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Don’t Make Promises you Can’t Keep – Especially in Business

broken promises in businessDon’t make promises you can’t keep was one of the common maxims in our household when I was growing up.  Wise advice. I was reminded of the importance of this message just last week and that sometimes, it is better to turn business away rather than disappoint.  Have you found that you sometimes take on work or make commitments for which you have a low likelihood of fulfilling?

While visiting family in the UK, we decided to take a brief break in a part of the country we had not been before.  We headed for Cambridge and the wonderful colleges and booked a small inn in a village not far from the city.  It was an old stone building that had recently been converted.  We found it on the internet and were impressed with the descriptions previous patrons had written about it.  Quaint, attentive, old-world character, friendly staff.  Perfect.

We drove out to Cambridge full of anticipation and, by early evening, we found this small, quaint “post card” inn situated on the quiet main street of the village.  There was a newly constructed glassed-in dining area at the back and a large parking lot which was almost full.  Must be a popular spot!  As we walked past the dining room to the entrance, we noticed that it too was full.  It turns out that there was a wedding that evening.

Check-in was friendly but not exceptional.  The room was small, clean and functional.  It overlooked the glassed-in dining area – we could look down and see the wedding party having dinner.  We went out to dinner ourselves.  We returned about 9:30, both tired and ready for bed.  However, sleep was not to come easy.

By the time we returned, the wedding was in full swing.  The music was loud – very loud.  Too loud!  Our little room literally shock to the beat.  We called the front desk to ask for another room and were informed that they were fully booked.  There was nothing else available.  We were stuck.  The music continued until almost midnight.  We decided to grin and bear it.

At check out we expressed our disappointment.  We explained that we had expected a quiet, relaxing stay as promised on their website but we experienced just the opposite.  We felt that we should have been told about the wedding at the time of booking and advised about the noise problem associated with the room we were given.  We then could have made an informed decision about whether to stay there.  The inn should have been prepared to turn us away but instead chose to fall terribly short on their promise.  Instead of more raving fans, they created raving detractors.  We certainly won’t recommend this place and will avoid it on any future visit.

I think the lesson has direct applicability to the service business and yes we sometimes take on work or make commitments for which we have a low likelihood of fulfilling.  Usually the commitments come with the best of intentions and are often made in the heat of the moment.  Sometimes we think we are doing it simply because we don’t want to let the customer down.  Regardless of the intentions, whenever we make promises we can’t keep, it ends in the same result.  Disappointed customers and possibly raving detractors.

I’d love your feedback on this. And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim

“Life is like photography, we develop from the negatives.”

-Unknown

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Are your Customers Better off Having Known you?

customer service expert“Are your customers better off having known you?”  This is a question we ask in our Proactive Service® workshops – a workshop for technicians to help them understand and develop the skills and approaches to engage their customers in business development activities.   Our point to the technicians is that, if they want to add real value to their customer relationships, they must do more than simply do a good job at maintenance and service, while reactively addressing any problems that arise.  Any tech can do that and most do.  The real value comes from getting to know the needs of the customer and using their accumulated knowledge and expertise to make recommendations about what they can do to help the customer achieve them.  The measure of their success is whether the customer can say they are better off.

As managers, we have an important role to play here.  Our technicians must understand that this is an integral part of their role.   They must recognize that these proactive conversations that they have with their customers represent a valuable and important service – as important as fixing and maintaining the customer’s equipment.  We must ensure that the processes, systems and expectations of all customer-facing personnel support the technicians’ efforts.  We must be prepared to provide training on the necessary skills for our technicians to be successful and coach on and support those skills regularly.  And, we must maintain focus on this initiative consistently, month after month and take every opportunity to do so through toolbox, safety and other service related meetings. Read more

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How Service Providers Can Stand out from the Crowd

customer service expertI was reminded this morning that it doesn’t take much for a service provider to stand out from the crowd.  There is a lot of focus on enhancing the customer experience and creating strong relationships that clearly differentiate you from your competition.  My experience with my mobile service provider was a perfect case in point.

I woke up this morning to a problem.  I could not send or receive emails from my smart phone.  It seems that they were wiped out over the weekend when I was dealing with a completely unrelated problem.  To set them up, I needed to know my user name and password.  The ones I thought were correct turned out to be incorrect.  Each time I tried it, the counter on my smartphone told me that I had only 6 tries left, then 5 tries, then 4.

