Customer Service – Page 6 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

Leaders Who Empower: Why Kenny Kicks Tiffany’s Butt Every Time

September 14, 2009/13 Comments/in Customer Service, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Within a 4 hour period on Friday I witnessed excellent leadership and an abject failure of leadership. Both experiences occurred with the leaders in absentia. I’m basing my assessment of their leadership on the performance of their team members.

I needed a new tap for my beer keg because mine was busted. It was a crisis situation. I called the beer distributor at 4:47PM and spoke with Kenny.

“How late are you open?”

“We’re open until 5 but I’ll be here until 6 so no worries. Here’s my cell number. Just call me when you get here and I’ll hook you up.”

When I arrived, I called Kenny’s cell. A skinny 24 year old with an awesome Mohawk came around the corner and said “Hi, I’m Kenny. Don’t shake my hand, I’m covered in grease. Let me see what’s wrong with your keg.” At this point, things got interesting.

Customer Service Isn’t Hard – Just Be a Mind Reader

August 24, 2009/2 Comments/in Customer Service, Sales, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

How many times have you had a customer service interaction where you walked away in disbelief over how clueless the person “helping” you was? You’ve sat there at least once saying “I cannot believe they just don’t understand my problem.”

Now think about how many times your customers have said this about you or your organization. Scary, isn’t it?

I’m not only talking about customer service reps in call centers – I’m talking about anyone who interacts with a customer (salespeople, relationship managers, marketers, executives, etc.). Any one of those individuals can completely destroy a customer interaction by not connecting to the customer’s need. This disconnect occurs because the person providing the service comes at it from their own perspective rather than the customer’s.

Why does this happen? Probably because your metrics are screwed up and you create incentives for bad behavior. Remember – Hobbes pointed out that man is inherently selfish. Your people will behave in a manner that maximizes their own well-being (cash, advancement, free time, etc.). But don’t despair. There’s a simple thing you can do to generate the behaviors that will have your customers rave about you: become a mind reader just like Karnak.

How Training Failures Cause Cast Aways

March 30, 2009/2 Comments/in Customer Service, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

I had a most unfortunate and frustrating experience recently. I bought a new pair of sunglasses because I lost mine. I had searched for the lost pair for a week but to no avail. I picked up a new pair at the local mall sunglass shop.

Of course as soon as I got home I found the old pair. Perfect. Since I didn’t need two pairs, I headed back to the mall the next day to return the new one. That’s when things went south.

There was a single cashier on duty. When I arrived, there were only two other people in the store. The cashier began processing my return. She began having difficulty with the system as she processed the transaction. This is where things started going Antarctica south. It became very clear this poor cashier had been tossed alone on an island like Tom Hanks in Cast Away.

From here forward in the story, I’m going to highlight some customer service, training, and leadership suggestions and issues I hope you take away and use in your organization.

Making Your Service Ethic Contagious – Guest Blogger

February 18, 2009/14 Comments/in Customer Service, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

That’s right – customer service is contagious like the common cold. It can spread faster than pink eye at a day care center. Improved customer service comes from spreading a passion for interactions with our customers. And in today’s hypercompetitive world, customer service can be a true point of competitive advantage (Mike writes about that point constantly). So how do you make service contagious?

I didn’t catch it until I was 16. I was working in a real honest to goodness Mom & Pop store. Murray Logan and his wife Del were the founders of Logan & Sons, a small grocery store specializing in high quality meats and produce and delivering great customer service.

If you are involved in managing customer service you know it gets infinitely more difficult to treat the customer the way they want to be treated when you add employees to your business model. When it’s your store and you are the workforce you don’t have to worry that the customers will get treated well. But from the moment you add your first employee, your work gets much more complicated. Now you have to define excellence, teach it, observe it and re-teach it constantly.

How did the Logans do it? Simple.

“Expert?” Um, I Don’t Think So…

February 2, 2009/21 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Customer Service, Leadership, Social Media /by Mike Figliuolo

Warning: this post is a bit of a rant (but does have a story and some practical advice). Does it seem like every day there’s a new pile of “experts” cropping up on every subject imaginable? Social media expert. Blogging expert. Communications expert. Strategy expert. Wingdings font expert. It’s enough to make me gag. Sorry but having a bunch of twitter followers or being at the top of the twitter elite for a podunk little town doesn’t make you a “social media expert.”

Even worse than the seemingly-viral proliferation of these “experts” are the egregious rates they expect for their services. Just because you call yourself an “expert” it doesn’t mean you’re entitled to the fee levels “real experts” charge (then again, if you’re the individual hiring an “expert” and paying them ridiculous fees, I can’t save you from your own insipidness).

