Creating Devoted Customers with Imaginative Service

Imaginative Service: Is Your Service Edgy?

The weather was the type that drives you indoors on a Saturday afternoon.  It had been a hard travel week and I needed some unwind time; perfect conditions for two back-to-back Academy Award winning best picture movies.  The first was the 1995 winner—Braveheart;  the second was the 1996 winner--The English Patient.  

The order of movie viewing was a big mistake.  I only watched 2/3rds of the second movie.  Now, before you play the “Guy Movie” card, you should know I actually prefer movies with more plot and less gore.  But, Braveheart was so “in your face,” heart-pounding edgy that The English Patient seemed plain vanilla by contrast.  The first movie made me ready to go out in the front yard and charge something; the second made me ready for bed.

Customers are generally bored with service these days.  They long for Braveheart edgy.  They want sparkly and glittery; a cherry on top of everything.  And, when they get edgy, every other service provider is compared to that memorable experience.   

So, what are you doing to stimulate all your customer’s senses?  How can you decorate your customer’s experience in a way that makes it exciting, original, fun, entertaining, unusual, special, different, amazing, or any other descriptor that can take your customer’s breath away? 

 

 

 

 

Imaginative Service: If Service Were a Hymn

Hymn singing is a ritual in every religion on the planet.  It helps a collection of people share in a common expression of belief and in a manner that is joyful or celebrative. John Wesley, with his brother Charles, founded what is now the Methodist Church.  In his 1761 book, Select Hymns, he wrote the “Directions for Singing” currently found in the front of the hymnals in most Methodist churches.  If you substituted “service” for “singing,” Wesley’s directions also provide powerful tenants for delivering remarkable service.

“Sing lustily and with good courage.  Beware of singing as if you were half dead or half asleep.  Sing modestly…that you may not destroy the harmony but unite your voices together.  Sing all..let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you.  Sing in time…taking care not to sing too slow.  Above all, sing spiritually.  Aim at pleasing God more than yourself…so the Lord will approve and reward you…”

If your service were a hymn, would it elevate the spirits of your customers?  Would it unite the passions of those who “sing” with you?

Imaginative Service: Serving like a Pack of Wild Dogs

If you asked 100 people which animals in Africa were the most efficient hunters, the most popular answer would be a pride of lions—or, some other member of the cat family.  But, a pride of lions only captures their prey 1 in 5 attempts.  The most efficient hunters are a pack of scrawny, painted Wild Dogs.  Nearly 80% of all their hunts end in a kill.  What’s the difference?  They work as a true team or partnership.

Lions only come together for a hunt and then fight over the spoils.  Wild dogs feed equally other pack members, including the injured or those too old to keep up and even regurgitate meat for those that remained at the den during the hunt.  A pride’s actions are massed, not organized.  Wild dog attacks are planned and closely coordinated using techniques they teach their young rather than rely on instinct.

Remarkable service requires great teamwork.  It requires the right hand caring about what the left hand is doing.  It takes training and preparation.  And, it requires taking care of the support people who may not be “at the hunt.”  Are you serving like a pride of lions or like a pack of African wild dogs? 

 

Imaginative Service: Delivering a Green Experience

Kermit the Frog (a.k.a., Jim Henson) sang an insightful song in The Muppet Movie—“It’s Not Easy Being Green®.”  It could be about remarkable service.  Some of the lyrics (written by Joe Raposo) go, “But green can be cool and friendly-like; and green can be big like an ocean, or important like a mountain, or tall like a tree.”

Delivering a remarkable (a.k.a., green) service experience is not easy.  Are your front-line servers friendlier than the cast members at Disney?  That’s being green?  Is your website more user-friendly than Amazon.com’s?  That’s being green?  Do your customers believe the value of your service is a better bargain than a ticket on Southwest Airlines?  Green, again.  Creating experiences that get people talking (remark-able) can cause your customers to see you as “cool and friendly-like…and, important like a mountain.”

Green is the color for “full steam ahead.” It can symbolize progress, growth, and profits.  And to your customers, it symbolizes a service provider who cares enough to give the very best.  Kermit closes the song with, “I am green and it’ll do fine, it’s beautiful, and I think it’s what I want to be.”  Right on, Kermit!

Imaginative Service: A Time to Serve

“I’m in the middle of supper,” the man scolded.  “Come by the store during regular business hours.”  Before he could hang up, the person on the other end responded. “That’s okay. I’ll spend my five grand with someone who really wants it!”

It was 1985 and “business hours” were sacred.  I recall standing in the rain outside a store with a group of customers at 9:55am watching clerks inside all in the “go position” waiting along with us until the wall clock read 10:00.

