Creating Devoted Customers with Imaginative Service

Imaginative Service: Give Customers an Occasional Miracle

A Boston family adopted an Asian girl.  No sooner had she arrived in the U.S. than the family learned she needed to have major surgery.  The nine year old child––who spoke only Chinese and had life experiences limited to a small Chinese village and her trip to the – U.S. was very anxious.  As she was about to be discharged following successful surgery she was asked through an interpreter, “What most surprised you about your stay here at Children’s Memorial Hospital of Boston?”  The child smiled and proudly responded, “I did not know my doctor would be Chinese!”          

The occasional service miracle has many advantages. Organizations that promote a perpetual “exceeding customer expectations” approach can leave the front line in search of ever more costly gestures to keep the standards climbing.  At some point the organization runs out of room to one-up the last experience while the budget is left empty. Occasional miracles provide a creative gesture to get you out of this linear rut.

Just like planning a surprise birthday party, miracle-making can be as beneficial to the creators as the recipients.  The pursuit of an occasional miracle helps service providers think differently about customers--  connections are more personal; communications more attentive.  It also causes employees to think creatively about every aspect of their role, not just those related to serving the customer.  Finally, when people are a part of a culture that strives for imaginative service, there is a greater sense of passion conferred on customers who reciprocate with their affirmation, gratitude, and devotion.  What can you do to turn ordinary into miraculous?  Who in your organization is a “miracle maker”? Have you thanked them recently for all they do for your organization?

Imaginative Service: Unearthing the Anthropology of Twitter

When I was a little boy my best friend and I constructed a “phone line” using a long string with an empty bean can on either end.  The coolest use of the “phone” was from tree to tree.  When you spoke right into the bean can, the sound carried over the string to be heard by the ear in the can on the other end.  We could tell smutty jokes and trade secrets without parental eavesdropping.  Now, we have Twitter between “trees.”  And, all your friends can have a string connected to your “bean can.”

Organizations are trying to figure what to make of Twitter and how to capitalize on this social media.  Since they can “listen in” on the “crowdalogue,” some treat it as tool to monitor “chatter” hopefully revealing customer issues and interests.  Some are using it as an early warning device actually intervening to right a service wrong in the making.  But, few are tapping into Twitter anthropology—the bean can side.

Customers want connections that are personalized and specific.  They do not want to waste time with scattergun clutter from marketers.  They want connections that are authentic and natural, not PR pap sanitized and hyped by some speech writer.  They want connections that engage their heart as much as their reason—service creativity that creates a story to share.  Remember, the goal of communication is not simply to listen.  The goal is to turn understanding into meaningful action.  Are you using Twitter to monitor or to make a difference? 

Imaginative Service: When Trust Stumbles

We have had recent media examples of beloved companies leaving customers disappointed due to service hiccups.  Whether the foibles were caused by a process failure, human error or unfriendly gremlins is irrelevant to customers already angry over a mean economy.  Organizations that turn the oops into an opportunity are those that practice great service recovery.

Great recovery starts with recognition that disappointing service requires emotional repair, not just problem resolution.  Too many organizations focus on damage control; too few practice betrayal management.   Effective service recovery starts with a sincere and quick apology from the top of the organization.  Apology does not mean “we goofed”; it means “I care.”  It includes obvious speed and agility to stop the cause of the disappointment.

Great service recovery includes communicating empathy—words that let customers know the organization is fully aware of the impact of their service breakdown.  Sometimes customers need symbolic atonement—a “gesture of sorrow” that helps dramatize the fact the organization is not treating customers’ disappointments as frivolous.  They also need to know the organization has learned from the incident and is taking steps to minimize reoccurrence. 

Customers do not expect service to be perfect.  But, they do expect when things go wrong that organizations will demonstrate they care.  Do you have an effective plan for service recovery—one that insures everyone handles the next service breakdown with confidence and consistency?  Are you tracking customer complaints to determine if there are patterns pointing to a need for service process surgery, not just a band-aid for each flare-up? And in addition to tracking complaints are you assertively tracking the new and very powerful interactive social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.) to insure you know very quickly what is being said about your organization?

Imaginative Service: Serving Beyond Six Sigma

Curse words are very inappropriate for a blog.  But, they were wrapped all around a customer’s comment to a call center operator in some foreign land.  “Put your (bleep, bleep) script down and just listen to me!”

Imaginative service trumps service quality!   Now, before we start the debate, it’s important to know that all customers expect and deserve good service.  However, the headlong pursuit toward service betterment can sometimes lead us to funny places.   “Zero variance” (the hallmark of quality gurus) works magnificently on inanimate objects and robotic processes.  But, applied in the same fashion to the heart and spirit of customer service, it can entice service leaders to focus on control, not on creativity; on bland uniformity, not on rich uniqueness. 

