Creating Devoted Customers with Imaginative Service

Service as a Rheostat

The living room and den both seemed dim, like they were tired or bored.  Plants looked droopy; displayed glass whatnots normally sparkly appeared sleepy.  Then it dawned on me!  My visiting grandchildren had lowered the slide rheostat on all the wall switches. 

Service can be like a rheostat.  You turn the light on in your customers by where you set it.  Turn the service rheostat to low and customers will feel left in the dark and take the business to a brighter place.  Set it in the middle and customers will show up only as long as your offering is unique or your price a super bargain—both short term, high risk competitive strategies.

But, if you set it on high your customers will see you as having the attraction of a beacon and the security of a lighthouse.  What you doing to make your service brighten your customers?  Light up their your customers life!

Imaginative Service: Be Elegantly Adaptive

Early one morning I was in my side yard and walked up on a huge elaborate spider web complete with its designer-tenant.  As I approached the artwork, the spider began to vibrate the web sending early morning dewdrops everywhere.  The next morning the web was gone without a trace.  But, nearby was a brand new elegant web spread between two trees.   

A friend was checking out of a Ritz-Carlton hotel early one morning.  Half-asleep, she noticed the ever-smiling clerk kept leaving the counter to go elsewhere with each step of the transaction.  It was then my friend embarrassingly realized she was at the concierge counter, not at the check-out counter.  She apologized for making the clerk work extra hard.  “Don’t be silly, Ms. Cook,” said the clerk.  “You can check out wherever you like.”  

Do your customers get service their way, or are they shoehorned into complying with your service procedures?  Do you willingly rebuild your service “web” without resistance?  Would your customers label you “elegantly adaptable?”

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 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 your service?

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 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 different?  They work as a true team or partnership.

Lions are only come together for a hunt and then fight other 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: 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? 

The New Customers Are Fickle

What is the impact of a bad customer experience?  Forty four percent of customers stop doing business immediately and another 15% exit as soon as their contract is up!  And, remember the criteria for “bad” has dramatically changed.  Yesterday’s grade of B is now only a C- to customers.  Some customers give warning before departing.  According to the new research 57% of customers have had a bad experience in the last year and 66% have told someone.  When the pocket book gets squeezed, customers are more assertive about letting someone know when they fail to receive value.  Customers at the end of the recession were 14% more likely to complain than before the recession.  The good news is that more are telling the service provider, not just their neighbor. 

Smart organizations beg for candor--they make a big deal about getting customer feedback.  They value real time customer intelligence gathering from front line scouts, not just the rear view mirror perspective of last month’s survey.  They focus on getting their complaint rate up, not down. Complaints mean customers are talking--communicating with hope and courage. Complaints are gifts. Research shows customers who have had a problem and complain when solicited spend twice as much with a company as customers who have a problem and don’t complain. 

Win back the customers you regret loosing.  Research shows that with an effective win-back strategy, the likelihood of turning a lost customer into a returned customer is four times greater than turning a prospect into a customer. 

Imaginative Service: Let Your Customers Count Cows

“Counting cows” was a backseat game parents used years ago in rural areas to quell the endless “Are we there yet?” queries from their children.  The rules were simple:  each person took one side of the car when the journey began.  One point was given for every cow you saw on your side; five points for every horse, and if a graveyard appeared on your side, you lost all your points and had to start over again.  Active participation in a simple, competitive game made the car trip seem much shorter.

Today’s customers have a strong need for speed.  They are as impatient and restless as a group of “desperados waiting for a train,” to quote the country music song title made famous by The Highwaymen.  Faxes gave way to e-mails which gave way to text messages from anywhere at any time.  Netflix and FedEx taught us you could get it next day; Zappos.com surprised us with an order for new shoes placed on line in the evening arriving at our door step the next morning.  The customer’s standard for the speed of service has continued to hasten with seemingly no end in sight. 

But, there is a way to slow the speed of service.  Let your customers “count cows!”   Look for ways to help customers participate.  Like DisneyWorld entertains guests who are waiting in line to board that special ride, entertain your customers in an engaging yet appropriate way.  Is there a way you can make getting service seem faster through turning it into a compelling game?  How about a clever contest? A social gathering?  How can you manage the customer’s perception of service pace as you work to improve the reality of service pace?