Service Design for Business

Service Design for Business

A Practical Guide to Optimizing the Customer Experience
By Ben Reason


A practical approach to better customer experience through service design

Service Design for Business helps you transform your customer’s experience and keep them engaged through the art of intentional service design. Written by the experts at Livework, this practical guide offers a tangible, effective approach for better responding to customers’ needs and demands, and provides concrete strategy that can be implemented immediately. You’ll learn how taking a design approach to problem solving helps foster creativity, and how to apply it to the real issues that move businesses forward. Highly visual and organized for easy navigation, this quick read is a handbook for connecting market factors to the organizational challenge of customer experience by seeing your company through the customers’ eyes.

Livework pioneered the service design industry, and guides organizations including Sony, the British Government, Volkswagen Procter & Gamble, the BBC, and more toward a more carefully curated customer experience. In this book, the Livework experts show you how to put service design to work in your company to solve the ongoing challenge of winning with customers.

  • Approach customer experience from a design perspective
  • See your organization through the lens of the customer
  • Make customer experience an organization-wide responsibility
  • Analyze the market factors that dovetail with customer experience design

The Internet and other digital technology has brought the world to your customers’ fingertips. With unprecedented choice, consumers are demanding more than just a great product—the organizations coming out on top are designing and delivering experiences tailored to their customers’ wants. Service Design for Business gives you the practical insight and service design perspective you need to shape the way your customers view your organization.


Recommendation


This short book by Livework colleagues Ben Reason, Lavrans Løvlie and Melvin Brand Flu addresses the frequently overlooked practice of service design – how you design the services you provide. Organizations probably should focus at least as much attention on how customers use their services as they focus on their products. A far greater portion of the economy rests on services than manufacturing and, in many cases, producers have all but eliminated the variability in products – you basically get what you pay for and often it doesn’t matter which brand you choose. Services present a different paradigm. Customers rarely know what they’re going to get and they’re often disappointed. Avoid that by designing your service delivery with care. Although this isn’t an in-depth guidebook, the authors provide a useful overview of a big subject that few others have addressed.


Takeaways


  • “Design” is increasingly important in planning your company’s services as well as your products.
  • See, feel and use your services from your customers’ perspective.
  • Observe, question and seek insight into how people behave throughout your “customer life cycle.”
  • Examine how you attract prospects, why they buy and how they use your services.
  • To understand your customers better, develop stories around their use of your services.
  • Diligently identify and remove “customer irritations.”
  • Improve your customer experience by including your employees in service redesign.
  • Get the basics of customer service right, and only then add extras that will delight your clients.
  • Defeat the organizational silos that undermine customer service by creating a shared view of the customer experience and a collaborative process to make it better.
  • Stay flexible, innovative and responsive to changing customer needs and business realities.

Summary


Why Service Design?

Design has grown more and more important in the past few decades. Today, most organizations that sell products focus on their design, but the same cannot be said for services. Yet services account for between 70% and 80% of economic activity in developed countries. People have grown used to excellent product design, and they’ve come to expect the same in their experiences with service providers. Since services suffer less from commoditization than manufactured products, the importance and potential payoff of good service design may exceed that of good product design. Consider your services through the eyes and actions of your customers. Conduct “qualitative and quantitative research,” observing your customers closely and individually to understand what they really want. With your team, describe your customers’ experience with you; tell stories and visualize solutions to improve it. Where possible, include your customers and employees directly in your service design, capture their ideas and test your prototypes with them.

“Three Critical Factors”

Focus on three critical factors in service design. First, chart the flow of your “customers’ life cycle” as they become aware of your services, decide whether to buy and use them, and complete their transaction with you. Document the stages from attraction to deciding to buying. Monitor their experiences while they use your services and track how you work with them afterward. Know how you acquire customers and why they come to you. Learn where they obtained similar services in the past. Examine how you add and orient new customers so you can design a better start to your consumer relationships. Capture information about client engagement. Draw prototype “blueprints” of potential service designs and of your customer’s journey.

“Service design is the design of services.”

Examine your customers’ life cycles holistically, to spot trends and to gain insight into their expectations and needs. Learn how to engage and retain them through customer differentiation. Provide greater guidance and “choice” so you can optimize each unique customer experience. This examination might reveal opportunities to gain a larger or more frequent share of their business.

The Customer Experience

Provide your customers with the information they need to make the decision to buy and use your services. Continue to provide needed information throughout the stages of the customer life cycle. Align your provision of information with your customers’ needs. For example, you can email and even tweet basic information, but use the telephone and face-to-face interactions for more complex dealings. Learn each customer’s preferences. Make it as easy as possible for customers to transact with you – for example, offer contract renewal options and flexible payment schedules. When designing your services, imagine what’s visible and what’s not. See what your customer sees, hears, touches and feels (the visible) and connect these tangible assets to what the customer doesn’t see (your internal structures and processes). Develop a deeper understating of the pressures that affect your customers and influence their behaviors. Be alert to the demands on them, whether those pressures come from their stakeholders, deadlines, regulations, traffic or even the weather.

“The customer’s goal is primary – it is the reason the service exists – and it is essential that customers are engaged in a way that enables them to succeed.”

Everyone in your firm should develop knowledge of what your customers encounter, especially what they see and experience using your services. This exercise reveals service gaps you can fill and ways you’re duplicating efforts in how you treat customers and pass them along from one part of your company to the next. Examine your internal flow to observe the natural “tensions” between what the business wants and what its customers want. Adjust your process and systems to reduce bottlenecks and duplication. To ease those tensions, provide better information, change employee and customer behaviors where needed, and design a more seamless customer experience. Deliver on your promises.

“Understanding Customers”

When customers talk about their experiences, they “tell stories.” What stories do you want your customers to tell about you? To drive good stories, you want to get the service “basics” right, and find ways to surprise and delight your customers. Often, getting the basics straight requires only adjustments, not overhauls. To see what tweaks you need, view your organization through the eyes of your customers and map their experiences throughout their life cycle as clients. The basics include removing “customer irritations,” those small aggravations that get in the way of their enjoyment of your service or that present hurdles in understanding, buying or using it. For example, can customers easily obtain all the information they need to decide whether your service is right for them? If they come to your website, can they move seamlessly to a human interaction that adds value and captures information from their online interactions?

“Service providers that were one-size-fits-all, and you get what you are given, have to rethink their approach as customer expectations grow.”

Consider an insurance company that decided to explain its policies, and their costs and benefits, clearly and in plain language. This firm made switching coverage terms within and between policies easy. By making these adjustments, it got the basics right. Only then did it determine how to add delight to the customer experience. By observing its clients and seeing the insurance process through their eyes and feelings, the firm’s leaders saw that making claims had the highest impact and added the most stress of all its client interactions. The firm developed exceptional claims management, differentiating it from its rivals as it vaulted from among the industry’s top 100 to the top 10.

The “Shadow” Knows

Get rid of customer irritations. For example, hotels that charge “early check-in fees” may cloud a guest’s entire stay, no matter how well things go after that. Complaints about irritations end up costing inordinate time and money. They undermine repeat business. To uncover irritations, watch customer complaints. Talk to employees who interact with clients daily. Make your customer proposition “clear, concise” and “compelling.” Add “a call to action.” Align your proposition to what you’ve found out about your customers’ wishes. To learn more, shadow your customers. Personnel from a European railroad followed customers from point-of-sale ticket terminals to navigating the tracks, the train ride and connections at its stations. They learned, for example, that many older travelers couldn’t read the digital print on the ticket machines. When you discover irritations, map them. Prioritize the problems, and remove them accordingly. Break customer needs down along the life cycle. Brainstorm ways to improve each stage by removing hurdles and annoyances. You can’t give all of your customers everything they want, but you can create an optimal balance between business needs and customer wants. Deliver on your promises and then look for specific areas in which you can surprise and delight your customers.

“Design Around Customers’ Needs”

Businesses and government must adjust and adapt to new conditions continuously. For example, an airline might observe that prices have reached high levels across the industry and position itself as a low-cost carrier. Determine your “business concept” by looking at the problems you identified in your customer analysis. Speak with industry experts as well as thought leaders; look for trends in technology, customer tastes and government regulation. Study “parallel industries.” For example, a security technology firm experiencing dwindling sales of its add-on car alarm examined automobile clubs. It switched to a service – a subscription offer for members who gain peace of mind from having their cars monitored day and night.

Digital Delivery

Moving to digital delivery presents another challenge. Don’t simply replicate what you did traditionally. Design, as always, from the customer-life-cycle perspective. Consider what digital does best compared to other delivery channels that may involve the telephone, mail and in-person service. Use digital delivery to relieve employees of repetitive and transactional tasks. Ensure that when customers move between digital and traditional channels, the experience adds seamless value. Phase digital service in gradually, to allow customers to get used to it and see its value. Make it easy for customers to use your service for the first time. Diagram your typical customer “adoption” cycle, find the barriers, bottlenecks and irritants, and then remove them. Think of your customers in terms of their performance. To succeed, your customers must perform at least as well as your employees. Say you want to lower costs and improve efficiency by introducing customer self-service. Design the service so customers want to use it. Make sure they know how. Use customer newsletters to educate users about your services. Even simple “Mind the Gap” signs in subways convey information that guides better customer performance. When launching a new service, work from your customers’ perspective to avoid costly future revamps. Design new services with a priority on ease of understanding and use. Consider the external factors that affect customer decisions and utilization patterns. A new digital TV service, for example, requires sufficient numbers of high-speed Internet subscribers to succeed.

“Customer Centricity”

Pay attention to the four components of better customer service:

  1. “Foster internal alignment and collaboration” – Most large organizations suffer from a stovepipe structure and mentality. Bring your silos together to design better services from the customer’s point of view. Emphasize collaboration through shared goals and purpose. Tell stories about your customers’ experiences. Describe them visually and in detail. Put diverse teams together to redesign services. This unites people because your customers are their “common ground.” Have your teams create customer scenarios and types as vehicles for discussing better service design. Have them walk through each scenario using various types of customers to test the impact on your clients and your business.
  2. “Deliver better staff engagement and participation” – Select the right people to engage with your customers. Ask a representative cross-section of customer-facing employees for their ideas and insights early in the process to ensure buy-in from the people you need to execute your plans and solutions. Ensure that employees know their jobs and know how important they are in engaging customers. Make sure they appreciate how customer wants and needs must align with business needs, constraints and challenges. Have them describe scenarios and test them against real or pretend customers.
  3. “Build a customer-centric organization” – Unless your organization was founded with a customer-centric philosophy, like Zappos or Amazon, redesign it. Develop a precise supporting argument, including how the redesign will affect the organization’s future success. Once you achieve agreement, institute “service-design training” for leaders, and engage influential employees to spread the word in favor of the service design changes. Map out the customer experience and life cycle to identify opportunities for improvement. Have everyone build a common view of the experience illustrated with scenarios and customer “personas.” Create an aggressive plan according to the life cycle. Aim at reducing customer pain, seizing opportunities and achieving the greatest possible return on investment.
  4. “Build a more agile organization” – Companies make claims about their agility and flexibility, but often remain stubbornly resistant to change. The stovepipe structure of many large firms deserves some of the blame, but more informed customers, with higher expectations and more choices, mean that businesses must adapt to survive. The first step entails developing deeper knowledge of the customer experience your firm currently provides. Chart what you do well and poorly in terms of your customers’ life cycle and their need for “information, interaction and transactions.” Examine your face-to-face and digital interactions to determine what requires more human involvement and what you can resolve by simply providing better information. Improve human interactions by emphasizing both expertise and empathy. Disassemble your transactions into component steps to find small opportunities for improvements that add up to big change.

Tools for Better Service Design

Develop “customer profiles“ as you learn more about each client. Look for and record elements that annoy and delight your customers. Map their journeys and life cycles as your patrons so you understand their case histories and common problems. Diagram “cross-channel views“ of how customers interact with you in person, on the phone, digitally, and any other way. Then create “service scenarios” that enable you to experience current and proposed customer-facing changes.


About the Author


Ben Reason leads the service design firm Livework where Lavrans Løvlie is a partner and Melvin Brand Flu directs strategy and business design.

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How to Talk to Anyone

How to Talk to Anyone

92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships
By Leil Lowndes


What it boils down to is a more skillful way of dealing with people.

The author has spent her career teaching people how to communicate for success. In her book How to Talk to Anyone (Contemporary Books, October 2003) Lowndes offers 92 easy and effective sure-fire success techniques– she takes the reader from first meeting all the way up to sophisticated techniques used by the big winners in life. In this information-packed book you’ll find:

    • 9 ways to make a dynamite first impression
    • 14 ways to master small talk, “big talk,” and body language
    • 14 ways to walk and talk like a VIP or celebrity
    • 6 ways to sound like an insider in any crowd
    • 7 ways to establish deep subliminal rapport with anyone
    • 9 ways to feed someone’s ego (and know when NOT to!)
    • 11 ways to make your phone a powerful communications tool
    • 15 ways to work a party like a politician works a room
    • 7 ways to talk with tigers and not get eaten alive

In her trademark entertaining and straight-shooting style, Leil gives the techniques catchy names so you’ll remember them when you really need them, including: “Rubberneck the Room,” “Be a Copyclass,” “Come Hither Hands,” “Bare Their Hot Button,” “The Great Scorecard in the Sky,” and “Play the Tombstone Game,” for big success in your social life, romance, and business.

How to Talk to Anyone, which is an update of her popular book, Talking the Winner’s Way (see the 5-star reviews of the latter) is based on solid research about techniques that work!

By the way, don’t confuse How to Talk to Anyone with one of Leil’s previous books, How to Talk to Anybody About Anything. This one is completely different!


Recommendation


“Language most shews a man: Speak, that I may see thee.” The great English dramatist and poet Ben Jonson wrote these words in the seventeenth century. They are as true today as they were then. People evaluate you by the words you use and the way you use them. Of course, people also make judgments based on your body language, dress style, attitude, facial expressions and similar criteria that immediately register at a subconscious level. This outstanding book will put you well on your way to becoming a more attractive personality as it reveals the secrets that drama and speech coaches, sales trainers, communication consultants, psychologists and other behavioral experts employ to help their clients become more charismatic, dynamic and appealing. The famous journalist and social critic H.L. Mencken once wrote, “Before a man speaks, it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.” This cynical maxim may be true for many – but certainly not for those who study this book. It is chock-full of wonderful insights and proven techniques – a whopping 92 in all – that you can use to become the type of person that others admire.


Takeaways


  • Successful people are not always the smartest, most attractive or best educated.
  • Often, they succeed because they know how to get along well with others.
  • People respond to each other on a subconscious level. Research indicates that “as many as 10,000 units of information flow per second” between individuals.
  • Numerous proven techniques can increase your attractiveness and dynamism.
  • People learn everything they need to know about you within the first few seconds of meeting you. Meanwhile, you are also forming powerful first impressions.
  • You send out clear signals about how you feel without saying a word.
  • “Fine-tune your smile.”
  • To make people feel great about you, focus your conversation on them.
  • Many people are as frightened to make small talk as they are to appear on the stage.
  • You will come across as a far more intelligent speaker if you simply find substitutes for a few “overworked words” such as “smart, nice, pretty or good.”