On a normal day, this would be an inconvenience but this morning it was catastrophic (at least for me).  It was 4:45 am and I was rushing to get to the airport for an early morning flight.  We had a snowstorm overnight leaving the roads a mess and easily doubling the travel time.  I would be away for a few days and my cell phone was my only link to my business during the day.  I had to get this problem fixed quickly.  I could feel the stress.

I called the carrier without much hope of getting anyone live at that time in the morning and, to my relief, I got through to a customer service representative.  I explained the problem I was experiencing and he pointed out that I did not have an account and I would need to set one up.  He explained how to go about it, gave me some helpful advice on selecting a User I.D., and waited on the phone while I completed the instructions. He then happily continued to stay on the line while I set up my emails, although he certainly did not have to.  When I told him I appreciated his support he replied that he knew I was anxious about the situation and he wanted to ensure that everything went smoothly and should there be a glitch, he would be there to help me out.

Now, in the scheme of things, I guess you could say that the customer service representative was just doing his job.  And maybe, he had nothing better to do at that time in the morning – I don’t suppose he would have been run off his feet.  However, the willingness to stay on the line and guide me through the steps until everything was working the way I needed it was the best thing he could have done for me this morning.  It showed that he was sensitive to my situation (please read this prior blog post on empathy) and he provided the level of support he felt would suit my needs in the circumstances.

It seems to me that this is something exceptional field service technicians do as a matter of course.  They stay around a few extra minutes to ensure that the problem that was repaired was done so correctly.  They follow-up on recent work to make certain the customer is happy.  They understand and show empathy for the customer’s situation by acting in a way that best suits the customer’s needs given the circumstances.  This isn’t much, but technicians who practice these small extra steps, certainly stand out from their peers.  And, so do the companies they represent.

I’d love your feedback. And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim

“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”

– Muhammad Ali

 

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Money isn’t Everything … for Service Companies

customer service expert“Money isn’t everything, … but it’s way ahead of whatever is in second place!” is a quote that is connected to some of the happiest times of my life.  Little did I know at the time that, with a slight modification of a single word, it could hold an important message for service companies.

As a kid growing up in southern Ontario, we used to spend a week each summer at my Uncle’s cottage on a lake a couple of hours north east of our home in Toronto.  My cousin and I would spend the days swimming, fishing, canoeing or just aimlessly lazing around.  Evenings were campfires and mosquitos.

On the shore was a boathouse and above it a living quarters that was used mainly for storage during those days.  It was the perfect place for kids to just hang out.  The walls were dotted with little plaques with witty sayings.  I do not know who originally penned this particular one, but it seems to have stuck with me.

There is a lot of talk these days about the customer experience and how it is critical to creating today’s competitive advantage.  In the service industry, the customer experience is largely created by the interaction of our customer-facing personnel with the customer.  In most cases our “customer-facing personnel” are our technicians and the customer experience comes from the relationships they are able to form.  It is these relationships, built on both personal and professional credibility that are critical for our success.

In the service business there are two components – one is the actual work that was completed (the repair, maintenance, troubleshooting, etc. – why the customer called us in the first place) and how that work was performed and described (the technician’s appearance, how they act and interact with employees, what they write to describe the work, etc.).  This fact is described in more detail in a previous blog “They don’t Pay Me to Look Good in Service Delivery”. It is the second component – the how the work was performed – that customers used to judge the quality of the work and the quality of the relationship.  And it is that relationship that creates the customer experience.  This means that, regardless of how technically skilled our technicians may be and no matter how good the work itself has been performed, the customer will not appreciate this quality nor the value that the technician brings to them unless the technician has a relationship with them that communicates that value.  Without the relationship and the corresponding value they perceive, the customer will look elsewhere to find better value.  Or, would it be better to say that in the service business:   “Relationship isn’t everything, … but it is way ahead of whatever is in second place!”

I’d love your feedback on this. And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim

“If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can’t buy.”

– Proverb

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Proactive Service® – Giving Customers your Hearts & your Heads

customer service tech training expertI received an important reminder about giving customers our hearts as well and our heads.  I was having lunch with a good friend and client last week and we got onto the topic of the benefits and pitfalls of engaging technicians in business development activities.  In particularly we were talking about how sales people can use the proactive promotion of services by their technicians to differentiate themselves when selling contract services.  I mentioned that while most companies give their customers their hands (i.e. do good work), proactive service companies provide customers with their heads as well.  By looking out for their customers and making helpful suggestions to allow them to be more effective at operating their facilities, they are providing the highest level of service.