Lastly, the worst aspect of these “experts” is the damage they can do to your organization. In some cases I’d love to sue some of these folks for malpractice of the trade they proclaim they’re an expert in.

So how can you as a leader of your organization protect yourself from the damage false experts can cause and how can you find the real experts among that mess? How can you ensure the expert isn’t like the false tailor and you end up like an emperor with no clothes?

It all boils down to asking the right questions.

Competing Through Service Differentiation

November 12, 2008/0 Comments/in Customer Service, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

I recently had the extreme pleasure of being a speaker at the W.P. Carey School’s Compete Through Services Symposium. Some fantastic lessons came out of the sessions that were delivered by some phenomenal speakers. I count myself fortunate to have been part of such incredible company.

The W.P. Carey School at Arizona State University has distinctive offerings in the arena of business services and they’ve truly become thoughtLEADERS on the topic (according to my definition of someone who agitates for change in order to drive business impact).

The symposium, led by Dr. Stephen Brown, Dr. Mary Jo Bittner, and Alicia Holder drew phenomenal speakers from around the world. Those individuals covered some great topics and leave us with some pointed lessons on differentiating in the new service-based economy. The leaders of the symposium describe the program as follows:

“In business, there is one decisive moment when the choice to separate and set one’s self apart becomes evident. The “Compete Through Service” Symposium is the premier executive education event that helps you seize that opportunity by showing you how to:

– Design and deliver “out of the box” customer service
– Create and promote new, innovative services
– Construct value-added, revenue-producing services
– Establish a service culture that differentiates
– Instill an unrelenting focus on the customer”

They’re lofty goals but the event absolutely delivered on them. I’d like to share a few thoughts from some of the other speakers at the event (there’s no way I could ever cover all the great stuff that was presented there):

Customer Service Math 101: It Ain’t Just a Penny

September 1, 2008/5 Comments/in Customer Service, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

So it’s been a while since I spouted off about customer service but I just had an experience that peeved me so now is a good time to tee off on the topic again. I was driving home and suddenly had a sweet tooth so I stopped at one of America’s iconic fast food joints and spun through the drive through. It went something like this:

“Welcome to Make You Die of Congestive Heart Failure’s! Can I take your order?”

“Yeah. I’d like an artery clogger super sweet sugar booger special but give me the small… I’m trying to watch my diet.”

“That will be $1.29. Please pull around.”

I spun around to the window and handed the young lady a wrinkled up dollar, a shiny quarter and a nickel with some pocket lint attached to it. And then it happened… Her words reverberated throughout the cosmos, shattered stars, and spawned black holes.

“Thank you sir. Have a good night.”

Have a good night? Look, I wasn’t great in 2nd grade math but I was pretty sure she owed me a penny. A penny. I know – get over it. But it’s the principle of the whole thing. It came across as “I’m too busy to make change for you and, well, it’s only a penny so I know you don’t care so move along so I can clog someone else’s arteries.” Knowing the food she served me would merely kill me slowly, I believe she had the sinister intent of doing it more rapidly by causing an embolism.

Folks, this is customer service math 101. Sure it was a penny. But it’s one penny on the path toward creating a customer-hostile culture.

Joseph Michelli on Distinctive Service and Seeing the Future – Guest Blogger

July 7, 2008/0 Comments/in Books, Customer Service, Guest Blogger, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s an honor and a privilege to bring you some thoughts from bestselling author Dr. Joseph Michelli (author of The Starbucks Experience) on using distinctive service as a strategic competitive advantage. Enough of me… here’s Joseph.

We all know businesses that at one time dominated an industry. Whether it was a company like Polaroid which kept a strangle hold on instantly available pictures or Ford Motor Company with its early market prominence, many great businesses ultimately have struggled to maintain their relevance to the customer.

As Mike shared with you in an earlier blog post, he and I attended an NYU/Ritz-Carlton Leadership Training course together. That program, along with an additional year of access to leadership at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, reinforced for me the importance of maintaining a constant focus on the changing wants of the customer.

In my just released book, The New Gold Standard – 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, I address this issue of relevance through a business principle I termed “Define and Refine.”

Much of the historic success of The Ritz-Carlton can be linked to its well-defined service culture complete with a compact and operational mission statement, a credo card carried by all employees, and daily line-ups reinforcing corporate values for every staff member. Given this tightly defined culture and iconic business status, brand relevance became a major challenge for The Ritz-Carlton.

Short Term Loss, Long Term Customer(s)

June 17, 2008/3 Comments/in Customer Service, Entrepreneur, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

It happened again. Not once, not twice… but three times in one week. No, I didn’t get more speeding tickets. I had three outstanding customer service experiences.

