bother with these unless they are required by regulation or compliance standards. In the beginning, for example, most people did not want seat belts. They simply didn’t care whether they were present or not. It took legislation (plus a ton of consumer education) to require both installation and use of this important safety feature.

4. Attractive elements – This is the most exciting category for most businesses. Here is where we can find elements that produce joy (delight) and preference (the “surprisingly good”) from our Customers – but there’s no penalty for not including them! So our job is to research our Customers to find one or a few “things they really want but cannot find” and include them in our product or service. This is the primary category which can produce long-term Customer loyalty.

5. Reverse elements produce dissatisfaction when present and satisfaction when not present. One easy illustration is produce in the grocery store when has not been adequately cleaned and prepared for display and sale. Finding debris in the strawberries is clearly a “reverse” element.

It’s worth observing, too, that an attempt to offer an Attractive element that misses the mark can become a Reverse element and produce the opposite reaction than the company intended.

Analysis and Conclusions

This simple yet surprisingly insightful model gives us a clear path to analyze the question, “Can loyalty be created only through “surprisingly” good experiences.”

1.  Meet the competitive standard (plus just a little bit) for Must-Be elements (with a sensitive, clear understanding of your Customers and what they think is “competitive.”

2.  Be “just a little better” than competitors in One-Dimensional (linear) elements. There’s no Customer benefit to be had from trying to be “a lot better” in this category, and there may be a severe cost penalty to you to try to do so.

3.  Ignore Indifferent elements unless they are required by an outside authority.

4.  Invest in research, and (here’s an innovative idea:) Talk With Your Customers!! Find out what they want that they can’t find elsewhere. Take it even one step farther: Watch them actually use your product or service in their own environment. They may not be able to tell you what’s missing, but you might be able to see their frustrations and come up with an elegant solution. Then you have a real Delighter! This is the only category where you might want to try to “surprise” your Customer. But be careful: Be certain that your Delighter actually performs!

5.  Consider a “Failure Modes and Effects Analysis” (FMEA) to anticipate what might go wrong, when and where, and how serious it could be. Take reasonable and prudent steps to avoid inadvertently offering a Reverse element to your Customer.Finally, be sure to look at your business and your offerings from both your own perspective and from your Customer’s point of view — they are different! Just like two diners in a restaurant who sit facing each other have a totally different view of the restaurant, Customers see you through their own (and usually very different) filters.

An easy illustration is the idea of “consistency.” As a business, consistency means “to do things the same way every time.” It means standardization, uniformity, regularity.

But to a Customer, “consistency” means predictability, reliability, certainty — and probably comfort and assurance.

Finally, be sure to look at your business and your offerings from both your own perspective and from your Customer’s point of view — they are different! Just like two diners in a restaurant who sit facing each other have a totally different view of the restaurant, Customers see you through their own (and usually very different) filters.

An easy illustration is the idea of “consistency.” As a business, consistency means “to do things the same way every time.” It means standardization, uniformity, regularity.

But to a Customer, “consistency” means predictability, reliability, certainty — and probably comfort and assurance.

The Importance of Being Consistent in Your Small Business Customer Experience

In your small business, your goal needs to be to consistently deliver a remarkable Customer experience. A vital key to success is consistency – to deliver the same experience every time.

The idea and practice of consistency is best understood by looking at both sides of the delivery system: from the company's (your) point of view and from your Customer's experience.

The Company's View of Consistency

To you, the small business owner, consistency means repeatability, doing the same thing the same way time after time. It means eliminating variation and variability in the process and in the outcome. It means standardization. It means, to some degree, automation – even with your "people" processes.

Consistency means uniformity in all dimensions of the Customer experience:

• Sight: Your appearance and image must be the same every time regardless of the location or who's doing the work. That means a uniform appearance for staff, a designed and managed color and decorating scheme, a professional logo, and consistent use of colors. Keep the look – the image of your business intact both in the store and on line.
• Sound: How you answer the phone and greet Customers (including your voice mail message) needs to support your intended Customer experience. So do your background music, paging and announcement messages, and even the background noise in your store or office.
• Smell: Smell is our most powerful and visceral sense. It can evoke strong emotional memories and feelings. Pay attention to how your business environment smells. Imagine, for example, walking into a swimming pool supply store – what smell would you expect? Chlorine, of course, and that "plastic" smell of pool toys and supplies. The smell clearly identifies the environment and helps put you in the emotional mood to purchase items related to your swimming pool experiences. What about walking into a florist? A restaurant? A mortgage broker? A bank? Ambient fragrance and smell is not an accident – it is a manageable, controllable dimension of your designed total Customer experience.
• Touch: How do things "feel" in your managed Customer experience? Rough? Smooth? Soft and sensuous? It matters! For example, why do car salesmen want you to take a "demonstration" ride? First, to let you experience that "new car smell" but equally importantly, to have you touch and feel the fresh new seats and to have you feel with your finger tips your hands on the steering wheel – the little groves that cup your fingers just so... How the steering wheel feels in your hands as you turn the wheel... Since your finger tips are among the most sensitive parts of your body, that feeling goes directly into the sensory part of your brain where it is logged in as, "Ooh, this feels good!"  (By the way, do you know how pet shops sell puppies? Once the salesperson sees you make eye contact with a specific puppy, they immediately bring it out to you and place it in your hands – in a specific way: with your hand carefully wrapped around its little chest (for support, of course...) so that your fingers are in direct contact with its little beating heart! Once you feel that puppy's warm little heart beating in your fingers, nothing on this earth can stop the flood of emotions which lead directly to the opening of your wallet.)
• Taste: Not every business can directly take advantage of this sense, but perhaps you can find a way. It's obvious that restaurants, bakeries and donut shops, food courts, etc. use the sense of taste explicitly. So do "samplers" in big-box store, grocery stores and food courts across the country. Why do these insidious, kind-looking "sampler" people want you to put one of their products into your mouth? To quote the old advertisement, "Bet you can't eat just one!" How might you use this powerful sense to enhance your remarkable Customer experience? One small residential contractor bakes cookies several times a day at their reception counter, then puts the hot new cookies out on the Welcome counter for their Customers and prospective Customers to enjoy. The contractor gets a double "bang" because while the cookies are baking, there's a powerful, delightful smell that fills the store (this is the same logic as baking bread while you're holding an "open house" in Real Estate), then the taste and handling of the fresh, warm, just-out-of-the-oven cookies continue and magnify the experience — Customers love them! This simple practice sends a subtle message of comfort and confidence in the environment, which helps relax Customers and breeds trust in the contractor.