Summary


“Clever Hans, the Counting Horse”

In Europe during the halcyon years before World War I, “Clever Hans, the counting horse,” was, without a doubt, the most talked-about sensation on the continent. A brilliant entertainer with a unique act, Hans could somehow supply accurate answers to math questions that audience members posed to him. He did so by quickly tapping out the correct answers to any problem – addition, subtraction, multiplication and division – with a hoof. The horse’s owner, Herr von Osten, was always by his side while Hans performed these seemingly miraculous feats – but he never spoke to the horse or signaled to him in any way.

“There are two kinds of people in this life: Those who walk into a room and say, ‘Well, here I am!’ And those who walk in and say, ‘Ahh, there you are’.”

No one had ever seen such an amazing animal! Expanding beyond math, Hans “learned the alphabet.” By tapping his hoof a certain number of times for each letter, he would answer questions from audience members concerning the latest news, or subjects such as geography and history. Hans always answered every question correctly. Eventually scientists and other leaders organized a special commission to investigate the “human horse.” They asked von Osten to leave the hall for their test. Then, they had Hans perform his usual math and language wizardry in front of a crowd. But the horse still did not miss an answer, tapping out correct responses to numerous questions from the leader of the commission. No one could stump the brainy Hans.

“No man would listen to you talk if he didn’t know it was his turn next.”

The public insisted that investigators form another commission. Members organized a second test in which the questioner whispered questions in Hans’s ear so no one else could hear. This time, Hans could not answer even a single question correctly. Instead of being brilliant, the horse was revealed as a dummkopf! Can you guess how the commission’s members proved that Hans was a fraud? Von Osten had taught the horse to read the audience members’ “body-language signals.” As Hans tapped his hoof, people in the audience would exhibit clear signs of tension – straining forward, holding their breath – until the horse reached the correct number. Then they would all relax, at which point von Osten had taught Hans to stop tapping immediately. Hans was “clever” – but not because he was a math genius or geography expert. He simply knew how to take cues for his actions from the subtle responses of the people around him. “Know your audience” is one of the primary rules of effective communications. Hans the horse was able to learn this important lesson. Can you?

Teach Yourself to Become Charming and Attractive

The most accomplished public speakers, actors, politicians and salespeople were not born charismatic. They worked hard to learn how to speak effectively, to be appealing, and to charm and persuade others. How did they achieve their goals? The answer is simple: They each applied certain remarkably helpful rules of personal communication and, thus, developed themselves into winning and attractive personalities. Yes, such rules exist. Furthermore, they are easy to learn and employ. You can use these secrets and tricks to re-create yourself almost magically into a person of great charm and poise, someone everyone will admire and want to be near.

“How to Intrigue Everyone Without Saying a Word”

First impressions are the most lasting. “The way you look and the way you move” provide 80% of the information people use to form their initial impressions of you. To make sure people get an overwhelmingly positive impression when they first meet you, use the following tips:

  • Smile slowly – Don’t smile as soon as you meet someone. People will assume that you do this with everyone. Instead, wait a second or two, look long and deep at the person you are meeting, then smile big. This brief delay signals that you are not smiling because it is socially desirable, but because you see something special in this particular person that you really like.
  • “Sticky eyes” – Show people that you truly can’t take your eyes off of them. Maintain perfect eye contact while you speak with them.
  • “The big baby pivot” – When you meet someone, pivot directly toward him or her with a “total-body turn,” flash a genuine smile, and show the undivided and very special attention you would give to a young child who has just crawled up into your lap.

“How to Know What to Say After You Say, ‘Hi'”

Many people, including senior executives, motivational speakers and great performers, hate to make small talk. But it is an art that you easily can muster if you follow these tactics:

  • The “mood match” – Don’t speak with someone else until you first sample his or her mood. Once you have, make sure that your opening words “match that mood.” This is particularly important for salespeople.
  • “Wear a ‘whatzit'” – Starting a conversation with a stranger is not easy. One way to get the ball rolling is to wear something distinctive that he or she is sure to comment upon – a novel tie-tack, a piece of antique jewelry, or a special lapel pin or button.
  • The “swiveling spotlight” – People love to speak about themselves. Imagine a giant spotlight that rotates to light up your counterpart. Keep the spotlight – and focus – on that person and not yourself. He or she will think you are great for doing so.

“How to Talk Like a VIP”

You can always recognize important people by the commanding, intelligent way they speak. They have confidence, choose the proper words and don’t use clichés. Follow their lead:

  • “Kill the quick ‘me too!'” – To really impress, avoid immediately matching someone else’s account of a personal experience or preference – say, a love of sailing – with your own story. Let your shared interest come out gracefully during the conversation.
  • “Comm-YOU-nication” – Slip the word “you” into your discourse as often as you can. This focuses the content on the other person, and gains his or her attention and approval.
  • Avoid euphemisms – Always speak directly and to the point. The use of “nicey-nice” words makes you appear equivocal and weak.

“How to Be an Insider in Any Crowd”

To be able to converse well with others, cure yourself of “Silent Outsider Syndrome.” Use the special words and phrases that are common parlance to the people or group that you want to join:

  • “Learn a little ‘jobbledygook'” – People will be impressed with you if you speak in terms they routinely use. Pick up the lingo by listening to others to find out what their special words and phrases mean so you can use them appropriately.
  • Hit their “hot buttons” – Each professional group has its own provocative issues – for example, doctors get feisty about their relationships with hospitals. Find out what these issues are, then mention them to spice up your exchanges.
  • “Read their rags” – The best way to gain inside knowledge about a specific field is to read the trade journals that report on it. An hour or two in the library can work wonders to improve your conversational prowess.

“How to Sound Like You’re Peas in a Pod”

In general people are more comfortable with those who have similar values or interests. Your job is to provoke “sensations of similarity” in the thoughts of those you want to get to know:

  • “Join the movement” – Does your conversational partner make herky-jerky movements, or languid and graceful ones? Subtly match that person’s movements to make him or her feel more comfortable with you on a subliminal basis. But don’t go overboard or you are almost sure to offend.
  • “Echoing” – What special words and phrases does your conversational partner use to describe something? “Echo” your partner and use those words yourself.
  • “The premature ‘we'” – When you pepper your sentences with the word “we,” you establish a subconscious bond with other people involved.

“How to Differentiate the Power of Praise from the Folly of Flattery”

Back in the 1930s, Dale Carnegie extolled the virtues of praise in his classic bestseller How to Win Friends and Influence People. The power of praise is just as strong today, but praise that does not appear genuine is certain to backfire, so proceed carefully using these helpers:

  • “Grapevine glory” – To praise someone without seeming to be an apple-polisher, speak highly of that person, but not directly to him or her. Instead voice your compliment to that person’s closest friend or associate. Rest assured that the message will get delivered.
  • “Accidental adulation” – Sneak praise into an otherwise mundane sentence: “Because you are so knowledgeable concerning…, I’m sure you can set the agenda.”
  • “Killer compliments” – Use them whenever you can. For example, you can say something like, “You are the most honest person I know.”

“How to Direct-Dial Their Hearts”

You may look great, stand tall, dress in style and feel confident – but how do you project these qualities when you speak over the phone? Ensure that you:

  • “Pump up the volume” – When you speak over the phone, “turn your smiles into sound.” Be animated and project a positive image through your tone of voice.
  • “Name shower” – Repeat the other person’s name over and over. A person’s name is their favorite word.
  • “Oh wow, it’s you” – Always answer your calls in a professional way, then switch to a very sunny, happy demeanor as soon as the caller identifies themselves.

“How to Work a Party Like a Politician Works a Room”

Always put the “politician’s six-point party checklist” to work when you attend a function:

  1. “Who will be there?” – After all, that’s why you’re going, right?
  2. “When should I arrive?” – The best advice is to get there early.
  3. “What should I take with me?” – At a minimum, you’ll need your business cards.
  4. “Why is the party being given?” –Be sure and get the true reason.
  5. “Where is the collective mind?” – Will it be a party of financiers or environmentalists?
  6. “How am I going to follow up?” – Follow up to confirm the contacts you have made.

“How to Break the Most Treacherous Glass Ceiling of All”

Gaffes, intemperate or insensitive comments can kill any chance you have to get ahead. To avoid doing damage, keep these strategies in mind:

  • “See no bloopers” – Never comment on the “slips, fumbles and faux pas” of others.
  • “Savor the favor” – If someone offers to do a good deed on your behalf, wait a little before you try to collect it.
  • “Chance encounters are for chitchat” – You have been trying for weeks to schedule an appointment to speak to the boss about increasing your salary. But don’t bring it up when you run into them in a checkout line. If you do, you’ll never get the raise.

Planned Communication – and Presentation – Makes All the Difference

You cannot get ahead unless you know how to speak to people so they will want to listen. Fortunately, learning this skill is within anyone’s grasp. Study how successful people accomplish this important goal – and then do what they do. It’s really as simple as that.


About the Author


Leil Lowndes writes and lectures extensively on communication, and acts as a personal communications coach for Fortune 500 company executives and employees.

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Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service

Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service

By Performance Research Associates


In this trusted customer service classic, the renowned business training and consulting services practice Performance Research Associates, Inc. lays bare the truth all companies have come to accept but few know what to do with: companies that emphasize customer service make more money and keep customers longer than those that don’t. For over two decades, Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service has combined this timeless wisdom with powerful tools, real-world examples, and the latest methods to provide customer service professionals an indispensable guide. With lighthearted examples and to-the-point solutions, the book provides readers with proven tips and strategies for exceeding customer needs and expectations, determining the right times to bend or break the rules, becoming fantastic fixers and powerful problem-solvers, using the RATER factors to wow your customers, understanding cultural and generational differences, and coping effectively with your most challenging customers. Plus, the revised fifth edition delivers new information on using social media for communication and service recovery, owning service encounters, responding positively to negative feedback, and more.What is quality customer service–and how do you consistently deliver it for your customers? Discover the answers in this go-to guide for helping customer service professionals deliver outstanding service that keeps customers coming back.


Recommendation


In Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service, Performance Research Associates – with some editorial help from Ron Zemke – highlight the main principles and techniques involved in providing great customer service and resolving customer problems. This lively book features many short chapters, cartoons, bulleted axioms and what-to-do examples. However, much of the information seems very familiar, like a juiced-up version of hints, tips and advice that have appeared in many other customer service books. Thus, it has a kind of déjà vu quality. While someone who is experienced in this field may find the information here too familiar, this accessible volume as a great introduction to customer service.


Takeaways


  • To customers, you are the company.
  • To provide great customer service, consider what your customers need and expect, and how to best provide it.
  • The five essential factors in good customer service are: “reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy and responsiveness” – RATER for short.
  • Keep the “Service Promise” by showing customers that you do what you say you will do.
  • Respond to customers in a timely fashion, and reassure them by showing them that you care and that you know what you are doing.
  • First impressions count toward credibility. You and your environment must look good.
  • Make your customers feel heard, understood, liked, respected and appreciated.
  • When there are problems and misunderstandings, first apologize, and then try to fix the problem while letting the customer know what you are doing.
  • While the customer isn’t always right, make the customer feel right. Don’t try to place blame, rather work to make things right through service recovery.
  • Treat each customer as unique; show empathy and support the customer’s feelings.

Summary


Basic Principles of Great Service

“Knock Your Socks Off Service” is excellent, top-of-the-line, best-of-the-bunch, take-your-breath-away customer service. At this level, you carefully give each customer a favorable and memorable experience while you satisfy every need and expectation. You show customers that you are a pleasure to work with as you seek more ways to make them not merely satisfied, but delighted. Essentially, go the extra mile, and as you go, look for even more unique ways to provide excellent service.

“Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service means creating a positive, memorable experience for every customer. It means meeting expectations and satisfying needs.”

Any organization needs good customer service and every employee must practice it. This is essential because any employee serving a customer represents the company to that person. “You are the company,” so when you speak to a customer, say “I” rather than “We.” For instance, if a customer has encountered a problem, don’t say, “We’re sorry.” Instead, say, “I’m sorry you had that problem,” to show that you personally understand and take responsibility for the problem. Use these guidelines to shape your thinking about customer service:

  • Consider what your customers need and expect from you and your company.
  • Think about how the other departments in your company, such as billing and shipping, contribute to the customers’ experience and what you can do to help them improve.
  • Deliberate about the small details that are important to satisfying your customers.

“It means looking for opportunities to wow and delight your customer in unique and unexpected ways.

Then, take the pledge that you are devoted to providing the best possible service you can, so your customers want to come back for more. Giving great service is more important now than ever, since customers have become more demanding. They want and expect more, they have more choices and they are busier than ever. Gaining new customers is five times more expensive than satisfying and retaining the customers you already have, so it benefits you to do more for your current customers.

The Five Key Elements of Great Customer Service

According to Texas A&M researchers led by Dr. Leonard Barry, customers use five factors to evaluate the quality of the service they receive:

  1. Reliability – Provide what you promise, and do so with dependability and accuracy.
  2. Assurance – Display courtesy and knowledge; convey, “trust, competence and confidence.”
  3. Tangibles – Be sure your equipment and physical facilities are topnotch.
  4. Empathy – Give care and attention to each customer.
  5. Responsiveness – Demonstrate that you are willing to help your customers promptly.

Applying the RATER Model

Together the first letters of these five factors spell the word “RATER”. Use this word as a mnemonic to help you remember these five principles whenever you work with a customer.

“Customers don’t distinguish between you and the organization you work for. Nor should they. To your customer’s way of thinking, you are the company.”

To be reliable, keep the “Service Promise,” which means you keep your word and do what you say you will. The customer interprets this promise as having these three components: 1) the commitments of your organization, such as through advertising and marketing materials; 2) the customers’ common expectations, based on their past experiences with you or other service providers; and 3) the personal promises you make to your customer. In short, if your company or you make a promise or the customer comes with certain expectations, work to fulfill them. If a promise should be broken – or if the customer thinks one has been – apologize immediately. Don’t blame anyone. Simply admit there is a problem and find out what the customer needs from you now.

“To a customer, the company begins and ends with you.”

To be reassuring, provide not only caring, but also knowledge and skill. Show your customers you know what you are doing and you care about them. Seek the customer’s trust by showing product knowledge, knowledge of the company, an ability to listen and a skill in solving problems. Additionally, offer your service with a style, based on the way you dress, move and communicate. Look and act professionally, and communicate well with good eye contact.

“Customers are demanding. And they have every right to be. Today’s customers have more options and less time than ever before.”

To provide the tangibles, you should present a good appearance – and your company should, too. Make sure the materials you give customers are well executed and that the environment where you serve them is clean and safe. Remember, first impressions last the longest.

To be empathetic, regard and treat each customer as a unique individual. Don’t show sympathy, which means identifying with or taking on your customer’s emotions, such as getting angry when a customer is. Rather, show empathy. When you’re empathetic, you show you understand and you affirm the other person’s feelings, such as saying: “I can understand why you’re angry,” and then explaining why you do understand.