Steve, who is a key part of a large, national service firm suggested, “Actually Jim, I agree with you but I think you need to be more specific.  When engaging our service technicians in speaking to customers about the other things we can do to assist them, we need to ensure that they use their hearts as well as their heads.”  Steve went on to relate a story that a service manager told him.  It seems that they had a technician on staff who took promoting services to a new high.  He would promote anything and everything to anybody that would listen.  As a result, this service manager was getting complaints from several customers.  They didn’t appreciate being “sold” when the technician was really there to service their equipment.  Steve went on, “This technician wasn’t really acting on behalf of the customer, he was acting for himself and the benefits that he would get if the customer bought the product or service he was offering.  His heart was not in the right place and the customers could spot it a mile away.”

Steve was right.  Technicians have to engage the customer in these kinds of discussions for the right reasons.  They have to believe that the customer will be better off by taking their recommendations.  If they don’t believe that the recommended action is in the interest of the customer, then they should not be suggesting the service at all.  That is one of the reasons I don’t think that “commissions” or “bonuses” should be paid for services sold by the technician.  It encourages the behaviour but for the wrong reasons.

I encourage you to look closely at your own programs for promoting services through your technicians.  Are your technicians empowered to give your customers their hearts as well as their hands?  Do your support systems (like bonuses or commissions) reinforce this approach or do they encourage them to leave their hearts in the truck?  Have you made it clear that you want them to use good judgement before making recommendations and be certain, in their own minds, that the recommendation is truly in the interests of the customer?

I’d love your feedback on this. And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim

“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”

– Nelson Mandela

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Rude Awakening to a Valuable Reminder

customer service expertIt was a rude awakening to a valuable reminder.  Bang!  I was in Calgary to present a seminar on communicating value.  I squinted at the hotel alarm clock.  Not quite five.  Bang!  There it was again. Another insensitive guest on their way to an early start I surmised and closed my eyes.

Voices.  Hang on.  They are still there! Someone – a man – is in the hall shouting something.  I hear a female voice make some kind of reply – further away.  Bang!   I look at the clock.  Still not quite five!  Voices again. Bang!!

I paddle over to the door and peak out the peephole.  There is a bag trolley in the hall.  The door across the hall has the security bar closed so the door won’t close completely.  Suddenly the door opens and a man, in mid conversation, emerges with a bag.  He is having an argument over his shoulder with a woman in the room… seems that she can’t find something and is complaining to the man.  Unfortunately the man is in a hurry to get away and he is not too shy of sharing this fact with the entire hotel. Bang!  The door slams against the security bar.  He puts the bag on the trolley and re-enters the suite.  Bang goes the door behind him.

Read more

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6 Steps to Using the Telephone to Turn Away Service Business

customer service expertI tried to make an appointment last Monday to take my motorcycle in for the end of season oil change and instead I learned the 6 steps on how to use the telephone to turn away business.  I thought it might be helpful to share it with you.

Step 1:  Put callers on hold for long periods.  I realize that this is not a new revelation, but I am amazed that, with the technology available today, some companies are able to persist in putting people on indefinite hold.  All it took for me was to ask for the “service department”.  After what seemed like several minutes, the receptionist returned to the line and said, “I can’t seem to find him anywhere!  Would you like to leave a voicemail?”  Which brings me to Step 2 of using the telephone to turn away business.

Step 2:  Don’t be available – especially if you are in the “service” department.  I have no idea where the service manager/advisor was (and apparently I was not the only one), but not having anyone who can handle a service call in the middle of the day is one sure way to let the customer know that you do not believe they are important.

Step 3:  Don’t return your calls.  No matter what, don’t call the customer back – certainly not on the same day!  Prompt responses to voicemail messages only serves to encourage more customers to leave more messages that might result in more business.

Step 4:  Make sure you are able to set your phone system so that callers cannot reach a live person during busy periods.  This is especially important to screen out angry callers who want to know why you haven’t responded to their voicemail.  This particular system would not let you dial “zero” to reach a live person.  You could only dial “1” for service, “2” for sales, “3” for …  (Refer to Step 2).

Step 5:  Encourage your staff to talk negatively about the company.  This is a particularly good one and highly recommended if you are serious about reducing the number of pesky customers.  In my case, after several attempt at reaching the “service” department (Press “1”), I decided to try to reach a salesperson (Press 2).  It worked!  A rather unenthusiastic voice announced “Sales” and asked how he could help.  I explained to him that I was trying to reach the service department and was unable to get any response.  I asked if he could see anyone.  “Hang on” he replied and put me on hold.  (See Step 1), “I found him, but he is on the phone,” came the eventual reply  (See Step 2).  I told him that I thought his phone system was terrible.  “Yes!”  he agreed.  “It’s not been the same since we got the new system last year.  We keep telling the boss that it sucks but he won’t listen.”  This was the first bit of enthusiasm I could detect in his voice.  He obviously took Step 5 seriously.

