On a recent trip to the Big Island of Hawaii, Tammy and I thought we would take a look at interval ownership vacation properties — perhaps better known as a timeshare. We realize that traditionally, this field has a bad reputation. However, we thought it was worth a couple of hours to see for ourselves if the approach would be different and the process had improved.
When the shuttle we thought was going to pick us up failed to appear, I called the reception desk to let them know we were running late. The receptionist asked, “Do you have a rental car?” When I replied that we did, she said curtly, “So, why didn’t you drive here rather than have us pick you up?”
My response was that they didn’t know whether we had a car or not — and as the customer, I should get the opportunity to make the decision on our transportation. Believe it or not, she hung up on me!
Upon arrival, we were met by our sales advisor. He started by addressing concerns we had not even voiced — the reputation of high-pressure tactics and more. He was reassuring and captured our interest.
After showing us a unit like the one we might invest in, his manager came in to talk with us. Despite our insistence that we would consider our decision over the three days we were at the adjoining hotel, she repeatedly inquired, “What can we do to make you owners TODAY?” The pressure was insistent and off-putting.
The tactic made us dig in our heels and refuse to make a decision. In other words, it had exactly the opposite effect that she desired.
Then we were taken into another room to be offered an alternative. When we entered, we could not help but notice that several of the bulbs in the chandelier were burned out and had not been replaced. As prospective customers, we asked ourselves, “If they can’t take care of their own offices…how much care will the maintenance show our timeshare?”
We did not purchase. In part, it was because of the high pressure tactics that simply do not work in today’s marketplace. But it was also an example of how the “little things” make a huge difference to customers.
In other words, the minutiae often define the customer experience more than grand gestures. Here are six reasons why:
1. First Impressions: Little things like a clean environment or a fully functional facility contribute to a customer’s immediate assessment. The Halo Effect suggests that one positive aspect can make everything else seem better. When a customer walks into a pristine environment, they’re more likely to have a positive view of the entire brand.
2. Psychological Comfort: According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, physical and safety needs come first. A clean, well-maintained space appeals to these basic human requirements, increasing the chances of customers feeling comfortable enough to engage more deeply with your business.
3. Attention to Detail: Harvard Business Review points out that customers value “effortless experiences.” If light bulbs are out or the surroundings are dirty, it indicates a lack of attention that might extend to your products or services.
4. Consistency: In a world where consumer expectations are ever-evolving, reliability is king. According to a PwC report, 65% of U.S. consumers say a positive experience with a brand is more influential than great advertising.
5. Word of Mouth: In an American Express Survey, 65% of participants said they’ve spoken to others about a bad experience, but they’re also likely to share positive experiences. Good experiences with attention to small details get amplified in this age of social media, offering free advertising and genuine endorsements.
6. Up-sell and Cross-sell Opportunities: A CX Intelligence Report suggests that customers who’ve had a good overall experience are 74% more likely to be open to add-on sales. Ensuring the basics encourages people to stick around longer, increasing their lifetime value to the business.
Mastering the little things isn’t just good housekeeping; it’s a strategic move that impacts customer perception, loyalty, and ultimately, your bottom line.
Creating the “Ultimate Customer Experience®” would have improved the opportunity for this group to make a significant sale. The problem is they weren’t aware that these “small” elements can make a world of difference.
Are you taking care of the small aspects that can mean big sales and create distinction for your organization?
When the world around you is running hot, it’s essential for you to stay cool.
I don’t remember a time when there was so much aggression and meanness in the culture. Your challenge is how you will deal with it.
Perhaps this situation is a result of tearing down the walls of civility we became accustomed to expecting. Maybe it’s the natural outgrowth of the intense divisions we are currently experiencing in America and worldwide. Nonetheless, stress and aggression can quickly escalate into dangerous situations, so it’s crucial to remain calm and level-headed, regardless of whether we’re talking about our professional or personal encounters.
Here are three of the many conditions making the workplace increasingly stressful:
Social media has created a more open and interconnected world, which can be positive. But it also means constant bombardment with new information and updates (some of which may be completely false). The result can be a sense of overwhelm for many people.
The global economy is increasingly competitive, which puts pressure on businesses to perform. This can lead to longer hours and increased stress for employees.
Political divisions are causing tension in many workplaces. Whether it’s arguments about the upcoming election or different opinions on current events, this stress can spill over into our professional lives.
Stress in business is higher today than ever before. Stress in the workplace can lead to aggression and unwarranted levels of confrontation. The pressures our customers are under — in many cases created by their dealings with other organizations, not our own — can lead to responses from them that aren’t congruent and are needlessly assertive.
It is crucial for business owners and managers to understand how to keep their cool when everyone around them is losing theirs. Here are five simple tips for staying cool under pressure:
Take a deep breath: It sounds clichéd, but deep breathing really can help to calm you down. Focus on taking slow, deep breaths and count to four as you inhale and out as you exhale.
Identify your triggers: What makes you lose your cool? Once you know what sets you off, you can try to avoid those situations or be prepared for them mentally.