Fast forward 25 years.  You can order shoes from Zappos.com at midnight or purchase a book from Amazon.com early Sunday morning.  Tech support is now 24/7.  My grocery store never closes.  What do these do to your customer’s expectations of “regular business hours?”  Does this mean you never get to have uninterrupted supper?  No.  But, it does mean if customers do not have access to you when they want it they will take their five grand to someone who really wants it!

Imaginative Service: Serving as a Team

“Hi, I’m Kelly.  I’m on Elena’s team.  I have all your information in front of me.  How may I help you, Chip?”  These words started my second conversation with Dell after buying a computer from Elena. 

We enjoy personalized treatment by service providers--people who know us.  We even brag about our network.  “Ask for Ted” or “Tell Susan I referred you…” Yet, there are pitfalls with relying on a single server.  They resign, get sick, get transferred, and leave us floundering to start over with a new connection.  But, it does not have to be that way.

Dell’s Elena set it up from the beginning.  “Chip, I want you to have my direct extension.  But, if I am tied up with another customer, you’ll always get one of my team members who will have all your information.  They’ll let me know what they did to serve you.” 

 Customers like personal service; they also enjoy a server with a team!What are you doing to build a strong and obvious team behind every person who serves? 

Imaginative Service: Trust as a Service Centerpiece

We live our lives on promises.  From the time a child can grasp the concept of “cross my heart and hope to die,” there is a forever realization that anxiety can only be reduced through proof of trust while waiting for a promise to be kept.  From “Scout’s honor” to “I do” to “the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” we seek cues that allay our worries.   Lifeguards, the bus schedule, and the spotlessness of a hospital room are all obvious artifacts of promises waiting to be kept.

Trust is the emotion that propels customers to the other side of the gap between their expectation and their experience.  Making trust the centerpiece of imaginative service can catapult a service provider into a position of distinction in the eyes of customers.  The manner in which the organization manages customer trust drives every other component of the service encounter.  What are ways you can insure your customers always trust your service? 

 

 

 

Imaginative Service: The Magic of Transference

Transference is the magician’s tactic called misdirection.  It involves establishing a frame of reference that occupies someone’s attention while something completely different is happening. The magician who gestures to the left or right of the audience is almost always moving the audience’s attention to where the trick is not happening––or to be precise, away from where the effect is subtly being staged.

Transference happens in everyday life. The nurse asks the patient about their weekend while giving a flu shot; the bellman calls the guest’s attention to a beautiful painting opposite the site of new construction; the dentist chitchats about his ski trip while the patient has a mouth full of stainless steel. . . all transference.  

What are the negatives in your customer’s experience that you might be able to remove from their consciousness by channeling the customer’s attention elsewhere?  What are ways a small gesture, token, or action can replace your customer’s adverse emotion with a positive one? 

 

Imaginative Service: Serving Your Values

High Point University is a private college in High Point, North Carolina.  When Dr. Nido Qubein assumed the presidency in 2005, he shifted the focus to the experience of their customer—the student. The wireless campus is an immaculate setting with speakers playing classical music as students change classes.  However, everything is done to model a value.  Kiosks have free  healthy snacks students can grab as they walk to class (modeling Generosity and Wellness).  There are dorm concierges (Service), valet parking at night (Security), free Saturday car wash and an ice cream truck on hot days (Joy),  live music in the cafeteria to attract students to stay and chat instead of eat and run (Fellowship).  Students get a birthday card with a free Starbucks card inside (Caring). 

Dr. Qubein told us.  “We do not measure our effectiveness by enrollment but by the impact our graduates make on our world and how our current students feel in their hearts.”  What are your values?  Can your customers experience your values in their experience of our service?

 

 

 

Imaginative Service: Limitations of Measuring Customer Emotions

In the Sea of Cortez, John Steinbeck describes a fishing expedition:  “The Mexican sierra has 17 plus 15 plus 9 spines in the dorsal fin.  These can easily be counted.  But if the sierra strikes hard on the line so that our hands are burned, if the fish sounds and nearly escapes and finally comes in over the rail, his colors pulsing and his tail beating in the air, a whole new relational externality has come into being—an entity which is more than the sum of the fish plus the fisherman."

The nature of customer service is fundamentally an experience--feelings characterize it more than facts; emotion more than logic.  Steinbeck reminds us that no matter how accurate our customer assessments, they will never completely assess its magic.  With our objective data, tidy calculations, and sterilized reports, we must never forget to rely on the unscientific report of those directly involved in creating the experience. 

What data guides your decisions about your customers?