“Courtesy, good manners, and civility are important…but courtesy is not a substitute for competence and skill.”

To be responsive, act in a timely fashion. Today, people want a quick response. You don’t necessarily have to provide the service immediately, but you do need to address the issue quickly to find out what the customer needs and when, so you can establish realistic deadlines. Ideally, the best time to provide the service is when the customer wants it, though sometimes the customer must wait. In that case, tell the customer how long the wait will be, since customers are frustrated the most by uncertainty. For instance, if you are helping another customer, let the waiting customer know how long you are likely to be and suggest an alternative for the customer to do while waiting, such as: “This will take about 10 minutes. Feel free to look around some more and I’ll be with you then.”

Customers are Everywhere; Treat Them Right

The people who buy from you are just your external customers. You have internal customers, too, such as the people you work with and those who provide behind the scenes customer support. For instance, after you take an order, the people who process or ship it are your internal customers. Seek feedback from them to improve what you do – such as how you fill out an order form.

“The reassurance factor is about managing your customers’ feelings of trust. The customers’ decision to trust you is built on honesty, knowledge, and know-how.”

Avoid the biggest mistakes in dealing with customers. These include giving the impression that you don’t care, can’t be bothered or don’t like the customer as a person. Being a know-it-all is a turn-off, too, such as when you proffer a solution before the customer finishes explaining the problem. Don’t demean customers, even if they ask seemingly dumb questions. And don’t argue with a customer over who is right. Give each customer the benefit of the doubt.

“Combine substance and style – what you do and how you do it – to reassure your customers that you really do know, and care about, what you are doing.”

Make your customers feel heard, understood, liked, respected, helped and appreciated. You don’t have to act like the customer is always right. But when misunderstandings occur, make the customer feel right or justified. Assume the customer is innocent. Maybe the customer just isn’t explaining his or her needs very well or misunderstood some directions or didn’t get them. Maybe the customer is right to complain. Most customers are honest or honestly disagree with you about what is fair, such as when a product doesn’t work. A good way to distinguish between the honest customer and the one who isn’t is to use the three strikes rule. Say a customer claims he has returned a video on time. The first or second time, give the customer the benefit of the doubt. But the third time, question the customer’s credibility and impose the late charge.

Great Customer Service Techniques

How you act can show that you care about providing exemplary customer service. For example:

  • Be honest, because if you lie or mislead the customer, eventually the misrepresentations will catch up with you. If there is a problem, don’t conceal it. Be up front.
  • Break or bend the rules when it makes sense and is appropriate. Don’t feel you always have to go by the book. Sometimes the spirit of the rule is what’s more important, since rules are designed to make things work more efficiently. Don’t assume there is a rule if you don’t know the company policy. For instance, if a customer wants to cash a check for $20 more than a purchase, don’t automatically say you can’t. Find out if you can.
  • Build trust, such as by doing what’s fair, being open, being truthful and communicating frequently. Show confidence. For example, if a customer calls with a last minute emergency request, explain that it may be difficult and expensive to fulfill, but you will do what you can. Then, keep the customer informed about what you are able to accomplish.
  • Use your own good judgment to do the right thing. For instance, Nordstrom’s, a department store known for its great customer service, tells its employees to think for themselves. Say a customer comes to make a return but doesn’t have a receipt. If the customer seems truly honest, the salesperson will accept the return. Ask your manager if you are not sure.
  • Be a good listener. This means listening actively, even aggressively, so you show your customers that you understand. For example, if the customer has a complex message to convey, repeat the main points to show the customer you really understand. Ask clarifying questions.
  • Ask good questions to find out what your customer needs. Find out who the customer. Ask probing questions to learn what the customer is complaining about.
  • Use “winning words and soothing phrases” and avoid negative words and phrases, such as saying: “We can’t do that” or “I don’t know.” Instead, try the let’s-find-an-alternate-solution approach or offer to find out something you don’t know.
  • Pay attention to your non-verbal communication, so you use appropriate body language. For instance, stand at a distance that makes the customer comfortable. This varies with national background. You should stand further away when talking to people from the U.S. and closer when speaking to Europeans and South Americans.
  • Show a warm friendly attitude with your tone on the telephone. If you must put someone on hold, ask permission. If the person says no, get a number and arrange to call back.
  • Use a personal tone when you write a letter.

E-Mail Customers

Increasingly, salespeople work with e-mail customers. But be careful. While people commonly use a chatty, casual style to converse over the Internet, don’t treat your customers as you do your friends, unless they really are your friends. Rather, adopt a personal but not overly familiar tone, and check what you have written before you hit “send,” so you convey a proper message to your customers.

Customers from Hell

Learn to control your feelings and actions with very difficult customers. Stay calm. Learn what’s bothering the customer. As appropriate, transfer the customer to someone else who can help, such as a supervisor. Build “contractual trust” when a customer becomes threatening. State what you will do, if the person doesn’t stop acting aggressively: “I’m sorry, but unless we can have a more restrained conversation, I’ll have to call security.”

“Seeing – and treating – each customer as an individual helps you meet the needs of each on their own unique level.”

Generally, when sales or service problems occur, see yourself as a “fantastic fixer.” Do whatever you can to make things right. Use the art of service recovery to bring everything back to normal as soon as you can. As a first step, apologize, no matter who’s at fault. Then, listen and empathize to show you care. Next, fix the problem as quickly and fairly as you can. Where possible, offer atonement, such as by adding some value-added service to make it up to the customer. Finally, follow up to make sure the customer is satisfied with the way things were resolved.


About the Author


Performance Research Associates is a consulting firm specializing in customer service. Individually and together, PRA’s principals have authored more than 40 books and thousands of articles. PRA has developed numerous seminars, training films and organizational assessment instruments. Founded in 1972, PRA consults with large and medium-size corporations and nonprofits. Its clients have included Glaxo SmithKline, American Express Financial Advisors, Prudential Insurance, Harley-Davidson, Dun & Bradstreet, Motorola, Universal Studios and many others.

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The Nordstrom Way

Relationships 101

What Every Leader Needs To Know
By John Maxwell


“Top Ten Business Books For 2017” – Forbes


The fully revised and updated edition of the classic book about Nordstrom’s extraordinary customer service

In this new edition of the management classic, the authors explore in-depth the core values of the culture that have made Nordstrom synonymous with legendary customer service. These essential values have enabled Nordstrom to survive and adapt to dramatic market shifts regularly since 1901, and the new edition explains how the Nordstrom approach can be emulated by any organization—in any industry—in every corner of the world. This is not a book about selling shoes or clothes or cosmetics or jewelry. It is a book about how underlying values such as respect, trust, compensation and, even fun, are the building blocks of a culture where employees are empowered to consistently deliver a world-class experience to customers.

Nordstrom believes that the employee experience determines the customer experience, and that when you attract and reward people who are comfortable in a service-oriented culture, then everyone succeeds—both individually and collectively. No wonder Nordstrom is one of only five companies to make Fortune‘s “Best Companies to Work For” and “Most Admired” lists every year since those surveys have been taken.

With new interviews from senior Nordstrom executives and family members, the book explains how to successfully respond to today’s tech-savvy, time-crunched customers who demand a convenient, seamless, painless, personal experience across all channels. Nordstrom gives its frontline people all the digital tools necessary to satisfy the customer—and your organization must do the same, if it wants to adapt.

The authors show what it takes to earn brand loyalty, lead through change and uncertainty, and combine extraordinary brick-and-mortar with online experiences.

‘The single most important reason we try to provide great service is this: It enables us to sell more,’ says co-president Blake Nordstrom, great-grandson of the founder. ‘The best way for our company to achieve results is to do what’s best for the customer.’

In this book, readers will find:

  • Suggestions for becoming the Nordstrom of your industry
  • The ten values that define a customer-driven culture
  • Lessons for providing superior service and experience across all channels

Recommendation


The name Nordstrom is synonymous with excellent customer service. Robert Spector and Breanne O. Reeves highlight what the Nordstrom department store chain does differently from its competitors to maintain its trademark reputation. This inside look is fascinating reading for anyone interested in the retail industry. You will learn Nordstrom’s history from its humble beginnings at the turn of the 20th century, as the Wallin & Nordstrom shoe store, to its current status as a retail powerhouse. Frontline employees will be able to use Nordstrom’s techniques, no matter where they work. In fact, people in every industry can draw from the customer-service practices described here. Anecdotal evidence of the success of these practices makes this book easy to read and enjoyable, but don’t expect to hear a discouraging word. Anyone in customer service or retail – and any Nordstrom shopper – will relish this portrait of what good service is and how to make money with it.


Takeaways


  • Nordstrom gives employees the freedom to make decisions, and management is willing to live with those decisions.
  • To succeed at Nordstrom, employees must be able to thrive in an entrepreneurial sales environment.
  • Great customer service was the main sales message at the first Nordstrom store and remains the company’s priority today.
  • Employees have the ability to accept returned merchandise, which adds to the service they can provide on the sales floor.
  • Every person who works at Nordstrom starts his or her career on the sales floor (even people whose last name is Nordstrom).
  • Starting employees on the sales floor sends a message from management about the importance of the salesperson’s role.
  • Paying employees commissions helps Nordstrom attract self-starters.
  • Every level of Nordstrom’s organizational structure is bound by goal setting.
  • Nordstrom verbally and financially praises and recognizes top salespeople on a regular basis.
  • When Nordstrom employees go beyond expectations in providing customer service, the store describes them as “heroes.”

Summary


Only One Rule

Managers give new employees a five- by eight-inch card on their first day at Nordstrom; it’s called the Nordstrom Employee Handbook. The handbook welcomes employees, encourages them to set high personal and professional goals, and outlines the company’s rules. Rule one is: “Use your good judgment in all situations.” That is the only rule.

“Nordstrom’s culture encourages entrepreneurial, motivated men and women to make the extra effort to give customer-service that is unequalled in American retailing.”

Nordstrom is different from most other companies because it gives its employees the freedom to make decisions, and its management is willing to live with those decisions. This attitude has helped the company develop an army of highly motivated employees who share an entrepreneurial spirit.

The company’s liberal return policy, and its decision to empower workers to accept merchandise returns and make independent decisions adds up to an unusually high level of service. These policies enable staffers to perform the “heroic” acts of customer service that add to the chain’s mystique. These principles separate Nordstrom from its competitors, but its managers readily admit that not everybody can handle its high demands and expectations. To succeed, employees must thrive in an unrestricted environment.

The Nordstrom Way

Nordstrom is a family business based upon strong traditions. In 1901, John Nordstrom and his friend, Carl F. Wallin, opened the first Wallin & Nordstrom shoe store. On the advice of traveling salesmen, Wallin & Nordstrom filled their inventory with medium-sized shoes. They quickly realized that these shoes were not large enough for their rawboned Swedish friends, and they re-prioritized, carrying a large variety of styles and sizes. Today the store is still known for packing its sales area with a high value of inventory per-square-foot.

“At a time when ’customer service’ is the buzzword of American business, Nordstrom has become the standard against which other companies privately, and sometimes publicly, measure themselves.”

Nordstrom established a reputation for its customer service, a traditional value. The company tells employees to make decisions that favor the customer over the company. Employees are never criticized for doing too much for a customer, but they are criticized if they don’t do enough.

Setting Employees Free

Van Mensah is a men’s clothing sales associate at Nordstrom’s store in Pentagon City, Virginia. One day he received a troubling letter from a customer. The man had purchased more than $2,000 worth of shirts and ties from Mensah, but had accidentally washed the items in hot water. Everything shrank. The customer readily admitted that the mistake was his, but his letter asked for Mensah’s professional advice on how to deal with the problem.

“The leadership has to make it clear that empowering workers is part of the ethic and approach of the organization.”

Mensah immediately called the customer and told him that the shirts would be replaced. He asked the customer to mail the ruined shirts back to Nordstrom’s – at Nordstrom’s expense. Van Mensah never got permission to react this way. He simply did what he thought was best. Nordstrom expects this from their employees. People on the sales floor are empowered with the freedom to accept returned merchandise, even if the customer causes the damage.

“Nordstrom gives its employees the freedom to make decisions. And Nordstrom is willing to live with those decisions.”

Because Nordstrom allows its salespeople and managers a wide range of operational and bottom-line responsibility, they can operate like entrepreneurial shopkeepers instead of minor players within a retailing giant.

Nordstrom’s corporate structure is an inverted pyramid. Customers sit on top of everything. Directly below the customers are Nordstrom’s sales and support staff. If you consider your customers the most important aspect of your business, it makes sense that your next most important asset would be the people who have the most direct contact with your customers.

“Nordstrom employees are instructed to always make a decision that favors the customer before the company. They are never criticized for doing too much for a customer; they are criticized for doing too little.”

Beneath the sales staff are the department managers. One level below are the store managers, buyers, merchandise managers, regional managers and general managers. At the bottom of the pyramid is the Nordstrom Board of Directors. The company’s structure aligns with its philosophy that all the tiers of the inverted pyramid should work to support the sales staff and the customer, not the other way around.

“Nordstrom has a policy of never hiring managers from the outside because Nordstrom believes that a person can only appreciate the culture by growing up in it.”

Salespeople at Nordstrom are free to sell merchandise to their customers from any department in the store. If it’s not nailed down, a salesperson will sell it. If a customer wants it, a salesperson will find it. This gives salespeople every chance to increase their sales.

Nordstrom’s Proving Ground: The Floor

All prospective employees start their Nordstrom career on the sales floor. Even John Nordstrom’s three sons, Everett, Elmer and Lloyd had to start on the sales floor, even though they eventually took over the business. Department managers begin as salespeople because it teaches them what they need to do to serve their customers. The policy of starting people on the sales floor sends the message from management that the store values the salesperson’s role more than almost anything. Everyone in the organization recognizes its importance.

“Nordstrom’s best salespeople will do virtually everything possible to ensure that a shopper leaves the store a satisfied customer.”

Nordstrom managers feel a sense of ownership about their departments. They are responsible for hiring, firing, scheduling, training, coaching, encouraging and evaluating their sales team. Managers don’t sit behind a desk. The company expects them to spend their time on the sales floor, meeting with sales staff and customers. Their primary responsibility is to set the tone for the sales floor. When sales staff members see their department managers rushing to a customer’s assistance, they see the company’s focus on customer service in action. Store managers are warned not to micromanage their sales staff.

“Salespeople must have a complete understanding of the product and its selling points.”

When accountability is shifted away from the salespeople, they become foot soldiers instead of lieutenants. Nordstrom believes that the frontline staff should act as lieutenants with control over their part of the business. Nordstrom’s leaders prefer to manage expectations – not people – and to encourage their employees to fulfill those expectations.

Decentralized Buying

Nordstrom’s decentralized buying structure allows regional buyers to focus on items that customers in their area want. Buyers are responsible for a small group of stores and have the freedom to purchase merchandise that reflects local tastes. Limiting a buyer to only a few stores allows Nordstrom to take fashion-forward risks without jeopardizing the bottom line.