Consistency helps you simplify and deliver experiences your preferred Customers want.  As you begin to standardize and map out your delivery system, you'll discover that you have some decisions to make. You cannot effectively or efficiently deliver all things to all people — you have to decide who you want to be your preferred Customer, and who does not fit that profile. You must prioritize.

When you take that step, you help yourself by designing streamlined processes and systems which deliver exactly what your preferred (generally your most profitable) Customer wants and eliminates the rest. This as the added benefit of communicating to low-priority (usually less profitable) Customers that you're not the best fit for them — perhaps they should look for a different provider. This laser-like focus allows you to differentiate your Customer experience and get even better at serving your best target Customers.

Your Customer's View of Consistency

As you see, consistency in the delivery of your Customer experience is a manageable part of your firm's strategy. But there's another side to the story. We have considered so far your firm's point of view. Now let's look at it from your Customer's perspective.

Consistency on your part is viewed by Customers as reliability, predictability, stability and certainty, which build confidence and trust. When you're consistent, Customers are confident in what they will receive from you – every time. You're reliable — I can count on you. Customers know exactly what to expect — you're predictable. Customers know that when they want what you offer, you will deliver — every time. They also know that if they refer a friend or colleague to you for what you offer, you will come through exactly as promised — every time. I believe in you — I trust you.

Consistency helps your Customers feel in control. They choose the experience they want — and they get it — every time. They choose their experience, and they receive it — every time.

Consistency helps your Customers feel good about themselves. When people feel "in control", they feel better about themselves. Consider the example of two college co-eds who were about to graduate. The first one, Sue, announced to her roommate that she had become engaged. The roommate was excited to learn who Sue had decided to marry. She knew that Sue had been dating two boys, Steve and Larry. Which had Sue chosen?

Steve was a very attractive man, tall and dark. He came from a wealthy, connected family. He was about to graduate from Law School with high grades; he had a bright, secure future. Larry was average in appearance — no fashion model, but still handsome. His family was middle class; he had no family wealth or influential contacts. He, too, was about to graduate from Law School with good grades. He had a promising future.

"So who did you choose?" asked the roommate.

"Well," replied Sue, "When I'm with Steve, he's attentive and respectful. We always get the best seats and great service. He always makes me feel good about being with him."

"But I have chosen Larry to be my husband and to spend the rest of my life with."

"You chose Larry?!? asked the roommate, obviously very surprised. "Why?"

"As you know, Steve makes me feel good about him. But when I'm with Larry, he makes me feel good about me."

That's the feeling you want your Customers to have — you want them to feel good about themselves for choosing to do business with you. Remember that your business is not about you! It is totally, absolutely and completely all about your Customers!

Consistency overcomes product and service quality. Even a wonderful product or service can be destroyed by inconsistent, unreliable delivery. In his breakthrough book, The E-Myth Revisited, Author Michael Gerber tells two compelling stories to anchor this profound point.

The first story is about his experience with a new barber. The first time was wonderful. An assistant offered coffee and shampooed his hair. The barber used scissors only, and delivered an excellent haircut. Delighted by this first experience, he returned for his second haircut. But the experience was vastly different: just one cup of coffee, no pre-cut shampoo, and the barber used mostly electronic shears... but still delivered an excellent haircut. Now confused, Mr. Gerber visited the shop for the third time. This time he was offered no coffee, a "pre-trim" before the shampoo, and a mix of electronic shears and scissors. Again he got an excellent haircut — and he never went back. His Customer experience had been unreliable, unpredictable and simply confusing. Confused Customers don't buy, and they don't return. And they certainly don't refer others!

Gerber's second story tells about discovering a hotel which delivered a remarkable Customer experience the first time — then repeated that exceptional service each and every time he came back. The secret is that the hotel had defined processes and systems which ensure consistency. They had taken the time to learn what Customers want, then created systems that deliver each Customer's preferences — every time.

(For additional reading on the design and execution of Customer-centric systems and processes, see Secret Service by John. R. Dijulius III and The New Gold Standard by Joseph Al. Michelli.)

The heart of delivering a remarkable Customer experience is consistency. Delivering the experience the same way, at the same level — every time.

It's important for you because the pursuit of consistency helps you discover and eliminate the costs of variability and the challenges of having to invent how to deliver your product or service over and over again, with uncertain results. Your operation will run more smoothly and at lower cost.

But the real importance is what your consistency does for your Customers. It gives them confidence in you, and perhaps even more important, it gives them a sense of control in today's uncertain world, and makes them feel good about themselves by choosing to do business with you.

If you want to grow your business in today's competitive environment, you will grow your "share of wallet" (the amount of purchases each Customer makes with you), and you will enlarge your Customer base (add new Customers) through referrals and "word of mouth" comments when you deliver a consistently remarkable Customer experience.

Richard Randolph

Florida Customer Service Institute

www.FloridaCSI.com