Step 6:  Tell people how busy you are.  This assumes that you failed at Step 2 and the persistent caller finally manages to break through your defenses.  I finally got through to the service advisor/manager at about 4:55 that evening – I had been trying since 9:00 am.  I explained who I was and that I had left a voicemail message early that morning. “Oh yeah! I got your message and you’re 23 on my list to call back.  What do you need?” (“What do you need?” is industry jargon for “How may I help you?”).  I repeated the information that I left on the original voicemail – that I would like an oil change and hoped to be able to schedule it for Thursday morning and that I would like to wait.  “What time do you have available?” I inquired.  “What time do you want to bring it in?” he responded.  “Early, if possible.”  I replied.  “Well, we’re wide open so name the time.”  Wide open?  How could they be so quiet and yet be so busy?

And then it hit me.  Their strategy was working!  Use the telephone to turn away business and get rid of those pesky customers who only end up making the job more complicated.  I started to wonder if service manager/advisor and everyone else were really busy at all, or were they just pretending they were as part of the strategy (Step 6).

Now, I should explain that the manufacturer of the motorcycle I ride has only one authorized service centre in my area so, unless I am prepared to ride a considerable distance, I don’t have much choice on where I take my bike for service.  Given the experience I just had, I don’t imagine that this will be a problem for very long.

How about your organization?  Are you turning away business too?

I’d love your feedback! And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Jim

 “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.”?

– Mahatma Ghandhi

 

 

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“They Don’t Pay Me to Look Good” in Service Delivery

service tech trainingAt one of our Proactive Service® workshops, one of the techs – let’s call him John – told me, “They don’t pay me to look good, they pay me to fix things!”.  We were discussing the importance of how we personally present ourselves at the customer’s facilities.  John, who looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days and was wearing a well-worn company T shirt, was obviously not convinced about the importance of appearance in service delivery.  It wasn’t the first time I had heard this.

“Actually John”, I replied, “they pay you for both – fixing things and looking good.”  John was not convinced.

I asked John if he had been to a wedding recently and it turns out he was just the month before.

“What did you wear?” I asked. Read more

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When the Customer Service person says “I Can’t Help”

improving customer serviceWe’ve all experienced it. You need to get something done and the customer service person you are relying on says, “I can’t help”.  The solution requires a little bit of empathy, perhaps some creativity and a lot of common sense.  Although the clerk may be smart, efficient and good at their job, they fail to show any of the three requirements.  There is no empathy, little creatively and certainly no evidence of common sense.

It happened to me recently on a flight from San Diego to Toronto.  I was running late for my 11:30 am flight – the only one of the day by that airline.  I ran up to the ticket counter.  I had checked in on-line and all I needed to do was drop my bag.  As I jogged up to the counter, I was relieved to see that there was only one person in front of me – a family checking in bags presumably for the same flight.

As I stood at the front of the line puffing, but otherwise quietly waiting my turn, the ticket agent looked up from her work and asked over the shoulders of the family she was serving, “Going to Toronto?”  “Yes, thanks,” I replied.  “If you’re checking that bag, you will have to go without it.  You’re six minutes past the cut-off time.” Read more

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Step 6 of a Proactive Service® Culture – Coach and Support

Jim Baston Customer service expertIn step 5 of our previous blog, we talked about following up on opportunities. The 6th and final step in creating a Proactive Service® culture within your service team is to provide coaching and support.  If we want to see results, we must create an environment that fosters learning and encourages the desired behaviour.

It is important to keep in mind that, as managers, we are not measured so much by what we do, but by what our employees do.  That means that we should be trying to spend as much of our time as possible in helping our employees do their jobs better.  However, the reality is that we are in a fast-paced, real-time business that often forces us to put coaching and development activities aside to address more urgent matters.  When we allow this to happen too often, we find we spend little or no time providing the critical support that will truly help our employees excel.  And that can be costly in terms of our team’s effectiveness and therefore our overall performance.  Some research has demonstrated that with new skills adoption, as much as 75% of an initiative’s success will be dependent upon the actions of management to support and coach their employees.  A large association of training and development professionals found that training, followed by coaching, showed a four-fold improvement in skills adoption. Read more