“What sets Nordstrom apart is that, from department manager to co-chairman, all tiers of the inverted pyramid work to support the sales staff, not the other way around.”

Buyers receive feedback from salespeople and customers by spending several hours a week on the sales floor. While computer spreadsheets are great for showing you what’s selling, they don’t show you what is not selling because it is not in stock.

The best buyers at Nordstrom are the ones who do the best job of listening. Quite often, when Nordstrom enters a new market, their first buy is their worst. This is usually because they haven’t received any customer feedback yet. Once buyers receive feedback, they can quickly adjust their merchandise choices.

“The unconditional money-back guarantee is designed for the 98% of customers who are honest.”

Decentralized buying means that sales reps for major manufacturers have to sell to many different Nordstrom buyers. While this may be frustrating for the sales representatives, this structure gives small vendors who have a good idea an opportunity to get their foot in the door to become regular suppliers.

“Empowering the people on the sales floor with the freedom to accept returned merchandise (even when the damage was done by the customer) is the most noticeable illustration of the Nordstrom culture because it is the one that affects the public.”

The Nordstrom buying structure has been modified somewhat from a completely decentralized format because inexperienced buyers were making too many costly mistakes. Now, Nordstrom delegates 80% of final buying decisions to a few experienced “lead buyers.” Lead buyers can take advantage of Nordstrom’s purchasing power when negotiating with a vendor for large quantities of merchandise.

Commissions

Nordstrom attracts and retains good people by paying them what they are worth. The company wants self-starters who don’t require supervision. Commission and bonuses give these people the incentive to work harder. Standard Nordstrom commissions vary from department to department; for example, sales of apparel pay a 6.75% commission.

“Working at Nordstrom is not for everybody. Demands and expectations are high. The people who succeed enjoy working in an unrestricted environment.”

Each salesperson has a draw that the company calculates by dividing the commission rate into a predetermined hourly rate, which varies depending on “the prevailing rate in each region” of the United States where stores are located. Nordstrom makes up the difference for employees who don’t earn enough in commissions to cover their draw. If they continue to fail, their department manager targets them for special coaching. If, after coaching, their results still indicate that a career in sales is not for them, the company either lets them go or reassigns them to a non-sales position.

Goal Setting

Goal setting governs every tier of the inverted pyramid. Sales associates, buyers and managers continually strive to meet their personal, departmental, store and regional goals for the day, month and year. They try to improve on last year’s same-period results. When a department misses its target one day, the manager raises the next day’s target. Nordstrom’s most competitive employees push themselves toward higher objectives through personal commitments and peer pressure. Employees start their shifts with a reminder of the day’s goals. Managers quiz sales associates to make sure they are aware of their individual goals.

Praise and recognition

Top salespeople at Nordstrom are recognized as “Pacesetters.” To become a Pacesetter, employees must meet or surpass their department’s sales-volume goal for a one-year period. Each year, Nordstrom raises the target-goal figures depending on how many people achieved the rank of Pacesetter.

“The underlying Nordstrom culture and philosophy is not difficult to pass on to the next generation because it’s simple: Give great customer-service.”

Pacesetters receive a certificate of merit, business cards featuring the Pacesetter designation and a 33% discount credit card (20% is the regular employee discount). The store holds an event or outing to honor the Pacesetter. Employees who maintain Pacesetter status for five years, 10 years, and so on receive even more generous awards.

Store managers also select “Customer Service All Stars” each month based on individuals’ sales volumes and the level of customer service support they give their co-workers. Customer Service All Stars also get a 33% discount.

When individuals and departments have a successful day and meet their goals, the manager who makes morning announcements over the store’s public address system praises them before the store opens. At monthly meetings, managers read customers’ letters of appreciation and recognize individual achievements as co-workers cheer for each other.

Heroic Feats

“Heroics” are true stories of amazing customer service. When employees see a colleague giving customer service that goes beyond expectations, the company encourages them to write a description of the event and give it to their manager. Nordstrom prints up each week’s collection of heroics and distributes them among associates to give employees a standard to aspire to and even surpass.

The following example, while remarkable, is akin to the heroics Nordstrom employees perform regularly.

A customer who was about to catch a flight from the Seattle-Tacoma Airport had accidentally left her ticket at the counter in the women’s apparel department at Nordstrom. When the Nordstrom sales associate discovered the ticket she immediately called the airline to see if it was possible to track down the customer at the airport and print her a new ticket. It couldn’t be done. So the Nordstrom employee jumped into a cab and went out to the airport at her own expense (Nordstrom later reimbursed the cost). She managed to locate the customer and hand-deliver the ticket. Heroics like this have helped Nordstrom maintain its stellar reputation for customer service.


About the Author


Robert Spector is a speaker, educator and consultant. He is also the author of Amazon.com: Get Big Fast and The Mom & Pop Store, and he wrote about Nordstrom for Women’s Wear Daily and other Fairchild Fashion Group publications. He and customer experience expert Breanne O. Reeves co-founded the RSI Consultancy.

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Getting Naked

Getting Naked

A Business Fable…About Shedding the Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty
By Patrick Lencioni


Another extraordinary business fable from the New York Times bestselling author Patrick Lencioni

  • Offers a key resource for gaining competitive advantage in tough times
  • Shows why the quality of vulnerability is so important in business
  • Includes ideas for inspiring customer and client loyalty
  • Written by the highly successful consultant and business writer Patrick Lencioni

This new book in the popular Lencioni series shows what it takes to gain a real and lasting competitive edge.


Recommendation


Being vulnerable takes guts, especially in business. But the payoff, explains best-selling author Patrick Lencioni, is strong, honest client relationships that engender trust and allegiance. Lencioni puts forth his “naked service” model via a story about a fictitious consultant named Jack Bauer (not to be confused with the main character on the TV show “24”). Jack, an up-and-comer at a big consulting firm, is put in charge of the newly acquired Lighthouse Partners. He’s initially reluctant to embrace Lighthouse’s nonconformist tactics, but when he opens his mind to their possibilities, he has a life-changing experience. Through Jack, you learn about the three fears that block naked service and how to master them. Instead of writing a novel, Lencioni could just have outlined the naked service model in a dozen pages and, in fact, he does so at the end of the story. However, using a business fable as a vehicle is a simple, fun, engaging and relatable way to teach his concepts.


Takeaways


  • “Naked service” calls for being vulnerable and creating trusting, open relationships with clients as depicted by the fictitious story of Jack Bauer.
  • When Bauer took charge of a merger between his employer, a big consulting firm, and a smaller consultancy, Lighthouse, he learned about naked service.
  • Naked service requires providers to master three primary professional fears: the fear of losing business, of being embarrassed and of feeling inferior.
  • Lighthouse founder Michael Casey established principles to help consultants and other professionals overcome these fears, such as focusing on helping, not on selling.
  • “Ask dumb questions” and provide obvious suggestions without chagrin.
  • Tell clients the truth, even when they don’t want to hear it.
  • Be willing to “take a bullet” for your clients, such as accepting blame for problems you didn’t cause to remove the burden from your customers.
  • Show the client that you are willing to do the hard “dirty” work.
  • Strengthen your relationship with the client by being honest about your shortcomings.
  • Being your authentic self, flaws and all, is the way to connect and build trust.

Summary


Uncovering “Naked Service”

Businesspeople are supposed to be confident and self-assured, so most try to project that image. They work to hide their mistakes and imperfections. However, when you let people see you for who you really are, you can make real connections and build trust. In the service industries, showing your vulnerability, or “getting naked,” is particularly effective in fostering closer client relationships. Most people resist showing vulnerability, but if you overcome this fear you will build stronger relationships, receive more referrals and spend less time haggling over fees. The following business fable illustrates the power of “getting naked”:

Once Upon a Time…

Jack Bauer was a rising star at the management consulting firm Kendrick and Black in San Francisco. As head of sales in the strategy division, he often lost competitions for new business to a small consultancy named Lighthouse. Jack was relieved when he heard that Lighthouse founder Michael Casey was leaving the firm to “spend more time with his family,” usually a euphemism for being eased out after making a big mistake. Jack’s euphoria dwindled when K&B’s founder, Jim Kendrick, told him the firm had bought Lighthouse and Jack was now in charge of the merger. Uneasy, Jack discussed his new duties with his boss, Marty Shine, who admitted that he saw Casey as “self-righteous” and “phony.” Marty viewed Lighthouse as a “country club” where no one worked nights or weekends. He said Lighthouse people wouldn’t last at K&B. “More than anything else,” Marty said, “we just have two completely different cultures.”

Getting to Know You

A few days later, Jack drove to Lighthouse’s office in a pretty coastal town to meet the staff. The office, a former school, retained some of its original charm. From the parking lot, Jack could see a blue and white lighthouse in the distance. Lighthouse partner Amy Stirling greeted Jack from the reception desk where she was filling in for the honeymooning receptionist. Michael Casey had already left the firm, but Amy introduced her fellow remaining partners, Dick Janice and Matt O’Connor. Dick, the oldest partner at 50-something, greeted Jack calmly. Matt, a young man, seemed more nervous. Jack began by detailing his background and filling them in about K&B. He didn’t say that K&B bought Lighthouse primarily to remove the competitive threat. He asked the partners how business was going. Matt explained that they were busier than ever and even had to turn away a few clients. Jack was shocked at the idea of dismissing paying business.

“Clients come to trust naked service providers because they know that they will not hold back their ideas, hide their mistakes or edit themselves in order to save face.”

As the group reviewed Lighthouse’s financials, Jack was stunned to see that it employed very few junior consultants, the cheap workforce that was the backbone of K&B. He was even more surprised that Lighthouse charged higher fees than K&B. Jack went back to K&B and reviewed his first day at Lighthouse with Marty. The following Friday, they met with Dick, Matt and Amy in K&B’s offices to explore how Lighthouse beat them in getting clients and earned higher fees. Jack began the meeting by going over K&B’s strategic techniques and models. The Lighthouse partners asked intelligent questions and presented their backgrounds. They described using methods similar to K&B’s, except that they spent much more time on-site with clients.

“Once a client trusts you and really understands that you care more about them than about yourself, they usually stop worrying about micromanaging the cost or seeing if they can take advantage of you.”

When Jack went to Lighthouse the next week, Amy wondered why he hadn’t inquired about Michael Casey. It turned out that Casey did leave to spend time with his family, but that was because his daughter and her family had been in a terrible car accident. His son-in-law died; his daughter was severely injured, and Michael and his wife were caring for their two little girls. Humbled, Jack asked Dick, Matt and Amy why Michael didn’t sell the company to them. Matt explained that by selling it to K&B, Michael had secured each partner’s financial security.

Dick’s Approach

Jack still couldn’t pinpoint exactly why Lighthouse was so successful. Then he went on a sales call with Dick. First, they went to see a client, Charlie, the marketing head of a successful Mexican restaurant chain. Greeting Dick warmly, Charlie asked him to check some new material from the chain’s marketing firm. Dick frowned at the mock-ups of stereotypical Mexican restaurant artwork. He reminded Charlie that the company had decided to get away from standard Mexican fare. Charlie replied that Mike, the owner, liked the art. Dick immediately found Mike and tactfully but firmly said, “I’m not going to pay 19 bucks for Chilean sea bass at a restaurant that looks like that.” Mike wasn’t happy, but he also wasn’t affronted by Dick’s directness. He conceded, “Neither would I.” When Jack questioned Dick’s bluntness, he quoted Michael Casey, who asked, “If we weren’t willing to tell the client the kind truth, why should they pay us?”

“Our clients have treated us more like real partners and team members than as vendors or outsiders.”

At a typical K&B sales meeting, Jack would make a presentation about the firm and explain how it could help a potential client. Dick’s approach was very different. When they met with Lighthouse’s prospect, the CEO of a transport firm, Dick asked questions and let the client talk. Soon, they were discussing a problem that was bothering the CEO. Dick continued to probe and offer suggestions. The client asked if they could continue the conversation at his firm’s staff meeting the following week. When the CEO asked about fees, Dick replied that they could figure it out after the next meeting. The prospect came on board so easily, Jack felt bewildered. He thought, “I am a salesman. Dick is just a consultant. He didn’t do any selling…he just went in there and started helping them.” Dick explained that Lighthouse began each client relationship by focusing on issues. Then the partners decided whether to take the client. When Jack asked why they would turn away clients, Dick explained they didn’t want to waste time if they couldn’t help. He said bad clients sap your energy and, since they will never be happy, don’t give you referrals.

Casey’s Principles

As time went on, Jack began to notice that Casey’s business principles really differentiated Lighthouse. The wisdom of these principles – such as don’t be afraid to “ask dumb questions” – became apparent when Jack sat in on Amy’s meeting with a medical software firm, MediTech. As the experts threw around jargon, Amy often asked what they meant. Surprisingly, the clients didn’t respond as if she were stupid. Instead of being annoyed when she suggested something MediTech already had tried, the clients merely explained why it wasn’t feasible. When the discussion turned to a competitor with a better user interface, Amy suggested licensing the competitor’s technology rather than developing their own. Amazingly, that obvious “dumb” suggestion proved to be the solution.

“They’re paying us to help them make their company more successful, and if I had to be a trial balloon or a strategic piñata to make that happen, so be it.”

The next day, Amy met with Mikey, MediTech’s head of marketing. Mikey reacted negatively to every suggestion. Her co-workers avoided responding, but Amy was more direct. “Mikey,” she said, “You mean well. But when you approach every issue with such…negativity, it’s a real buzz kill.” Instead of getting angry, Mikey responded with cooperative self-deprecation and encouraged the other team members to speak up if they felt annoyed.

“Clients want…to know that we’re more interested in helping them than we are in maintaining our revenue source.”

Amy told Jack about a time when Casey took a hit for his client. He had created a proposal with a company’s executive committee, but the firm’s senior managers shot it down. The executive committee remained mum and let Casey withstand management’s anger. Later, he explained that taking the occasional bullet for a client is just the disagreeable side of the job. In this case, the appreciative client later referred many clients to Lighthouse.

“There is nothing more attractive and admirable than people who willingly and cheerfully set their egos aside and make the needs of others more important than their own.”

After a few months at Lighthouse, Jack learned the lesson of humility firsthand when he was advising a nonprofit regional medical center’s executives about expansion plans. Jack came to the meeting prepared to recommend against expansion based on his experience with Good Shepherd Hospital, a previous client. He made a persuasive case, but when he double-checked with his contact at Good Shepherd during a break, Jack was appalled to realize that he had based all his figures on the premise that Good Shepherd also was a nonprofit – but it was not. Keeping in mind Casey’s principle that everything must focus on the client’s needs, Jack returned to the meeting and said, “I’m afraid that everything I’ve shown you so far may have been wrong.” He explained the situation and waited for scorn. To his surprise, the doctors and executives adjusted quickly, ribbed him about wasting their time and settled in to work productively on a new solution.

“It’s all about standing there naked in front of the client. It’s about building trust.”

After several months, Jim and Marty from K&B put Jack on the hot seat. He had created a model for Lighthouse’s ongoing management based on Casey’s principles. His presentation was persuasive, but Jim admitted that because of the culture clash between the two firms, they’d decided to sell Lighthouse to another consultancy. Marty offered Jack a promotion to head of strategy at K&B, but Jack decided to stay at Lighthouse where he felt so much more comfortable.