So I’m on my way to a client engagement one morning. Of course, the hotel (which was fantastic – a newly renovated Hilton in Pittsburgh. I highly recommend it) did not account for my coffee drinking preferences. There were only two of the little LaVazza coffee packets (I need about six to get going – it’s a nasty habit). I downed them but it still wasn’t enough.

I strolled over to the client site and stopped by the nondescript little coffee shop in the lobby. No, believe it or not it wasn’t a Starbucks despite their ubiquity. This place is called Buon Giorno and it’s located in the lobby of the ABSC building in downtown Pittsburgh (near North Shore Center by PNC Park).

I looked over the fresh pastries and bagels but I was on a mission – coffee. The young lady behind the counter greeted me with a warm hello in between a lively discussion in a foreign Eastern European language I didn’t understand. She was arguing with someone unseen behind the back counter. I opened my wallet to do a cash check and saw nothing but blackness and old receipts. My eldest daughter had hit the BOD without me knowing it (Bank Of Dad). No cash whatsoever but I’m sure she enjoyed her trip to the mall. I asked the lady “do you take plastic?” You know what the answer was. My quest for caffeine screeched to a thundering halt.

New Book Recommendation – The New Gold Standard

June 16, 2008/2 Comments/in About Us, Books, Customer Service /by Mike Figliuolo

Heads up all of you who love to better understand customer service as well as those of you who love to read! Dr. Joseph Michelli (author of The Starbucks Experience) has released his newest book on The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.

The book is called The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. I actually had the privilege of attending the same training session at the Ritz-Carlton as Dr. Michelli did when he was doing his research. I’m even quoted in the book (you have to read it to see what I had to say)! As all of you know, I’m pretty big on customer service, so this book is a must read from where I sit.

I know you’ll value the insights he provides because I was there when he was gathering them. The Ritz-Carlton is a unique place we can all learn something from. Rather than me trying to explain what you’ll be getting out of the book, I’d rather let the professionals do it so here goes:

Discover the secrets of world-class leadership!

Perfect 10

May 26, 2008/3 Comments/in Customer Service, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

I know sometimes it seems like I have more complaints than I do uplifting, heartwarming stories like the ones you’d find on the Hallmark Channel.

But every once in a while, someone gets it right. Nails it. Perfection like Nadia Comaneci.This particular individual of whom I speak was slightly less athletic than the sprite-like Nadia. Okay, a lot less athletic. About 6’2″, 280. With a mountain man beard. But that didn’t matter because his skills in the service arena were absolutely spectacular.

It was a bright, sunny afternoon and I was performing one of my regular jobs – I was the IT guy for the day. It’s amazing how much maintenance running a home wireless network consisting of kid’s PC’s, laptops, XBoxes, and other peripherals can be. But it’s better than my other two jobs as plumber and chief bug killer.

Anyway, it was time to install the new printer. Everything was hooked up just dandy. But where was the wire to make the final connection to the PC? I emptied the box. I went through the 18lbs. of packing materials. No wire. I read the box and in the modern-day equivalent of “batteries not included” in tiny 10 pitch the box said “USB cable to connect to PC not included. Sucker.”

I swear, the “sucker” part was on there.

Customer Focus = Alignment in Strategy

April 22, 2008/0 Comments/in Customer Service, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Besides ruthless prioritization (see “Strategy is About Saying ‘No'”) and being sure you have a well-articulated goal that ties to your financials (see “Budget +10% Isn’t a Strategy”), strategy requires a crystal clear understanding and alignment around serving your customers. These are the people who pay your salary. Aligning the entire organization’s efforts around providing outstanding products and services to these customers is key, yet often absent.

Why? There’s lack of clarity and conflicting goals that often get in the way of alignment. Sure it’s easy for the front-line associate to understand customer service and wants/needs. These are your store personnel, service providers, sales teams, and anyone else who directly interacts with your end customer (be it an individual or a business). Usually there’s pretty good alignment within these ranks on the importance of serving customers well. The problem more frequently occurs in the “support” functions. That’s where it gets a little more difficult to align an organization with customer service but it can be done. The big question is “how?”

There’s a great phrase I’ve had used on me and subsequently used in other settings. I was working in a “support” function where I was responsible for some of our organization’s back-end technology and infrastructure. The organization was focused on metrics that made sense at face – budget, project completion status, up-time, etc. Unfortunately, when requests came in from the “front line” they were seen as obstacles to achieving some of the metrics the group was evaluated on. How could we possibly make budget when the front line was asking for additional capabilities and resources? Then I heard it – “If you’re not serving a customer, you best be serving someone who is.” It was a clarifying moment.