Walk away: If you feel yourself getting agitated, remove yourself from the situation if possible. Go for a walk, take a break in another room, or even step outside for fresh air.
Talk it out: Sometimes, the best way to calm down is to talk through whatever is causing your stress. Find a friend or colleague you trust and vent your frustrations. Getting them off your chest can help make them feel less daunting.
Focus on the positive: When you’re feeling stressed, it’s easy to dwell on a situation’s negative aspects. Instead, focus on the positive aspects in your life, no matter how small. This can help to put things into perspective and remind you that the current stressor is not the be-all and end-all.
Staying cool when those around you are losing their temper can be difficult, but it’s essential to remain calm in order to diffuse tense situations. By following these tips, you can help to keep yourself – and those around you – safer from stress-induced challenges.
Every day, more emails land in my inbox offering an opportunity to take a course or participate in a program designed to help grow my business or advance my financial standing.
While there’s no doubt that — like everyone else — I’d love my business to expand and my bank account to be enhanced. Yet, such widely varied choices are available that I often simply “keep on keeping on” without the help these opportunities may provide.
There are so many opportunities available in today’s world that we sometimes get paralyzed by a plethora of choices. While it’s great to have options, too many can be overwhelming.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by opportunity, here are a few tips to help you narrow down your choices:
1. Define your goals. What are you hoping to achieve? If you aren’t specific with your goals, it’s almost impossible to discern what can help you get to where you want to be. Once you know what you want, you can eliminate options that don’t align with your goals.
2. Do your research. When you’ve got a shortlist of potential opportunities, take some time to learn more about each one. What are the pros and cons? What do other people say about it? There are some brilliant programs available to help you in your journey to achievement. Sadly, however, today’s world of online learning has made it much easier for shysters to go virtual. Take a moment to do your homework on both the program and the presenter.
3. Trust your gut. At the end of the day, you know yourself best. If something feels right, go for it! Nike never says, “Just THINK ABOUT IT!” We all know that they tell us to “Just DO IT!” That’s frequently great advice in all endeavors — not just for athletes.
Don’t let opportunity overwhelm you. By taking some time to evaluate your options, you can make sure you choose the right opportunity for you.
There is no distinction without action — and you can discover the action steps you need to take by expanding your learning. Then, go for it with all you’ve got!
In today’s market, customers have more choices than ever before, and they’re not afraid to switch brands if they’re not happy. As every business strives to stand out from the competition, an increasing number are now turning to the customer experience as their critical differentiator.
That’s why businesses that focus on delivering an “Ultimate Customer Experience®” are gaining a competitive edge.
By definition, an Ultimate Customer Experience is one so positive and memorable that it assures customer loyalty and ongoing referrals.
It’s no secret that providing an exceptional customer experience can be a challenge — but the rewards are well worth the effort.
Businesses that deliver an Ultimate Customer Experience enjoy:
increased customer loyalty
higher customer lifetime value
and more robust word-of-mouth marketing.
Here are three steps to initiate the Ultimate Customer Experience® (UCX):
Define what an exceptional customer experience looks like for your business. This means going beyond simply evaluating, then meeting customer expectations. First, you need to commit to significant research to understand what your customers expect you to deliver thoroughly. Then, develop the internal systems required to exceed those expectations at every opportunity.
Educate and train all employees on the importance of delivering an exceptional customer experience. Everyone from the front-line staff to the CEO needs to buy into the idea that the customer experience is a crucial differentiator for your business. Your team must learn the specific aspects of what determines a UCX for your particular business – and they must be educated on the attitudinal and behavioral elements required to create high levels of customer engagement.
Constantly measure and improve the customer experience you’re delivering. Use customer feedback to continuously improve the way you do business. Your customers are likely to provide their feedback via social media and other forms of communication. Commit to leveraging technology to drill deeply into where the errors are in your processes so that you can stop manufacturing customer dissatisfaction.
By following these steps, you can start to differentiate your business by delivering an Ultimate Customer Experience®. When you accomplish this, you will stand out…and earn more!
If you’d like to learn more about the impact a UCX will have on your business, contact me! (I’m available on every social media platform – and email: Iconic@ScottMcKain.com)
We own the federally registered trademark on the term “Ultimate Customer Experience®” — and are, therefore, the ONLY company that can legally present training, coaching, speeches, and consulting on this vital topic.
The bottom line is this: if you want your business to thrive in today’s competitive market, you need to focus on delivering an Ultimate Customer Experience.® It’s the distinction difference that will make you stand out from the crowd.
At a time when our world seems increasingly divided and fraught with conflict, it is more important than ever to be kind and compassionate toward one another. Whether interacting with customers or colleagues, friends or family members — or even total strangers — we should always try to display good intentions and show courtesy and respect.
This pervasive sense of meanness and anger in today’s culture is constantly perplexing to me. It’s showing up in our businesses and displaying itself in almost every walk of life.
A primary aspect of a great business and extraordinary customer experiences is simple respect and kindness. Here are three steps we can take to display that we care:
1. Listen more and talk less. We can learn a lot about someone by genuinely listening to them without interruption or judgment.
2. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This is a principle from Stephen Covey’s classic book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” It means that we should try to see things from the other person’s perspective before communicating our point of view.
3. Put ourselves in the other person’s shoes. This is similar to the previous point, but it takes it one step further. Not only should we try to understand where the other person is coming from, but we should also try to empathize with them and feel what they are feeling.
Just because a person is from a differing political viewpoint, or a dissimilar religion or a different race or gender doesn’t mean they deserve disrespect. Today’s social media has created a lot of “keyboard courage” — people sending messages via Twitter or Facebook that they would have difficulty saying in person to someone. However, part of what we’re seeing is a lowering of the standards of common courtesy. After you get away with bad behavior online for a while, perhaps it becomes easier for many to assume that you can act that way in person, as well.
Here’s a fundamental challenge when it comes to this problem. As I state in the book “ICONIC,” when it comes to reciprocal respect, the key is that YOU must go first.
This is NOT to say you should alter your opinion.
It’s not to say you should diminish your beliefs.
However, you cannot wait for the other person to show you respect before sending it their way.
That kind of “I’ll do it if you do” approach will never work! It is also antithetical to the principles of respect and kindness. Instead, we need to proactively show others that we care about them — not just with our words but with our actions.
By practicing these small acts of kindness and courtesy at every opportunity, we can bring more compassion and empathy into the world around us. If more people made a conscious effort to be just a bit gentler toward one another, perhaps we could begin to heal some of the wounds currently ripping our society apart.
Even if we only make a slight difference in this world, that would still be worth doing. Let’s try a little kindness today — in our daily interactions with others, as well as in our broader efforts to create a better society.
With all the recent fervor over the confrontation between Will Smith and Chris Rock at the Oscars® over a comment made about Jada Pinkett Smith, there’s one character I have yet to see explored in the aftermath: G.I. Jane.
Several years ago, when I was building my business as a speaker, author, and consultant, I had the most remarkable “side hustle” one could imagine. I was a movie reviewer, syndicated to about 80 television newscasts in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. Each week, I’d offer my opinion on the latest film releases — and back in August 1997, my review was about a Ridley Scott-directed movie that starred Demi Moore, entitled “G.I. Jane.”
While I haven’t been able to locate my exact review, I still remember I gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of five. I also recall that my sentiments about the movie precisely aligned with those of my friend, the late Roger Ebert. He wrote:
“She (G.I. Jane) just wants to prove a woman can survive Navy SEAL training so rigorous that 60 percent of the men don’t make it.”
“Jordan O’Neil (G.I. Jane’s name in the film – Demi Moore’s character) is a Navy veteran who resents not being allowed into combat during the Gulf War. Now there’s a move underway for full female equality in the fighting forces. Its leader, Sen. Lillian DeHaven (Anne Bancroft), wants no more coddling: ‘If women measure up, we’ll get 100 percent integration.’ O’Neil is selected as a promising candidate, and reports for SEAL training….”
“The training sequences are as they have to be: incredible rigors, survived by O’Neil. They are good cinema because Ridley Scott, the director, brings a documentary attention to them, and because Demi Moore, having bitten off a great deal here, proves she can chew it. The wrong casting in her role could have tilted the movie toward ‘Private Benjamin,’ but Moore is serious, focused, and effective.”
“Demi Moore remains one of the most venturesome of current stars, and although her films do not always succeed, she shows imagination in her choice of projects. It is also intriguing to watch her work with the image of her body.”
“…all of these women (Moore’s previous roles), and now O’Neil (G.I. Jane), test the tension between a woman’s body and a woman’s ambition and will. G.I. Jane does it most obviously, and effectively.” (from “G.I. Jane review” on RogerEbert.com)
Now, almost 25 years later, Demi Moore’s striking appearance — not just her physique but the military-look haircut — is remembered more than the primary point of the movie: smart, strong, and powerful women can and should be equal contributors in any endeavor.
I’m not naive, and I would not suggest that this strong female character was what Chris Rock had in mind when he said what he did about Jada Pinkett Smith. He was likely poking at her hairstyle, which he may or may not have recognized was due to her struggles with alopecia.
However, every person possesses the ability to control how he or she responds to situations – even if you’re on the front row of the Oscars®. You can change and better manage your responses when you choose to change and improve your perspective.
What if Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith had chosen to perceive Chris Rock’s comment as a positive one? What if the Smiths had confidently smiled and said, “Thank you for the compliment.” How would their reaction have changed the tone of the conversation? My guess is that it would have prevented a highly unnecessary confrontation.
Here is the ultimate irony in all of this: Will Smith struck Chris Rock for calling his wife a character who proved herself to be every bit the equal of the best of men…a powerful woman who wanted to stand up for herself and not have anyone else do it for her.
What if more people decided to choose a positive perspective when faced with difficult comments or situations? It could change the way we react and the way we behave. I believe it would lead to more productive and amicable outcomes.
When we change our perspective, we can improve our response.