“Getting Naked” – The Model

Providing “naked service” lets you build relationships that surpass the typical consultant-client model. Giving “naked service” means being vulnerable, humble, selfless, honest and open. This can be scary since it includes awkward or uncomfortable situations. People avoid vulnerability due to three primary fears that “naked” service providers address by following certain practices:

1. “The Fear of Losing Business”

When you act in your own interests, such as protecting your business, you are putting your client second. However, when you worry more about what your client needs, you will strengthen your relationship. To confront this fear, follow these tenets:

  • “Always consult instead of sell” – Don’t tell potential clients what you can do for them. Show them. Use each meeting to help your clients, not to sell yourself.
  • “Give away the business” – By consulting instead of selling, you may be providing your service before you have a contract. Some people will take advantage of you, but most will appreciate your willingness to dive in and help. Don’t haggle over fee disputes. Giving your customers the benefit of the doubt will pay off in the end.
  • “Tell the kind truth” – It’s tough to tell people things they don’t want to hear, but telling the truth is part of the job. Just try to tell it with tact, empathy and kindness.
  • “Enter the danger” – Don’t avoid the “elephant in the room.” If everyone is dodging an unpleasant discussion or task, you might have to handle it. Just walk right up to it.

2. “The Fear of Being Embarrassed”

Putting yourself out there is hard, but when you stop worrying about looking foolish, you can give your clients more help. If you ask obvious questions, make suggestions and admit when you’re wrong, clients will trust you. To handle this fear, use these rules:

  • “Ask dumb questions” – Don’t worry about questions that expose your ignorance. People forget the dumb questions and remember the ones that moved matters forward.
  • “Make dumb suggestions” – Throw ideas out even if they seem obvious. If you edit yourself before you even open your mouth, you might miss presenting a great idea.
  • “Celebrate your mistakes” – Being wrong is part of being human. Clients expect honesty, not perfection. Admit your mistakes, accept responsibility and keep moving.

3. “The Fear of Feeling Inferior”

Of course you want people to respect and admire you, but when you are providing a service, you are not the focus of attention. Put the spotlight on your client even if your ego takes a hit. To obviate this fear, adhere to these precepts:

  • “Take a bullet for the client” – Service providers can’t focus on placing blame. You might have to accept responsibility for a problem you didn’t create just to take the burden off your client. By doing so, you can build exceptional trust and allegiance.
  • “Make everything about the client” – If your client doesn’t succeed, you fail.
  • “Honor the client’s work” – Have an honest interest in your clients’ life work. If you can’t respect how they make their livelihood, don’t take them as clients.
  • “Do the dirty work” – Show your dedication by doing what your client needs done.
  • “Admit your weaknesses and limitations” – Don’t cover up; be yourself, do your best.

About the Author


Patrick Lencioni, a frequent public speaker, is the author of eight bestsellers, including The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. He heads The Table Group, a consultancy.

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Positively Outrageous Service

Positively Outrageous Service

How to Delight and Astound Your Customers and Win Them for Life
By T. Scott Gross


In today’s tough economy, cutting prices and providing good service aren’t enough. To be truly successful, innovative businesspeople must learn the art of Positively Outrageous Service (POS)—doing the unexpected unexpectedly and giving the customer more than he or she could hope for. POS put customer service guru T. Scott Gross on the map in the early 1990s. In this revised third edition, he contemporizes his work by examining what’s wrong in the service industry today and how to turn those negatives into POS. In his signature, slightly irreverent, but always insightful style, he shows managers at every level of the service industry how to:

  • Build a customer base by following the four key principles of promotions—have fun, get people to your store, get people involved with your product, and do something good for others
  • Hire the right people and show them the fundamentals of POS
  • Energize and obtain the most creativity out of employees
  • Win over customers when mistakes happen, no matter who is at fault

POS is not just a way of doing business, according to Gross; it’s also a state of mind and the key to success in the twenty-first century. T. Scott Gross is a consumer advocate whose client roster for consulting, training, and speaking reads like a who’s who of the Fortune 500. Countless businesses, including Southwest Airlines, FedEx, McDonald’s, Sears, and Wal-Mart, have asked him to motivate the troops at sales meetings and conferences worldwide.

Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don’t aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.


Recommendation


This folksy compilation of stories about people and companies who deliver “Positively Outrageous Service” (POS) has the right mix to prove that people love great service and the companies that deliver it. The stories may meander, but author T. Scott Gross is so popular because he knows how to weave humor, personal anecdotes and actual business stories into a cohesive argument that almost all business is personal and local. This form of bottom-up business advice places great importance upon the front-line employees who represent your business. Gross explains that front-line workers can make or break your brand and your sales, no matter what size your business is. He provides good business lessons, so don’t let the light reading mislead you. This book is for managers of any business in the service sector who want to give their employees the power and motivation to deliver great service.


Takeaways


  • “Positively Outrageous Service” (POS) is based on loving your customers.
  • To work at its best, POS should be a surprise and excessive.
  • Word of mouth remains the most powerful marketing tool. Spark it with POS.
  • Because motivated employees are 30% more productive than unmotivated ones, they can help build your business and your brand.
  • Companies with high employee turnover often cannot deliver POS.
  • Empower employees to solve a customer’s complaint as soon as they hear it and without getting their supervisor’s permission.
  • Employees prefer having realistic goals and being rewarded for achieving them.
  • Teach employees that they are each their own “MicroBrand,” shaped and positioned by their abilities, reputation and performance.
  • Customers hate waiting. Work to eliminate lines. When people must wait, offer amenities to make the process less annoying.
  • Small business can compete with larger ones by delivering POS.

Summary


Making the Transformation

The idea of giving great service is a transformational process for the employee, the customer and the corporation. Great service is not a lofty concept. It can come from people at all levels of an organization. Often, the people who don’t get the corporate spotlight are the ones who make the greatest impact on customer service.

“Positively Outrageous Service is as much about who you are as it is what you do.”

Take the case of a night clerk at a national motel chain. A guest arrived very late and upset. He told the clerk that his bags were lost and that he had an important 9 a.m. meeting. It was so late that the clerk knew only one store was open that could supply a new dress shirt, a tie and the other items his guest needed. Worse, the visitor had no way of getting to the shopping center and no margin of extra time. So the night clerk gave him directions and his car. The clerk delivered “Positively Outrageous Service” (POS) and the motel chain gained a customer for life.

“If you manage to surprise and delight a customer, how you do it doesn’t much matter.”

POS is the result when people who have a natural service instinct do whatever it takes to make a customer happy. Employees who provide POS are not following corporate guidelines or instituting some protocol; they create and implement the best possible service. POS is:

  • A surprise to the customer.
  • Greater than the customer’s expectation.
  • Whimsical.
  • So superb that it generates a positive buzz among other customers and their friends.

“Every sales carries with it a promise.”

POS can look bigger than it is simply by being a surprise. People love the unexpected, so a one-time incident of POS creates a feeling of anticipation that will long outlives the actual event. This lasting impact demonstrates the psychological concept that a random reward can help shape consistent behavior.

“A brand is nothing more than an expectation.”

One restaurant used this to maximum effect when it randomly offered all of its diners a free meal on some Monday or Tuesday nights. The manager did not announce which of these evenings the restaurant would serve meals for free. Therefore, people lined up on those nights for the chance of getting a free meal. When the restaurant served up a freebie, the only stipulation was that patrons tell their friends about their experience. The idea worked well. The restaurant was filled to capacity every Monday and Tuesday night.

“The logo is what your see. The brand is what you think.”

From the marketing perspective, the restaurant manager chose not to buy TV or radio advertising, but instead spent his ad budget to provide free meals to everyone in the place once a month. So, instead of advertising without offering something very different from his competitors, the restaurant manager gained distinction with a unique promotion. He also made his patrons into marketing envoys through word-of-mouth advertising. They willingly passed along the news about their free meal, because it was just plain old fun.

Four Wall Marketing

One of the oldest business theories states that the customer is always right. That means your main marketing thrust happens inside the walls of your business. Whatever positive experiences the customer has inside your store or office, those “four walls” are the basis for your success or failure. Happy customers tell other people, and soon generate repeat business. This is the simplest marketing lesson any businessperson can learn.

“Service always occurs in the customer’s mind.”

The corollary of happy customers is motivated employees. Studies have shown that businesses that are known for concentrating on customer satisfaction also care about their employees’ well-being. Customer satisfaction and a lack of employee turnover are connected.

A wider definition of a “customer” includes anyone who does business with your company, such as suppliers and other vendors. Like other customers, a vendor who has a relationship with a business feels more warmly about it. For instance, a vendor can provide superior supplies, offer competitive intelligence or make suggestions that can improve your business.

“I believe customers of the future will pay for privacy and for a relationship.”

The best bet is to try to make everyone happy by treating all the people you encounter in your business as customers. But making people happy is a challenge. Create response systems to determine your customers’ level of satisfaction. This allows your customers to convey their opinions to senior managers who can provide quick responses and who have the authority to extend some type of remedy. This can be as simple as a “thank-you” or, in more extreme cases, a refund.

Shorter Lines, Happier Customers

One of the more interesting customer behaviors happens when people wait in lines. People generally do not like long lines, so when the wait seems too long, people leave the line. That means you lose a customer.

“Excellent customer service only occurs when employees have an excellent, visible standard that they can imitate and against which they can compare their own behavior.”

If people were served faster, there would be no lines. When there is a delay, a line will build so that everyone waits in line for as long a time as the original delay. You can make lines look shorter by snaking them back and forth instead of setting them up as a straight path. When people see too many other people in front of them, they envision the wait to be longer than it really is. To make waiting more pleasant, some companies offer amenities: Southwest Airlines pours free coffee, Marriott provides free juice and fruit, and Olive Garden restaurants serve free breadsticks.

Addressing Errors

When customers have legitimate complaints, businesses that want to deliver POS should go overboard to make amends. This can include:

  • Profuse apologies. Admit the mistake and say you are sorry.
  • Make apologies even when you made a mistake and the customer did not notice it. When in doubt, apologize.
  • Don’t be afraid to go overboard when admitting a mistake. Offer a coupon for a free meal or an extra desert.
  • Don’t make complaining customers angrier by forcing them to wait for the manager. Give all employees who have customer contact the authority to correct mistakes.
  • Establish a procedure to solve and monitor customer complaints. Involve at least two people in this procedure: the person who actually solves the problem and an executive who can record the problem.

“The behavior you get is the behavior you reward.”

While making apologies may seem like a great effort, for smaller businesses it has a much larger meaning. In today’s marketplace, large operations, such as Kmart, Wal-Mart or Sears, can drive down prices so that no small business can compete. What makes small businesses attractive, however, is POS, which may be the best differentiating factor for small businesses against their competition.

“If you empower idiots you get dumb decisions faster.” [ – Robert Terrlink, former head of Harley-Davidson] ”Offering the customer an experience along with the product will be a significant competitive advantage.”

Small businesses can learn from companies such as Sears (and its affiliate Land’s End), Hooters, Southwest Airlines and Victoria’s Secret. These companies all sell their products by combining good service with showmanship.

Riding the Trend

Your POS can have greater impact when it capitalizes on an emerging trend. Today, Americans work more hours than they did a generation ago. By 2000, 75% of families had two people working. As a result, leisure time has become scarcer, so customers appreciate the value of faster, better service. This niche ideally fits small businesses. You can reap great rewards if your business can make shopping or a leisure event more entertaining or memorable. Besides, people are not actually saving the money they “save” by going to large discounters. They are spending it on luxury items or on items from smaller business that offer special amenities and service. Businesses that recognize this trend can attract a large percentage of this re-directed cash flow by providing POS.

“Other than innovation, which will provide only the most fleeting of advantages, service will be the last frontier.”

Motivated employees are one of the most important drivers of POS. To get your staff members to deliver POS, guide them to feel as if they are part of a larger team. Boost their competitive orientation. Help them become willing to take risks, and give them the latitude to do whatever it takes to get the job done correctly and to help customers. While these steps may sound straightforward, union rules, corporate guidelines and inertia often curtail even a motivated employee’s ability and willingness to deliver POS.

In reality, not all employees are motivated. Many would never think “outside the box” or take a risk. Many employees do not want that kind of responsibility. Worse, employees who do not want added responsibility often work at less than their full capacity. A survey of employers found that many employees could be 30% more productive if they were better motivated. To get employees more involved:

  • Don’t punish creative thinking.
  • Praise people who work to resolve a conflict or overcome an obstacle.
  • Make employees responsible for solving any problem they encounter.

As part of this effort, provide employees with quantified feedback about how well they are doing. Establish a specific measure to set an expected threshold for performance. Once employees exceed that level, they will feel as if they have accomplished something special. Often, that is a large reward by itself. Acclamation is another positive force. Commendation from managers strengthens loyalty and increases motivation. One study found that if a company that was well known for praising its employees announced that it was hiring and offered to match applicants’ salaries and benefits, 27% of the employees in the poll said they would quit their jobs and join the new company. The reason: the company praised its workers. The message: do not underestimate the power of public praise and recognition.

Building a MicroBrand

When employees are motivated and deliver POS, they are also engaging in marketing. Most people think of marketing as using advertising to reach a wide audience with a promotional offer or announcement. But quality service is marketing at the individual level.

Think of each employee as essentially a human extension of your brand, no matter how small or large your company. This means that your most effective marketing tool is your employee who, for better or worse, also serves as your brand representative. From the employees’ perspective, their actions serve as their personal MicroBrands. You want to achieve a positive alignment between your corporate brand and each employee’s personal MicroBrand.

Most small businesses traditionally draw their clients from within a 10-mile radius. This works well for micro-marketing because word-of-mouth is the strongest marketing tool available. To establish a powerful system of micro branding, identify opportunities for POS, empower employees to act, reward employees for their efforts and then aggressively market what you are offering. Remember: great employees are the key. The goal is to keep the good employees you already have and, when you hire, to seek people who embody the successful characteristics of your best employees. To enhance the performance of other workers, train them so that they become more confident of their skills. As people become more confident about what they do, they also become better equipped to handle tough situations.


About the Author


T. Scott Gross is a customer service and management expert who works with large corporations. He is the author of eight books, including Why Service Stinks.

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What Clients Love

What Clients Love

A Field Guide to Growing Your Business
By Harry Beckwith


Harry Beckwith is the author of Selling the Invisible and The Invisible Touch, both marketing classics. Now he applies his unparalleled clarity, insight, humor, and expertise to a new age of mass communication and mass confusion. What Clients Love will help you stand out from the crowd-and sell anything to anyone. From making a pitch to building a brand, from designing a logo to closing a sale, this is a field guide to take with you to the front lines of today’s business battles. Filled with real tales of success and failure, it shows you how to:

Fly a Jefferson Airplane. Everyone knows there’s a Jefferson Monument, but a Jefferson Airplane? A brilliant, attention-grabbing name often includes the unexpected and the absurd. Strike with a Velvet Sledgehammer. It’s not a hard sell. It’s not exactly soft. Selling well means finding the fine line between modesty and bragging, and driving the message home.