Variance-free service is mechanical.  If we completely buy the “only what gets measured gets done” idea, it can cause us to worry far more about answering the phone in three rings (something we can quantify) and far less about the personality of the answerer (something harder to quantify).  While customers want the core service offering met—the flight to land safely, on time, and in the right city—they only remark to others about the highly variable interaction with the flight crew or the creative management of people and events that deviate from the script. 

Customers long for a return to service with soul, not just service without errors.  As you ratchet up service quality, are you removing what matters most to your customers?  Are you counting as removable “waste” the service exceptions your customers count as valued service?

Where’s Buster?

Every small town in America had a Buster.  Buster Seecoy sold Grit newspapers on Main Streetand knew the birthday of everyone in town.  He worked part-time as a stocker at Moore’s feed store, the watering hole for the agricultural community.  And, when you met Buster on the street, he greeted you with your whole name, always with “Mr,” “Mrs.” or “Miss” in front of it—“Good morning, Miss Nancy Rainey,”   When the circus came to town guess who sold balloons.  Buster Seecoy made everyone smile!

Social media like blogs, Facebook, and Twitter provide evidence we are changing the way we define marketplace—in some ways a return to the village.  Only the new village is a global community but with old village features.  In a small town merchants knew you and catered to your specific needs.  They acted on history, patterns of previous purchases.  They relied on neighborly practices.  They’d even opened the shop after hours if you needed something.  Over the last fifty years commerce has been distant, impersonal, and one-size-fits all.  Social media is helping connect customers with businesses in ways more tailored, personalized, open, around-the-clock and valued.  

But, villages need a Buster.  A village without Buster is a boring town.  Be the Buster in you commercial village.

Does your customer service make your customers smile?  Does it have a unique imaginative twist that makes it distinctive?  Do you create experiences for your customers they would describe as lively, fun and positively memorable?  How many customers did you make laugh this week? 

 

Comic Relief: Imaginative Service Heals Customer Gloom

Customers are reacting to a down economy with despair.  We think they need a bit of comic relief!  What if the features of customer service mimicked the elements that made a great joke work?   Examine the construction of two simple jokes:

Comedian Joe Weinstein:  “My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to 99 cents a can.  That’s about $7.00 in dog  money!”

Comedian Larry the Cable Guy:  “Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.”

What makes these lines funny?  First they create a mental pattern and then unexpectedly break the pattern in the last one or two words.  Second, the construction of the humor is simple and easy-to-get.  Finally, both lines have a “tongue-in-check” levity that is playful and joyful.  What if customer service was unexpected, simple and joyful?   

Need an example?  A woman traded in her old car for a new one.  A week after she had her new car she turned on the radio and discovered they had programmed in her radio stations from her trade-in—unexpected, simple and joyful! 

Ask everybody to try it on your customers as well as each other.  They get comic relief for their gloom; you get their devotion!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Has Customer Service Really Gotten Worse?

The ‘50’s version of Dilbert was a very popular comic strip called Mutt and Jeff.  The clever “tongue in cheek” style made many a reader chuckle over their eggs and bacon before rushing off to the office.  One strip had Mutt and Jeff enjoying a bit of verbal sparring.   

“If everyone saw like I did,” boasted Jeff, “Everyone would want my wife.”

“If everyone saw like I did,” quipped Mutt, “No one would want your wife.”

It provided a humorous lesson on the “eye of the beholder” side of understanding relationships and experiences.  When someone asks us, “Why has service gotten so bad,” we think of that comic strip.

Remember the scene in the movie Back to the Future when a customer pulled into a gas station and two squeaky clean attendants cheerfully washed the windshield and carefully checked the engine fluids?  Audiences laughed at the obvious spoof.

Was that great service?  We do not remember thinking it was back then.   It was typical neighborly care by loyal employees with time to leisurely serve one customer at a time.  They worked for an enterprise with healthy margins, friendly competition; and without the scrutiny of regulators, the screams of litigious consumers, or the impatience of shareholders.  They served customers with limited choices, relatively low expectations, and plenty of time to wait.

Perhaps the gap between good and bad service is less about how far the bottom has dropped and more about how high the ceiling has been raised.  As customers, we are a lot smarter than we have ever been.  Recall buying your last car?  You probably had more information than the sales person had tactics.  Additionally, as customers we have witnessed great service in pockets of our lives.  When the FedEx or UPS delivery person walks fast, we assume the postal service person should do likewise.  If USAA Insurance’s call center can answer their phone in one ring, why can’t the power company.  Everyone today wants service to always be Disney friendly, Amazon.com easy and Southwest Airlines frugal. 

So, has customer service deteriorated?  It depends on whether you are asking Mutt or Jeff!