Speak to the Frenchman on the Street. A French mathematician believed that no theory was complete until you could explain it to the first person you meet on the street. Marketers, ecoutez!

Dress Julia Roberts. Why, one scene from Pretty Woman can enlighten you more than a full year of study at a top business school. What Clients Love will help you get focused, stay focused, and follow the essential rules to success-by doing the little things right and the big things even better.


Recommendation


This is a pleasant contemporary book on selling and branding in a marketplace where the average consumer is deluged with 3,200 advertising messages a day. In a format that makes for an excellent read while traveling, the book consists of short, colorful 300 to 1,000 word treatments of various topics, such as selling, branding and customer service. At times, author Harry Beckwith’s approach seems episodic. It’s not always clear what one section has to do with another. However, he nicely avoids business-speak jargon, and spatters the book with accessible pop culture examples, including motion pictures, clever ads and other common points of reference. The book’s shortcoming resides more in the area of substance and depth of thinking. Each brief essay ends with a catchy one-sentence aphorism such as: “Comfort clients and you will keep them” or “Edit your message until everyone understands it.” The author has invested a great deal of time devising colorful ways to tell you things that, upon further reflection, you probably already know. If you’re too busy to keep up on the latest trends in marketing and sales, reading this is an excellent way to make sure you’re current.


Takeaways


  • To design a better business, ask questions like: “What would people really love?”
  • Don’t bother asking consumers what they really want. They rarely know.
  • Seek the “White Hot Center” where popular culture meets mass demand.
  • Forget trying to predict the future – even the experts can’t do it effectively.
  • Eschew perfection. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
  • If you can’t describe your product’s distinctiveness in 25 words, redefine your business.
  • In a world of information overload, use simple messages and try to find spaces where your competition isn’t already shouting from the rooftops.
  • Branding is critical. It’s worth the investment of time and money to discover a unique brand that communicates your product’s value proposition to your customers.
  • Today’s clients expect more. Comfort them by giving them a sense of importance stemming from the way you cater to their needs.
  • In life and business, optimism is your greatest asset. Think positively.

Summary


“Drawing Your Blueprints”

Author Henry Beckwith was giving a speech to a business group and it just wasn’t going well. He was talking, but nobody seemed to be listening. A number of folks in the audience checked their watches as he spoke. He didn’t feel connected to his listeners and he stumbled through his presentation until finally his speaking time expired. Later his host explained where he went wrong: “You mispronounced our president’s name,” he said. “Three times. That threw everyone off.” This inadvertent offense turned Beckwith’s audience against him, and he learned a lesson: technical competence alone is no longer enough. Being able to do the job may earn you a seat at the table in today’s “evolved economy,” but once you’re seated, what really matters is maintaining strong relationships.

“Belief steels us with the courage to take the risks that the faithless avoid, and to reap the rewards that follow – to realize that our lives grow in proportion to our courage.”

Designing a better business begins with asking questions. Don’t bother interrogating clients or conducting surveys – consumers rarely know what they want until they already have it. What customer ever asked for ATMs, heated car seats or Cirque du Soleil – until some innovative individual or team brought them to market? People forget that for years, nobody – other than a few thousand nerds in labs – had the least interest in having a home computer. Now, many consumers feel they couldn’t live without their personal computers.

“Triumph, then, belongs to those who believe.”

So what questions do you ask and which expert do you interrogate to gather the information to design and redesign a better business? The answer is: start with yourself. Begin drawing your blueprints by asking yourself questions such as: “What would people love?” “How would I beat us?” “If I were starting the business again from scratch, what would we do differently?” These questions will help you draw new blueprints for your business and find the “White Hot Center,” that place in society where popular culture meets mass demand for a product. For example, think of the poster showing Farrah Fawcett on a skateboard wearing red and white Nike Cortez shoes. That set off a fad that helped Nike go mainstream. Later, Nike made a transition to using athletes, such as basketball star Michael Jordan, to present its product.

“The company that waits for guarantees is doomed. Nothing in business is guaranteed.”

Restaurateur Wolfgang Puck found the same marketing moment. When he opened Spago in Hollywood in 1982, he had his hostesses study Variety so they could recognize the town’s movers and shakers. His staff memorized stars’ and moguls’ food preferences, and his restaurant soon attracted a powerful crowd that helped spread his notoriety around the nation and the world. Puck successfully found the white hot center. Of course, such success doesn’t happen by accident. You need to master the 14 principles of planning. They work like this:

  1. “Forget the future” – You can’t see the future clearly no matter how hard you stare at it. Better to move forward based on certainties rather than conjecture. The one certainty you can be sure of is: People will pay dearly for what they love.
  2. “Stop listening” – Everyone will tell you to listen to your customers, but don’t. When companies make changes based on what customers say they want, customers either ignore them or don’t like the changes 85% of the time. It’s better to watch than to listen. Observe the trends and changes you see around you.
  3. “Celebrate foolishness” – Don’t dismiss a new product that is amusing but apparently trivial. “Think dumb.”
  4. “Resist authority” – Most ideas come from groups; most groups are run by Alpha personalities. Therefore, most ideas aren’t very good. Alphas are great at seizing power, but not very good at coming up with useful, original ideas.
  5. “View experts skeptically” – Experts are often proven wrong.
  6. “Mistrust experience” – Never listen to those who say something didn’t work when they tried it before. Memory is very fallible.
  7. “Mistrust confidence” – Even when you’re wrong, you’re likely to think you’re right. This fact provides a solid reason to question all apparent facts.
  8. “Avoid perfection” – Trying to “be the best” is often self-defeating. Even champion golfer Tiger Woods says he seeks “professional excellence” rather than perfection.
  9. “Beware of common sense” – Physicist Albert Einstein once called common sense “the collection of prejudices we acquire by age 18.”
  10. “Beware of ’science’” – Look out for the phrase: “…the research shows.” Research rarely shows you what customers would really love.
  11. “Embrace impatience” – Shake things up in your organization. Companies, like people, need to move around and get exercise.
  12. “Find the water” – Send out small search parties to find promising new business opportunities, but eschew centralized planning.
  13. “A warning” – The phrase “let’s wait until we’re sure” has been the death knell of many businesses. There are no guarantees, except that waiting for one will cost you.
  14. “Search for 100-X” – Look for a business that will return your investment 100 times. Spend your time looking for big answers rather than small ones.

“Four Building Blocks”

Information overload has increased exponentially, along with the pace of life. On an average day, you will be exposed to 3,200 commercial messages. Everyone is trying to communicate with your prospects at the same time, and customers can’t hear above the din. The messages that do leak through tend to be simple, striking and unique.

“Everything is shorter quicker faster – to the point where a separate book could demonstrate that human beings may be in the early stages of developing a new, abbreviated form of communicating – because people want it short quick fast.”

People crawl along as life races past. No one can absorb all of the information that is available, so consumers no longer focus on understanding services or products. Instead, they focus on choosing which individual or group they will believe. The way you behave and the way you look become more important than mere words, which fall in a continual torrent that compromises their value. To communicate better, write more often. Writing helps you clarify your ideas, and writing for publication will help you get recognized as an expert. The “four rules for getting yourself ink” are:

  1. Study the publication you hope will publish your writing.
  2. Only pitch your very best ideas to the editors.
  3. Realize you aren’t selling words; you’re selling satisfied readers who identify with your story and the publication that printed it.
  4. Thank editors for their assistance following publication (but don’t grovel).

“The next time two paths appear before you, avoid the one of least resistance; a path with no obstacles rarely leads anywhere.”

In addition, use these four building blocks to communicate amid information overload:

  1. Don’t compete with the noise – Speak only where others tend to be silent. Advertise or seek publication where your competition isn’t already crowing loudly.
  2. A little says more than a lot – Find a key message and a unique way to communicate.
  3. Use pictures rather than words whenever possible – Images leave a lasting impression and people notice them more quickly.
  4. Waste no words – Any word that doesn’t have to be present is simply “noise” that interferes with your message. “Shorter sells.” If you can’t find 25 words that perfectly describe your product’s uniqueness, rethink what your company is doing.

“The Velvet Sledgehammer: A Compelling Message”

In today’s environment, “unselling” sells better than selling. Great sales techniques include:

  • “Admit a weakness” – This disarms prospects and makes them trust you.
  • “Sell yourself first” – People buy you and your product. Sell based on relationships.
  • “Sell soft” and “Sell slow” – Always explain your position, but respect clients’ boundaries and show humility. Remember, “hard sales lose business.”
  • “Stop and clarify” – People tend to nod when they really don’t comprehend something you say, but don’t want to appear dumb. The nod is a signal to stop.
  • “Tell me a story” – Storytelling can help clients understand your ideas and products.
  • “Use visual aids sparingly” – Don’t let your props distract your prospect.

“Blue Martinis and Omaha Surfing”

Branding is the only thing that carries the day in a hyper-competitive marketplace. Consider the great brand name Blue Martini. This sales-software company leveraged its evocative name to rocket out of its IPO five years ago with a valuation of $12 per share. “Loudcloud” and “Yahoo” are also great brand names. To find words that you can put together in unique combinations to create a remarkable, distinctive, engaging brand, consult with your network of friends or free associate. Choosing your brand could be your most crucial business decision.

“Americans the Beautiful and Pretty Woman: Caring Service”

Buying a product and buying a service are very different. When you buy a product, you focus on the product, its qualities and its presumed benefits. When you prepare to buy a service, you consider who the supplier is almost immediately. The human element, which matters in any sales transaction, becomes that much more crucial.

“If you want loyal customers, address them – personally – and serve the best ones passionately.”

Today we live in a Pretty Woman world, as in the movie where Richard Gere, playing a very wealthy man, takes Julia Roberts into a chic Beverly Hills boutique. He points to Roberts, playing a streetwalker he plans to escort into fancy society, and tells the salesclerk: “We’re going to need some major sucking up here.” Clients today expect more. They expect better treatment tomorrow than they got today. Continually strive to improve your service. Make every client feel important by the way you listen and cater to his or her individual needs.

“The Traits Clients Love”

You can do a few things that will endear you to your valued clients over time:

  • “Reveal yourself” – Be open and let your customers see your human side.
  • “Integrity matters” – “If you want people to believe in you, you’ll have to earn it.” Or, as Mark Twain once wrote, “Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”
  • “Never praise yourself” – And, never “criticize a competitor.”
  • “Comfort clients and you will keep them” – This may be the best advice of all, because so often what clients really seek is comfort. That may mean physical comfort, or it may be the sense of emotional security that comes from dealing with an excellent, responsive company that stands behind its product and service.

“But impersonal communications that violate people’s boundaries – letters, calls, or e-mails to their home, their most sacred boundary – do not merely fail to generate adequate business. They can reduce it.”

Today’s clients crave comfort. Elements that make customers comfortable include:

  • Expertise – People feel better taking advice from those with demonstrable expertise.
  • Clarification – People are more comfortable when they understand what’s going on.
  • Character and honesty – Ultimately, this is all you can rely upon in business.
  • Enthusiasm – People enjoy and respect your sense of passion.

“Your Greatest Asset”

Historian David Landes once searched the business landscape, like Diogenes with his lamp of truth, asking one question: What quality is most important to your success? The answer was surprisingly simple: optimism. Those with a positive outlook did better than those who shied away from the misfortune that they perceived dogged them constantly. Why is an optimistic outlook so important? Optimists believe they can conquer, and so they do. Often in life, the path of most adversity promises the biggest benefit, if only you can navigate it successfully. Only those who believe they can ford the river of resistance successfully even dare to try. And they are the ones emerge victorious.


About the Author


Harry Beckwith is the head of Beckwith Partners. His marketing and advertising clients include major multinational corporations. He is a speaker and consultant, as well as a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford.

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Selling the Invisible

Selling the Invisible

A Field Guide to Modern Marketing
By Harry Beckwith


SELLING THE INVISIBLE is a succinct and often entertaining look at the unique characteristics of services and their prospects, and how any service, from a home-based consultancy to a multinational brokerage, can turn more prospects into clients and keep them. SELLING THE INVISIBLE covers service marketing from start to finish. Filled with wonderful insights and written in a roll-up-your-sleeves, jargon-free, accessible style, such as:

  • Greatness May Get You Nowhere
  • Focus Groups Don’ts
  • The More You Say, the Less People Hear &
  • Seeing the Forest Around the Falling Trees.

Recommendation


This book presents the crucial concepts of new marketing. In an age where more than seventy percent of people in the United States earn their living working for service companies, the old product-marketing model is no longer viable. Instead of emphasizing features and benefits, new marketers need to work on developing lasting relationships with their clients. Those who learn this first will be able to attract the largest number of clients, even in a market that is becoming over-saturated with commodities and services. Harry Beckwith’s excellent book offers numerous useful tips in a highly readable format. Few chapters are more than a page long, and he offers enough insightful stories and eclectic examples to keep even the most time-pressed reader interested. Recommended for people trying to market a service and to those interested in ideas about marketing.


Takeaways


  • To distinguish your product in today’s market, add value through exemplary service.
  • Instead of trying to force your product (service) into peoples’ living rooms, work steadily to improve your service.
  • Since services are essentially invisible and intangible, customers approach them with discomfort. Understand this and assuage it.
  • Features and benefits are good selling points, but your best selling point is a great relationship with your customer.
  • Marketing should occur at every point of contact between your firm and your client.
  • Clients don’t understand what you do. Sell them on the technical points of your relationship rather than on the technical aspects of your service.
  • Your clients don’t want to hear about you. They want to hear about themselves and how you can help them.
  • Build a brand that people can trust.
  • When marketing your service, use stories that exhibit the traits you want to convey.
  • In your advertisements, say one thing exceptionally well.

Summary


The Nature of Services and Why You Need to Know About Them

Services are invisible. For the most part, you cannot see, hear, taste, or touch them before you buy. The service industry, however, is hardly invisible. More than seventy percent of Americans make their living working for service companies. Many of them are struggling because their service-economy businesses continue to follow product-marketing models.

“Common sense will only get you so far. For inspiring results, you’ll need inspiration.”

Products are not invisible. Selling a haircut or legal advice is not like selling a new car. When you sell a product, you are selling something that people can judge with their five senses. You can put it before them or let them try it. Then they can decide if they like it, need it, and can afford it. When you sell a service, you sell a promise. Your clients cannot immediately evaluate what you are giving them; only time and overall performance will tell.

“In service marketing, almost nothing beats a brand.”

Clients don’t always know if they need your service in the first place. People wait years to fix leaky faucets or to hire someone to paint those hard-to-reach places. Clients aren’t even sure what your service costs, since the price will vary depending on the time and extent of the service rendered.

“A service is a promise, and building a brand builds your promise.”

If you continue to sell your service as if it were a product – focusing on the features or benefits instead of the relationship between you and your customer – you will continue to underachieve.

Likewise, if you continue to sell your product without a good service instinct, you will not be able to distinguish your product from others just like it. We live and work in the age of the over-saturated market. Product-distinction techniques don’t work as well as they used to; there are just too many commodities.

“This focus on getting the word outside distracts companies from the inside, and from the first rule of service marketing: The core of service marketing is the service itself.”

To market your product effectively, either lower the price or increase its value. To increase value, improve your service.

The Nature of Prospects and Why You Need to Know About Them

The service environment – where the selling of the intangible takes place – creates an anxious prospect (customer). This anxiety is your starting point.

“You can’t learn from your strategy. It’s just sitting there pretending it knows what it’s talking about, while your tactics are out there getting battle tested by the market.”

Clients only come to you for services because they cannot or will not perform the service themselves. In many cases, clients will walk into your office with no knowledge of what is required, but that’s why they came to you in the first place. So don’t try to fill their heads with all the job’s details. They won’t understand.

“Execute passionately. Marginal tactics executed passionately almost always will outperform brilliant tactics executed marginally.”

Instead, fill their hearts with the confidence that you (or your company) are the person (or the company) for the job. Make them feel that you are capable of performing the task. Build a relationship with your prospect. This will assuage their fears about the invisible service that they want to purchase. They will know if they feel valued by you, and if you care enough to go the extra mile. These are the things that weigh most heavily in clients’ decisions about whether or not to use you or your company.

“Unlike communicating about products, communicating about services must make the service more tangible and real, and must soothe the worried prospect.”

Remember, in your clients’ minds, they come first – their feelings, gut reactions, and thought patterns. Too many service marketers think that their service comes first. Concentrate less on trying to make your clients want your service and more on making them feel wanted.

Clients notice your shoes, your watch, and your style of dress. These signs can reassure them or diminish their confidence in you. Every time your company comes into contact with your customers – whether it’s your employees, business card, brochure, ad, or building – they are evaluating you at some level.

“Like clever journalists and great lawyers, marketers who tell true stories make their presentations more interesting, more personal…and more persuasive.”

Your customers can also serve you. If you develop a strong and lasting relationship with them, they will undoubtedly refer you to friends and family. When it comes to the invisible service industry, customers often go where someone tells them to go. As a service provider, you need to build a base of customers who are willing to vouch for you.

Things to Avoid in the Service Industry

Incorrect assumptions can obscure the truth behind marketing a service in several key areas:

1. The Lake Wobegon Effect

Psychologists use this term to describe people who think they are better than they really are. Don’t be one of them. Even if your service is above average, it still might not be as good as it could, or should, be.

2. The Assumption that Everything is Fine

When you begin to market your service, don’t take anything for granted. Ask the tough questions that probe the very foundation of the company. Is the company in the right business? Is it staffed properly? Is the service useful?

3. Competitive Strategy

Your true competitors are not necessarily other companies – often they are prospects. Convince these clients to use your service. Soothe their fears.

4. The Pricing Obsession

Pricing is hard to figure out and far less logical than many people think. When you set your price, watch your customers’ reaction. If no one complains, chances are it’s too low. If everyone complains, it’s too high. Shoot for a level of 15 to 20 percent resistance. This method is far superior to the practice of determining the prevailing high and low rates and then setting your price in the middle. This tells your prospect how good (or bad) you think you are.

5. Your Mission Statement

Is it overly visible, abstract, or underachieving? If you tell your competitors where you’re going or want to go, they might get there first. Keep your mission statement out of your marketing campaign. When you create a mission statement, make sure it is specific. Investors and employees want and need to know where they are going. Be sure your mission statement isn’t too vague.

6. Silence

If someone isn’t complaining, it doesn’t mean they are satisfied. In fact, in a service relationship, it may mean that your customer is dissatisfied. Most people don’t like conflict. They will suffer for a while in silence, then disappear. Keep your relationships in constant repair.

7. Hype

If you create an impossible gap between what your customer expects and what they get, you have set the stage for mutual dissatisfaction.

8. Anchoring

Don’t remain anchored to your original perceptions or impressions, or you could grow stagnant. However, realize that your customers are anchored to certain perceptions and impressions. Do they have perceptions you want to change? If so, how?

9. The Grocery List

When dealing with long lists, people tend to forget things. Keep your advertising message short and simple.

10. Being Great

Service customers aren’t necessarily looking for the best or most skillful provider. They are looking for a relationship with someone they can trust. It’s important to be good at what you do, but it’s more important to be good at who you are.

Planning

The process of planning with your team may ultimately be more important in the long run than the results of your plan. Begin by hiring bright people who will make a bright future possible. For better planning, remember:

  1. Tactics are more important than abstract strategy. Follow your tactics onto the battlefield. Learn from your battles. Act.
  2. Ideas are only real when you become passionate about them. Don’t spend all of your time looking for the best idea. Pick up a small idea and run with it.
  3. The right time is right now. Don’t put something on the back burner because you think it is not ready for the world, or that the world is not ready for it. If you don’t do it now someone else will.
  4. Your experience has limits. But you can’t possible experience everything, so reach beyond your own experience. Avoid basing decisions on generalizations.
  5. Common sense will take you to a common level. Inspiration will take you to uncommon levels.
  6. Watch the power in your organization. Is it crushing good ideas? Is it leading the organization in the right direction? If you’re one of the powerful people, learn to listen and step aside. If you’re not, don’t stop questioning the powerful.

Take Marketing Out of the Marketing Department

If you leave all the marketing of your company to one department, you’re not doing all you can to market your company. Everyone in your company can have an effect on your marketing every time they come into contact with a client. Stop thinking of marketing as a department and start thinking of it as your business.

“For all the talk about improving service quality, positioning, research, targeted direct mail-for all the art and science of marketing-much of growing a business is where you happen to sit on a flight to New York one afternoon.”

Do your people realize that everything they do plays a part in the marketing of the company? Have you taken a close look at all your points of contact with customers? At each point, is the customer seeing the best that you have to offer? Remember that you are selling a relationship along with a service.

“Prospects do not buy how good you are at what you do. They buy how good you are at who you are.”

Names and Brands

  1. Don’t use initials or acronyms for your name. Initials worked for IBM, but chances are, it won’t work for you.
  2. Don’t include words in your name that everyone expects from your service. For example, don’t use the word “quality.” That’s a given.
  3. If you don’t have an ordinary company, don’t give it an ordinary name. Use your own name if you can’t come up with something better.
  4. Test your name: how much information does it convey?
  5. Brands are alive and well. In the service industry, where a warranty is hard to come by, they are your handshake, your promise. Provide one.
  6. When building a brand, remember that it all starts with your employees. One mistreated customer could cost you thousands of dollars.
  7. A brand is a shortcut. Customers go with what they know.
  8. People’s minds make subconscious connections. Make sure your brand name carries no negative connotations.
  9. Use your imagination.

The Power of Language

Words have a self-fulfilling character. They do not just represent reality – they create it. In the service industry, where you are essentially selling the invisible, words become weapons. They can help or hurt you. Use active words to describe your service. Avoid cliches. Don’t just describe; shape the image you want. Affect change. To do this, have a point. Direct, vivid language will help your service stand out in the crowd. Keep your name circulating in print, whether you have to advertise or appear in articles written by someone else.

“Sweat the small stuff.”

Most important, market yourself by telling true stories that relate to the service. Genuine, personal stories stick with people and influence them.


About the Author


Harry Beckwith, founder of Beckwith Advertising and Marketing, won the American Marketing Association’s Effie award. He has worked for several of America’s best 100 service companies and nine Fortune 500 companies. Selling the Invisible is his first book. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and children.

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Time Tactics of Very Successful People

Time Tactics of Very Successful People

By B. Eugene Griessman


A new approach to time management focusing on how highly successful people get their work done without sacrificing the life they live.

This entertaining volume has what no other time management book has: insights on how to manage time from high achievers such as Malcolm Forbes, Jr., Ted Turner, Sandra Day, Dr. Johnnetta Cole, and Home Depot CEO Bernie Marcus. Dr. B. Eugene Griessman has interviewed hundreds of contemporary peak performers (and researched dozens of historical high achievers) to unearth the secrets of their success. He presents their time management tactics in short “Bites” designed to inspire today’s time-starved reader­­ whether they’re over worked managers, working moms, entrepreneurs on the go, or even newly unemployed people who must suddenly learn to structure their own time.


Recommendation


If B. Eugene Griessman wanted a good subtitle for this book of time-saving tactics, he could use, “Time waits for no one.” He offers many common-sense pointers on how to avoid wasting your time – and how to keep others from wasting it, too. It’s eye-opening to realize and calculate the value and importance of every hour, even your leisure time. People in all walks of life – students, stay-at-home parents, business leaders, teachers, self-employed workers – can glean ideas for using time effectively from this book. If you are a procrastinator, this book will encourage you to “do it now.” While some of the suggestions here may seem too simplistic to those who already employ some time-management tactics.


Takeaways


  • Understand and appreciate that your time is precious and has value.
  • Establish priorities and determine which of them should become top priorities.
  • Staying organized, pacing yourself, planning ahead, anticipating and heading off problems and balancing all aspects of your life are time-saving techniques.
  • Know how to make efficient and effective use of technology.
  • Know how to be an effective and appropriate “squeaky wheel.”
  • Know how to handle others who are squeaky wheels.
  • Practice shortcuts while reading and writing.
  • Consistently establish and maintain long- and short-term goals to save time, focus effectively and produce more.
  • Keep your workplace neat and your files in order, so you don’t waste time searching for misplaced items.
  • Learn to say no.

Summary


Get a Handle on your Time

There is no such thing as “free time.” Leisure time exists, of course, but not free time. You may golf, swim, or take a walk, but whatever you pursue, your time has cost and value. Because your time has value, don’t let others waste it with long meetings, never-ending phone conversations, or trivial, time-wasting tasks.

“The way you think about time and think about yourself will affect everything that happens to you the rest of your life.”

Mentally double whatever money you make for each hour you work to determine the value of your time. How you evaluate not just the cost, but the importance your time – and your worth as a person – affects everything you do. Once you realize that your time is important, you will spend it more wisely. The point is not to be crudely materialistic about your time, but to realize that it is precious. If you have difficulty managing your time, keep a log of how you spend your time for a few days. See what you accomplish. You may gain a new awareness of how you waste time, which will help you find ways to use it more effectively.

Get Organized

Establish your priorities. List all the tasks you must accomplish. Create two lists – a short-term list for those things that you can do quickly, and a long-term list for more time-consuming, top-priority tasks. Select the three most important tasks on each list. Complete those tasks first.

“The difference between being successful and not being successful depends on how you use your daily ration of twenty-four hours.”

Write down your goals, your aspirations, and your dreams – both long-term and short-term – clearly, concisely, and specifically. You might find it helpful to write them on small note cards so you can carry them with you. They can help focus you on completing your tasks and goals. Unclear, indistinct goals hamper success.

“The strategy is this: Study successful individuals and model what they do.”

Create a daily, workable to-do list. Write down the next day’s to-do list before you go bed each night. Make your to-do list comprehensive and fit it onto one sheet. Don’t just scribble notes on small scraps of paper that can get lost. Check your list on a regular basis, to keep from forgetting things or from being late to meetings. You will become more dependable and reliable. Limit the items on your list to those that are the most important. For example, list the six most important things you need to do the next day. Assign a time for completion of each task or appointment. If you are a manager, you can provide to-do lists for your staff or workers. Maintain these lists on a central bulletin board or erasable white board.

Increase your Efficiency

Neatness is a powerful time tactic. Have an assigned place for your files, desk items and assorted work tools. When you have finished using an item, return it to its proper place. You must place it somewhere, so it might as well be where it belongs! The next time you need it, it will be easy to find.

“We may have leisure time, but no one has such a thing as free time. You may be lying beside a pool or attending a play, but that’s not free time. All time has value.”

Make your workplace work for you. Spend money on the files, tools, and equipment you need to work efficiently and effectively. Store your supplies so you can reach them effectively, with the fewest steps and least effort. Don’t store things on top of your desk – file all your papers. Schedule time to catch up on reorganizing and reworking your files.

“Ask yourself, ’Is there an easier way to do this?’ Looking for the easy way out can be the smartest thing you can do. Don’t confuse busyness with efficiency.”

Learn to rely on checklists (not to be confused with to-do lists). Checklists – sometimes called “quick sheets” – list the steps you must take to complete a task efficiently. For example: Make a checklist of everything you need in your suitcase when you take a trip. Keep the checklist in your suitcase and leave it there for each time you travel. Or, make a checklist with step-by-step instructions on operating the office photocopier. This can save a lot of time when someone who does not regularly uses the copier needs it.

Learn to Listen / Learn to Focus

Listening is one of the most important factors in effective communication. Good listeners are most likely to do a job correctly, notice opportunities that others miss, help friends, and win admiration. Some secrets to good listening include:

  • Know that listening is an active, not passive, process. Be alert to what is being said. Tune in. Be focused.
  • Don’t be too talkative. You can’t talk and listen at the same time.
  • Even if you are an expert, don’t make yourself look overly important. Give other people an opportunity to talk.
  • Show genuine interest in other people. Ask them how they feel or think about particular topics and situations.
  • Concentrate on what is being said. Shut out distractions and pay attention.
  • Don’t jump to hasty conclusions. Be sure you have heard all the information.
  • Don’t keep thinking about what you want to say next. Listen to what the speaker is saying and don’t interrupt.
  • Encourage others to tell you more. Give good feedback on what has been said to you.
  • Listen to a speaker’s ideas, not just to the words.
  • Concentrate on the speaker’s key facts. Learn to block out the trivial.
  • Let the speaker know you are listening. Maintain good eye contact, nod, or make short responses.
  • “Back burner” your own worries. Concentrate on what is being said to you instead of your own personal concerns.
  • Even if the speaker’s mannerisms irritate you, put your feelings aside and listen.
  • Be alert for nonverbal clues. Develop skills for reading body language. Pay attention to what “isn’t being said,” and to questions that are not fully answered.
  • Give feedback about what you have heard, and get feedback from what you have said. You could say something like: “Just to make certain I understand what you said…” or “This is how I interpret what you’ve told me…”

Avoid Procrastination

Don’t spend so much time getting ready to start a project that you have no time left to do it. Get it done now. Don’t start a project, put it away, and then start it again, wondering, “Now, where was I?” Some projects cannot be finished in one sitting, but many can. Be sure you have the will to finish what you start. Deal with unpleasant situations first. Immediately addressing tasks that are uncomfortable or unpleasant can sometimes make them more bearable. And once they are done, you are free to do something you relish. Missing deadlines may cause you to lose business, or pay a fine. Don’t procrastinate!

Avoid Time-Wasting Activities and Projects

If you become involved in an activity that is not worth doing, you may think that you have accomplished something simply because you have spent time on it. Instead, be sure that your efforts show good results.

“’You may not be able to control the situation, but you can always control your reaction.” – Austin McGonigle

Things that are not worth doing use up time and steal energy from things that are worthwhile. Sometimes, even worthless chores take on lives of their own. For example, people occasionally will continue doing something a certain way simply because they have done it that way for a long time – even if the effectiveness or the need has been lost. Sometimes things not worth doing have babies. People form committees, and then subcommittees, all to discuss how to do the thing that is not worth doing. Do not involve yourself in this tangled web of wasted time.

Take Time-Saving Action

Be decisive. Practice making sound, practical decisions. This process takes thought and effort, but you can master it. Understand your objectives, look at your alternatives, consider your risks, and then make your decision:

  • If you find yourself planning a meeting simply to convey information, don’t meet. Relay information via e-mails or office mail instead.
  • If you are calling a meeting to solve problems, get a head start by sending out advance information on the topic to be discussed, so people can start thinking of solutions. Ask participants to arrive prepared.
  • Begin meetings on time. Stay on track and follow an agenda. When you have completed the agenda and discussed everything necessary, quit!
  • Don’t adopt every responsibility, situation and problem that others try to pass on to you. Select only those matters you can efficiently handle. Make certain other people mind their responsibilities. Don’t take on what is not yours.
  • Learn to say “no.”

The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

Don’t let people waste your valuable time by giving you poor or inefficient service. To be an effective “squeaky wheel:”

  • Deal with reputable companies and organizations. Efficient people eliminate complaining time. If a problem does occur, they know how to fix it, and they throw in something extra to keep the customer satisfied.
  • Be sure that you have sufficient information to back up your complaint. Have all the facts first. Speak with respect and gentleness. If you are noisy and rude, you will make enemies of potential friends.
  • Complain to someone who can fix the problem. Ask for someone in authority and have a quiet conversation.
  • Begin your complaint with a compliment. For example, if you have a complaint in a restaurant, tell the manager that you came to that restaurant because of its excellent reputation. Have a positive starting point.
  • Control your emotions. If you lose your temper, you have lost the contest. Even if you are embarrassed, have lost time and money, or are very annoyed, stay in control of what you say and how you say it.
  • Limit your complaint to matters at hand. Don’t complain about minor things.
  • Remember complaints can be good. An effective, well-handled complaint can help a company or organization improve, save time and become more focused.

“On procrastination: ’The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.’” – Chinese proverb

Therefore, you also want to know how to deal effectively with squeaky wheels who complain to you or about your product or service:

  • Treat complaints as opportunities to improve your organization.*
  • Analyze and evaluate the complaint to determine what part of is useful.
  • Evaluate the complainer. Was he or she overwrought, loud and emotional? Or was the complainer logical and sensible?
  • Create some psychological distance between yourself and the complainer. This takes great effort and practice, but it is worth it if the complaint is harsh and personal.
  • Make sure you understand the complaint. Ask the complainer, “Would you mind if I wrote this down?” This shows that you are listening and that you care.
  • Determine what you can do to correct the problem. Then, do it.
  • Deal with the problem cheerfully, not grudgingly.

About the Author


B. Eugene Griessman, Ph.D., is a noted author, speaker, professor, media personality, and corporation consultant. He is author and producer of the one-man play, Lincoln Live. Greissman has taught at many universities including the College of William and Mary, Auburn University, Georgia Tech, and the University of Islamabad in Pakistan. He has written six books, including the award-winning, The Achievement Factors.

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Branded Customer Service

Branded Customer Service

The New Competitive Edge
By Janelle Barlow


Branding is an integral part of modern business strategy. But while there are dozens of books on branding products and marketing campaigns, nobody has applied the logic and techniques of branding to customer service — until now.

Branded Customer Service is a practical guide to moving service delivery to a new level so that brand reinforcement occurs every time customers interact with organizational representatives. Janelle Barlow and Paul Stewart show how to infuse an entire organization with brand values and create a recognizable style of service that reflects brand promises and brand images.


Recommendation


Delivering quality customer service with a constant, consistent brand message is a powerful way to extend a brand’s reach, say authors and consultants Janelle Barlow and Paul Stewart. When consumers have a positive experience, they buy more and become repeat customers. No doubt, it certainly would be great for morale if employees embodied their brands and if employers honored all their advertising claims and kept all their promises to staffers and consumers. The problem is that companies do many things that have nothing to do with branding. At least, that is true everywhere except inside this book, which suffers from brand myopia or, maybe, just tunnel vision. The book has many strong assets: it offers chapters of solid instruction, it makes a great case that good companies should deliver good service and it contains a helpful “toolbox” of branding-related exercises for managers. It just seems to posit that every non-manufacturing aspect of IBM, Apple or Coca-Cola is about branding – but it is not. Still, for the intrepid manager who wants to provoke more customer interaction and employee involvement around the brand totem, The book is instructive, particularly the interesting anecdotes and case studies. Of course, branding activities can be very effective – but, like other campaigns, they are best when executed with perspective.


Takeaways


  • Integrated branding works best when all aspects of the brand are communicated through the corporate culture.
  • Translating brand elements into customer service is the most powerful branding tool.
  • A study of 90 global corporations found that 45% of the managers did not understand their own brand’s positioning.
  • The same study found that 62% of senior managers did not support the brand.
  • The origin of the word “brand” is Middle English and it means flame or torch.
  • The father of advertising, Earnest Elmo Calkins (1868-1964), first conceived of associating products with people’s ideals and aspirations.
  • About 18% of consumers’ decisions to buy are based on brand awareness.
  • After consumers buy a branded product, they become more aware of its advertising. That, in turn, drives more repeat sales.
  • Studies show customers will pay 19% more for a brand name than for a weaker label.
  • Yet, the feelings people have about a brand are mostly subconscious.

Summary


Matching Words and Actions

While all brands are intended to generate specific customer reactions, “branded customer service” drives home even more powerful impressions. Done properly, it can increase a brand’s positive impressions, creating a ripple effect and adding to the brand’s overall strength.

“Branding can best be understood as a business strategy in great part to gain customer trust.”

Brands are a combination of values, beliefs and service expectations. A brand can propel a product and keep it fresh in customers’ minds, the harbor for the complex group of associations a brand name embodies. Branding is not just a concept bandied about by the marketing department. When a consumer has to choose between competing brands of anything from tissue paper to automobiles, the three elements of branding – authority, identification and social approval – play a role in the buying decision. These elements may help explain why Julia Roberts has been Hollywood’s highest paid actress for the past 20 years. She is a known quality; when people go to see her movies, they know they will feel good when they leave the theater.

“The key element in the chain, the actual service experience, is often overlooked because either advertising agencies and traditional marketers typically do not have core competencies in this area or they do not have the mandate to shape and influence it.”

Advertising addresses consumer wants and needs that can be satisfied consciously and unconsciously. Branding works at different levels to meet those needs, and becomes more powerful when it evokes positive memories, even if the consumer doesn’t make a conscious connection. Look at Morton Salt, a commodity product and category leader that still uses its old logo (a little girl under an umbrella). The brand has powerful associations for generations of mothers and daughters who cook together. When harried shoppers are making quick choices about buying this basic commodity, they often select the container they know well, the one with a positive connotation, even if it costs a few pennies more. Consumers are willing to pay that price for peace of mind and the feeling that they made the right decision.

Is the Brand Right for You? Are You Right for the Brand?

One useful exercise for understanding branding and the real relationship between consumers and a brand is to think of the brand from the product’s perspective. According to this approach, the brand has its own attitude. Would a high-end Gucci bag be happiest being carried by you?

“Today, brands are presented as groups of ideas, rather than merely logos.”

In this way, branding can discourage business by implying that a product doesn’t fit certain consumers. Be sure you are not inadvertently discouraging customers you would like to have. Suppose a small business wants to hire a large accounting firm. But the accounting firm only advertises that it caters to huge corporations. That message effectively eliminates the small business from even approaching the accountants. The accounting firm actually is also searching for new small business clients, but the client has no way of knowing that. In this case, the brand (the accounting firm) spoke and the marketplace (the small firms) received the message. As a result, no business was transacted.

“As actor and film producer Robert Redford says, ’If it’s not personal, then there won’t be any passion or commitment’.”

Today, brand consciousness is high, but so is brand warfare. High quality brand products compete intensely for profitability. Basically, customers will pay more for a brand they like. That translates into higher stock prices, which also boost the price of “intangible assets,” such as patent rights, intellectual property, trademarks and copyrights. This so-called brand equity accounted for up to 90% of Coca-Cola’s book value in the late-1990s, according to John Murphy, a branding expert in the United Kingdom. Companies with stronger brands also have more credibility with employees and, as a result, lower turnover, which also increases profitability. A well-recognized brand even helps pre-sell new clients, which increases the effectiveness of marketing and sales.

More than Service with a Smile: Service with a Brand

Strong brands can motivate customers to take specific actions. Fulfilling or beating customers’ expectations creates a powerful, long-lasting impression, as verified by studies of customers and advertising claims. Some 780 consumer interviews conducted from January through March, 2002, showed that ads that tell customers what to expect combined with actual service that meets or surpasses the ads’ claims creates the most positive brand links.

“It is possible to create a commodity product, and then create such a unique brand position that the average consumer visits a location 18 times a month – as Starbucks has done.”

The lesson from these studies was straightforward: the most powerful bond between brand and reputation is service, more specifically, “branded service.” In addition, pairing service and brand generates a competitive advantage. You can give customers personalized quality service that they can’t find replicated elsewhere. Competitively, this combination of quality and personalization is unbeatable.

“When well received and developed, a brand is a vibrant picture held in consumers’ minds.”

Each customer contact employee who practices brand message awareness magnifies your brand’s positive impact. A study by the American Society for Training and Development found that companies that trained their staff members to deliver branded customer service had several advantages over companies that did not provide employees with brand awareness training. These advantages included:

• 20% higher book values.

• 57% more sales per employee. • 37% higher gross profits.

Companies such as Nordstrom, Inc., The Walt Disney Company, Southwest Airlines Co., Pret a Manger (Europe), Limited Brands, Inc., and Vodafone Group PLC have adopted branded customer service and reaped some of these benefits. In contrast, generic service that is helpful, polite and ultimately undistinguishable will not produce memorable experiences for customers. To make branded service a company-wide effort, managers should:

• Get management and all employees to buy into delivering on those brand promises.

• Deliver on the brand’s promises consistently to all customers.

• Teach employees how the company’s marketing and mission statement defines your brand and what they must do to deliver on those promises. • Let employees deliver these promises in their own individual, characteristic ways with flair and personality. Do not force them to memorize canned scripts. • Once all employees understand the basics of the brand they should use the terms “on-brand” and “off-brand” to identify when other employees are acting in accordance with the brand’s promise (“on-brand”) and when they are not (“off-brand”).

An organization that delivers branded service should resonate with customers because it is different and because it emphasizes a key brand characteristic (i.e., freshness, knowledge or cleanliness), which it delivers naturally and consistently.

The first step toward delivering branded customer service is to distill your brand’s essence. In preparation, your company’s branding team should answer these questions:

• What is the brand’s mission and purpose?

• How are these brand values delivered to customers?

• What is our identity?

• What promise does the brand make to customers? • How is the brand seen in the actual market? • What stories of our successes and failures exist in the marketplace?

“Brand management is essentially about culture change.”

The answers will provide the basis for branded service and can produce some remarkable changes. Take Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS). In the early 1980s, SAS set out to become a business airline that delivered on-time travel. To get its new message across, the CEO ordered all employees – from pilots to reservation clerks and luggage handlers – to take part in a two-day program devoted to making this cultural change. In 1981, the idea of a major corporation holding meetings involving all employees and all departments was very rare. One year after the meetings, SAS was named the world’s top airline, and went from suffering losses to profitability. British Airways undertook similar training efforts with its 38,500 employees in the early 1980s, as part of then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s plan to increase the airline’s value before it was privatized. The following year, the world’s top airline was British Airways.

Focus on Employees

Your employees carry your brand’s message. They are the providers of your product or service. If you do not communicate to them about where the company is going and how they are making an important contribution, their motivation will suffer.

“Indeed in the current age of integrated branding, organizational culture is often referred to as the internal brand.”

One way to improve internal communication is to disclose the company’s financial information and future goals. Studies have shown there is a knowledge gap between what employees know about their employer and how much trust they feel. A U.S. Council of Communication Management study (1998) found that 64% of employees do not believe their senior managers. Another study found that 50% of employees do not know what their company is trying to accomplish. Information generates trust.

“When an organization is branded from the inside out, managers will have a context by which to filter their supervisory behaviors towards their staff.”

To correct these knowledge gaps, managers should treat employees like customers and undertake internal brand marketing as part of their employee communications program. The goal of this effort is to change behavior so employees will act in accord with the brand’s meaning. To accomplish this, relate your communication effort to employee issues about the brand and what it represents. Make your message emotional as well as practical. Staffers like to hear stories about their company that illustrate how it solved a problem or helped people. The solutions to the problems in your stories should illustrate some of the brand’s benefits.

“If a brand has a strength and excitement, it gives staff a sense of identity, a feeling of belonging, and makes them feel positive about going to work.”

Conduct your internal brand marketing program face-to-face. Don’t fall back on the easy way and run it all through your website. Instead, hold small and large meetings. Engage employees. Ask for feedback and ideas. Involve opinion leaders among your employees. Often, they are natural leaders who have great credibility with their co-workers. This effort may also produce a “brand champion,” someone passionately involved with the brand and its ideals. Finally, do not inundate employees with paper work, e-mails and numerous presentations. Fewer, but more effective, presentations work best.

“Today, many people, such as musicians, actors, entertainers, and even some businesspeople, view themselves as brands when just a few years ago they would have felt cheapened to think of themselves this way.”

These internal branding efforts will also revitalize your human resources department. To add a new dimension to the company, select employees according to a spectrum of abilities, including how well they can embody a brand. However, some companies carry this approach to an extreme. Abercrombie & Fitch, Co., an apparel company, hired salespeople who looked like its catalogue models. This practice raised issues about hiring discrimination, since the hiring qualifications were so narrow. To be successful, hiring must seek people with the skills and personality characteristics to deliver the brand benefits to customers.

“J. Robinson, a noted economist of the 1930s, emphasized the inherent value of widely recognized trademarks: ’Various brands of a certain article which in fact are almost exactly alike may be sold at different qualities under names and labels which will induce rich and snobbish buyers to divide themselves from the poor buyers’.”

To drive home the entire branded customer service message, your branding team should visit a company that they admire for its brand prowess and analyze its branding practices. This could include a field trip to a firm such as the Great Harvest Bread Company, where the mission statement is: “Be loose and have fun. Bake phenomenal bread. Run fast to help customers. Create strong and exiting bakeries. And give generously to others.”

After a visit to a company that uses excellent branding practices, your team should discuss whether the site was on- or off-brand and how it met their expectations about what the brand should deliver. Analyze which specific personnel behaviors made the experience memorable and what detracted from the experience. This experience should help generate an understanding of the customer’s perspective that your team can apply to your brand.


About the Author


Janelle Barlow is president of TMI and a partner in TMI International, a consulting firm with offices in 36 countries. She is also the author of A Complaint Is A Gift and Emotional Value. She regularly appears on CNBC’s NPR Marketplace. Paul Stewart is director of TMI New Zealand and the former chief economist for the ANZ Banking Group.

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